Happy birthday to us - podcast number fifty out now!
Posted by David Hepworth on 16 April 2008 - 7:03am.
This week in our fiftieth weekly podcast we're following up Steve Bowbrick's feature about Wikipedia in the current issue. Does it work? Is it accurate? Why do PRs fiddle it? Is this all Mark Ellen's life amounts to? Plus even more pressing issues from the interweb, such as rock stars who look like old lesbians and stuff white people like. If you want to make a spoken or sung contribution to the podcast you can call 0207 078 8406 outside of what are laughably called office hours and leave your contribution. Keep it short, clean and legal.
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Can I just say at this point...
that my Dylan impression was done stone cold sober. I'm afraid I've had to forsake the pleasure of the grape and hops.
Does that make it better or worse?!
It was proper
The Millennial Voice [TM] is by no means easy to do without sustaining serious injury (unless perhaps you're Mavis Staples), but you did a fine job. No booze, perhaps, but surely you must have prelubed with a dozen or so gaspers in quick succession before attempting that, didn't you?
And why didn't Mr Matt splice it in, together with skirky's equally creditable Tommers?
All in good time, AV...
...all in good time.
Men who look like Old Lesbians
Jono Coleman (on right):
http://www.lowetrust.com/images/devschool3.jpg
http://www.english-premier-league.info/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/tomas-...
And two from your address book, sorry...
http://www.noelgay.com/images/artists/danny_kelly.jpg
http://www.wlct.org/Culture/linconline/images/stuartmaconie1.jpg
Barry Womanilow
?
Excellent! How did yours come up as full photo and mine not? Any idea?
Pictures
Adding a link to a picture won't embed it - for that you need a little bit of HTML - see the FAQ for instructions.
The Whole of the Truth
Here is Mike Scott of the Waterboys explaining his adventures in Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/yskn4o
He played a game of editing tennis with an anonymous Wikipedian, using his own entry as the ball.
Stuff White People Like
Haven't heard the 'cast - must get round to listening to them, as I hardly ever do - but "checked out" the Stuff White People Like site, which is very funny, so thanks for tip-off.
Unpopular observation, in present company, I imagine but surely a British version would be called Stuff Guardian Readers Like.
I wittered on too long...
...for your answering machine. It was probably a godsend. I have a voice for silent movies.
Who did you do?
The best impressions are, of course, the ones of people nobody for the life of them can remember what they sound like.* I've dined out for free many times on the strength of my Bruce Dern.
[*(C) Vaguely Wonky Grammar R Us 2008. All dangling-referent rights reserved.]
When do we get the pleasure of hearing your....
...Bruce Dern. I don't think my budget will stretch to a restuarant meal, but I'll buy you an ice cream cone. If your impression is really good you can have a flake.
I was demonstrating some of the record playing technology used by allied soldiers in World War II.
Dangerous..
A podcast about editing wikipedia entries, and a link to Mark Ellen's wikipedia entry?
You know you're asking for trouble, don't you?
You're not the Messiah, Nick
You're a naughty boy.
Wikibiscuit: Half Man Half Biscuit on Wikipedia
Mark Ellen complains that his Wikipedia entry jumps straight to the trivia connecting him to Blair. He should feel some sympathy then for Dr Miriam Stoppard, whose Wikipedia entry (only about sixteen lines long in total) contains two lines saying the following:
"Stoppard was immortalised in the song Architecture and Morality; Ted and Alice by the band Half Man Half Biscuit. ("The horrible sincerity of Miriam Stoppard makes me want to go out and commit mass murder")."
Half Man Half Biscuit must have quite a far-reaching presence on Wikipedia if they appear in the profile of everyone they mention in song, even those they disparage.
[A quick bit of research reveals the following: Nerys Hughes - check, Lionel Blair - check, Len Ganley - check, Rod Hull - check, Dickie Davies - check, Fred Titmus - check, Bob Todd - check, Ted Moult - check, Trumpton - check, etc, etc. I could go on. No mention of oven gloves in the Joy Division article though. Spoilsports.]
HMHB
The 'Biscuit must have been made for Wikipedia -- other references appear in the entries on Subbutteo, Chigley, History of Bristol Rovers, The Libertines, Animal Farm, Scalextric, Wayne Kramer, Leadbelly, Hannu Mikkola... I got bored, but Google can find 116 separate entries.
Danny bloody Baker...
... infiltrates The WORD Podcast with his "hilarious", yet typical low culture, suggestion of a "funny" website about people that look like his idea of a lesbian.
WTF?
have you seen the site?
It's not war and peace but many of the pictures are striking I don't think it's offensive I found the link on Guardian women's page , if anything it points out that many of our percieved indicators of gender and sexuality aren't as defined as we would like to think.
Brilliance
It's the most astute observation of a social trend I've seen since Spot The Mullet was all the rage. If you're a bloke in your 50s or 60s and get some eyework done, undergo brutal yet thorough depillatory processes to annihilate all traces of whiskerage and nostril hair, cook up a Botox spike or three and top off the effect with some highlights in your hair, the result is that you don't look like a young bloke, as presumably intended, but that you will invariably look like an old lesbian. Every time.
So what if the tip-off came from Danny Baker (who I once couldn't stand either - I generally find the Artful Dodgery cheeky-chappy bonhomie he exemplified very hard to take - but now realise is a Thoroughly Good Egg)? The truth is the truth. Just look at Barry Manilow (above).
In fact, so taken have I been with the idea - what with it being Friday and all - that I'm working up a new thread on just this very subject, limiting the sampling universe to those MWLLOLs who fall within the Word ambit of interest.
A high culture practitioner replies:
Oooh - hark at her.
General point
I was glad to hear praise for wikipedia from one branch of the media, it's become a today programme/news quiz cliche that it's wrong and ill informed. Certain journos scorn always makes me wondered if they don't feel threatened of losing their postion of being the fount of all knowledge and also maybe they should be more honest when they themselves make mistakes.
When only this week the mail and guardian quoted the same crime report and came to different conclusion we should always be careful in believing what we are told.
Wiki
Mark Ellen's Wikipedia entry has received quite a 'working over' has it not?
wikipedia entry for mark ellen
Ok so i've given it a make over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ellen
added a picture, made sure all facts have sources, and strengthened a few bits. (well i was bored).
Mark/David - It could do with a date of birth or hint of such and compared to some Mark has barely a trace of stuff about him online so its hard to do.
I also made sure that it was more than just ugly rumours ...
Two things
My favourite Wiki story concerns Chelsea footballer and serial diver Arjen Robben. His entry was edited to say that his apartment contained no furniture as he always preferred to stay on his feet.
Second thing, sorry to sound like a broken record, but despite promises that the sound quality will get better, it just hasn't. David Hepworth was by far the most audible on this week's edition. If Producer Matt is going to contribute he should get his own microphone as walking down Piccadilly this morning I couldn't hear a word he said, and Mark Ellen wasn't much better.
If you don't believe me, try this: download Andrew Collins' podcast and your own onto an ipod. Walk down one side of Upper Street listening to yours (on buds, as the vast majority do) and back up the other side listening to his. There really is no comparison, and yet his is apparently recorded just using the in-built mic on his laptop!
Maybe it is just a case of people not speaking into the microphones, so perhaps you guys should get Kate Bush style headset microphones which can never stray from your mouths?