UnorthodoxY Archive It's wasn't what you thought

Somebody at the BBC probably feels quite stupid. Apparently they interviewed a taxi driver thinking he was an expert on internet music downloads. From the article:

Not only that, but the stocky black man with the strong French accent bore little resemblance to the picture on the expert’s website, which showed a slim white man with blue eyes and blond hair.

… and a bit later …

According to Mr Kewney, the stage manager said: “To be honest, I did think it couldn’t be you. I mean, I’ve seen your picture on your website, and he didn’t look like you.

I wrote this yesterday but never got round to posting it, since then the BBC have embraced their screw up and were running a fairly long piece on BBC News 24 this morning, interviewing both the real expert and the other dude. Kudos to them for being good sports about it. Here’s the online version of the story.

And Bonus Nonsense, photoshopped comic book covers over at Something Awful.

Flash of the headlights to Londonist for the BBC link and The Woolamaloo Gazette for the Something Awful link.

It’s been a quiet few weeks on UnorthodoxY, which is strange since it’s not been such a quiet couple of weeks for me. I’ve held off on some posts partly to see how a few things turned out and also because I’m not very good at posting stuff about me. I’m going to take the time to do a bit of a ‘me’ post, some waffle written after a few bottles of Leffe. But posted the following day, ‘cos I know better than to post stuff drunk. 😉
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One of my simple pleasures is to order lots of cheap stuff from the marketplace at Amazon. Since everything is sent from different sellers all the delivery times vary. This means that for around a week I get a nice parcel posted through my door every day or so.

This makes me happy. Although I’m not so sure my postman approves.

In a previous post I mentioned I was trying out an online calendar, and whilst it’s useful I find it very hard to abandon the old fashioned paper approach for some things.

I like to write my to do lists on paper. The very act of writing shows that you’ve accomplished something and you’re that little bit closer to doing everything on the list, after all every journey begins with a single step. Sometimes that step is enough to calm my not-doing-anything guilt for an entire weekend. There’s something very satisfying about being able to touch the list, scribble over it, move it around, get coffee stains on it and then hide it under a book safe in the knowledge that you’ve done something that day.

I like paper calendars too. I like to have a year in front of me, all on one page so I can see what’s happened and what’s coming up. I like to mark off days as they pass, so I can see the passage of time. This has a downside to it, having a year on a fairly small page means there’s not much space to write details for upcoming events. So I resort to symbols and abbreviations, this has it’s own set of problems.

What’s coming up ? Ah, ‘sd’ ? What’s that then ? Smoked Duck ? Scooby Doo ? Sultry Dandelions ?

I have no idea, but it’s in two weeks time, I’ll have to work out what it means before then.

I’ll add it to my to do list …

Wandering home tonight I found this notice tapped to a lamppost:

As you can see the photo is terrible (sadly only had my phone on me) and I can’t remember the exact wording but the gist of the message is: “Looking for Graham/Graeme. I’m the french girl you met at some club at the Venue. Etc, etc, didn’t get number, etc, etc, please call number“.

This appeals to me for two reasons, first the sheer optimism in hoping that the man in question will see the notice (or someone who knows him will). And, second, for sheer trust involved in sticking your phone number on a lamp post. On Leith Walk. On a Friday night.

Best of luck to you, french girl.

Well I’m back, mostly in one piece, I’ll put some more thoughts and pictures up in a few days. Until then, quick thoughts. Prague is a beautiful city, stunning buildings everywhere you look, it’s full of tourists … mostly Irish it seems … but the bars aren’t run by Aussies yet.

The beer is plentiful, the food is great, the public transport is excellent, and it’s all generally good value (but get a couple of streets away from the big tourist areas for the best prices). Well worth going to, take a boat trip or bus tour round the city to get your bearings when you arrive.

And for some reason there’s a staggering number of women who’ve dyed their hair this particular shade of dark metallic red, I thinks that’s a trend that should take off here as soon as possible.

Fantasy novels have a bad name. And it’s not unjustified, as most of them are terrible — full of unpronounceable names and randomly tossed in strangeness in an effort to feel ‘different’ and ‘other-worldly’. I’m currently reading a not-very-good fantasy that, not content with dishing out most of the standard fantasy stuff, seems to have lifted the majority of the story from Star Wars. And not the good three episodes either.

Let’s be positive though, I’m not going to name the book I’m reading. I’m going to recommend a set of good fantasy books that even fantasy-haters will love. I promise.
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