media

  • NATO disbanded by the NYT

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

    For the eagle-eyed observers of bad journalism (and out of work sub-editors. Ed.), page A8 of the New York Times on Friday 3rd April was a facepalming classic, given that getting proper names correct is something that should be hammered into journalists during their training.

    Headline reads A North American Treaty Organization without America?
    Click on the image for the full size version.

    NATO logoYes, you did read that correctly. With one flourish of fingers across the keyboard, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been transformed into the North American Treaty Organization by a New York Times ‘journalist’ seemingly unaware of a relatively common fact-checking tool commonly known to humanity as 5 minutes’ Googling*.


    However, to be fair to the NYT, it did post an apology the same day of X, the alleged social media platform that used to be known as Twitter.

    Post reads A correction will appear in tomorrow's print edition: A headline with an article on Friday about President Trump’s threats to leave NATO misstated the full name of the body. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not the North American Treaty Organization.

    According to Wikipedia, NATO “serves as a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5** of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against one member shall be considered an attack against them all“.

    Just like the British/English, the inhabitants of the 50 federal states comprising the USA have a well-developed sense of exceptionalism, i.e. the idea that a person, country or political system can be allowed to be different from, and perhaps better than, others. This is perhaps best embodied by John Gast’s 1872 painting, American Progress, which depicts buffalo and the original indigenous inhabitants fleeing before the relentless advance of the railway, the telegraph (with the figure of Columbia stringing the wire, possibly as a precursor to Glenn Campbell’s 1968 Wichita Lineman. Ed.), so-called settlers and the stage coach.

    An allegorical representation of the modernization of the west of part of North America. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading civilisation westward with the American settlers. She is shown bringing light from east to west, stringing telegraph wire, holding a school book, and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation. On the left, Indigenous Americans are displaced from their ancestral homeland.

    * = Other search engines are available that do not invade your privacy and sell your data to advertisers. 😀

    ** = Article 5 of the NATO Treaty dealing with mutual defence has only been invoked on one occasion; and that was by, erm, the United States.

  • Bristol Live exclusive: abstract nouns become tool users

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s newspaper of (warped) record is a frequent source of exclusives, i.e. news limited to the possession, control or use by a title or group of titles. However, most of these go unrecognised or are ignored by the paper itself.

    One such occurred this morning when the piece in the screenshot below was added to the title’s website.

    Headline Police update after arrests made during Bristol protests where horseback offers used batons

    It seems the city and county of Bristol and its forces of law in order in particular have some very skilled abstract nouns called offers. Not only can they control domestic animals – horses – but are also able to use tools/weapons (batons) at the same time.

    Why have these highly talented abstract nouns not received attention the so richly merit in the past? Diligent proofreading perchance? 😀

  • Exclusive: Wiltshire man murdered on social media server

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Social Media

    One definition of the noun ambiguity in English is “a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways“.

    Nearly 5 decades ago, when your ‘umble scribe started his first job as a staff translator for Imperial Tobacco and was being schooled in how to write in the company’s internal house style, one definite rule that was imposed was that of avoiding any and all ambiguity.

    This is a practice that does not seem to be prevalent in titles in the current Reach plc newspaper stable, including Bristol ‘Live’, the conglomerate’s newspaper of (warped) record for the greater Bristol area.

    And so it came to pass that in the process of trawling social media for something that qualifies as investigative ‘journalism’, the Post looked further afield than the BS postcode and ventured into the the wilds of Wiltshire for a story.

    Headline - I found out my boy had been stabbed to death on Facebook

    Yes, that’s right! If one just read the headline, the impression is given that the murder victim was killed on a server in the employ of Mark Zuckerberg. However, in the actual body of the report, the copy does state that no killing occurred on Facebook itself.

    The mum of a murdered teen found out about the killing on Facebook before receiving a phone call asking if it was true.

    How the headline and the copy body can portray two different versions what transpired seems to have by-passed its two named authors and the SWNS news agency credited as being responsible for writing the piece is beyond belief. In the old days, this would have been picked up and remedied by a sub-editor (before Reach made them all redundant. Ed.). All 3 parties involved were obviously not paying attention either in school English classes or media studies lectures when some of the finer points of good writing were being imparted.

  • Bezos title cheerleading for war

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

    The image below courtesy of the Washington Post (proprietor one Trump-supporting, union-bashing billionaire rejoicing in the name of Jeffrey Preston Bezos. Ed.) came into your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline this morning.

    Washington Post opinion piece with a headline reading In the long run, wars make us safer and richer

    There have always been those who profit from wars, from spivs operating on the black market (posts passim) to arms manufacturers.

    Wars always entail casualties, one of the first being reputed to be the truth.

    The Washington Post’s attitude illustrated in the opinion piece’s title reminds your correspondent of the quotation attributed to the then British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin during a tough spell in the 1930s:

    What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

    No further comment is necessary, save perhaps one sentence from my political science lecturer, the late Elfed Roberts, in a lecture on war over five decades ago: “War is the destruction of the fittest“.

  • Racist: it’s your fault you’re offended

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

    Racist Jim Ratcliffe
    Ratcliffe the racist. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
    After the revelations in the news this week, it’s a fair comment to say that ‘Sir’ Jim Ratcliffe has more money than brain cells. Indeed he has so much money that he is no longer resident in the Untied Kingdom and has moved to Monte Carlo, the historic sunny place for shady people, to spend time with substantially more of his money due to the micro-state’s generosity to the super rich in matters fiscal.

    However, having a view of the Côte d’Azur has not prevented him from having some vile, bigoted views of what’s happening north of the English Channel.

    In an interview earlier this week with Sky News, the ‘businessman‘ and minority shareholder in Manchester United remarked that the UK has been “colonised by immigrants“, as well as having a swipe at those unfortunate enough to be forced to claim Blighty’s less than generous state benefits.

    His racism drew criticism not only from just from the country’s political elite, but also from his club Manchester United’s own football fans.

    Outside Old Trafford itself, the following billboard subvertisement has appeared according to your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline, with a billboard outside Old TRafford being subvertised with the slogan: “Immigrants have done more for this city than billionaire tax dodgers ever will“.

    One day later, Ratcliffe issued the by now standard non-apology, stating “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern“, i.e. if you were offended by my choice of language, that’s entirely your own fault and not mine.

    Commenting on Ratcliffe’s remarks, today’s Guardian editorial states: “Normalising inflammatory language which presents migrants as hostile invaders does not enhance the possibility of civilised discussion. It contributes to the rise of everyday racism and xenophobia on the UK’s streets.”

  • Gwen John in Caerdydd

    Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities

    To mark the 150th anniversary of her birth, Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum of Wales in Caerdydd is currently putting on an exhibition of the work of the Welsh artist Gwen John, under the title Gwen John – Strange Beauties.

    The Guardian recently gave the exhibition preview a five star review, calling it a “superb, daunting retrospective of the woman who is now, perhaps, the most famous Welsh artist.” It continues: “It is not a blow-by-blow biographical story of how she was born in Haverfordwest in 1876, how she and her brother Augustus both loved art as children, how she insisted on going to the Slade School of Fine Art like him then made her life in bohemian France“.

    Nation Cymru also penned a glowing review, stating, “It is the constant return to the same subjects that makes John and her Strange Beauties so alluring. It is the use of everyday materials: packaging cut up to use as a miniature canvas, brown paper, a Keats poetry book adorned with sketches.“

    Girl reading a book by a window
    Click on the image for the full size version.

    In addition to John’s paintings, sketches and the like, the exhibition also features such items as her exercise books and letters, plus contributions from other artists who figured largely in her life, such as her brother Augustus and the sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she modelled and with whom she also shared a bed at one time.

    Plaster cast of Rodin's head of Gwen John
    Plaster cast of Rodin’s head of Gwen John. Click on the image for the full-size version.

    One fascinating feature were the exhibits from Gwen John’s early artistic career (e.g. the portrait and sketch of her sister Winifred) before she went to the Slade School of Fine Art from 1895 to 1898, which the exhibition tells us fundamentally changed her approach to art, as well as her technique.

    Your ‘umble scribe decided to desert Bristol for a day to pay a visit and was not disappointed, spending a good hour and a half exploring the five rooms full of exhibits, although he agrees with a member of the museum staff to whom he spoke that it merited a second visit.

    Amgueddfa Cymru acquired a substantial portion of John’s archive after her early death in 1939, but the works on display also include items from various museums and galleries both in Europe and over the Atlantic, as well as from private collections.

    Gwen John – Strange Beauties will be on until 28th June. See it if you can.

  • Metrology – introducing the corgi

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Social Media

    The United States of America has long had a system of weights and measures that make the British Imperial system seem logical even if the latter does include such oddities as the furlong, chain and barleycorn even just in the length measurements alone.

    And the US metrological landscape has just been augmented by one East Coast addition to the units of measurement.

    Your ‘umble scribe much prefers the symmetry and simplicity of the metric system that he was first taught and used in science and mathematics classes six decades ago and which still has to adopted wholeheartedly by a British state allegedly unwilling to upset or confuse (really? Ed.) those of his generation, although he suspects this reluctance is also heavily coloured by a large measure of English/British exceptionalism.

    In addition to the officially adopted systems of weights and measures, ordinary folk have always used their own informal and somewhat odd units. In the past this site has covered the introduction – usually by the mainstream media – of units as diverse as the Stockholm (housing stock/housing crisis) and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (height).

    As mentioned above, these venerable units of measurement have now been joined by another – the corgi – which is currently being used in North Carolina to assess the depth of the local snowfall. 😀

    Post reads 'I can officially confirm that the snow in NC is now roughly one (1) corgi deep.'

  • A nightmare at the movies

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media, Tech

    A new ‘documentary’ film is currently being shown in cinemas across the United States. Entitled Melania, it documents the life of Melania Knauss Trump, the first lady of the United States, in the twenty days before the second presidential inauguration of her husband, the disgraced 45th and current disgraceful 47th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon and compulsive liar, one Donald John Trump (who is on a personal quest to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.).

    According to The Guardian, Amazon MGM Studios bought the rights to the film for $40m – which reportedly included a considerable sum to the subject of the film (no surprise there! The whole tRump family are high gains grifters. Ed.) – and is spending $35m on a global marketing push. This spend has so far been mostly in the US, with TV spots, billboards and a takeover of Las Vegas’s immersive events venue The Sphere.

    However, the film is not proving popular either with the public or the critics. As regards the latter, this might just be due to the mainstream press not being invited by Amazon the the premiere at the Kennedy Center.

    The exclusion of the Fourth Estate may also explain the dire reviews the film has been receiving, such as the one below ascribed to Variety, although Yahoo News suggests this could be a misattribution.

    Post reads Best review ever. On the Netflix Melania “documentary”: 'If they showed this film on a plane, people would still walk out.' -Variety

    What is more, it’s not just film critics that have been drawing attention to the film’s awfulness. Members of the public reviewing it on IMDb have given it an average score of 1.3 out of ten.

    However, this criticism is quite mild compared with the defaced bus stop poster portrayed below, which prompts ypour ‘umble scribe to ask when exactly will the so-called Epstein Files be released in full?

    Bus stop poster for film with addendum My husband fucks kids

    Update 31/01/2026: Another tranche of the Epstein Files was released yesterday, with at least one wag on social media suggesting the files’ release was intended to distract from from the Melania documentary.

    Post reads Can't believe they released the Epstein files to cover up for the Melania movie.

    Update 03/02/2026: The film continues to get panned, as revealed by this social media post referring to a recent review in The Grauniad.

    Post reads Brutal correction on the Guardian’s review of Melania: “The star rating for this film was corrected on 2 February 2026. A formatting issue led an earlier version to be awarded one star, when the reviewer’s intention was zero”

  • Bristol annexes seaside town in Cymru

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s newspaper of (warped) record, has an unenviable reputation for finding a local Bristolian angle to news stories, whether that be by finding some vaguely connected person who just happens to have a BS postcode or by expanding the city’s boundaries into nearby or more distant local authorities or countries, whether there is any such angle or not.

    A prime example of the latter came to light today concerning the sudden appearance of lots of Victorian footwear on the beach at Aberogwr (otherwise known as Ogmore-by-Sea. Ed.) in Morannwg / Glamorgan.

    How the story was announced and tagged on the paper’s main page is shown below.

    Hundreds of shoes wash up on beach from Victorian shipwreck

    Depending on one’s mode of travel, Bristol is over 100 km from Aberogwr and takes over an hour or even two. There is no way the latter falls within the civic boundaries of the City and County of Bristol, whose closest municipal boundary to Aberogwr extends as far as the low water mark on Ynys Echni / Flat Holm in the middle of the Severn Sea.

    Looking at the facts of the story itself, the founder of the beach clean-up group that removed the shoes said the following:

    “The strongest theory is that the shoes come from a shipwreck called the Frolic, that hit Tusker Rock about 150 years ago. It was carrying shoes and cargo from Italy. They were washed up the Ogmore River and every now and then they appear, especially when there has been erosion of the riverbank.”

    It’s only when one gets to the mention of Tusker Rock (Cymraeg: Ynys Tysgr. Ed.) that the slightness of the connection becomes apparent: it’s a rock in the Bristol Channel 3.2km west of Aberogwr that’s only visible at low tide, but one that has been the end of many vessels over the centuries.

  • Dumb Britain surfaces in Easton

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    For many years – longer than your ‘umble scribe chooses to remember – satirical magazine Private Eye has featured a column entitled Dumb Britain, which documents the hilariously wrong and ingorant answers given by contestants on television quiz shows.

    However, dumbness in the form of lack of knowledge, intelligence or common-sense is not confined to the small screen; myriad examples may be found in real life, as evidenced by the photograph below taken in St Mark’s Road (note the apostrophe, Bristol City Council! Ed.) in Easton last week when the street was undergoing road works.

    Junction of St Mark's Road and High Street whowing No Entry sign plus Road Ahead Closed sign.

    Maybe Private Eye should expand the criteria for Dumb Britain.

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