media | Steve Woods

Fossil fuel mined with weasel words

22/09/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media
Q: when is a land reclamation scheme not a land reclamation scheme?

A: When it’s actually an open-cast coal mine covering four square kilometres of south Wales.

Which transports us Merthyr Tydfil and its inappropriately-named Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme, which Wikipedia describes as a ‘major opencast coaling operation‘ to the town’s north-east.

Ffos-y-fran: open-cast coal mine or proper land reclamation scheme? Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The scheme’s operators have this week filed an application to keep mining coal there for a further nine months until June 2023, according to Wales Online, with landscaping of the site completed by December 2024.

As revealed by the Wales Online article, the main aim of the scheme is the mining of 10 million tonnes of coal.

In your ‘umble scribe’s opinion, this is not reclamation in either of its definitions, i.e.:
- the activity of getting useful materials from waste (unless the land itself is regarded as waste. Ed.); or
- the activity of making land that is under water or is in poor condition suitable for farming or building.
It is the pure and simple plundering of highly polluting fossil fuels for profit at a time when a climate crisis is occurring due to the past profligacy of homo sapiens – a misnomer if ever there was one – with fossil fuels, to which there is still no end in sight, especially under the less than benign apology for a government of one Mary Elizabeth Truss, which seems committed to continue fossil fuel extraction and shale gas in particular.
Shropshire Star journalist gives up after enigmatic byline

19/09/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

The screenshot below is the full extent of an article* which has appeared this morning on on the Shropshire Star website.

You’ve got the headline, what more do you want?

Given the modern journalistic tendency of trying squeeze the whole story into the headline, perhaps there was no need to write much more than a tokenistic byline, concerning which your ‘umble scribe would be most grateful if any readers knowing what the gfgfgfg byline signifies could offer their thoughts in the comments below. Thanks! 😀

* = The article has since been removed.
The Iron Lady’s successor – a ferrous weathercock

11/09/2022 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

The rise of the Thatcher fangirl, one Mary Elizabeth Truss, to the office of prime minister of the English Empire cannot be regarded as universally welcomed. Indeed her candidacy for the leadership of her party was supported by fewer than were seduced into putting an X against the name of her predecessor, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Truss garnered 57% of the vote for leader by party members, cf. 66% for the lying scarecrow).

In her incarnation as Johnson’s Foreign Secretary over the last couple of years in Johnson’s cabinet of sycophants and Brexit zealots and during the party leadership campaign, Truss has hardly shone, managing top lose friends and alienate people, particularly important ones with whom the government wishes to negotiate trade deals, in particular the United States (a trade deal with the USA is regarded as the Holy Grail by those politicians who worship at the altar of Brexit. Ed.), by picking fights with those beastly foreigners on the other side of the so-called English Channel over the Northern Ireland Protocol, which she threatened to tear up, thereby trashing this country’s reputation as a firm believer in upholding international law.

Nor have those beastly foreigners turned a blind eye to Truss’ roundabout route to arrive at the black-painted door of Number 10. They are only too aware that Truss started out as a member of the Liberal Democrats who is on record as supporting the abolition of the monarchy.

During the Brexit referendum campaign, Truss still supported the country’s remaining in the European Union, only to do a 180 degree about turn before being elevated to high political office by the blonde scarecrow.

In her climb up the Tory political ladder, Truss has made no secret of her admiration for the dreadful Margaret Hilda Thatcher, aka the Iron Lady, whose manner of dress and publicity stunts Truss has shameless emulated.

Putting her changing political views and her imitation of Thatcher together, the French media have this week been referring to the English Empire’s fifth Tory prime minister since 2010 as the ‘Girouette de fer‘, i.e. the Iron Weathercock, as per the following typical example.

Headline reads “Iron Weathercock: Europe reacts to Liz Truss becoming British prime minister
More poor Reach plc quality control

31/08/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

Genius (or should that be genious? Ed.) headline writing from today’s Daily Post, alias North Wales Live.

Is the entire editorial team asleep at their desks?

Such a glaring spelling mistake and the obvious lack of quality control remind your ‘umble scribe of a Mark Twain quotation regarding a still extant US newspaper, i.e.

I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be edited by children.
Bristol Post/Live exclusive: music venue moonlights as property developer

29/08/2022 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

As a linguist, your ‘umble scribe has, during his working life, always used language as a precision tool. Were using le mot juste can mean the difference between a one-off job or repeat business is confined to linguists is unusual or not, is a matter for conjecture, There are certain other professions where the use of the right vocabulary is vital, particularly in the law and in the field of intellectual property (e.g. trade marks, patents).

It often does not apply in the world of journalism, where a columnist may be taking a deliberately ambiguous angle.

This accuracy of language definitely does not apply to the titles of the Reach plc stable of local news titles, including Bristol’s (news)paper of warped record, the Bristol (Evening) Post and the accompanying Bristol Live website.

As a prime example of this is contained in Thursday’s piece about the redevelopment of Trinity police station.

The headline implies that the as-yet unnamed music venue itself will be building the housing, not some developer who has just realised that, due to the proximity of entertainment, the building bill will now be augmented by the addition of acoustic insulation.

The police station to be demolished and redeveloped just happens to be over the road from the Trinity Centre, with which your correspondent has a long association (posts passim).

What is obvious from perusing the article is that the person(s) writing the headline is/are different from the one who write the article. This seems to be standard practice.

Furthermore, it is also evident that the headline writers do not carefully read what reporters have written, as shown by the latest version of how the story is presented on the paper’s website, with the soon-to-be former cop shop itself transformed a new music venue.

Sacking all those sub-editors a few years ago to save some money has really paid off in terms of the quality of your ‘journalism’, hasn’t it, Reach plc?
BS5 bilingualism

24/08/2022 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

Bristol is a city in which, according to the 2011 census data, more than 90 languages are spoken: no surprise for the UK’s tenth most populous city.

Given its proximity to Wales – a mere train ride or short drive away over one of the two bridges spanning the Môr Hafren (aka the Severn Sea. Ed.), there’s always been more than a bit of friendly rivalry between the city and county and South Wwales, with a topping of mutual parochial condescension reserved for near neighbours.

Given the diverse nature of east Bristol’s population, it’s not unusual to see shop signs in languages other than English, but the Tenovus Cancer Care charity shop in St Mark’s Road (kindly note the apostrophe you prefer to ignore, Bristol City Council. Ed.), has achieved what to your ‘umble scribe’s recollection a first for BS5: a Welsh/English bilingual sign offering – on one side at least – a free health check. The reverse of that bilingual offer is in Welsh only.

Cymraeg /Sais

Cymraeg yn unig

This is not the time that Welsh signage has turned up in use to the east of Offa’s Dyke. Back in June a Welsh bilingual road works sign was observed doing splendid work in Coventry, as Wales Online reported.
Welsh language payment machine baffles monoglots

14/08/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

,
Rhyl on the North Wales coast attracts many non-Welsh-speaking visitors to its golden sands (your ‘umble scribe was once a regular visitor there as a child since our Sunday school outings all went there. Ed.) and views of the Liverpool Bay wind farms. However, its council-run car parks have pay and display machines set to Welsh as the default language; and this has been frustrating those who cannot read, speak or understand even basic instructions in Welsh, as yesterday’s Nation Cymru reports.

According to the article, “Queues developed as non-Welsh speakers struggled to work out how to pay for their parking at Rhyl’s central underground car park near the promenade, which is administered by Denbighshire County Council.”
Furthermore, the council’s machinery also seemed to have difficulty recognising bank debit cards.

A local with basic Welsh fluency described the experience of one monoglot: “The man stormed off when the machine repeatedly failed to accept his bank card. ‘Why are the instructions only in Welsh. Not many people in Rhyl speak Welsh’.”

A spokesperson for the local authority defended the default Welsh language option, stating:

We would like to remind people that there are two other machines available in the Rhyl Central car park and people can use the pay-by-phone smartphone app with location code 804281 as an alternative way of paying.
Our pay and display machines default to Welsh, but there is a large grey “language button” that people can press to change the language. This is explained on the machines.

Perhaps grey is not a suitable colour for the language button; perhaps the council need to change this to red and white in the style of the English flag or red, white and blue in the style of the Bloody Butcher’s Apron (which some still call the Union Jack or Union flag. Ed.). 😀

Update 15/08/22: Monday’s Nation Cymru has yet another story on the inability of users to operate a second parking machine ‘in bloody Welsh’, this time from the other end of the country, Caswell Bay, on the Gower peninsula near Swansea.
The living dead

13/08/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

While the interminable Conservative Party leadership contest between the 2 tenth-rate rivals, one Mary Elizabeth Truss and rich boy Rishi Sunak, draws tediously on, with government administration seeming to have almost ceased despite drought, rampant inflation, surging energy prices (with the promise of higher prices to come. Ed.) and the outgoing party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is hardly anywhere to be seen, not even for a photo opportunity as he dives into the dressing-up box to indulge his inner Mr Benn, a new phrase has been coined – zombie government.

A still from the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead

As Wikipedia states: “A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse.” The English word zombie was first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the romantic poet Robert Southey, in the form of zombi. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the word’s origin as West African and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi or nzumbi (fetish).

Comparing Conservative Party ministers to reanimated corpses is disingenuous, as the latter have far more compassion.

All the crises mentioned in the first paragraph all seem to be coming to a head and combining during what is traditionally known in Britain as the silly season, which occurs during the long parliamentary summer recess, when, having no – or very little – politics to report, the newspapers and other media resort to more frivolous and lightweight items of ‘news‘.
However, all is not yet lost.

Yesterday the Metro reported that the notoriously work-shy Johnson (remember those missed COBRA meetings at the start of the pandemic? Ed.) had actually managed to turn up for a meeting, although the outcomes of the meeting stated to accompany the headline hardly seem to have made the gathering worth the effort of organising and attending.

And to think all this will continue until after the closure of the leadership poll for the 160,000 or so Tory Party members at 5pm on Friday 2nd September…
Peel Street meets the Globe

12/08/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

A piece of artwork has appeared on the parched grass of Peel Street Green Space, which occupies the ground between Pennywell Road and Riverside Park on the far side of Peel Street Bridge over the Frome (aka the Danny in east Bristol. Ed.).

Its arrival seems to have pre-empted the Bristol Post, which today wrote:

A new public art trail reflecting on colonial histories and the impact of the slave trade is coming to Bristol.
More than 100 artist-designed globe sculptures will appear in seven cities across the UK from Saturday and will be free to view by the public until October 31.

The project, which is organised by The World Reimagined, aims to explore the UK’s relationship with the Transatlantic slave trade, its impact on society and how action can be taken to make racial justice a reality. The designs of the globes produced by the commissioned artists explore themes such as the culture of Africa before the slave trade and an ode to the Windrush generation.

The World Reimagined has sited 103 unique Globes across the 10 trails in 7 host cities across the UK – Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London and Swansea. All the trails will be connected to a digital platform that enables visitors to explore the collection and the history it reflects.

The Peel Street globe is entitled Like The Sun and was created by Felix ‘FLX’ Braun, a Bristol-based a contemporary fine artist and muralist
© OpenStreetMap contributors

The Bristol trail is handily shown on a map by The World Reimagined on which the globe installations are termed ‘Learning Globes‘.

Click on image for full-sized map
The most illiterate petrol station in North Wales

31/07/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Today’s Daily Post has a story – and accompanying video – about the efforts to make Plas Acton Garage in Wrexham the cheapest in North Wales.

Amongst the ideas implemented by the owners to keep prices down, the article states:

Regular customers can get their hands on “no strings attached” discount cards that strike a penny off every litre on the pump price indefinitely. In essence, if you topped up with roughly 50 litres of fuel you’d save 50p.

However, the owners are not offering one penny off the pump price, but ‘one pence‘, as evidenced by the voucher being held up in the video still used for the Daily Post piece.

If not the cheapest petrol station in North Wales, the wording on the voucher definitely makes it the region’s most illiterate petrol station.

The proprietors are not the first to be unaware that the singular of pence is penny. The most egregious misuse of one pence for one penny occurred at the Despatch Box in the Chamber of the House of Commons (where else? Ed.). The date was 20th March 2013, the occasion was the annual budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer – one George Gideon Oliver Osborne, then aged 41 and three-quarters, who was very badly (and expensively) educated at St Paul’s School and Magdalen College, Oxford 😀 (posts passim).

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