Archive for May 14, 2008

Sir Cliff is robbed!

{ May 14, 2008 @ 11:58 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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“FASCISTS STOLE CLIFF RICHARD EUROVISION SONG CONTEST VICTORY!!!” screams the title of one blog post. 

 

Those bastards. I always knew fascism was bad, but this? This is a step too far…..

 

Ok, so this is how the media has treated the news that Sir Cliff Richard was the true winner of the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest; with a mixture of delight and mock indignation.

 

 

 

 Sir Cliff (top) and Franco

A new Spanish documentary named ‘1968: I lived the Spanish May’, has revealed that in a bid to boost good feeling towards his country and improve its image, Spain’s then dictator Francisco Franco fixed the Eurovision results.

 

The film’s director, Montse Fernandez Vila Franco reveals how Spanish TV executives were sent across Europe to buy series that were never intended to air and sign concert contracts, all in return for votes on the big night.

 

The Guardian has quite rightly recognised this as the disgrace it is (certainly not a laughing matter) dedicating the whole of the printed versions page 3 to its coverage. They interviewed Sir Cliff and found him to be: “….philosophical. He clearly doesn’t hold Massiel accountable for the vote 40 years ago; and if the adjudication is reversed, he has promised to send her a signed copy of Congratulations.” 

  

And for extra depth, they even finished their article with a critics review. Caroline Sullivan noted: “Even in 1968, the Spanish entry’s trumpet-tootling, bodice-ripping melodrama would have sounded dated – though it’s unfair to claim that Massiel was completely oblivious to modern influences, as the chorus lifts the melody line of the Beatles’ With a Little Help from My Friends.”

 

An article posted by Reuters treated the news equally as seriously, quoting both the documentary-maker, and the Director of Eurovision TV Eurovision Bjorn Erichsen, who laughed: “Franco was really so keen for Spain to win it? We’re not talking about NATO here or the EU, or political influence, we’re talking about a pop song contest. [But] I can’t exclude the possibility it might be true.”

 

NME.com sourced the story from Reuters, specifically picking out another insensitive quote from Erichsen who discounted the idea of an investigation, saying: “Just to make Cliff Richard a little happier and the Spanish winner a bit more unhappy? I don’t think you should dig up old bodies to prove he was or wasn’t the Father. It’s history.”

 

Injustice is injustice, if it can be rectified it should.

Where the hell are Glastonbury’s fans this year?

{ May 14, 2008 @ 10:13 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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For the first time since 2002 Glastonbury tickets have failed to sell out. Demand is usually so huge that fans have to register months beforehand for a number that will make the frenzied buying process easier.

 

Typically all the tickets have been snapped up within the first 3 hours of their going on sale, but this year, 24 hours after being released, 100, 000 of 137,000 were still available. You would be forgiven for thinking that this news was in line with the Pope declaring he wasn’t Catholic, what with the amount of talk it has generated – everybody has an opinion on Glastonbury’s “decline”.

 

The two main theories circulating among the press are:

 

1) The weather

2) Jay-Z

 

Michael Eavis told BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat: “I think three years of mud may have taken their toll.” He has a point. The idea of spending three days in the rain, with nowhere warm to retreat to at the end of the day is not appealing whether you get to see your favourite band or not. Add to that portable toilets and festival-goers who apparently have no idea how to use them, and Jay-Z doesn’t even get a look in.

 

 

A pair of happy campers

 

With festivals springing up all over the world that are cheaper, in fabulously exotic locations and have equally as excellent acts, Glastonbury – legendary or not – is feeling the repercussions.

 

To some, however, this is irrelevant. There is one reason, and one reason only, why Glastonbury is not as popular this year, and this reason is married to Beyoncé Knowles.

 

Most press picked up on Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher’s comments to BBC News, to whom he lamented: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If you start to break it then people aren’t going to go. I’m sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance.”  The media has held Noel up as some sort of spokesman for the British music fan, as if all of us are thinking the same thing.

 

Personally, I think all reports of Jay-Z’s headlining appearance should have been delivered in the same kind of manner as Pitchfork does here. The website was upbeat about the news, holding back any opinion that it was a strange or wrong choice, or that it was bound to cause a backlash.

 

Maybe it’s because the website’s American (although, if this American blogger’s anything to go by, nationality doesn’t come into it – she certainly has her finger of blame pointed in the hip-hop stars direction) and does not hold as dear what is to Britain a national treasure, but it merely told its readers a megastar was going to play top of the bill at a top festival – a big musician booked for a big music event.

 

 

Jay-Z responds to the critics

 

Sometime NME writer Sam Richards, in a blog for The Guardian, states: “It would be very sad if, as many news stories have implied, Jay-Z’s installation as the Pyramid Stage’s Saturday Night headliner has turned people off The episode does today’s Glasto-goer little credit. [His] booking is in keeping with the endearingly eccentric music policy of the festival.” Hear, hear. The main thrust of his comment focuses on his personal reasons for not going – mainly the crowd.

 

And there you have it. The rest of the press has failed to point out some obvious errors; sales are not the fault of the weather, or Jay-Z. Glastonbury’s organisers are wholly responsible. Everyone seems to be forgetting the repercussions following last year’s event, when no sooner had the last drunken reveller been coaxed from the Stone Circle than the organisers were bemoaning the people who attended and setting out plans to get less of their sort next year.

 

Michael Eavis said at the time: “People say we’re getting middle class, which is stretching it a bit far, but we’re attracting a lot more people in their 30s and 40s and need to get the Radio 1 and NME crowd back in. These kids add so much to the flavour of it and should have a lot of fun. The demographic is changing and it’s slightly worrying.”

This is fair enough and a younger audience should be there, but the decision to alienate their core audience (and the one’s most likely to afford the £165 ticket) has come back and bitten them squarely on the backside.

Making more tickets available though phonelines, rather than the internet is fine, (middle-aged people have telephones), even hiring a hip-hop artist to headline is not necessarily a bad thing (the middle-aged people likely to attend Glastonbury are open to all kinds of music, whatever genre), but openly voicing their hopes for a different audience next year? Now that hurts.

Facebook Fraudsters

{ May 14, 2008 @ 7:37 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Spam is a very modern day annoyance. Were you to be stopped in the street and harassed by an overzealous student loudly informing you of the benefits of a sex product or gambling service they were being paid to advertise, then there would certainly be some sort of public outcry. They wouldn’t be able to peddle such goods for very long that’s for sure.

 

This makes it strange then, that we are constantly bombarded with such bothers whenever we use the internet. Our inboxes are protected to some degree should we go through the rigmarole of putting in place a guard, but the odd unsavoury advert will still slip through anyway.

 

It’s great news then, that a pair of men have been fined $230 million for tricking over 700,000 MySpace users into visiting pornographic and gambling sites. The social networking site was quick to support the court’s decision. Chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam said: “MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site. We remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members.”

 

But is Mr Nigam slightly hypocritical? His company takes its users data and allows advertisers access to it so they can target their consumers efficiently. This is to be expected – such precious information is worth a fortune, of course websites will do this. It’s hardly ethical, but at least MySpace do their members the honor of offering them the opportunity to opt-out.

 

Now, if we’re talking about the real bad guys of cyber-space, then we must refer to Facebook. This site has taken so many liberties, it’s a wonder all its users have not logged off for good, but of course they won’t, they can’t – what if someone writes on their wall?

  A facebook Profile

Last November the site announced a new initiative: ‘Facebook Ads’. Up until then, members’ data was sold to advertisers, leading to the freakily relevant adverts that appear with each click. But with Facebook Ads the creepy level was raised up a notch. 

 

A release stated: “Users can become a fan of a business and can share information about that business with their friends and act as a trusted referral. Facebook users can interact directly with the business through its Facebook Page. These actions could appear in users’ Mini-Feed and News Feed.”

 

What this statement dances around stating quite clearly is that your picture could end up next to a broadcast advert for a product you have unwittingly “become a fan of”. All you need to have done is merely visit a company’s Facebook page. And this is all without your permission or knowledge.

 

But most of this blatant disregard for privacy has been overshadowed. As a blog on website Wired puts it: “Since the platform’s release, most of the focus has been on a feature called Beacon, which informs people in your Facebook network about what you’re doing on affiliated third-party sites. For example, if you buy tickets to a new flick on Fandango, your buddies will find out which movie you saw through a line in their Facebook news feed.”

 

Thankfully, the proverbial is starting to hit the fan and members are campaigning for an end to such undertakings, with groups like ‘My photos are MINE! NOT Facebook’s! Change the Terms and Conditions’ attracting up to 35,000 angry members. Now, founder Mark Zuckerburg has also been forced to change the Beacon feature to opt-in.

 

Why do we carry on letting Facebook and other such sites use us like this? For all the moaning and groaning we do, in the end, it is us who joined the site and it is us who carries on posting pictures and information. There is one simple way to stop it.

The Italian goverment’s leaving present

{ May 14, 2008 @ 12:25 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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The Italian government has upset and delighted its citizens in equal measure, by making public the wage and tax payments of its populace.

 

Scandalous isn’t it?

 

Italian PM, Silvio Berlusconi

 

Your answer will depend partly on what paper/website you read. If you want to make your own mind up then you’d better read the BBC News website’s article. This, I am reliably informed by my Sardinian flatmate, is the website Italians turn to for an unbiased, unedited round-up of the world’s comings and goings.

 

It’s easy to see why, being straight to the point – people are angry yet intrigued, it’s to tackle tax issues, the site’s now been suspended – without interspersing the author’s opinion. Ever diplomatic, it uses phrases such as “tax-shy.” “God damn” and “freeloaders” are not in the BBC lexicon.

 

But hang-on, I see what you’ve done there BBC! “Sour Grapes?” You’re insinuating the soon-to-depart Italian government did it out of spite. And what’s that? Is it a quote from a member of the British public disproving of the events?

 

At least when the Guardian nails its colours to a newstory it makes it obvious, ranting: “Critics condemned the publication saying it was an outrageous breach of privacy as the government did not have consent to make the information public. “It’s a clear violation of privacy law,” ADOC, the Italian consumer group, told Reuters. “There is a danger for an increase in crime and violence as the data are an irresistible source for criminals.”

 

The first half of the story was dedicated to pointing out the negatives before begrudgingly dedicating a paragraph or two to PM Prodi’s explanation, you know, for balance. Fair play to them, they did fit in early on a half sentence on the government’s reasoning; “Claiming it was part of a crackdown on tax evasion”, but how loaded a sentence is that? They might as well have replaced ‘claiming’ with ‘there excuse was’.

 

This is why I applaud the website MSN.com. It chooses to focus its attentions on whether we should follow in the Italian’s footsteps, as “it turns out [that] the case for transparency is compelling.” The website ways up the benefits of knowing what everyone earns (fairer pay for all) against the disadvantages (possible social embarrassment). It also looks at Norway, who has had a similarly open policy since 2002. Helpfully, to engage readers further, it encourages them to check how their own salaries match up with a link to a Trade Union Congress pay checker service.

 

Political commentator and staunch opposer of the Italian government, Beppe Grillo comments on the initiative with the insight of an actual citizen (victim?). He points to the rise it will lead to in kidnapping and ransoms, stating on his popular blog: “This is madness. Paying taxes like that is too dangerous. It would be better to have a conviction for tax evasion than to be knifed or kidnapped. The tax relationship is between the citizen and the State and it must remain like that.”

 

Yet it has still taken a regular man, not bound by as many rules and regulations to highlight in his blog the maddest part of the whole affair; that Deputy Economic Minister, Vincenzo Visco believes this is standard behaviour – because he’s seen it in American soaps.

 

 

Now, irrelevant of what you read, that is scandalous.