facepalm

  • Noisy fire in Bristol

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Yesterday evening there was dark smoke on the skyline as your correspondent returned from an early evening pint. However, it wasn’t until this morning that its full significance and exclusive nature was revealed by the Bristol Post, the city’s newspaper of warped record.

    screenshot with headline reading Dark smoke bellowing over Bristol after suspected blaze in Fishponds industrial estate

    As per the screenshot above, the Post duly reported a fire at a scrapyard in the Fishponds area, although a later report moved the fire to nearby Speedwell.

    Furthermore, the conflagration must have been painful on the ears for anyone in the vicinity or downwind as the smoke was “bellowing“.

    However, as the witnesses interviewed by the paper make no mention of noise, it can only be assumed that the hapless hack had an unfortunate vowel movement.

    The later report did state correctly that “A scrapyard in Speedwell left dark smoke billowing over parts of Bristol,” but not until the hopeless howler had caused much merriment in the reports comments section.

    If the reporter in question happens upon this post, the definitions of bellow and billow are given below for future reference:

    Bellow: (of a person or animal) emit a deep loud roar, typically in pain or anger: e.g. “he bellowed in agony”

    Billow: (of smoke, cloud, or steam) to move or flow outward with an undulating motion: e.g. “smoke was billowing from the chimney-mouth”.

    Both definitions are courtesy of Oxford Dictionaries.

  • Variation on a theme

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities

    Eggs have long been associated with Easter since for Christians the Easter egg is a symbol of Christ’s empty tomb.

    The custom of the Easter egg originated in the early Christian community of Mesopotamia, which stained eggs red in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at his crucifixion.

    This practice still survives in Greece where hard-boiled eggs are dyed bright red to symbolise the spilt Blood of Christ and the promise of eternal life. They are also cracked together to celebrate the opening of the Tomb of Christ.

    In more recent times since those of the early Christians of Mesopotamia egg hunts have become a fixture of the Easter events calendar.

    However, here’s one event from recent years from Lakewood Springs in Illinois that sounded a little too intimate for comfort…

    image of board advertising anal egg hunt

    Happy Easter! 🙂

  • Signal failure

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    Where Bristol has the Bristol Post, formerly the Bristol Evening Post, as its newspaper of record (warped. Ed.), the Potteries has The Sentinel, formerly the Evening Sentinel.

    Both newspapers now belong to the Local World stable and share many common features: the content management system running their websites, difficulty in distinguishing editorial content from advertising, a cavalier attitude to the correct use of the English language and so on.

    Yesterday’s Sentinel carried a report of a railway signal failure in the Stafford area.

    The report was helpfully illustrated with a photograph as per the screenshot below.

    Shrewsbury's Severn Bridge junction and semaphore signals incorrectly captioned as Stafford by clueless Sentinel hacks

    The photograph is also helpfully captioned, as follows:

    DELAYS: Rail services have been hit by signalling problems at Stafford.

    It is evident for a number of reasons that the anonymous members of the Sentinel’s “Digital_team” who put together this report are no great users of the railway network.

    Firstly, the photograph shows semaphore signals. These are not used at Stafford, which lies on the West Coast Main Line, where semaphore signals were removed and replaced with colour light signals many decades ago.

    Secondly, the plate on the signal mast identifies the signals as part of the Severn Bridge Junction signal complex.

    Thirdly, what is the Abbey Church of St Peter & St. Paul in Shrewsbury doing in the background, lurking behind the largest sempaphore signal box in the country? 😉

  • A new perishable commodity: nuclear missile submarines

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

    It’s said that “to err is human“; and journalists are no exception to this.

    Some while ago, a hapless hack at the Bristol Post, disclosed to an unbelieving city readership that bridges have a shelf life (posts passim).

    Now it seems that bridges have been joined on the shelf by another perishable commodity – submarines carrying the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

    Reporting today on the pro-Trident stance of Bristol MPs Kerry McCarthy and Karin Smyth, political correspondent Patrick Daly lets the cat out of the bag:

    The four submarines, which carry nuclear warheads, are due to come to the end of their shelf-life by the late-2020s…

    A Vanguard class submarine capable of carrying Trident missiles leaving the Forth of Clyde
    A Vanguard class submarine capable of carrying Trident missiles leaving the Forth of Clyde. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    For those who need some explanation of the definition of shelf life, Wikipedia has a very useful article which starts as follows:

    Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or just no longer on a supermarket shelf (unfit for sale, but not yet unfit for use).

    As one of these four submarines is supposed to be at sea at all times, perhaps Mr Daly would care to explain to his readers, why the quartet is cluttering up the quartermaster’s stores instead. 😉

    Alternatively, perhaps Patrick could learn the definition of the term “service life“. 🙂

    Update 12/02/16: The piece has since been amended and the offending “shelf-life” replaced.

  • Spelling or sleeping?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Social Media

    There was a great clanger in a tweet this morning from Bristol’s Western Daily Press, the sister publication of the Bristol Post (and joint occupier with it of Bristol’s Temple Way Ministry of Truth. Ed.) and likewise subject to many of the latter’s failings with the English language.

    Here’s an image of the tweet in question.

    text of tweet reads Simon Cowell's home gets burgled while he and his family spelt inside

    The morals of this tale are clear: if you run a tawdry TV talent show orthography is as dangerous as shut-eye if housebreakers are around; if you run the social media account of a mediocre regional paper, learn to proof-read before posting online*! 🙂

    * The spelling error in the tweet originally appeared in the article itself, but has since been corrected.

  • Bristol Post balls – rescued from the rescue services?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    There seem to be times when confusion is rife in the Bristol Post’s headquarters on Temple Way. This was exemplified yesterday by the headline in this report, of which a screenshot follows, just in case Post hacks realise a mistake has been made.

    screenshot of headline stating Man rescued from Bristol Floating Harbour fire brigade after a night on the town

    In spite of the headline, Post reporter Emma Flanagan fails to explain in her article why anyone would need rescuing from the fire brigade after a night out.

    Furthermore, there is no explanation either for the logic behind Bristol’s City Docks having their own fire brigade.

    Perhaps kind readers could help her out and provide plausible reasons in the comments below. 🙂

  • Windows NT 3.1 software crash brings Orly airport to standstill

    Steve WoodsOddities, Tech

    Last Saturday, Orly airport‘s air traffic was severely disrupted, leaving thousands of passengers stranded on the ground, Le Monde Informatique reports. The cause: a computer failure of the weather data management system running on Microsoft’s antediluvian Windows NT 3.1 operating system.

    Orly airport viewed from the airComputer system failures in the aeronautical world are nothing exceptional, but always have a far-reaching effect, stranding thousands of passengers on the ground. This is exactly what happened last Saturday at Orly which had to halt of all its inbound and outbound air traffic for more than half an hour. Besides the inconvenience caused, it’s above all the origin of the failure that is somewhat surprising. According to the French satirical paper Le Canard Enchaîné, it was a failure linked to the Decor (Diffusion des données d’Environnement de Contrôle d’Orly et de Roissy = Orly & Roissy Environmental Control data distribution) system managing data provided by Météo France that was the culprit.

    The surprising fact was this software is running on the Windows NT 3.1 operating system released by Microsoft 22 years ago, i.e. an operating system no longer supported at all by Redmond, with all the risks this involves in security terms, especially as it is connected to Météo France’s computer systems.

    “The traffic was not particularly heavy on Saturday morning. But imagine during the Paris Climate Change Conference, the manoeuvring of heads of state disrupted by a piece of software dating from prehistoric times. What will that look like?”, stated an engineer quoted by Le Canard Enchaîné. When contacted by the satirical paper, the Transport Ministry gave an assurance that “equipment modernisation is planned for 2017” (no need to rush, then! Ed.).

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