Words Dept.: category

It’s a month to go until the result of the referendum on the Transport Innovation Fund and peak-time congestion charging in Greater Manchester – and the debate is moderately warm! Stockport council, led by Liberal Democrat Dave Goddard, is opposed to the TIF bid and has been a target of particular attention from the Yes [...]

One of the most enlightening pieces of journalism re the Russell Brand/Jonathan Toss incident was when the BBC’s David Sillito solicited the views of people queuing to watch the filming of the Alan Titchmarsh Show and compared them with the views of people queuing to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The former group (old people) [...]

Russell Brand and his pal Jonathan Toss have clearly touched a nerve over this whole “He fucked your granddaughter” business. But let’s get it into perspective. Why is Gordon Brown even thinking about this when real actual stuff is happening in the world? Aren’t we supposed to be on the verge of a global recession [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]