Taking Out The Trash

Fishy business

Rather marvellous expose by Ben Goldacre on Durham County Council's idiotic plan to feed some children fish oil pills and see if they get brainer.
It's not so much the plan but the completely crap way they behaved when people raised sensible criticisms of it.
OK - the using children to test nonsense is pretty poor behaviour too.
Must be something about institutions as they're doing the same in prisons and it seems similarly pointless.

Shut it you slaaaaag

Interesting post over at A Very Public Sociologist on class, The Sweeney, Morse and John Thaw. Most cop shows now seem denuned of class - the adaptations of Rankin's Rebus novels are a prime example.

I always liked the way Raymond Chandler described Dashiell Hammet.

He took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley.

I do mean at some point to try and track down Between The Lines to watch again so I can try something that doesn't think gritty means shooting and shouting a lot.

The criticism that dare not speak its name

To a certain extent I'm not that sympathetic to the plight of Nick Clayton.
Clayton got sacked fom the Scotsman for a personal blog posting which reported the views of an estate agent that if he wanted to sell his house then  not to bother with advertising with paper.
Why the cold heart? Because newspapers are a tough business and if you're going to crap in your own nest make sure you carry a big brush.
Journalism.co.uk has a good summary of the spat.
Ultimately, I'm with Clayton because I think the Scotsman has simply behaved poorly - but part of me thinks "what did you expect?"

Rule of Thumb (pt 2)

I posted recently about plans in the village to set up hitchhiking points for people without access to cars or who simply wanted to travel greener.
And, via the Total Politics Local Government Blog, I got sent a link to a similar though much more organised scheme in Washington State.
Thank you Robino for the tip.
We should think about importing this idea; simple, cheap, community-orientated and it should also encourage people to feel a bit safer about their environment by confronting the perception that the worst is happening.

No apples required

Getting inducted at UWE tomorrow as my first visiting lecturer role in journalism is about to get underway.
And if the students get to do stuff half as interesting as Paul Bradshaw's lot it should be fascinating.

One for every day of the, er, fortnight

I've linked twice in three posts to a certain political blogger who certainly doesn't need any help from me to increase traffic flow.
So better redress the balance with this nice spot on the Daily Kos regarding man-of-the-people John McCain.
If he couldn't remember how many homes he has, how will he remember how many cars? Since you can only drive one at a time, 13 seems a little extravagant.
Apropos the election: much that I want to Obama to win and believe McCain/Palin to be a scary prospect , Michael Tomasky's constant cheerleading in the Guardian print and online edition is getting a little irritating. I can log on to Obama Pravada anytime but I like reasoned analysis from my commentators. Tomasky kinda answers this charge here.
And appropos the West Wing post previously: the title for the official Obama site above is 'Welcome to Obama for America'. That was Jed Bartlet's campaigning slogan in said very tremendous show. (sorry, two posts about the West Wing tend to get me excited).

West Wing back (well, just a teeny bit)

The New York Times has got a scoop. West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin writes an imaginary exchange between Jed Bartlet and Obama.
You can see it here.
Hat tip: Iain Dale.

Police, camera, action

A National Union of Journalists (NUJ) campaign against the 'terrorising' of journalists by police has gained European support.
The European Federation of Journalists has said it is backing efforts by the to defend journalists covering protests and demonstrations.
Police Forward Intelligence Teams regularly record journalists covering demonstrations, especially on climate change.
The NUJ has posted a video explaining some of the issues.
Twas ever thus but things have quietly got more intense over the last few years. You can see some reports here and here.
Of course, everybody can take a picture so what has changed is that people are willing to turn the cameras on the accusers.

Top political journalists

Iain Dale is encouraging people to vote in a poll for the most influential political journalists.
You can vote here
The results will appear in a future edition of Total Politics magazine.
My tendancy in these things is to vote for people I like reading - it doesn't follow that they are influential. Also - is Richard Littlejohn a political journalist? I mean he commentates on political matters and is certainly influential. I guess it's a pretty arbitrary distinction.
And then when I came to think of people they all seemed to write for papers on the right.
Anyhow: Toynbee, Fraser Nelson at the Speccie, Ben Brogan, George Pascoe-Watson (he's still at the Scum, right?), Martin Bright, Michael White all swing some heavy lead. Oh, and Kevin Maguire who is almost as ubiquitous as Mr Dale.

Jargon alert

Ben Duckworth's post on the Total Politics local government blog pointed me in the direction of the Leadership Centre for Local Government.
Funded by the government it trains senior councillors and officers to be better equipped to do their job - very admirable.
It describes its work on lead councillors as:

Today’s leaders truly represent their localities. Thanks to the emphasis on place shaping and a convening role for all local public services, a council leader really does represent their place rather than just the public services that their authority might have previously delivered to the locality. What’s more there’s an increased emphasis on the community leadership role of frontline councillors. The Leadership Centre is spearheading leadership development work with politicians.

Perhaps training people to speak in plain English would be a help as well.

Still, churning out local politicians who talk such gobbledegook means there will always be work for people like me who get paid to translate it.