Posts by Richard Llewellyn
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Just harking back to an earlier part of the thread, from todays Guardian is an interesting article about research showing the decline in Fleet Street journalismwith more and more news being passively reported from third-party sources
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Craig, something not quite right with that link (an extra 'l' seems to have attached itself to the address).
I'm interested in the Lit Blogs as well - I found it telling at a recent book club (yes) that I was one of the few enthusiastic blog-readers, and the club includes a prominent publisher. I don't think it was entirely a generational thing, but I think there is a lot of 'traditional' readers who haven't noticed yet how much many other peoples reading habits have changed.
The point to me was how the 'traditional' publishing industry was gearing up (or not) to deal with the slow march of the e-book, particularly when there is a tech-boom of people who do most of their reading of a screen.
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It was oriented around the tech industry, but ...
Thanks for the commonsense reminders RB .... just on part of that, I think its fair to say that from the PR perspective, it isn't always easy as you would think to know exactly what story is going to be of media interest (and I've heard many a journalist say the same thing with regards to their own editors - sometimes what you think is an absolute cracker gets relegated to page 13, and something that feels minor ends up front page <insert quizzical looks>).
I'd agree that a lot of people don't necessarily understand just how the media operates as a business, or have some misconceptions about how much control over media can be exercised. Add that to the ever-widening range and nature of media channels, all with different ways of working, or potentially different motivations, and one can see that every now and then a commonsense reminder is bloody useful.
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Jackie, for what its worth, I for one am very grateful of the benefits my daughters have had from the kindergarten system, not least the fact that several years on we've (adults and kids) made some good friends from there.
And the day that Voom and Jan Hellreigel played at the kindy fundraiser was a huge bonus ..
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As an 11 year old cousin of mine put it ... "I do enough home work without having to read about Harry and Hermione doing theirs."
LOL - thats brilliant
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Hell, I thought King Kong was the world's longest show-reel for an FX house, but failed utterly on every other level.
Oh, I don't know about that Craig, I enjoyed a helluva lot about King Kong, *all* it needed was an hour or so lopped out of it :)
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Meh - Fallowell is a mildly amusing troll of the highest order. Not worth giving a shit over.
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A christmas in Wales, early 1990’s - We’ve journeyed to Risca (small town South Wales) from our Westbourne Grove flat to share our first Christmas with our (seldom seen or heard from but fondly remembered) Uncle and Aunt in some 25 odd years.
Its bloody freezing. We are put up in our Aunts elderly Mums place (she has decamped to somewhere in England for the break). There is literally no heating in the house (we can’t imagine how an 80 year old gets by during a winter like this) so we sleep wearing every single item of clothing we have, watching our icy breath illuminate the dark room (although sadly, this extreme cold-snap has not extended as far as providing a white Christmas, mores the pity).
Christmas Eve and we are collected in an old Hillman and taken to the local pub for a drink. Everyone there seems to know each other or is related in some way (entire generations of family are dressed for pulling). Our ‘out-of-town-ness’ is obvious, but we are treated like royalty (and absolutely forbidden to buy a drink) and passed from group to group like mascots. There are a few kiwis there – rugby players who are plying their trade in the Valleys and now have Welsh families, who seemed pleased to make a connection with home, no matter how slight.
It’s a great night. The pub feels like a (collectively inebriated) real community, the songs start flowing, some of the contemporaries of our parents roll out funny stories of Mum and Dad (which I loved hearing), everyone’s non-Englishness is duly celebrated, and the craic is flowing thick and fast. It may be a stereotype about the Welsh being singers, but there is a lot of truth to it. We embarrass ourselves by contributing a pretty lame Pokarekareana compared to the full-throttle Tom Jones numbers going on.
The next morning we defrost ourselves in the shower, and head to our Uncles place for Christmas lunch. Some of the extended family is there in the morning to swap presents before heading off to other places.
The elders are pleased to see us and their hospitality is incredibly generous, but the cousins our own age seem to have zero interest in getting to know us. One asks us why we are here, as in, ‘why aren’t you back in NZ having Christmas with your Mam?’ Not sure what to say to that one, I guess the antipodean tradition of the OE isn’t universal. Another asks half-heartedly about London, having never made the 2-hour train ride in his life and seemingly with little interest in ever doing so.
Meanwhile, our Aunt has been slaving away in the kitchen all morning, stoicly refusing all offers of help. Finally, we get the summons, and we troop into the dining room for the big traditional Christmas lunch. Aunt starts to hand food through the servery window (and then spends the remainder of lunch on her own in the kitchen – singing out ‘I’m alright love’ every time we enquire as to what is happening out there).
My Uncle (who is not a small man) rips through his ham and turkey in about 5 minutes and immediately retires to his lazy-boy recliner to watch Morecambe & Wise re-runs. The kids all scram as soon as Dad leaves the table. Before we know it, we are literally the only ones left at the dinner table, crackers uncracked, toasts untoasted. Very strange.
We finish our lunch – a little perplexed – and then track down the family sitting contentedly in front of the telly in the front room.
The next day it’s back to the relatively understandable world of West London (just a bit more informed as to the different nuances of Christmas).
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the organ that Paul Holmes would look like if he was fed through a printing press
Love that line.
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Minted?
That reminds me, around our way 'Munter' and 'Cheryl' are pretty good candidates for words of the year (depending on which couch you are sitting on).