Words Dept.: category

Happy New Year to all 14 of my unique visitors! The beginning of 2008 is a chance to reflect on the fact that in the six months that I’ve been writing this blog, virtually no-one has read it. Despite my transparent attempts to build traffic by baiting Andrew Gilligan (which did, at least, result in [...]

Today’s Guardian blog piece called “Israel and Russia: the best of football friends” is a neat lesson in how to avoid legal action, while at the same time suggesting a “conspiracy theory” about how some of Roman Abramovich’s money, through the (Russian) Football Academy Foundation, is tied up in Israeli football. It hints at something [...]

Here’s an interesting piece in the New York Observer about the growing trend towards journalists becoming “brands”. According to the piece, gone is the “journalistic culture in which columnists were the only ones allowed to have a personality, and everyone else’s bylines were practically interchangeable”. Not too long ago only the giants of the mainstream [...]

I didn’t win. What a travesty. Well, it’s fair enough I suppose, as Renter Girl, the victor in the Best New Blog category, is an entirely worthy winner. I found the awards themselves slightly unusual. (Yes, I was actually there. We crept in, sat nervously at the back and left in time for the new [...]

I’m slightly behind the times on this one but I found the story about the government minister faking a photo at Tameside Hospital rather thought-provoking and not especially scandalous. On one level, I found it quite amazing that this particular piece of digital manipulation was ever considered good enough to be sent out. Culture Secretary [...]

I’m going on holiday this week so don’t expect any further comment on Gordon ‘n’ Ranvir – or anything else – for now. In the meantime, why not have a look at the shortlist for the Manchester Blog Awards. Bafflingly, something called Words Dept. appears to have been nominated. The link comes here so I [...]

Jeremy Paxman has provoked a veritable explosion of mild outrage in the papers after daring to question the age-old tradition that blokes with grey hair must always wear a tie while at work. His Newsnight blog suggests ties are now the preserve of “dodgy estate agents” (nothing like a 1980s stereotype to start the day), [...]

The Guardian’s bloggers have posted 13 times from the Glastonbury festival so far today, and 11 times yesterday. Perhaps a little excessive, considering the most obvious audience for this stuff is drowning in mud and cow shit on a farm in Somerset… and presumably hasn’t packed the MacBook. The majority of comment seems to be [...]

Apparently, every journalist should have a blog. So here’s mine.