Still Game
We put in a hard shift on behalf of our client, the Care Commission.
Take last Friday for example – which saw me dealing with no fewer than five separate media inquiries from assorted newspapers. A hefty workload by anyone’s standards.
But one of the more surreal inquiries didn’t come froma newspaper at all – it was from a wee wifie in West Lothian complaining about the advert for Scotland’s National Care Standards which is features an auld man cackling in his bath.
Worms: Out of can
A normally reliable source has informed that the six agenices appointed to the Government’s PR roster got there without so much as a face-to-face meeting.
The source adds: “They (the government) did not meet any of the shortlisted agencies, but did it on a box ticking exercise.”
I’m almost hoping this can’t be right. Surely it is not possible that roster agencies were appointed purely on the strength of how they completed the nefarious Invitation to Tender and without any face-to-face meeting?
If so. I think we may be hearing a distinct tap-tap-tap sound. Not only has the box been ticked, but the corpse of poor old credibility has been bundled into it and the tapping noise is the first nail being tentatively hammered into the lid.
Richard Dawkins
Scary two think that we’re just two auld people away from the birth of the man who changed everything.
It’s only 200 years since CharlesDarwin was born. And just 150 years since his genius work, Origin of the Species, was published.
Which means, if you take the average 100-year-old (there’s more of them around thanyou might expect) , then their granny would probably have been caught up in the incredible fury and fallout which followed that particular event.
My, how polite Victorian society scoffed at the notion that we were all descended from apes. And there’s still laughs aplenty left in Darwin today.
Everything about the Darwin Deniers is funny, with the possible exception of the havoc wrought on American schools by teaching by the proponents of “intelligent design“. Creationists, meanwhile, are actually pretty scary. Reading the Bible and considering some people still consider it a relevant template for 21st Century life is the only explanation I need on why that should be.
The last time I luaghed out lout at a TV science show was during a programme presented by Darwinophile extraordinarie, Professor Richard Dawkins. He’s the boffin-philosopher who takes every opportunity to rail against the stifling of scientific excellence by the (usually political) antics of fundamental God botherers.
Quite sensibly he points out there is now such sheer, overwhelming weight of physical evidence to back the theory of evolution that it fills thousands of museums, science building and centres of learning excellence the world over.
Millions upon millions of fossils and samples from every corner of the globe and from hundreds of thousands of years of the earth’s history. All pointing, inexorably and overwhelmingly to the fact that life evolved from simple biological soup to the current riot of diversity.
To deny evolution as a scientific fact, Dawkins suggested, was to deny every other strand of scienctife understanding we currently take for granted. Hence his suggestion that those same Darwin deniers should also reject Sir Isaac Newton’s long-held explantion gravity – by stepping off the roof of a 10-floor building.
Funnier still is the fact that many of those Darwin Deniers might actually try it – since they genuinely have tried to suggest the scientific explanation of gravity is codswallop.
Anyhoo, enough of the serious stuff and back to the unashamed trivia. Epoch changing revelations aside, the best thing bequested to us by the father of modern science is the Darwin Awards. A tongue in cheek celebration of the dearly departed muppets, morons and miserably unfortunate whose deaths give us cause to, well, laugh.
Bummed to death
All of which brings me to this tale which has crossed my PC desktop twice in the past couple of weeks. It’s appropriate for this blog, which for the day I am going to rename Black and White and Red Down Under. There could also be a nice new stripey jersey and advice on where to find the cheapest safari tickets for anybody offering better examples of such schadenfreude.
As if that wasn’t enough belly laughs for one day, I’m also pleased to see that the design firm behind Pepsi’s new logo have solved another great scientific imponderable. Darwin might have been able to explain the evolution of life, but rather annoyingly for atheists scientists, even he couldn’t explain the origin of everything.
However, no need for any more sleepless nights asking the big question, why? Because Pepis has been shown to be the mystical hand behind life, the universe and everything – and they’ve produced a hefty document to prove it.
Who said science couldn’t be funny?
Size Matters
Size really does matter. Oh yeah, baby!
At least the Scottish Government seems to believe so, in which case it must be true. Because what is clear is that the Holyrood Parliament mob like it B-I-G.
Yep. When it comes to the Scottish Government’s preferred PR suppliers, they like the appearance of an impressively sized package. Something really meaty.
Meancing looking bouncer
Confession time: I didn’t see it coming.
I’m referring to the controversy kicked up in PR circles by the Freedom of Information (FOI) request I put in to the Scottish Government about its PR roster.
Failing to predict this wee stushie (which I’m going to modestly call Rostergate) isn’t the best advert for a PR man, especially one with my crisis spotting and averting credentials.
But hey, we live and learn. Even at 40. And the more I learn about this little roster carve up saga, the angrier I get.
Naughty monkey
Some naughty little monkey has gone and caused all sorts of unwanted trouble in PR land.
According to this article in The Drum magazine (click here), the rascally blighter has provoked “outrage among the Scottish industry”.
Murder polis! It must be serious?
Indeed it is. The ne’er do well has only gone and threatened the status quo by – sharp intake of breath – using Freedom of Information legislation to find out exactly why the Scottish Government has chosen the six agencies appointed to its PR roster.
Well, today I can deliver an exclusive, by unmasking the bounder who is posing such a threat to the very fabric of the Scottish PR industry.
Webcam Swearing
As if the poor old BBC don’t already have enought to worry about.
Now they are having to cope with particularly determined and inventive cyber yobs!
This is the online, web 2.0 version of the drunks who bob about behind TV crews when they are doing pieces to camera from busy streets or event. Except this is funny.
Credit where it’s due – this was actually posted byPaul Fernley on his Journey into Journalims blog ( http://fernley.wordpress.com). So make sure you click here or visit the site and see the unedited work of a fiery Nottingham street artist.
Dunno what knd of response this might provoke in the modern media landscape. Perhaps:
After the Brand-Ross affair, it is vital that the BBC ensure heads roll for this appalling lapse in judgement…blah, blah… if viewers in Nottingham treat their licence fee with such disdain they shouldn’t receive a public broadcast service… yawn…bloggers who use the interne to celebrate and further publicise this type of anti social behaviour should be stripped of web privileges…ho and quite literally hum.
Enough of the attitude, just enjoy. This is the best bit of swearing on the BBC in donkey’s years (possibly ever).
