Posts

BLOG ON BLOG

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  I started blogging in late 2017. Originally, I set up a series of Blogger sites but graduated to a WordPress address after completing a ‘How to’ adult education course in January 2018. Most of my stuff now is highlighted in WordPress but the Blogger sites are still employed as sorts of storage depots for blogs as I generate them. However, I now give the latter platforms little publicity. My reasons for commencing blogging are varied. While I’m definitely not a writer, I do enjoy writing and the establishment of a blog provided one environment for this pastime. Blogging seems purpose-built for the mug lair who wants to jot down a few points and launch them into the cosmos. An increasing dissatisfaction with social media platforms also influenced my decision. I had been a long term user of Facebook and my status updates were starting to lengthen to the point that some would require about five minutes of reading before a ‘like’ or comment could be attached. Clear...
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MY TOP TEN MOVIES

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  RANGE-FINDING Like most people, I’m fairly partial to movies and have been ever since I was a sprog. Movies operate on lots of different levels- even the bad ones- and I’ve always thought that they are markers for the societies in which they’ve been developed and made. They might not be mirrors but they don’t have to be. Revisionism, back mapping and brazen opinion often fill that void. One of the first movies that I can remember was The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and it left an almost permanent post-it note on my skull regarding the power of movie making. The gill man scared my pants off as he lurked amongst the underwater reeds while an unaware Julia Adams activated a weird type of Australian crawl/ backstroke combo on the surface above. To a seven year old, the lass was not so much shapely as potential bait for the terror below. Strategic bubble-generating and the murky lagoon value-add to the experience. But terror is only one attention-gette...
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FACEBOOK'S IMAGES

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  Like language, the images that inhabit the worlds of the social media are mind-numbing and cliché ridden. One often hears about a 24 hour news cycle and I reckon that the same sort of principle applies to postings and status updates. Imaging plays a big part in this as it’s meant to capture the punter’s attention. Alongside language being caught up in the vortex of decreasing meaning and quality, the images that users generate have become predictable and formula-driven. What’s made the whole thing worse is that platforms like Facebook have substantially reduced access to online news services and special interest sites so that newsfeeds are now full of images highlighting skulls, café cuisines, half consumed glasses of a rough red (often accompanied with a scent-infused candle chugging away in the background) and punters jumping up and down for some reason. And it’s this kind of dross that has become the reality for anyone activating an electronic device. Image a...
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IN TELEVISION WE TRUST

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The crap on television amazes me. Since retiring, I’ve had large blocks of time released for idiot box viewing and yet very little of what’s being offered has captured my interest. The loud ‘After the tennis’ promotions only highlight a landscape filled with tiresome reality shows and mind-numbing dramas. A familiar theme runs through all these programs and- you guessed- it’s stereotyping. The most popular shows have it as the ‘hero’ element of the shit that they’re serving up. I refuse to apologise for the cooking show lingo but don’t get me started on that. The good doctor is one such example. I don’t pretend to know much about autism at all but what I am aware of is pretty much what everyone knows, namely, ·          Autism covers a large range of conditions, behaviours and features of individuals. ·          The reason that autism is described as having a ‘spectrum’ is mainly to accommod...
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NEW YEAR'S EVE MEDIA BINGO

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MEDIA BINGO   1. All eyes were on Sydney. 2. Ushered in the new year. 3. The envy of the world. 4. Clover Moore 5. Disappointing ABC coverage 6. Crowds were generally well-behaved. 7. Grinch 8. Sore heads 9. Bondi beach 10. Lifting of the curfew. 11. Packed harbour. 12. All police leave was cancelled. 13. Money would be better spent on the homeless. 14. Estimated 50 trillion viewers!
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WE LIVE IN STRANGE AND STUPID TIMES

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We live in strange and stupid times. The current uproar about ‘fake’ news and how to protect ourselves from it really leaves one wondering about mental capacities.   First of all, how does anyone come to the conclusion that ‘news’ is an objective and/ or sacred thing? Does C. Wright Mills’ ‘The Power Elite’ (1956) ring any bells? What about the debates over the last fifty years on the increasing concentration of media ownership here in Australia? What passports does Rupert Murdoch currently hold and is his home in the New World or the Old Dart?   To assume that news ‘providers’ connect with indisputable truths is insane. The media has jettisoned its role as the fourth estate and it hasn’t taken the social media platforms to highlight this development. That role was dead long ago.   Secondly, if facebook is going to flag potential fake stories on its newsfeeds, the obvious place to start is on the punters’ status updates. I’ve never seen as many ‘happy’ pe...
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SIXTY MINUTES

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The standard of news and current affairs here in Sydney is at an all-time low…..and I mean LOW. What’s more, I’m fairly confident that this is the same all over Oz.  I can’t ever remember a time when there have been more references to networks’ television shows in their own news services than just recently. On occasions, it even happens on the national broadcaster’s 7.00pm news which is inexcusable. Then we have the ‘lazy Susan’ platter of topics that goes round and round and round. You know what I’m talking about………. welfare cheats, deadbeat dads, cutlass-waving mad Muslim clerics etc etc. All this passes for news. Just tonight, I viewed the ‘young royals’ touring India and Princess Mary’s/ Margaret’s/ Eugenie’s (fuck, whoever it was!) dress blew up in the wind. That was the focal point of the vision and story. Not the real news that they may have been strengthening the links between India and Great Britain. Perhaps this has been the situation all along but, to me, it seems...
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