FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
The BEST royal baby headline yet


 
Via satirical magazine Private Eye (obviously.)

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
07.24.2013
06:13 am
|
UFO caught on TV news over Houses of Parliament?
08.16.2011
04:41 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
While British MP Tom Watson was discussing recent developments in “Hackergate” on Channel 4 News today, a strange, unidentified object sped through the back of frame, over the Houses of Parliament. Though best known for their hard hitting, intelligent journalism rather than any extraterrestrial frivolity, Channel 4 News still wondered if they had accidentally captured a UFO on tape? Or, perhaps the Murdochs leaving the country? What do you think?
 

 
Via Channel 4 News
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.16.2011
04:41 pm
|
Back to the nineties: Fabulous scans of ‘Select’ music magazine

image
 
Fuck me but pop music hasn’t changed much in 20 years. Headlining this year’s UK festivals is the very best of what the 1990s had to offer, Radiohead, Primal Scream, Pulp, The Prodigy, The Charlatan, and even, er, U2. Okay, the Gallagher brothers are unlikely to kiss-and-make-up, but there are still rumors about a Blur reunion, which means we can party like it’s 1995.

The very thought could make a fan weak-eyed and teary-kneed for the glorious UK music mag Select, which faithfully documented the very best of music during the decade.

Select‘s dedication to Brit Pop was only part of its appeal, for what made the magazine delightful, fun and certainly essential, was the quality of its writers who penned columns, interviews and reviews in its silky pages.

Now these names read like a Who’s Who of TV and pop culture, from the darkly handsome genius of Graham Linehan, through the grumbling brilliance of wit and wisdom from David Quantick, to the ever-smiling J. B.Priestly of pop, Stuart Maconie, and let’s not forget Miranda Sawyer, Alexis Petridis, Andrew Collins, Sarra Manning, and Caitlin Moran.

To jump start the memories, some kindly soul has scanned a damn fine selection of covers and some lovely features from Select magazine “to give random flashbacks to the 90s music scene.” How cool is that? Answers on a postcard, please.

Now check the Select scans here.
 
image
 
image
 
Previously on dangerous Minds

David Quantick: The Music Industry Hates You


 
More groovy covers, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.28.2011
06:45 pm
|
Rupert Murdoch eats foam rather than humble pie

image
 
It was a splatter of foam pie rather than any humble pie that Rupert Murdoch received today. It added a surreal touch to an odd day for the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Hearing, where Rupert Murdoch at first came across as a seemingly frail Wizard of Oz. It was only his hand slamming the table in front of him that gave any hint this is a man used to getting his own way; a man who is rarely questioned, let alone cross examined by a round table of MPs, who were, let’s be fair, rather ineffectual.

Rupert was humbly evasive, while is son, James easily deflected questions, though he did admit the rather shocking news News International has been (and may still be) paying the legal fees of the phone hacking journalist Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire.

Then came the pie master, an alleged comedian called Johnnie Marbles, who may have delivered a better hit than any member of the Select Committee, but in doing so took away from the serious intent of the proceedings.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.19.2011
04:51 pm
|
Hackgate: The Movie

image
 
Hackgate - parody movie trailer created by Paul and Lisa at Handface.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.17.2011
01:19 pm
|
Rupert Murdoch: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

image
 
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?

This little clip of a puppet Rupert Murdoch, having an editorial with his vulturous editors, is almost as fresh today as it was twenty-five years ago, when it first aired on the satirical sketch show Spitting Image.

Is it a surprise that twenty-five years ago Murdoch was seen as a ghastly, untrustworthy, muck-raking shit?

How could anyone have forgotten?

The fact that so many did, and the fact that Murdoch became so very, very powerful over those twenty-five years, fully underlines the extent to the unhealthy and undemocratic relationship maintained by past governments with the media tycoon.

Surprising how quickly some people forget.

Let’s make sure we don’t.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Does Murdochgate Spell the End of Oldstream Media?


Who benefits by Rupert Murdoch sacrificing the ‘News of the World’


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.12.2011
05:46 pm
|
What the TV Sees: Andris Feldmanis’s Television Portraits
07.06.2011
06:53 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Apparently, in Estonia the average person spends 3 to 4 hours a day watching television. A fact which photographer Andris Feldmanis has used for the basis for his latest project TV Portraits.

Feldmanis’s idea is quite simple but highly effective, as he has reversed the point of view (a bit like My Game Face or a photographic version of The Royle Family), creating portraits of people “posing for their television sets.”

“It is not a critique of mass media and its influence, it is a document of what the TV sees.”

See more here.
 
image
 
image
 
Via Booooooom, with thanks to Tara McGinley
 
More ‘TV Portraits’, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.06.2011
06:53 pm
|
Screwed: The next ‘News of the World’ cover?

image
 
The cover most readers would like to see.
 
Previously on DM

The phone-hacking scandal that may finish Rupert Murdoch’s ambitions


 
Via Frank Chi
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.05.2011
07:31 pm
|
The phone-hacking scandal that may finish Rupert Murdoch’s ambitions

image
 
In 2002, 13-year-old Milly Dowler disappeared. In the hours that followed, her family left desperate messages on Milly’s cell phone begging her to get in touch. There was no response, and the family’s messages soon filled Milly’s voice mail.

Then something strange happened - the messages were deleted. This gave the family hope that Milly was still alive.

But the truth was: Milly hadn’t deleted the messages. She was dead, murdered by Levi Bellfield.

It now turns out that it was a private detective, Glenn Mulcaire, employed by Rupert Murdoch’s paper the News of the World, who had allegedly hacked into the ‘phone and deleted the messages. As the Guardian reported on Monday:

Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl’s own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.

News International’s Chief Executive, Rebekah Brooks was the paper’s editor at the time. In an email to staff Brooks claimed she was “appalled and shocked” by the allegations, and thought it “inconceivable that [she] knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations.”

Of course, this is what Brooks has to say, until there is evidence to the contrary.

Even if that evidence is forthcoming, it is unlikely that Brooks would have sanctioned such actions on her own, which opens up the whole of Rupert Murdoch’s News International for very serious and critical examination.

British Prime Minister, David Cameron has described the allegations as “a truly dreadful act”

And demanded that the police:

“...pursue this in the most vigorous way that they can in order to get to the truth of what happened.

“I think that is the absolute priority as a police investigation.”

Which may bring interesting results, as another former editor of the News of the World tainted with phone-hacking allegations is Andy Coulson, who was appointed by Cameron as his Director of Communications - a position Coulson eventually quit because coverage of the phone-hacking affair.

For those wondering what they can do to ensure these allegations against the News of the World, and other papers, are investigated vigorously, then Roy Greenslade has some pointers in his Guardian blog:

1. Boycott the paper. Treat it just as the people of Merseyside did when The Sun ran its infamous Hillsborough story in 1989 following the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters.

2. Pressure advertisers and media buyers not to buy space in the News of the World and to withdraw ads they’ve already booked.

3. Back the call for an independent public inquiry into the whole hacking affair. It will be officially launched tomorrow at a meeting in the Lords.

4. Demand to know who has been, and is, paying the legal expenses of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was jailed for intercepting voicemail messages on behalf of the News of the World.

5. Ask the PCC if it has inquired of News Int whether it, or any of its associated companies, has been responsible for paying the legal fees of a convicted man? If it has not, why not? And is it therefore time that it did so?

Crucially, the ‘phone hacking allegations come just as Murdoch has succeeded in gaining regulatory permission for a 100% takeover bid for the British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), the UK’s largest pay-TV broadcaster, with over 10 million subscribers.

avaaz.org are currently organizing a campaign to stop Murdoch’s media take-over:

We have just three days to flood the government’s public consultation with requests to stop the deal.

We’ve done it before—in the last consultation Hunt said our avalanche of 40,000 messages delayed the deal as his officials had to read each email carefully, fearing a legal challenge. But the government is pushing the deal through despite the hacking scandal of murdered Milly Dowler—the latest grim episode that shows how Murdoch’s media tramples standards and ignores ethics.

Murdoch already controls more of our media than is legal in many countries – and is notorious for using his power to skew our politics. The official consultation ends this Friday—let’s tell the government we don’t want his media empire to control our largest commercial broadcaster. Send a message now—using your own words to make it stand out—calling on Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron to refuse Murdoch’s BSkyB deal until there’s a full Competition Commission review and a full public inquiry into phone hacking.

You can add your name to the petition here.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.05.2011
06:19 pm
|
Reading Gay Talese

image
 
His first assignment for Esquire was to interview Frank Sinatra - no easy task, as Old Blue Eyes had knocked back such requests from the magazine over several years. But Gay Talese wasn’t so quickly put off. He spent 3 months following Sinatra and his entourage, racking up $5,000 in expenses. Not common then and unthinkable now in these days of Google and Wikipedia.

The result of Talese’s hard work was “Frank Sinatra has a cold”, possibly the best profile written on the singer and certainly one of the greatest pieces of New Journalism written at that time. As writer and broadcaster Michael Kinsley has since said, “It’s hard to imagine a magazine article today having the kind of impact that [this] article and others had in those days in terms of everyone talking about it purely on the basis of the writing and the style.”

What’s great about “Frank Sinatra has a cold” is what’s best about Talese as a writer - his ability to make the reader feel centered in the story by reconstructing the reported events using the techniques of fiction. You can see this technique in another of his essays, “Joe Louis: The King as a Middle-aged Man”, which begins:

“  ‘Hi, sweetheart!’ Joe Louis called to his wife, spotting her waiting for him at the Los Angeles airport.

She smiled, walked toward him, and was about to stretch up on her toes and kiss him, but suddenly stopped.

‘Joe,’ she said, ‘where’s your tie?’

‘Aw, sweetie,’ he said, shrugging, ‘I stayed out all night in New York and didn’t have time.’

‘All night!’ she cut in. ‘When you’re out here all you do is sleep, sleep, sleep.’

‘Sweetie,’ Joe Louis said, with a tired grin, ‘I’m an ole man.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but when you go to New York you try to be young again.’”

The article has its own symmetry and ended with one of the boxer’s ex-wives, Rose, watching home footage of Louis’s fight against Billy Conn:

“Rose seemed excited at seeing Joe at the top of his form, and every time a Louis punch would jolt Conn, she’d go ‘Mummmm’ (sock). ‘Mummmm’ (sock). ‘Mummmm.’

Billy Conn was impressive through the middle rounds, but as the screen flashed Round 13, somebody said, ‘Here’s where Conn’s gonna make his mistake: he’s gonna try to slug it out with Joe Louis.’ Rose’s husband remained silent, sipping his Scotch.

When the Louis combinations began to land, Rose went ‘Mummmm, mummmm,’ and then the pale body of Conn began to collapse against the canvas.

Billy Conn slowly began to rise. The referee counted over him. Conn had one leg up, then two, then was standing - but the referee forced him back. It was too late.

But Rose’s husband in the back of the room disagreed.

‘I thought Conn got up in time,’ he said, ‘but that referee wouldn’t let him go on.’

Rose Morgan said nothing - just swallowed the rest of her drink.”

It’s a clever and poignant ending, revealing as much about Rose and her relationship with her husbands, as it does about Talese’s talent as a writer. It also signals his need to record everything, which is all the more impressive when you know Talese never used a tape recorder when working on these profiles.

Gay Talese was born into a Catholic, Italian-American family in Ocean City, New Jersey in 1932. It was an upbringing he would later claim made him “not unfamiliar with the condition of being an outsider”:

“Indeed it was a role for which his background had most naturally prepared him: an Italo-American parishioner in an Irish-American church, a minority Catholic in a predominantly Protestant hometown, a northerner attending a southern college, a conservative young man of the fifties who invariably wore a suit and a tie, a driven man who chose as his calling one of the few possessions that was open to mental masqueraders: he became a journalist, and thus gained a licence to circumvent his inherent shyness, to indulge his rampant curiosity, and to explore the lives of individuals he considered more interesting than himself.”

His father was a tailor and his mother ran a dress boutique, it was here the young Talese learned his first journalistic skills:

“The shop was a kind of talk show that flowed around the engaging manner and well-timed questions of my mother; and as a boy not much taller than the counters behind which I used to pause and eavesdrop, I learned much that would be useful to me years later when I began interviewing people for articles and books.

I learned to listen with patience and care, and never to interrupt even when people were having great difficulty in explaining themselves, for during such halting and imprecise moments (as the listening skills of my patient mother taught me) people are very revealing - what they hesitate to talk about can tell much about them.”

In his brilliant “Frank Sinatra has a cold” Talese created a portrait of the singer that captured his over-bearing “mood of sullen silence”, his capricious nature, which made him at times both cruel and aggressive; or kind and overly generous. Talese revealed the background of Sinatra, the only child from Hoboken, who was scarred at birth by forceps, considered a weakling, reared mainly by his grandmother, his father a Sicilian who boxed under the name of Marty O’Brien, his mother worked at a chocolate factory, was strict and ambitious, who originally wanted her son to become an aviation engineer.

“When she discovered Bing Crosby pictures hanging on his bedroom walls one evening, and learned that her son wished to become a singer too, she became infuriated and threw a shoe at him. Later, finding she could not talk him out of it - ‘he takes after me’ - she encouraged his singing.”

Unlike other members of the New Journalism group (Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson), Talese didn’t put himself at the heart of his essays, rather he saw himself as a non-judgmental writer, who allowed each subject to speak for him / her self. Nowhere was this more true than in “The Loser”, his incredible profile of boxer Floyd Paterson, which included a shocking admission by the former World Champion:

“Now, walking slowly around the room, his black silk robe over his sweat clothes, Patterson said, ‘You must wonder what makes a man do things like this. Well, I wonder too. And the answer is, I don’t know…but I think that within me, within every human being, there is a certain weakness. It is a weakness that exposes itself more when you’re alone. And I have figured out that part of the reason I do the things I do, and cannot seem to conquer that one word - myself - is because…is because…I am a coward.’”

Non-judgmental, perhaps. But somewhere down the line, Talese makes the decision of what to keep and what to cut out, and by nuance and omission, he shapes our impressions, and gives the reader an intimacy mere facts could not supply.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
04.29.2011
06:59 pm
|
Weird and wonderful sixties ad for Afri-Cola
04.10.2011
06:40 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Now in its 80th year, Afri-Cola, Germany’s answer to those other well-known soft drinks, has used some wonderfully thirst-quenchin’ advertising to promote itself over the years. None more bizarre than this lip-smackin’ beauty from 1968, which says everything you need to know about the sixties and the “sexy-mini-super-flower-power-pop-op-cola”, Afri-Cola in sixty seconds.
 

 
With thanks to Steve Duffy
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
04.10.2011
06:40 pm
|
‘Sometimes we sit for hours staring at a seashell’: Subverting romantic fiction
03.22.2011
09:03 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Artist, Alex Holder posed with her boyfriend, Ross Neil, to recreate classic covers from Mills & Boon‘s romantic fiction novels. Alex is part of Oli + Alex the award-winning creatives behind ads for Amnesty International, Nike, McDonalds, and Brylcream.

Alex’s Mills and Boon project subverts the original cover paintings, and are tagged with barbed titles:

Sometimes we sit for hours staring at a seashell.
Other times he’ll hold me by the neck in front of the pyramids.
But there’s nothing we like more than nearly kissing each other near some horses.
I always try to look hot in front of him so he doesn’t leave me.

 
image
 
The photos were created as part of the W Project for International Women’s Day, and as Alex explained in the Daily Mail:

“It was my idea, I thought it would be funny. I painted the backdrops, and sourced the clothes myself.
They were shot in my studio at my flat in London with the help of my creative partner Oli Kellett and a lot of fake tan.”

Mills and Boon have been publishing racy romantic fiction for over one hundred years, and Oliver Rhodes, Head of Marketing, at the company welcomed the Alex’s homages, as he told the Guardian:

“Our covers have always captured contemporary fashions and styles from our classic 1960s book jackets to our newest range, Riva. It’s great to see that Mills & Boon’s iconic covers continue to inspire the art world.”

 
image
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
03.22.2011
09:03 am
|
John Butler’s superb animation ‘T.R.I.A.G.E.’

image
 
John Butler’s superb latest animation T.R.I.A.G.E. is a speculative tale showing how:

A sick and failing area is swiftly restored to sound financial health

T.R.A.G.E. is an acronym for

Target
Respond
Identify
Administer
Globalize
Exit

Sound familiar?

Of course, triage is “the process of determining the priority of patients’ treatments based on the severity of their condition.” With this in mind, any similarities between actual events is purely intentional.
 

 
Bonus animations by John Butler ‘Unmanned’ and ‘Sub Optimal’ after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
01.19.2011
07:10 pm
|
Eve in 2,000 A.D. - What 1930s designers thought would be fashionable in the future
01.13.2011
06:36 pm
Topics:
Tags:

 
A Pathetone Weekly news featurette from the 1930s, in which our intrepid news hound guessed what the average woman about town would wear in 2000. The light-bulb head-dress is a winner.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
01.13.2011
06:36 pm
|
Julian Assange ‘faces execution or Guantanamo detention’

image
 
If things weren’t serious enough for Julain Assange, the Guardian reports that the Wikileaks founder could be at “real risk of the death penalty or detention in Guantánamo Bay if he is extradited to Sweden on accusations of rape and sexual assault, his lawyers claim.” According to the report:

In a skeleton summary of their defence against attempts by the Swedish director of public prosecutions to extradite him, released today, Assange’s legal team argue that there is a similar likelihood that the US would subsequently seek his extradition “and/or illegal rendition”, “where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantánamo Bay or elsewhere”.

“Indeed, if Mr Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr Assange should be executed.”

The 35-page skeleton argument was released by Mark Stephens, Assange’s lawyer, following a brief review hearing this morning at Belmarsh magistrates court.

The WikiLeaks founder, who is on conditional bail while his extradition case is being considered, appeared for no more than 15 minutes in the dock, while supporters including Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger looked on and waved support from the public gallery.

He later emerged to give a brief statement to a large number of reporters, saying: “Our work with WikiLeaks continues unabated. We are stepping up our publications for matters relating to Cablegate and other materials.

“These will shortly be available through our newspaper partners around the world – big and small newspapers and human rights organisations.”

The skeleton argument outlines seven points on which Assange’s lawyers will contest his extradition, which was sought by the Swedish DPP, Marianne Ny, following accusations from two women that he had sexually assaulted them in separate incidents in August.

One accusation, that Assange had sex with one of the women while she was asleep, would amount to rape under Swedish law if proven. Both women had previously had consenting sex with Assange.

The other points of argument include:

• That the European arrest warrant (EAW) is not valid, because Ny is not the authorised issuing authority, and it has been sought for an improper purpose – ie “simply in order to question him and without having yet reached a decision on whether or not to prosecute him”. This, they argue, would be in contravention of a well-established principle “that mere suspicion should not found a request for extradition”.

• That there has been “abuse of process” as Assange has not had full disclosure of all documents relating to the case, in particular text messages sent by one of the women, in which she allegedly said she was “half asleep” (ie not fully asleep) at the time they had sex, and messages between the two women in which they allegedly spoke of “revenge”.

• That the “conduct” of the Swedish prosecutor amounts to abuse of process. Assange’s lawyers cite the fact that the rape allegations were initially dismissed and then reopened by a second prosecutor, that the prosecutor has refused Assange’s offers of interview, and that it has not made documents available to Assange in English. They also cite the leak of part of the prosecution case to the Guardian as “a breach of Mr Assange’s fair trial and privacy rights”.

• That the alleged offences would not be considered crimes in the UK, and therefore, they argue, an EAW between the two countries would not be valid.

• That the extradition attempt is politically motivated, and that his trial would be prejudiced because of his political opinions or because, they argue, of his gender.

Assange’s team will make their case on 7 and 8 February, when Assange will return to court for the full extradition hearing. The case for his extradition is being argued by the Crown Prosecution Service on behalf of the Swedish prosecutor; the full prosecution case is not expected to be released before that date.

District Judge Nicholas Evans agreed at this morning’s hearing to ease the terms of his bail conditions, which require Assange to wear an electronic tag and report daily to a police station close to the stately home on the Suffolk/Norfolk border where he is staying. For the nights of 6 and 7 February Assange will be permitted to stay in London.

 
Via The Guardian
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
01.11.2011
10:45 am
|
Page 1 of 2  1 2 >