Great tits cope well with warming. Insert your own joke here. All of mine will just increase my bizarre search hits.

From the Telegraph: John Denver karaoke sparks Thai killing spree

From the Washington Post: Skywalkers Cross Han Solo

The Economist had a story last week (I’m behind in my reading) regarding celebrities and politics. I find it amusing that Magic Johnson needs an explanation as to who he is, yet Jenna Jameson doesn’t. While her oeuvre wasn’t really addressed, they did credit her as the star of “Blown Away”. I’m not sure if that says more about celebrity now or just the Economist readers.

By the way, Jenna supports Hillary which I find odd regarding her antagonism to adult content in media and video games. That’s Hillary’s antagonism of course, not Jenna’s.

The separation of church and state that I’m familiar with in America doesn’t exist here. There is a Church of England, although its presence isn’t something I’ve noticed. What I have noticed is that the religious fervor seems to be reserved for football. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Cult of Beckham. David Beckham is damned near a saint here, and it’s not hard to understand why. He’s good looking, charismatic and quite a good footballer. He is the epitome of that cliché of the man that women want and men want to be.

Beckham is so huge that he rivals the relics of saints in associative power. His tattooist will now have a TV show that is ostensibly based on the reality TV show, Miami Ink. However, this one is a drama and features a character that ‘represents’ Beckham. It has Beckham’s seal of approval and I have no doubt that it will be successful here as well as spawn numerous Beckhamesque tattoos. I love tattoos and always enjoy seeing shows relating to them, but I do hope that the melodrama of memorial tattoos is kept to a minimum—in comparison to Miami Ink.

Now Beckham and his wife, because the two are a cottage industry unto themselves, are looking to break into the States. I give them 50-50 odds right now. What is big in America, for better or worse, generally becomes big in the rest of the world. America exports pop culture above all else. However, it’s not a two-way street; what is big in the rest of the world is not necessarily going to be big in America.

The Beckhams are media savvy. They know the power they have and have branded themselves very well. Where I think the problem lies is that they don’t understand America as well as they might think they do. David Beckham is the Michael Jordan of football, but football is a marginal sport at best in America. Americans know who he is, but mainly because of his celebrity, not his deeds. His wife was a member of a band famous ten years ago among 12-year-old girls. Will they remember her and enjoy her comeback as a nostalgia trip, or more likely, leave their affection behind with their Lance Bass crushes?

More disturbingly, for their prospects, is the company they are keeping. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are not America’s darlings right now. Honestly, Americans are a bit scared of Tom Cruise right now and are worried that Katie is a weird Scientology Stepford wife. What the Beckhams really need is a good manager and publicist. Somebody who understands the fickle American taste and will keep them from making unintentional gaffes such as hanging out with the Cruise coven.

Just go to their offices and tell them to put you on their front page, apparently. A 20-year-old man from New York went to YouTube’s offices to pitch his idea for an internet reality show on dating. While the show sounds like every other reality show, with ingratiating attention whores saying and doing things to kill your brain cells, you have to admire the guy’s moxie. While he was prevented from leaving the elevator by a security guard, he clearly made the right contacts on the ride up. He has entered a profit sharing deal with YouTube, the first of its kind.

YouTube has a lot of potential that hasn’t been realized yet. Between the upcoming political debates, the candidates posting their own movies, activists creating video protests against corporations and corporations responding with publicity movies, YouTube is garnering more and more viewers. In January, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley had previously shunned the idea of ad revenue because they wanted people motivated by their love of video rather than money. Now the YouTube gang thinks that sharing advertising revenue will improve the content available on the site. How this affects the videos, and whether or not it becomes a profitable enterprise, will be interesting to see.
youtube

Have a question you want answered by the presidential wannabes at the July 23rd debate? Post it on YouTube. YouTube and CNN are teaming up to show 20 to 30 questions submitted by American voters via YouTube. The submissions will be vetted beforehand and the selection will not be based on the popularity of the video. What the selection will be based on hasn’t been revealed.

While it isn’t groundbreaking—candidates have for years answered questions from an “average American” in the audience—this demonstrates the ever increasing popularity of the Web 2.0 version of interactivity. Americans can now potentially ask a candidate anything they would like, without having to be in South Carolina.

The video format also opens up an interesting possibility of how the question can be asked. With video cameras and editing software widely available, these videos could be as creative or elaborate, as small movies. Whether that will be well done or not, is anyone’s guess right now. We might just get Master Chief from Halo asking Hillary about the war and a pimply faced kidding rapping to Obama.

Of course, YouTube has one major drawback: the viewer comments. If a million monkeys with a million typewriters could write Shakespeare, YouTube only has about 10 keyboard equipped monkeys posting these. From the webcomic xkcd:

Media YouTube

La Mujer and I took a stroll through the neighborhood last night just to get out of the flat and get some fresh air. We happened along two young boys playing with a shopping trolley—how they got it into the neighborhood from the nearest supermarket is a mystery—but they were happily spinning each other around in it until they would tumble to the pavement. When they saw us approaching one of the boys ran up to us, pulling a wadded up scrap of paper from his pocket. He matched our pace, walking backwards in front of us, and made a pitch to sponsor him for something or other that would benefit orphans. He had a thick cockney accent, which combined with the gigantic lollypop in his mouth, made him a bit difficult to understand, but it was quite cute.

When we politely declined saying we had no cash on us, which was true, the lollypop came out and all cuteness was gone as he got down to brass tacks.

“So you’re saying that you don’t want to help orphans, then? What do you have against orphans? You must want orphans to die.”

I was momentarily taken aback, but as we walked on I had to chuckle. The kid will be a perfect journalist in Blair’s new ‘feral’ media.

Tony Blair gave a speech yesterday in which he criticised a media that ‘hunted in a pack to compete in an ever shrinking market’. While admitting that his administration had paid too much attention to courting and persuading the media, he argued that the state of journalism in Britain had degenerated greatly.

I haven’t lived in London long, but on my first visit, I was surprised at the wealth of newspapers available here. Perhaps it is because England is a rather small country all living within one time zone, but many were very much London oriented. Living in London provides you with access to a great many newspapers, some good, some not worth the newsprint they’re on.

Every day, walking about in London, I am offered free copies of papers. I generally read the Metro, and the London Paper or London Lite just to pass time. Sometimes they are entertaining, sometimes they have valid news. But these papers are largely the journalistic equivalent of The Daily Show back home. A good way to pass the time and good for a laugh, but I certainly hope that all of the people I see reading them next to me also find other sources of information.

A kid has posted a video game of the Virginia Tech massacre because he thought it was “funny”. Apparently, in response to the obvious outrage he has offered to pull it from the internet if he receives monetary compensation. I’m not sure what the appropriate words to use here would be.

I’m a staunch supporter of the First Amendment and people should be free to act like complete and total imbeciles. He is free to create and post this game, others are free to voice their indignation at it. That’s the way it goes, and sometimes we are forced to endure what callous twats have to say, sometimes enough to make us question our faith in the human race. But free speech comes with consequences. Something tells me that karma will come visiting ol’ Ryan Lambourn and it will be carrying a big stick indeed.

I love British television. It’s not that I watch a great deal of it, in fact I watch very little save for the occasional Grand Design at dinner. Maybe a Peep Show on Friday night because I like those Mac and PC guys. I also do like the fact that movies like Kill Bill will be shown on the regular stations, because that is not something I would expect to see on NBC.

Really, my affinity for television here lies in the fact that I find the adverts for upcoming shows and their little promo spots endlessly entertaining. The first couple of weeks here I liked to play a game where I’d try to come up with a bizarre premise and show title, but gave it up when I couldn’t compare to what is actually on the air.

• Help! My Dog is as Fat as Me — Fat people, fat dogs: Great premise. The only thing it was missing was when, during the weigh-in where the dog hadn’t lost weight, the owner didn’t break out the newspaper and shout “Bad dog! Bad fat dog!” Next will be the old ladies and Shar Pei show where they get botox together.
• Me and My Big Breasts — Meet women with really big breasts, and hear great commentary like “Britain is weighed down by the biggest breasts in Europe.” I admit, I watched this show.
• My Man Boobs and Me — Because men obsess over their breasts too… I guess.
• Fuck Off, I’m a Hairy Woman — Guess what this is about.
• Hidden Lives: Short Angry Men — Short men with tempers to match.
• Virgin School — Imagine 40-Year-Old Virgin, only more earnest. A 26-year-old virgin attends a course in Amsterdam to help him deal with his virginity and improve his self confidence. Amsterdam. School for virgins. Right.

And coming up this week is Sex Change Hospital! Set your TiVo now!