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
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I wonder if the ‘journalist‘ responsible will be tucking into roast turnkey this Christmas Day lunchtime. 😀
Your ‘umble scribe has not bothered with social media since the obscenely wealthy and undertaxed man baby masquerading under the name Elon Musk took the helm of Twitter and promptly set about trashing it with his control freak approach to company management, sacking lots of the tech staff that keep the platform running and demanding those that survive show their dedication to the company by working excessive hours.
This was a big wrench for your correspondent, as time not spent working was generally filled with social media discussion and debate, and so entailed a wholesale change in his daily activities (Note to self: must get round to getting on Mastodon some time soon. Ed.).
Following his acquisition of the platform, Musk installed himself as Twitter’s CEO and now seems to have reached the conclusion his rather doubtful skills are up to the job.
In recent days Musk held a Twitter poll to ask Twitter users whether he should remain as the platform’s boss. The results were not flattering if Musk has – as I suspect – a narcissistic streak.
One candidate springs to my mind immediately: an egomaniac with current experience of running a social media platform (albeit one misnamed Truth Social. Ed.). Step forward one Donald John Trump, disgraced 45th president of the United States, who spends a large share of his time playing golf (as he did whilst supposed to be occupying the Oval Office. Ed.).
I do hope these two prime examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect play nicely with one another. 😀
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.
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. 😀
By way of contrast, donations to the Labour Party have risen by almost 25%.
“Hello! Let me introduce you to the powerful and influential person holding me…”
During this time the Tories have worked their way through 3 prime ministers – the disgraceful Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, one Elizabeth Mary Truss and now Goldman Sachs cheerleader Rishi Sunak – and two budgets, including a fiscal disaster from short-lived Chancer of the Excheqeur Kamikwasi Kwarteng.
The Tory spokesperson quoted by The Guardian seems to be very much on the defensive, if your ‘umble scribe’s reading between the lines is accurate.
The Conservative party only accepts donations from permissible sources, namely individuals registered on the UK’s electoral roll or UK registered companies. Donations are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, openly published by them and comply fully with the law.
If as stated the Tories are only accepting donations from permissible sources, that represents a quick volte-face from six months ago when, as Open Democracy reported, it was still donations from Russian sources linked to the gangster regime of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Image from Llywelyn200 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The receipt of a five thousand signature calling on the authority to formalise the use of the Welsh names Eryri and Yr Wyddfa helped to prompt the latter to take decisive action. The petition was received after the authority had already established a commission to examine the use of place names.
Cardiff University’s Dr Dylan Foster Evans was was asked to compile a series of principles for use as guidance when referring to geographical names in the Eryri / Snowdonia National Park.
A start on using the Welsh names in an English context started some years ago when many of the park authority’s English versions of publications and digital media started using the names Eryri and Yr Wyddfa with the English names following in brackets.
Naomi Jones, the Snowdonia National Park Authority’s Head of Cultural Heritage remarked:</p
Many public bodies across Wales have moved to use both the Welsh and English names, or the Welsh name only, when referring to Yr Wyddfa and Eryri, as have many of the mainstream English-language press and filming companies.
This is very encouraging and gives us confidence that this change in the authority’s approach will be accepted for the benefit of the Welsh language and as a mark of respect to our cultural heritage.
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 world’s top greenwashing event COP27 is currently taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.
To give an idea of the under-achievement of previous UN conferences on climate change, it’s worth pointing out that activist Greta Thunberg is boycotting the event, stating that it will be an opportunity for “greenwashing, lying and cheating“. Greta is famously critical of politicians as her “blah, blah, blah” speech showed.
Anyway, in anticipation of a lack of any serious commitments and outcomes from the world’s political elite allegedly having a conferenceshores of the Red Sea, here’s a reminder from the past, in the shape of Ronnie Barker’s Ministry of Pollution sketch from the second season of The Two Ronnies, first aired in 1972.
Your ‘umble scribe likes to think he was properly brought up: polite, courteous, not swearing people, particularly women, and such like. As regards swearing, his sister has more than once revealed that when she and my late father were on a bus once, he admonished fellow passengers for swearing because women were present.
As regards swearing, step forward over-promoted former fireplace salesman “Sir” Gavin Alexander Williamson CBE MP, the dishonourable member for South Staffordshire who has been inexplicably elevated to cabinet rank (again!) as Minister of State without Portfolio, who appears to have been taught and abide by completely different standards of social conduct to those of your correspondent.
According to the messages published by today’s Sunday Times, Williamson accused Morton of exploiting the Queen’s death for political purposes, particularly as he was out of favour at the time with the English Empire’s shortest serving ever prime minister, one Elizabeth Mary Truss, now safely removed from high office and returned to the back benches.
The actual words quoted by the press reveal that Williamson has a fine command of monosyllabic swear words having their roots in Old English (which some still call Anglo-Saxon. Ed.), particularly ones beginning with f and s.
Not only did Williamson use foul language towards a woman, but this morning his cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden (also inexplicably honoured with a CBE like Williamson. Ed.)defended Williamson on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, claiming Williamson’s offensive text messages were sent ‘in the heat of the moment‘.
German newspaper <a href="https://www.welt.de/regionales/bayern/article241937155/Urteil-Buerger-duerfen-Falschparker-fuer-Anzeige-fotografieren.html".Die Welt states that it’s so obvious: people wanting to report an illegal parker just pull out their smartphone and then send the picture to the police. However, two men in Bavariahad trouble with the state’s data protection authorities. A court has now decided who acted corrected.
A Ferrari parked on the footway being booked in Munich. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Anyone who sends photos of illegal parkers as part of a report to the police does not normally violate data protection legislation. This emerged on Thursday from two landmark rulings published by the Ansbach Administrative Court. With these the court agreed with two men who corroborated their reports of parking infringements on footways and cycleways with photos. For using this they received a warning and a fine of €100 each from the Bavarian State Data Protection Office (LDA). Both objected and went to court with the support of Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (DUH)
The administrative court combined the two procedures in a joint hearing because of the identical questions and ultimately ruled that the procedure involved lawful data processing. However, the actual statement of is not available. The verdicts are of fundamental significance from the legal point of view, but are still not absolute.
The DUH, which supported one of the two plaintiffs in a test case, welcomed the verdict. “Illegal parking is no trivial offence, but endangers people who are travelling by bike, wheeled walking frame, wheelchair or pram”, commented Jürgen Resch, its Federal director. “The authorities should not take action against civil society commitment, but rather take consistent measures against blocked footpaths and cycle paths, illegal parking in front of dropped kerbs or at junctions; and do so not just in Bavaria, but nationwide.»
The crux of the proceedings was the question of whether digital transmission of the photos constituted lawful data processing within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation since there must be a legitimate interest in forwarding the image files. On the other hand, data transmission and processing must be necessary.
Accordingly, the parties to the proceedings before the court argued about whether the plaintiffs had to be personally affected by the parking violations and whether a written or telephone description of the facts including the vehicle registration number, was not sufficient. In addition, the LDA pointed out that other data such as other cars with registration plates and people can often be seen in the pictures. In reply, the plaintiffs stressed that the police had asked them to document the parking situation as accurately as possible with photos as evidence.
The LDA stated that once the judgment’s statement of grounds was available, it would examine whether the decision was an individual case or whether a reassessment of the use of photos in public places that was critical for data protection had been initiated. In addition, it wants to agree clear and uniform guidelines with the police regarding which information is required when reporting illegal parking and which communication channel should be used.
Your ‘umble scribe likes to think he was properly brought up: polite, courteous, not swearing people, particularly women, and such like. As regards swearing, his sister has more than once revealed that when she and my late father were on a bus once, he admonished fellow passengers for swearing because women were present.
According to the messages published by today’s Sunday Times, Williamson accused Morton of exploiting the Queen’s death for political purposes, particularly as he was out of favour at the time with the English Empire’s shortest serving ever prime minister, one Elizabeth Mary Truss, now safely removed from high office and returned to the back benches.