Friday, 23 October 2020

Things that have irritated me this week

From The Conversation:

Soot, otherwise known as black carbon, is also made when burning dirty fuels, and emitted in large quantities from older cars.

Why use an actual word that everybody understands when a made-up phrase will do, eh?
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You need three devices to activate an iPod Touch once you have wiped it and reset it to factory settings. The iPod Touch itself, a PC to log on to the website and requesting one-time codes, a mobile phone for receiving texts with the one-time code. You then enter these codes either back onto the website or onto the iPod Touch. This process is highly circular and took me nearly an hour.
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From the BBC:

"They were swimming against the tide - but their whole lives were about swimming against the tide so they ploughed on.
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From The Evening Standard:

John Leslie remembers vividly the moment his showbiz career ended and the life that he knew it changed forever; when he instantly went from lovable TV host to suspected rapist.

He and Fern Britton had spent the morning of October 23, 2002, treating ITV viewers to their usual blend of cookery, lifestyle features, and the tribulations of the celebrities of the day. But over on Channel 5, the host of The Wright Stuff Matthew Wright had blurted out Leslie’s name when discussing Ulrika Jonsson’s claim in her autobiography "Honest" that she had been raped.


What I can't find out one way or another is, did Ulrika confirm or deny that it was him or did she remain silent (which sort of implicates him)? Assuming she denied it, did Matthew Wright ever apologise? Did Matthew Wright ever explain why he thought she meant John Leslie? It's all well and good passing on unfounded rumours and tittle-tattle in a small group of colleagues or friends, but surely there's a rule against doing it on daytime TV? That's like hitting "reply all".

I know that this is not relevant to the recent case, but it was Matthew Wright's comment that sparked it all off, and I'd really like to know.

1 comments:

Bayard said...

The "From the BBC" one reminds me of the line in "Pirates of Penzance":
"Come friends who plough the sea..."