I was discussing Joe Kinnear’s foul-mouthed press conference tirade with friends over the weekend and have been surprised to find quite a lot of sympathy for the nutter. The popular view, expressed also by football pundits in the past couple of days, seems to be that although he probably went a bit over the top, [...]

Jay Rayner, the Observer food critic, is researching a feature on genetically modified food. The reason I know this is that he’s written a post on the Guardian’s Word of Mouth blog asking for pointers. It’s the first time I’ve heard of a national newspaper doing such a thing. Rayner describes it as “a different [...]

Later this week, a supposedly unforgettable, magical, vast, breathtaking and captivating cultural event is coming to Liverpool. It’s called La Machine and it’s a large-scale art project created by French artist François Delarozière.
I use the word “supposedly” because nobody can truly know whether it will live up to the various adjectives used above (which, like [...]

The proposed Manchester congestion charge and the £3bn Transport Innovation Fund that the city is bidding for has created a turf war between two rival business lobbying groups in which few people - other than the odd business hack - seem to be interested.
For those who may have missed it, one group, called United City (geddit?), is in favour of the TIF funding package [...]

Here’s Sharon Stone spouting forth on the Chinese earthquake. Sharon, you see, is a friend o’ Lama and believes in, like, karma and shit.
I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else… I don’t like that. I’ve been concerned about, oh, [...]

It will be depressing if the imminent destruction of the world is allowed to come about while Mondeo man worries about the cost of diesel, as the Guardian suggested yesterday. But at least another vaguely ethical issue seems to be rising up the media agenda like rubbish school dinners and free-range eggs.
I’m talking about the [...]

So many press releases are ruined by inane quotes. So here’s Morrissey, talking about his forthcoming gig at this summer’s O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, showing how it should be done. I like to imagine the press officer making up something suitable, sending it off to Moz for approval, and finding out later that [...]

For all-round wrongness, Carol Vorderman advertising cheapo chicken from Farmfoods in the ad-break for Dick Fearnley-Whittington’s Be Nice to Cocks programme (or whatever it was called) was bad. But professional dimwit Danielle Lloyd’s recruitment as the “face” of a new campaign for Rustlers’ Microwaveable Offalburgers (TM) surely trumps it.
Ignoramus Lloyd famously said, during an appearance [...]

Compare and contrast Britain with North Korea. One has a state-controlled media, news blackouts and pages and pages of congratulatory and uncritical PR puff about senior members of a privileged, unelected elite. The other is North Korea. Boom boom.
The BBC has been justifying its decision not to report for the last ten weeks the [...]

I’m watching GMTV again. The section called Entertainment Today, or just ET, as it was introduced. (Sadly there are no aliens, unless there’s something we don’t know about Jenni Falconer.)
They just featured an interview with Antony Cotton off of Coronation Street, who was discussing the storyline in tonight’s episode. I fully understand the purpose of [...]