Freelance writer and editor
Surprising comment from Ben Goldacre on The World Tonight last night. Bemoaning the one-sided press coverage of Andrew Wakefield’s allegations about the MMR jab (from around 37:30), he said:
… what I would ask is that journalists describe the evidence clearly, and describe the strengths and weaknesses, and also give a balanced picture of the weight of medical opinion.
Evidence? Described clearly? Balanced picture? Has he EVER READ a British newspaper?
This is what the FT said about the bosses of AOL and Time Warner when the two companies merged ten years ago:
The future they have glimpsed is one in which consumers and employers live in a permanently connected world. Broadband communication networks would pipe all manner of information and entertainment to television sets, personal computers and other appliances not yet imagined. Ubiquitous wireless gadgets would make it possible to work, communicate and be entertained from anywhere.
They weren’t that far wrong, even if the merger didn’t work out. Michael Skapinker says: “The problem was that, having precisely foretold the future, they could not get their company to deliver it.”
I had an article about English football supporters published in last week’s Politis. Here it is (PDF, opens in new window).
Mikey Stafford was at The New Den on Monday to report for The Guardian on the FA Cup 1st round match between Millwall and AFC Wimbledon. The appearance at the game of David Haye, Millwall fan and recently crowned heavyweight boxing champion, seems to have given him a bit of a funny turn.
The headline for Stafford’s match report refers to Jason Price, who scored two of Millwall’s four goals, delivering “FA Cup knockout punches”. Stafford himself may not have written that, but the sub who did undoubtedly got the idea from Stafford’s liberal – some might say excessive – use of boxing metaphors.
Millwall’s “slow start and devastating finish” must have resonated with Haye, we are told. Two late goals “knocked the stuffing” out of the Blue Square Premier team, AFC Wimbledon. Those goals “skewed the scorecards”, obscuring the fact that the lower-league side “went toe to toe” with their more illustrious opponents for long periods.
Although the game finished 4-1, the first half was “evenly fought” and the midfield battle “fiercely fought”. AFC then “struck out in classic rope-a-dope fashion” and nearly scored. It was 0-0 at half-time, but Millwall “came out swinging after the bell” and took the lead in the second half. Showing “grit and determination”, AFC “fought back” and their keeper displayed “cat-like reflexes” to make an important save.
Millwall then scored again to make it 2-0. Strangely, even though the match was not yet over, Stafford describes AFC as “beaten but not bowed” (shurely shome mishtake? Ed). But there was to be no “comeback”; although the non-league team did manage to reduce the deficit to a single goal, they then conceded another one and Millwall’s fourth “finally put AFC on the canvas”.
Which is pretty much where I was when I reached the end of this report.
Just popped out for a sandwich. Ordered a baguette with pastrami, gherkin and mixed leaves. While putting this together, the woman in the deli told me she only had iceberg lettuce and checked that this was OK. Fine by me, but it makes me wonder – are there people in London who would complain about only getting one kind of lettuce leaf in their sandwich? “Oi! It says MIXED leaves up there! I’ve only got iceberg! What are you trying to do me? This is a disgrace! Give me some lollo rosso in this RIGHT NOW or I want my money back!’ Sounds like a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I have ended up writing quite a few articles about executive pay over the years. Like Michael Skapinker, I have heard this argument from many interviewees:
Why did senior executives believe they deserved to earn so much? “Because,” they said, paraphrasing the L’Oréal advertisement, “we’re worth it.” A war for talent was raging. If you paid peanuts you got monkeys.
As Skapinker says, this way of thinking doesn’t really work any more.
The problem, as is now clear, is that companies paid far more than peanuts but got monkeys anyway. The financial blow-up demonstrated that many highly rewarded people did not know what they were doing.
He seems to think that this latest public furore over pay is different to the others he has witnessed in the past 23 years and that reform is on the way. I’m not so sure. Many of those I’ve spoken to while researching the topic don’t seem to think anything will change much. Skapinker asks if journalists will still be writing the same pay stories two decades from now. I can’t help feeling that we will.
Guess who said this back in September 2006:
… by leaping into home ownership many people risk borrowing much more than they can afford, overstretching themselves and getting into financial ruin.
Answer: Martin Lewis, the self-styled “money saving expert”. Kudos to him for that. Read the rest here. His advice at the time was “plan for the worst and hope for the best” – advice which some people would have done well to take!
Robert Reich, a key figure in President Clinton’s first administration, had this to say in a recent blog post:
It’s always easier to stir up fear and anger against something that’s amorphous than to stir up enthusiasm for it.
He’s talking about US healthcare proposals, but he could just as easily be talking about anything to do with the EU.
Earlier this week, the Audit Commission warned that the second wave of the UK recession would lead, among other things, to an increase in domestic violence.
Today, we learn that sales of Stella Artois are surging. That’s a beer better known to hardened drinkers as “wife-beater”.
Can’t be just a coincidence, can it?
Interesting analogy from the BBC’s outgoing Washington correspondent Justin Webb in his last report from the US for Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent . Having described the country as “little more than an eating competition, a giant, gaudy, manic effort to stuff grease and gunge into already sated innards,” he goes on to analyse the origins of the global financial crisis:
You could argue that the sub-prime mortgage crisis – the Ground Zero of the world recession – was caused mainly by greed: a lack of proportion, a lack of proper respect for the natural way of things that persuaded companies to stuff mortgages into the mouths of folks whose credit rating was always likely to induce an eventual spray of vomit.
As one of Justin’s American friends might say: Eww! Gross!
