I could be swimmin' with da fishes for this

There are 53 posts tagged: gotta respect the grift

Hawks and sheep: 7 December 2024; Haliey [sic] Welch, the so-called Hawk Tuah Girl, went viral on social media a few months ago for her advice on the, erm, art of pleasure. Yet another made-for-clicks man-on-the-street interview with mildly intoxicated party girls, in Nashville this time. So far, so so.
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Rock 'n'…a small bready thing: 28 November 2024; And that little whimsy led me to another under BBC Future from earlier this year, written by the same author, Veronique Greenwood, but this time exploring why there are so many words in Britain for a small, round bread. Hey, a girl's gotta eat y'know!
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Feastables: 28 November 2024; A TLDR from BBC Future ponders the ne'er-asked question of why humans feel the need to feast together.
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New balls please: 23 July 2024; The BBC has once again published the salaries of its TV and radio presenting staff. And once again Gary Lineker tops the list of high-paid grifters, although his salary has stagnated and remains the same as the previous two years. Poor old Zoe Ball, on the other hand, has seen hers drop for the second time in three years. That must be the PaTriArchY aNd MisOGyNy™ of it all, right?
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Babbling books: 5 June 2024; It's taken us to halfway through the year, but the BBC's book babes are back, thoroughly reviewing reviewers' reviews to bring us twelve of the best table top decorations, or leg props, of 2023 thus far. This was as much as they served up in the first quarter two years ago. Whether it's because the ink slingers are slacking off, or the bookworms' have tightened their standards for inclusion this year, is anyone's guess though.
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What makes a tree a tree?: 9 March 2024; Last year, vandals cut down a sycamore tree sited at a gap in Hadrian's Wall, imaginatively known as Sycamore Gap. It is, or at least was, a renowned beauty spot and tourist attraction, famed for its starring role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
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DIE, Google, DEI: 15 February 2024; Melonie Parker is Google's chief diversity officer, in charge of sociopolitical checkbox-based hiring. She joined Omose Ighodaro in the BBC's Executive Lounge, boasting Google's DEI credits in How Google is sticking to – and soaring past – its DEI goals. Although soaring past suggests that their goals may not have been too much of a stretch in the first place.
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To baldly go…: 10 February 2024; For some time now, men claiming to be women have been invading spaces traditionally reserved for genuine, biologically-relevant women; soundly defeating them in their sports and beauty pageants. Their entry into women's competitions is justified with bullshit rhetoric to the effect that all women have different lived experiences, and possessing a penis is just one of them.
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Late booking: 29 December 2023; With only two days to go before we say so long, and thanks for all the fish to 2023, I didn't think our two book babes were going to make it with a closing update to their possibly-must-read list. But they managed to sneak in, almost at the last moment, with an additional eight tomes, rounding out thirty-three of the best books of the year.
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Orwell that ends well: 7 November 2023; The expiration of UK copyright covering George Orwell's works in 2022 gave lesser authors opportunity to churn them, and ride the publicity train afforded by his stature and legacy within the literary pantheon. Sorry, I meant to say reimagine them through contemporary eyes; silly old me.
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Book it like Becky: 17 October 2023; Another quarter of a year has flown past, and more books are added to our list to help the next do the same.
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Delicate sensibilities of trivial celebrities: 11 October 2023; Through nothing other than abject boredom, I started reading Laura Martin's The difficulties facing Hollywood super-producer Ryan Murphy’s TV empire on BBC Culture. At almost 2000 words, it's quite long for what it is. And it's not as interesting as I first thought, especially since I've seen none of Murphy's work. Consequently, I didn't finish reading it; but I did get far enough in to learn that black transgender actress Angelica Ross had a hissy fit on set over a crew member who was operating the vehicle she had to drive on camera wearing a racist T-shirt every day.
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Totem recall: 9 October 2023; The BBC home page teases: A sacred pole stolen by the British. And the leader to Diane Selkirk's The Canadian museum filled with stolen art doubles down on the accusation.
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Marianna unsprung: 2 October 2023; I've mocked the self-serving grift of the BBC's social media and disinformation correspondent, Marianna Spring, on occasion. But Spiked's Tom Slater takes a deeper dive, and does a more thorough job of calling out her hubris in Marianna Spring: the BBC’s misinformation merchant.
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The "f-word": 28 September 2023; Writing for BBC Culture, Faran Krentcil presents a way-too-long, way-too-dull TLDR about the return of Victoria's Secret something or other, opening with:
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Around the world in 80 minutes*: 28 July 2023; Nicholas Barber presents us with ten of the best films to watch this August. He has, however, used the same approach as those pseudo bibliophiles Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker when compiling their must-read lists, and turned to snippets he's found elsewhere on t'intertubes. This isn't his first waltz around the ballroom y'know.
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Fewer of not the best: 21 July 2023; Those bookish babes at BBC Culture, Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker, have finally got around to updating this year's must-reads-so-far list. And, breaking from their film-buff counterparts, they've thankfully updated their article's headlining image, presenting a pleasant change from the gormless photo of Eleanor Catton that's been there since April.
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Rebuffed: 7 July 2023; While film buffs Barber and James score points over the bookworms, Laurence and Baker, for actually having seen at least some of the films that they're recommending, they lose a few for the laziness with which they recycle their article. No new image to lure the reader in. Hell's teeth, they can't even be bothered to update the date from 14^th April! The only betrayal of change is a slight revision to the title, just to reflect the additions.
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Minority report: 4 June 2023; The BBC News droid doesn't just report the news, it also pulls together future-gazing speculative fluff-pieces of the kind normally found within the website's magazine-type sections; an example of AI in action, perhaps. Ironically enough, in this case the droid's created an article on the threats that AI may pose to humanity: AI warning us of AI, no less.
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Pervy Pigs: 25 May 2023; A social media influencer has been found guilty of stalking and harassing three Premier League football players. So far, so drear.
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Blurring the lines: 5 May 2023; I guess one problem that the BBC has, in having so many categories for articles and reporting staff, is pigeonholing and assigning specific stories that might plausibly fit within more than one category. For example, should an article on a journalist being tracked by TikTok be categorised under technology—because technology is used to track her—or social media—because TikTok is teh soshull meejah, innit?
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Inordinate interest in trivia: 23 April 2023; I guess there are only so many things to occupy the waking hours of a disinformation and social media correspondent, which is presumably why the BBC's Marianna Spring is reduced to counting celebrity losses and gains in the Twitter verification stakes. This is of such high import, that she's co-opted another lackey to help.
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Not the best: 22 April 2023; They got there in the end. BBC Culture's resident bookworms, Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker, were not subjected to pest-control agents after all. They just seem to have been waiting to see what Barber and James came up with first. And one thing they've learnt is to dial back the hyperbole. Unlike last year's lists, we're presented with twelve of the best books that 2023 has had to offer thus far.
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Buffed: 16 April 2023; Those redoubtable bookworms Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker seem to have been given a dose of some sort of pest control agent. Instead, BBC Culture treats us to film buffs Nicholas Barber and Caryn James extolling the virtues of twelve films released so far this year. Hedging their bets over their literary rivals, Barber and James only claim their choices to be of the best, not the best.
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Camp Rwanda: 3 April 2023; Perusing the BBC's home page from the sanctity of my bed this morning, I happened across this lead-line. And it got me thinking, which is always an uncomfortable experience early in the morning. Or at any time, really; but especially early in the morning.
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0s and 1s: 30 March 2023; I don't know why this qualifies for BBC Worklife per se, other than zoomers have to work like the rest of us, I guess; but Jessica Klein seeks to educate us as to How young people are shaking off gender binaries. The relevance of zoomers to work life, I can understand; their gender binarism is another matter entirely. Unless these attitudes are having an impact on the provision of toilet facilities in the workplace. (confused)
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No shits for Springtime (poop): 21 March 2023; You can't keep a ~~good journalist~~hack urinalist down, and once again Marianna Spring has sprung into mithering over trolls on Twitter. Oh, and pimping her gossamer-thin investigation, instigated by personal butthurt and treated derisively by the space cadet:
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Springtime for Hateler: 6 March 2023; Marianna Spring is the BBC's disinformation and social media correspondent. Her role is to seek out problems on teh soshull meejah and whinge about them. This time, it's about hurt fee-fees on Twitter, particularly hers. First World problems, huh? (snowflake)
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Shazam?: 23 February 2023; I tried to watch Shazam! some time ago. It was pretty gay: an origins story trying too hard to be too comedic for a B-list DC superhero whom I'd never heard of, and I gave up. Now, the sequel, Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is pending release. I am not pumped. And it appears that I may not be alone.
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Fully booked: 15 December 2022; As 2022 draws to a close, thoughts turn to the 39 best books of the year so far. Except they don't, because our fearless culture vultures, Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker, actually present us with The 50 best books of the year 2022. Oh goody gumdrops!
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A promise of things to come: 14 December 2022; While pimping Babylon—an upcoming story of Hollywood's licentious past—on behalf of BBC Culture, Christina Newland teases the truth about the scandals of the silent film era. Except I'm not sure whether she actually reveals the true truth, or just that as portrayed in the film, because she may not have written it yet. And, even if she has, we'll have to wait until the end of next week for it to go live. Again.
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Latin(x): 24 November 2022; Diane Bernard is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. She writes for the Washington Post and NPR, among other mainstream media outlets. So, I guess she could be considered to be progressive and right on.
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Low-energy bubbles: 9 November 2022; I've mentioned YouTube channel TheQuartering before. It's one of the lowest-energy commentary channels on the platform, if not within the entire universe; including as yet undiscovered civilisations out there [points at stars].
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Old hag: 4 November 2022; For those of you unaware of the existence of the hagsploitation film genre, it's apparently a thing. Inspired by 1962's What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?—itself inspired by Sunset Boulevard, twelve years earlier—a plethora of films was released during the '60s and '70s starring ageing actresses at a point in their careers where work was harder to come by.
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Bookish: 11 October 2022; My, doesn't time fly when you're having fun? Another quarter of a year, another best-books-of-the-year-so-far list, courtesy of those BBC Culture vultures Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker.
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Must read?: 10 July 2022; Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker have been hard at it, reading books on behalf of BBC Culture. Either that, or genuine bookworms have been hard at it, reading books on their behalf. For they have compiled a list of the 26 best books of the year so far. Mostly novels and poetry, with a smattering of memoirs; clearly no non-fiction books of any note have been released in the last six months.
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Dietary habits of the twig children: 3 May 2022; BBC Future does science. Except, it doesn't really.
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Bookworm: 10 April 2022; We're only a quarter of the way through 2022, but already Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker have compiled a list of the fourteen best books of the year, thus far, on behalf of BBC Culture. Not ten. Not fifteen. And, fortunately, not twenty. Fourteen.
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The most obvious Star Trek story ever: 17 March 2022; Any best of list or best ever selection is bound to be wreathed in subjectivity. Especially when considering such a long-running TV show as Star Trek and its spawn.
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Half-arsed job: 15 February 2022; As Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile is released to cinemas, David Jesudason addresses racism in her work. I cannot pretend that I read the whole article; I only got as far as the incongruity in Branagh's casting compared to setting.
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The great egg race: 21 January 2022; Zaria Gorvett explores The race to make a multipurpose vegan egg, for the benefit of those of us who weren't even aware that such a thing existed. The race, that is.
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Reporter reporting: 18 January 2022; Mary-Ann Russon asks What can we do to get more women into coding? I can't honestly say that I give a shit, and her gossamer-thin article didn't help me understand why I should, other than that there's a shortage of digitally-skilled workers.
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All of you: 24 November 2021; Writing for BBC Worklife, Bryan Lufkin informs us as to Why more people are saying 'y'all'. For those of you who didn't know that they were, apparently they are. So there's something new that you've learned, and we've barely started!
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Just the fax, ma'am: 6 September 2021; And more non-news on outdated business practices from Ashifa Kassam, for BBC Future.
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Carded: 6 September 2021; For want of anything better to do with her time, and the BBC licence payers' money, Adrienne Murray asks the burning question of the day: Has Covid killed off business cards for good?
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Yours competently: 4 August 2021; In The coded language that holds women back at work, Christine Ro explores words keeping women down, or something like that. It's a fairly typical fluff piece for BBC Equality Matters. One that I don't doubt was previously published elsewhere, and which I didn't find sufficiently interesting to finish reading. But I did skip-read this far:
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Moving on: 25 June 2021; Writing for BBC Worklife, Bryan Lufkin explains why it's okay to not reignite relationships that have stagnated during lockdown. You can let acquaintanceships and friendships go, should you wish.
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Lo-rez journalism: 17 May 2021; Writing for BBC Reality Check, intrepid investigative journalists Christopher Giles and Jack Goodman ask the key question, Israel-Gaza: Why is the region blurry on Google Maps? What do you mean, dear reader, you weren't aware that it was? It is, and we're here to find out why!
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Ghostbusted: 8 April 2021; That irrepressible bonehead, Jeremy Hambly at TheQuartering, unfavourably compares the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife with the original Ghostbusters (1984). He notes that the ghosts aren't scary, unlike those in the original, which he describes as a horror film:
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Breaking the rules: 2 March 2021; As I mentioned long ago, it's thanks to my perfectly-fitted tinfoil hat that I'm not part of the social network. I don't do F*c*book; Twitter; Instagram, or any of that other stuff. At one point, I did have a hardly-used, one careful owner YouTube account, but I bailed out when Google did a Monica Lewinsky, and came a'gobblin'.
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Office coffee: 20 January 2021; Writing for BBC Worklife, Bryan Lufkin espouses on Why you’re more creative in coffee shops.
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Yanking chains: 17 June 2020; I seem to have fallen into a pit of irrelevance on YouTube.
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Missing the bigger picture: 8 February 2017; In a thin and trite article on behalf of BBC Autos, Erin Biba asks whether, despite the current oil boom and increase in car ownership in the UK and US, we're witnessing the end of petrol stations.
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