The passing of George Harrison is saddening indeed. As I walked home past the infamous pedestrian crossing outside Abbey Road Studios, literally hundreds of fans had gathered to lay flowers, light candles and generally pay their respects. In addition to this, the entire area was swarming with film crews—the street was lined on both sides by big white vans with satellite dishes on top.
Monthly Archives: November 2001
Laundery
“Freecollecdelivecleanilaundry!”
“Sorry?”
“Freecollecdelivecleanilaundry!”
“Yes, I know what you said—what did you mean?”
“Free collection…”
“Yes…”
“And delivery…”
“Yes…”
“Of your dry cleaning…”
“Yes…”
“And laundry.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Would you like a leaflet?”
“Err, no. Thanks.”
Disinformation
I’m currently reading You Are Being Lied To, which is proving to be very interesting. While a lot of its content is written my Americans (ant therefore revolves around America), there are still interesting ideas and plenty of free thinking. My only problem with the book is its sheer size—it’s a paving slab of a read, and is beginning to have an adverse effect on my posture. Still, if you can tolerate this, it is definitely worth the investment.
Branded
On the subject of television, BBC2 will be rebranded ever so slightly in the name of “contemporary evolution” as of next Monday. Now, I’m not one who is afraid of change—but I am wary of contemporary evolution. It’s only recently that the design of the BBC site was completely overhauled—they now insist on referring to it as BBCi. Whatever the hell that’s supposed to imply. Incidentally, I notice that the corporation has ended its love affair with the term “forward slash”, and announcers are now spared the task of using the term where the rest of us settle for “slash”.
Never forget
Rememberance Day seems particularly poignant at this time. I’m lead to wonder how modern society would cope with an ordeal of the magnitude of, say, the Second World War. Of course, it’s extremely unlikely that we will ever witness such a thing, thanks to the efforts of the millions who fought to protect out way of life, but if the Second World War had taken place seventy years later than it did, how different would the world be as a result?
Poppies
Last night, the Evening Standard lead with the story that the powers that be at BBC World (whatever the hell that is) have asked presenters not to wear poppies. If ever there were a time I wished journalists plucked stories out of thin air, that time is now. Please, please be wrong about this, guys.
Remembrance day is reserved so that we may remember those who gave their lives in combat to maintain the quality of our lives. It’s a mark of respect. Poppy Day is half at the same time to raise the money necessary to support those who survived the atrocities of war—to show our respect and thanks for their efforts. So what’s the point of being respectful if we don’t learn anything from their actions? Apparently, we’re at war, so therefore we must cast away any reminder from history that war is futile. We must bury all memories. We must discard all respects. It’s like saying “thanks for getting shot as you jumped out of the trenches, but frankly you needn’t have bothered”.