hackbash

Charlie and I normally agree on a remarkably high proportion of things, so much so, in fact, that people are beginning to see us as a happily married couple. Just to scotch that particular rumour, then, here’s something we don’t agree on.
Or should that be, “here’s something that we don’t agree on”?
In the context of [...]

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There are people starving, others dying of disease and many millions who are oppressed and victimised, but if there’s one thing that people seem to give a shit about it’s technology. I’m utterly at a loss to explain why.
This isn’t the grumbling of a marginalised old-timer, I should point out. I may (dimly) remember playing [...]

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I seem to remember reading that every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off your life. If all you’re going to do in the extra seven minutes is invent equally smug statistics you might as well carry on smoking.
Another way to chisel away at your life expectancy is to watch 24-hour television news. I can’t [...]

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One of the best things about English is the fact that, if you know what you’re doing, you can mess about with it. In fact, even if you don’t know what you’re doing you can often get away with it. If everybody stuck to the rules we wouldn’t have the twisted brain-wrong of a one-off [...]

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Ok, I promised that my next post wouldn’t be about the Beeb. Sorry.
Just wondering if anyone else finds it annoying to be told to ‘log on’ to a website. The BBC do it all the time. Earlier this summer there was a particularly grating little segment they kept playing on South East Today (be thankful, [...]

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On one of the sites for which Charlie and I write, we also moderate reader comments. Aside from the genuine responses and the occasional shameless plug for people’s own projects, there’s an increasing influx of spam.
Now, I consider myself fairly liberal when it comes to smut, but some of the links in our moderation queue [...]

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Attempting to extract information from a press office yesterday, it occurred to me that press officers need to get with the programme, or social media is going to whup their sorry asses.
My request wasn’t a toughie. I’d seen a story on BBC News that I wanted to cover for a client. The source was research [...]

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I’ve just got back from a great day at Goodwood Revival with my Dad. Heading back home, his radio switched itself on to tell us the travel news, and we were treated to a local radio journalist: “You’ve got your roadworks and tailbacks Eastbound on the A27…” at which point both of us shouted that [...]

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“Fact me till I fart,” Chris Morris once commanded. That man was way ahead of the curve.
In this little beauty, the BBC has bravely dispensed with those troublesome linking ideas that pull a story together, in preference for the stark-bollock-naked facts. It’s all rather conventional up until the crosshead, but then the journo lets rip.
‘Thousands [...]

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Alright, it’s not just about the BBC, but are all the sub-editors on holiday?
Apparently, eight out of ten people feel safe. What about now? Do you feel safe now?
And now?
Still, at least you haven’t got global warming to worry about, as a Scottish bus builder hopes to invent a bus with zero emissions. Apart from [...]

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