Junk food giant McDonalds’ advertising department clearly has as much taste as the food, otherwise it would not have placed the advertisement below by a Cornish bus stop directly opposite Penmount Crematorium on the road between Truro and Carland Cross (the A30/A39 junction).
Will the person who thought this was a good idea be getting a roasting?
The Bristol (Evening) Post?Bristol Live website has a Bristol News menu item on its website. Today the home page revealed the item below had been added to that category.
At this point a number of significant howevers enter the narrative. Firstly, the army has no aviation training centre either in Bristol or its immediate environs, according to its website.
A second however could be levelled at the second part of the Reach publication’s classification of this item as News. It’s actually what could be classed as gossip, i.e. idle talk or rumour, especially about personal or private affairs of others, except that informant in question has gone running a national Sunday ‘news’ publication in the Reach plc stable.
Thirdly, for those whose who are really desperate to read this alleged news, it can be found here.
In 1897 British troops attacked, burned down and looted the palace of the Oba (king) of Benin in West Africa. The former Kingdom of Benin (1180โ1897) is now part of present-day Nigeria.
Amongst the squaddies’ loot was a huge haul of bronze sculptures, many of which found their way into museums, galleries and onto the western art market.
One of these was acquired in Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery in 1935, where it is described as Object Number Ea7821.
Back in 2020 Prince Edun Akenzua of the Royal Court of Benin made a direct appeal to Bristol to return the looted artwork to Nigeria, as reported at the time by the Bristol Post.
Since then many fine words have been written by the city council about repatriation both on the museums website and the museums blog with the latter stating the following regarding the fate of the sculpture:
Although we have still not been able to make contact directly with Royal Court officials, we have been looking at the work of the British Museum and the Benin Dialogue Group and discussing options with the Legacy Restoration Trust. To be clear, we are not bound by the thoughts or decisions of any of these bodies, nor the UK government.
We have been gathering information about the best way to take on board the variety of thoughts and concerns of different groups in Nigeria. There has been a lack of consensus about the best place to hold objects that return to the country. The new, but yet to be built, Edo Museum of West African Art is one option that many do agree with.
Since then things have gone very quiet indeed. Bristol University student newspaper Epigram has even accused the city council’s museums service of “heel-dragging“.
Your ‘umble scribe also believes the city council’s museums service could have moved a little quicker and has today filed the following FoI request with the city council.
Dear Bristol City Council,
This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.
The City Museum & Art Gallery contains in its collection a Benin bronze head (Object Number: Ea7821) looted by the Oba’s palace in 1897 and acquired by the museum in 1935.
Some years ago, the local media reported that this object was to be repatriated to Nigeria.
There have been no subsequent reports of its repatriation, so I am assuming this has still to happen.Kindly provide an explanation for the delay in repatriating this object to where it belongs despite the city museums website (source: https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/collections/action-on-decolonisation/repatriation/) stating: “Bristol City Council acknowledges and recognises that the possession of historic Benin Bronzes is highly contentious and that there are calls for repatriation to Benin (Nigeria). As a consequence, Culture team staff are establishing contact with the interested parties in Nigeria and those who are currently negotiating with them across Europe as part of the Benin Dialogue Group and through the Legacy Restoration Trust in Nigeria”.
Yours etc.
In the past couple of months museums in the United States of America and Germany respectively have repatriated far more Benin bronzes than one bronze head, so come on Bristol, it’s time for you to exdigitate or if you can’t manage that, get your finger out! ๐
Today’s fourth estate is densely populated with irresponsible harlots whether one peruses the national or local press.
At this point your ‘umble scribe, would refer readers to a piece in today’s Daily Post/North Wales Live, which reviews an Indian restaurant in Corwen and whose headline is shown in the following screenshot.
The first comment below the piece at the time of drafting also uses the insult to describe the flippant use of comparison and hyperbole in it, whilst the other 2 reader comments were similarly dismissive.
A restaurant winning an award for its food is hardly a match for the feats of Owain Glyndลตr, the last Welsh of Wales proclaimed by popular support, who lead an armed rebellion and 15 years long war of independence against the English colonisers during the late Middle Ages. Amongst his other achievements, he was He also an educated lawyer and formed the first Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru), which sat in Machynlleth.
Owain’s body was famously never found, so his date of death is unknown; he just vanished into the hills, although it is not known whether Welsh curry houses retreat into the uplands when their time is up.
Anyway, in case any passing restaurant reviewers working for Reach plc’s Welsh titles happen to be reading this, please find below a handy reference guide showing the difference between Welsh heroes and restaurants to avoid further confusion. ๐
It might be the festive season, but the mission of Reach plc titles all over the country to murder the English language and sow confusion instead of enlightenment continues unabated.
Christmas Eve saw the publication of the piece shown in the screenshot below where the person responsible for the headline seems oblivious to the fact that there are differences in meaning between chances and changes and doesn’t have the nous to check their copy after drafting
.
I wonder if the ‘journalist‘ responsible will be tucking into roast turnkey this Christmas Day lunchtime. ๐
Reach plc, owners of the Mirror and the Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.), also control a large swathe of the local regional press across the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.).
One of the accusations frequently levelled against Reach’s regional titles is that the news they carry has been dumbed down, particularly since the ousting of sub-editors who until some years ago provided a modicum of quality control over what was actually printed.
A further criticism often directed in Reach’s direction is a lack of investigative journalism, i.e. form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, which may involve months or years researching and preparing a report.
Your ‘umble scribe does not know if months or years of research have gone into preparing the flurry of seasonally inspired investigations that have appeared in various Reach title in the past week, but they do show the great sacrifice that has been made around the country by the waistlines of the reporters involved.
A small selection of this fearless sleuthing is shown below.
First up the Bristol (Evening) Post
The budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl seem to have attracted particular attention, as per this poultry effort from The Daily Post/North Wales Live.
In the south of Cymru, Wales Online, formerly the Western Mail, has opted for a hyper-local approach, focussing its rapier-like skills on Cardiff’s independent retail catering sector. Note the whole story squeezed into the headline, thus saving the reader the bother of engaging with the piece, all apart from the verdict.
Finally in this brief excursion around some of the local titles in the Reach stable, we arrive at the Liverpool Echo, which goes in for a comparison of Marks & Spencer with our old friends Lidl. Note the glaring grammatical error in the headline, as well as the use of the first person singular in the verb conjugations.
On a trip to town in recent days, your ‘umble scribe was intrigued by the digital soup spotted in a shop display window,
My initial thought was “What is digital soup?“
Is it made of fingers? Or are ones and zeroes involved? Is the digital a defiant gesture to all soup makers marketed before?
As it turns out, ones and zeroes are indeed involved and the digital part of the apparatus refers to the device’s digital control panel, as depicted below.
Today’s South Wales Argus reports that Caerphilly County Borough Council in South Wales has been grappling with the matter of ballgames[sic], leading to them being “band“
After her compulsory period of exile in Homophone Corner, Local Democracy Reporter Rhiannon James (or the Argus’ headline writer, if different. Ed.) also ought to ask bosses for a keyboard with a working space bar and/or a functioning spellchecker. ๐
Judging by the home page of today’s Reach plc Daily Post/North Wales Live title, one could be led to believe that human trafficking and forced marriage are alive and well in Talybont north of Abermaw/Barmouth in Gwynedd.
However, it is only when one reads the article that it is revealed that brown envelopes of cash have been proffered, not marriageable women.
The front page has since been amended.
Those whose fingers get into a tangle will be familiar with the HTML 404 error code page, just one of a number of HHTP status codes, of which the 400 series deals with client errors.
A moment’s digital dyslexia this morning meant your ‘umble scribe was treated to Shropshire Council‘s 404 error page, as shown below.
Umbraco is the open source content management system (CMS) used by the council to manage its website.
Your correspondent particularly likes the final line: “This page is intentionally left ugly ;-)”.
Computer scientist Brett Victor has an artistic 404 page, which pays homage to surrealist artist Renรฉ Magritte.
However, my favourite 404 page of all time assumes the persona of Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams’ Hithchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Although the original 404 page linked to from this post has now disappeared, Reddit has a full transcript of the text that used to appear on that page.