All Points North

Here is a job spec I was sent by an agency that thought I might be interested in some contract work.

We are currently seeking an experienced PR and Media Officer for this voluntary organisation.

OK super I can do that

The post is based in Bradford, the succesfull candidate will be responsible in producing, developing and maintaining publicity materials such as press releases.

No problemo

successful applicants must be organised,creative and motivated,and should have the ability to network with media and local press. They should have a strong track record in PR and have an established network of relevant contact in press. Candidates should have had a minimum of three years PR experience and approximatley three years experience within journalistic environment.

Hmm well I don’t have all that, but most of it, and the rest I could ‘busk it’ as they say

You will have a media related degree for this role.

Just like everyone else I’ve met that works in ‘the Media’ NOT.

Must have excellent communication skills, both oral and written.Excellent presentations skills Able to use Microsoft Office, Word and Excel.

Super should I send a CV? Oh hang on what’s this?

Must be able to speak Urdu or Arabic

Probably would have been better to put this at the start don’t you think? In BLOCK CAPITALS and BOLD

The MacUser Awards make you look like a bit of an idiot. It was good to be back in the offcie for a while but there were too many people not there that I really wanted to see.

Every now and again the politicians get it just right. The BBC news site is reporting on Sion Simon and his attempt to make a fool of David Cameron and his new video blog. The BBC explains:

Tories shrug off Cameron send-up

Sion Simon in the spoof video
“Yo. My name’s Dave,” says Sion Simon in his spoof video
The Conservatives have shrugged off a spoof video by a Labour MP who invites voters to sleep with David Cameron’s wife and take his children away.

Sion Simon wears a baseball cap and calls himself Dave in the film, mocking the Tory leader’s own WebCameron blog.

Simon is a reasonable soul however:

The Birmingham Erdington MP said it was “satire” and “not the slightest bit offensive”, and promised to remove it “immediately” if Mr Cameron asked him.

But here comes the beautiful part. A put down so eloquent and simple that it made me laugh out loud.* People forget that the Conservatives have been out of power for a long time but not out of politics and they have a few spokespeople that are just as good at spin as their Labour opposites.

The Tories countered that Mr Simon had “never been taken seriously” anyway.

End of.

Cameron 1 Simon -4 please go back to politics school you n00b.

If you needed confirmation that Sion had been royally bitchslapped the Labour response was the clincher

A Labour Party spokesman refused to say whether the party was embarrassed by Mr Simon’s video blog, saying: “It’s a matter for Sion.”

ie. if he’d asked us we’d have told him he was leaving himself open for a happy slap of magnificent proportions but he didn’t so we’re going to leave him swinging in the wind for a while.

* Not as hard or as long as the ‘punctuation on the radio’ incident but still amusing nonetheless.

Tomorrow we get the keys to our new house. We aren’t moving in as there are a few minor cosmetic changes to make. We’re knocking a wall down, taking the chimney breast out and converting the cellar to make an office so it’ll b a few months till we’re in proper. Hopefully before Christmas the house will be ‘liveable’.

The house is a former mill workers residence built in 1900 for the textile mill just half a mile away. Ironically Joanne now works in the converted mill building so it’s still serving its purpose today some 106 years later.

Ok, story number one is a follow up on a long running saga that CNN reported on earlier in the year. It was a national feature for a couple of days. Stories number three and four make sense as front page video but what in the name of all that’s holy is story number 2?

Technorati Tags:
CNN, Dead Dog

Infancy
Stage 1 is where you’re not sure what you’re actually doing. Here is a machine that sits in front of you and does, or doesn’t, do exactly what you want. The metaphor is lost on you because you’re not looking for one. All you want is a box and screen to let you surf the Internet or type a document or do something. It’s a simple as that. The fact that you bought it as it was the shiniest one in the shop or because a friend told you to is immaterial. What you have at the end of the day is a computer.

Childhood
Stage 2 begins your emergence from the cocoon of ignorance that makes you such a n00b. You’re still just using the collection of circuit board and plastic to ‘do stuff’ but the machine begins to stand out and beg for your attention. You notice that other machines aren’t quite the same and you begin to see that you’ve found something special that separates you from the crowd. You still just have a computer but it’s begun to take over how you look at technology; what it should look like, what it should feel like and how you should interact with it.

Lover
Stage 3 charts your movement from a person with a computer to someone whose beginning to become trapped in the quagmire of Apple spin and marketing. First off you find you surfing habits now include sites such as Mac Minute and MacUser and Mac World. Your shopping habit now has an extra criterion - what will it look like next to the Mac. You’re beginning to loose touch with the outside world and what non-Mac software is available. You suddenly find that using any version of Windows sends you into a blind panic as you realise it’s totally inadequate as an operating system.

Soldier
Stage 4 enters the most dangerous phase. Not only do you now frequent as many Mac sites as you can you’ve signed up to the various forums. When someone posts a question about how to Network a PC and Mac you find yourself unable to edit out the introductory line ‘well I can’t understand why you’d want to use a PC in the first place’. You now don’t even try to use Windows in any incarnation because you simply cannot bear to use such a shoddy, virus prone and flaky OS. Paul Thurrott and John Dvorak drive you insane but you cant not read everything they output. You also rebut every ‘mistake’ they make in long and detailed emails to them and also post the reply on all of the sites you are a forum member on.

Justice
Stage 5 having realised that people who write bad things about Apple and the Mac and the iPod are just using you to get hits you start to visit less and less often. You continue to trawl the forums and Mac sites but the accusation of fanboi after every post you make has meant you’ve curbed some of your more fruitful entries. You get the chance to use Microsoft Windows XP and though you still find it confusing and disorientating a seed is planted in your mind. Your friends can no longer rile you by saving things like ‘Macs are so shit in comparison to PCs you can’t do anything with Macs, they only look nice’

Old Age
Stage 6 the seed that was planted in your mind in stage five begins to grow and as you use Windows more you find yourself not so fazed by the differences. In fact you almost find yourself saying things like ‘the metaphor behind the two OSes is almost exactly the same’ and ‘I just prefer the Mac OS is all’ You still pay more than you should for a computer though you spend much less time in the forums at Mac sites and just surf by every now and again to check there’s no special announcements you should be aware of.

Senility and Death
Stage 7 curiously this is the easiest stage and once you reach the nirvana you wonder what all the fuss was about. You now use your Mac to do things with again, returning to the glorious warmth of the cocoon that tells you that your Mac is just a bloody computer and nothing to get worked up about. The Mac sites are visited only when needed and the idea of contributing to the forums makes you shudder. It’s at this point you realise that Windows is exactly the same as the Mac OS and the reason you were scared of it was the same reason everyone is scarred of things. Ignorance. What you have at the end of the day is a computer.

Technorati Tags:
Apple, MacUser, Paul Thurrott, silicon valley, Mac World, Crazy Apple Rumors, John Dvorak, Fanboy, Fanboi

Could just be me but I think C-Span and the Americans might have a different meaning for the term ‘roasted’. Sure sounds like fun anyway.

Technorati Tags:
C-Span, Roasting