Sept 4th - Sept 10th 2006
Sunday Demonisation
Saturday Tate Modern
Friday John Drummond
Thursday Tate Modern
Wednesday Big Brother porn
Tuesday Tate Modern
Monday Dead trees
Sunday 10th September
You couldn't make it up...
The Sunday Telegraph, it will not surprise you to hear, does not have a particularly strong record when it comes to defending Britain's somewhat beleaguered Muslim population.
Somewhat heartening then, you might think, to find a front-page story (albeit single-column) based on an interview with Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, in which he speaks of his fears that "continued negative attitudes towards people of his faith could provoke a vast and angry backlash."
"There are a few bad apples in the Muslim community who are doing terrible acts and we want to root them out," says Dr Bari.
"But some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they're all terrorists - and that encourages other people to do the same."
"If that demonisation continues, then Britain will have to deal with two million Muslim terrorists..." he continues, in an arguably ill-advised fit of hyperbole.
Admonished thusly, how does The Sunday Telegraph respond?
By headlining the piece (in the ink version; the on-line story is different) as:
Muslim leader warns of 2m terrorists
Sections of the media demonising Muslims, treating them as if they're all terrorists? Why, the very idea!
Saturday 9th September
Tate Modern, Summer 2006
Friday 8th September
Obituary Watch: Sir John Drummond
Rather gangling in youth, John Drummond grew into a bulky and imposing middle age. His eye was beady, his voice orotund (he could snort, even harrumph), his delivery so torrential that there were those who believed that, like some oboists, he had mastered circular breathing.
A frequent public speaker, he had an apparently inexhaustable fund of anecdotes, some funny, all telling.
He could be scathing: he described Brian Kay, a popular presenter, as "someone who never uses one cliché when two will do and has all the unctuousness of a stage curate".
And his contempt was caustic. He reserved it for people such as Birt, and, famously, Nigel Kennedy, whose distracting sartorial self-indulgence and artificial estuary accent outraged him.
Kennedy, who had got under his skin by telling him he had "an attitude problem", asserted that Drummond exemplified "the typical arrogance of a self-appointed guardian of the arts world".
And it is true that Drummond could be arrogant and vain and intolerant, that he could drop names like confetti at a society wedding, that he did, indeed, enjoy moving among the glitterati, that he claimed as friends some who were surprised by that description and that he was capable of taking credit for the achievement of others.
No wonder he offended people. But his autobiography, Tainted by Experience (the title quoted from the sneer of a desk-bound BBC suit) is testimony to a man who had panache, the guts to take risks and who didn't mind - who indeed enjoyed - putting supercilious noses out of joint.
How grey and narrow the arts world will seem without his gadfly brilliance.
John Drummond was appointed CBE in 1990 and knighted in 1995.
Bob Lockyer survives him.
Thursday 7th September
Tate Modern, Summer 2006
Wednesday 6th September
Snappy little spread in yesterday's Daily Star, detailing the personal appearance fees of various Big Brother ex-housemates, with Aisleyne (£2,150) and Nikki (£2,250) topping the menu and Bubble, bless, bumping along the bottom at £750.
No word on how much it's costing the Jonathan Ross show to display Nikki and Pete as a double act next weekend (and won't that be an intellectual gabfest), nor any mention of fees from downloadable filth (as discussed, at tasteless length, previously).
What's that, you say? You don't think Imogen or Lea were personally involved in the distibution of their porn tapes? Right.
Tuesday 5th September
Tate Modern, Summer 2006
Monday 4th September
At first, from the late 1990s until around 2002, newspaper companies simply replicated their print editions online.
Yet the internet offers so many specialised sources of information and entertainment that readers can pick exactly what they want from different websites. As a result, people visited newspaper sites infrequently, looked at a few pages and then vanished off to someone else's website.
Another early mistake was for papers to save their best journalists for print. This meant that the quality of new online editions was often poor. Websites hired younger, cheaper staff.
This (and much much more than I currently have time to digest) from the Economist's special report, Who killed the newspaper? - essential reading for those, like me, who constitute the "younger [mentally], cheaper staff".
......previous week
