In Praise of Alex Hilton

OK, I know he's bound up in Labour politics, but his little Baltimore stunt is worthy of some praise.

Why? Because it exposed yet again the utter falsehood about journalists as steady, careful, scrupulous fact checkers. The Independent, The Guardian and the BBC all got caught out.

It wouldn't take much to check. Google "Mayor Baltimore" would have shown it wasn't the site, maybe emailled the Mayor (Hilton left the email addresses as the original ones) or perhaps checked the domain name.

Would I have gotten caught out? Maybe. But then, I don't make any claims about my journalistic abilities.

The one thing that might have got me wondering about it is the fact that Baltimore is a very violent city. I knew this for some time, but I just looked it up and it's the 5th most violent city in the USA. I'd be surprised if the mayor of Baltimore decided to go on the defensive about it's level of violence in such a way as to compare it with Midsomer. And that the YouTube channel only had 1 video might have made me wonder about it.

But how long would it have taken for journalists to do a WHOIS on the website? That will tell you exactly who registered it (and Alex Hilton is right there).

Powell and Kennedy

From The Telegraph:-

Gordon Brown has described Senator Edward Kennedy as "a great internationalist" who inspired social progress around the world as he joined tributes to the leading Democrat.

You know how Hannan (and the Conservatives) have been labelled as racists because Hannan said that he was influenced by Enoch Powell (despite the fact that Hannan has said that he didn't agree with his views on immigration)?

Can we therefore assume that Gordon Brown thinks that getting drunk and leaving dead women in cars to drown is OK?

Naked Sushi

From The Sun:-

Eating raw fish off a naked woman might not be to everyone's taste but it is the latest craze for stars all over the world.

Most people just prefer a tuna taco.

High Speed Rail

From The Independent:-

Under the proposals, the new trains would run from London and travel to Birmingham, Manchester, Warrington, Liverpool, Preston, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Passengers could reach Birmingham in just 45 minutes.

The thing is, I'm quite sceptical about that "Birmingham in just 45 minutes" thing. The fastest TGV service, TGV-Est takes 45 minutes to travel from Paris to Reims. Paris to Reims is about 90 miles, where London to Birmingham is 110 miles.

Now, there's no doubt that high speed constantly gets quicker, but over relatively short distances there is so much time in acceleration and braking (as well as limited speed in suburban areas) that the room for improvement is slight. The thing that almost no high speed advocates recognise about France is the scale of the country and the distribution of cities.

CCTV

OK, set aside the question of privacy, should we have so many of these? From The Telegraph:-

Fewer than one crime is solved by every 1,000 closed circuit television cameras, the Metropolitan Police, Britain's biggest police force, has admitted.

So, to solve one crime, we have to fit, install and support 1,000 CCTV cameras? How much does that cost?

A large proportion of the cash has been In London, where an estimated £200 million so far has been spent on the cameras. This suggests that each crime has cost £20,000 to detect.

I can't help thinking that maybe hiring a few more coppers on the street might be more effective.

Envy of the World...

.. yea, right.

Read

The Rest of Us Spend Our Own Money

BBC Spends £11,000 on Leaving Party for Jenny Abramsky

The BBC spent more than £11,000 of licence payers' money on a leaving party for executive Dame Jenny Abramsky, it was revealed today.

After 39 years of service, the former director of Audio & Music was thrown a lavish do at BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House.

The extravagant celebration included a food and drinks bill of £8,130, £575 on invitations and £1,320 on event management, according to figures quoted in the Daily Telegraph.

So, an £11K party for 540 guests for someone who's leaving?

In the big long list of "things you're doing wrong", one of the first is doing anything for people who are leaving. You don't have to stop them leaving (obviously) or motivate them in any way.

OK, I'm not against a send-off, but the fanciest one I ever went to was for a head of IT at a large company. His send off was in the big conference room, and the catering staff put out glasses of champagne and orange juice and some crisps and nibbles. It certainly wouldn't have cost £20 each to put that on. The "event management" would have involved his PA sending out an email to everyone.

'After such a long period of distinguished service many people wanted to show their respect and appreciation for Jenny's outstanding contribution to the organisation and this was reflected in a guest list of 540 who were invited to the event.'

If you want to show your respect and admiration, do it with your own goddamned money, not mine.