Agence France-Presse: Japan has officially ended its refuelling mission for coalition forces headed for Iraq.
Agence France-Presse: Martina Hingis is retiring from tennis as she admitted she is under investigation after testing positive for cocaine.
Ananova: Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has refused to resign in the wake of the guilty verdict in the De Menezes Trial.
France 24: Turkey's Prime Minister has denied that Turkish airspace is closed to Northern Iraqi traffic.
OneNews from TVNZ: Two photo albums documenting art lotted by the Nazis during WW2 have been donated to the US National Archives and Records Adminstration.
And Finally...
BBC News: The Russian rugby team have had some of their boots stolen, days before a big game!
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Halloween costumes getting too sexy?
I was watching CBS 2 News at 5 online on the 31st October and saw a story how halloween costumes are geting sexier. The same angle also appeared on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
I'm sorry, but I hate halloween. I really don't think we should be celebrating it. But I will say this. It is the one day of the year when people can wear a ridiculous costume, and nobody takes a blind bit of notice. Why spoil people's fun? If that's what they want to do, let them do it. But I think we should change the theme away from celebreating witches and vampires to something else less gruesome. Though, maybe, people are doing that anyway...
I'm sorry, but I hate halloween. I really don't think we should be celebrating it. But I will say this. It is the one day of the year when people can wear a ridiculous costume, and nobody takes a blind bit of notice. Why spoil people's fun? If that's what they want to do, let them do it. But I think we should change the theme away from celebreating witches and vampires to something else less gruesome. Though, maybe, people are doing that anyway...
News Roundup: Wednesday 31st October 2007
7News Australia: Singapore Airlines has asked passengers of the new A380 superjumbo to refrain from sex in their first class suites.
Agence France-Presse: A spanish court has convicted 21 people of involvement in the 2004 Madrid bombings, but not the alledged mastermind.
Al Jazeera: Over 100 Myanmar/Burmese buddhist monks have marched for the first time since the crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
WBZ TV, Boston: Does a YouTube video from New Mexico actually show a ghost? View it for yourself, then make up your own mind.
Digital Spy: ITV1 is to relaunch in 2008, including the return of News At Ten.
SwissInfo: The European Union will seek to outlaw inciting, recruiting and training for terrorism under new proposals to be adopted next week.
And Finally...
BBC News: An ex prisoner in Australia has decided to buy his old jail cell!!!
Agence France-Presse: A spanish court has convicted 21 people of involvement in the 2004 Madrid bombings, but not the alledged mastermind.
Al Jazeera: Over 100 Myanmar/Burmese buddhist monks have marched for the first time since the crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
WBZ TV, Boston: Does a YouTube video from New Mexico actually show a ghost? View it for yourself, then make up your own mind.
Digital Spy: ITV1 is to relaunch in 2008, including the return of News At Ten.
SwissInfo: The European Union will seek to outlaw inciting, recruiting and training for terrorism under new proposals to be adopted next week.
And Finally...
BBC News: An ex prisoner in Australia has decided to buy his old jail cell!!!
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 21st October 2007
It's difficult to keep finding stories in the publically released ratings from BARB every week, but some of the numbers prove interesting, not just the ones I call the weekly Hall Of Shame either.
Last week, I said that we would see the first ratings for Dave. And we do. But unfortunately, we only have the share and reach ratings, no ratings for individual programmes. But we can see that Dave benefited from the usual pre-launch publicity, and the controversy surrounding the branding itself, to earn itself a 1.1 share / 23.7 weekly reach. Over 11 million viewers tuned into the channel sometime during its first week. Dave may have also benefited from being added to Freeview. Dave certainly did seem to take viewers from other Freeview broadcasters, but other channels may have also lost out to Dave as well. We'll know more after a few weeks worth of ratings.
Dave made it into the top 10 digital channels this week.
01. ITV2 - 1.8 / 32.2
02. Sky Sports 1 - 1.3 / 12.5
03. ITV3 - 1.2 / 14.7
04. CBeebies - 1.2 / 10.9
05. Dave - 1.1 / 23.7
06. BBC3 - 1.0 / 26.3
07. E4 - 1.0 / 20.0
08. Sky One 1.0 / 16.2
09. Film 4 - 0.9 / 14.8
10. ITV4 - 0.8 / 19.9
On though to the weekly Hall Of Shame, which welcomes some new entrants and a returning entrant this week. Once again, these results are listed in no particular order...
Sky Travel Shop - 35,000
Sky Arts - 111,000
Anime Central - 74,000
Business Channel - 69,000
Community Channel - 149,000
Discovery +1.5 - 133,000
Diva TV - 124,000
Fashion TV - 197,000
Film 24 - 133,000
Fox News - 183,000
Golf Channel UK - 166,000
Legal TV - 140,000
Life One - 86,000
MusFlash - 73,000
MUTV - 66,000
Overseas Propety - 104,000
Prime TV - 135,000
Real Estate TV - 138,000
Rockworld TV - 72,000
Setanta Golf - 113,000
Simply TV - 60,000
The Baby Channel - 5,000
The Travel Channel - 179,000
TWC Fight - 188,000
Wedding TV - 95,000
Wedding TV +1 - 110,000
Xleague.TV - 101,000
You gotta feel sorry for The Baby Channel. First week as the lowest rated channel, and you seriously couldn't get a lower rated week. Just 5,000 viewers across the entire 7 day period. That means almost all of the schedule, was zero rated.
And we welcome Fox News Channel to the Hall Of Shame with their lowest ratings ever in the UK. We also welcome Discovery Channel +1.5 to the Hall Of Shame too. It seems that as far as timeshift channels go, +1.5 hours doesn't seem to work too well.
Last week, I said that we would see the first ratings for Dave. And we do. But unfortunately, we only have the share and reach ratings, no ratings for individual programmes. But we can see that Dave benefited from the usual pre-launch publicity, and the controversy surrounding the branding itself, to earn itself a 1.1 share / 23.7 weekly reach. Over 11 million viewers tuned into the channel sometime during its first week. Dave may have also benefited from being added to Freeview. Dave certainly did seem to take viewers from other Freeview broadcasters, but other channels may have also lost out to Dave as well. We'll know more after a few weeks worth of ratings.
Dave made it into the top 10 digital channels this week.
01. ITV2 - 1.8 / 32.2
02. Sky Sports 1 - 1.3 / 12.5
03. ITV3 - 1.2 / 14.7
04. CBeebies - 1.2 / 10.9
05. Dave - 1.1 / 23.7
06. BBC3 - 1.0 / 26.3
07. E4 - 1.0 / 20.0
08. Sky One 1.0 / 16.2
09. Film 4 - 0.9 / 14.8
10. ITV4 - 0.8 / 19.9
On though to the weekly Hall Of Shame, which welcomes some new entrants and a returning entrant this week. Once again, these results are listed in no particular order...
Sky Travel Shop - 35,000
Sky Arts - 111,000
Anime Central - 74,000
Business Channel - 69,000
Community Channel - 149,000
Discovery +1.5 - 133,000
Diva TV - 124,000
Fashion TV - 197,000
Film 24 - 133,000
Fox News - 183,000
Golf Channel UK - 166,000
Legal TV - 140,000
Life One - 86,000
MusFlash - 73,000
MUTV - 66,000
Overseas Propety - 104,000
Prime TV - 135,000
Real Estate TV - 138,000
Rockworld TV - 72,000
Setanta Golf - 113,000
Simply TV - 60,000
The Baby Channel - 5,000
The Travel Channel - 179,000
TWC Fight - 188,000
Wedding TV - 95,000
Wedding TV +1 - 110,000
Xleague.TV - 101,000
You gotta feel sorry for The Baby Channel. First week as the lowest rated channel, and you seriously couldn't get a lower rated week. Just 5,000 viewers across the entire 7 day period. That means almost all of the schedule, was zero rated.
And we welcome Fox News Channel to the Hall Of Shame with their lowest ratings ever in the UK. We also welcome Discovery Channel +1.5 to the Hall Of Shame too. It seems that as far as timeshift channels go, +1.5 hours doesn't seem to work too well.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
News Roundup: Tuesday 30th October 2007
Al Jazeera: Israel threatens to invade Gaza.
BBC News: 1,000,000 + people have backed comic Stephen Colbert's fake presidential bid.
CBN News: US anti-child porn law is the focus of a free speech case.
EuroNews: French families insist they were not buying Darfur kids.
Independent Television News: An economic research group predicts that UK house prices will fall by about 6% during 2008.
And Finally...
Ananova: A group of german grannies have turned their knitting circle into a company selling kinky knitwear!!!
BBC News: 1,000,000 + people have backed comic Stephen Colbert's fake presidential bid.
CBN News: US anti-child porn law is the focus of a free speech case.
EuroNews: French families insist they were not buying Darfur kids.
Independent Television News: An economic research group predicts that UK house prices will fall by about 6% during 2008.
And Finally...
Ananova: A group of german grannies have turned their knitting circle into a company selling kinky knitwear!!!
Leather skirts making a decent comeback?
Fashionising has noted that Ashley Olsen (the second half of Mary-Kate and Ashley) has been spotted out wearing a leather skirt, and making it look good. The post's writer comments that he hasn't seen a leather skirt worn well for years.
Quite honestly, I'm not sure what he's talking about. Leather clothes always look good in my book. Joanna Rice, who I previously blogged about, was known as "The Weather In Leather" and always managed tomake leather look good.
But then I'm biased. I like leather clothes in general, which I can trace back to seeing Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg in leather catsuits for black and white episodes of The Avengers. Add to that the red leather dress that Emma Samms wore in an episode of Dynasty and you could say I was in love with leather.
One of these days, perhaps I should committ to the blog my "style rules" as I call them. They're not rules as such, but they are observations of things I have seen over the years that I like.
Quite honestly, I'm not sure what he's talking about. Leather clothes always look good in my book. Joanna Rice, who I previously blogged about, was known as "The Weather In Leather" and always managed tomake leather look good.
But then I'm biased. I like leather clothes in general, which I can trace back to seeing Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg in leather catsuits for black and white episodes of The Avengers. Add to that the red leather dress that Emma Samms wore in an episode of Dynasty and you could say I was in love with leather.
One of these days, perhaps I should committ to the blog my "style rules" as I call them. They're not rules as such, but they are observations of things I have seen over the years that I like.
Monday, 29 October 2007
News Roundup: Monday 29th Ocotber 2007
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Coalition is gaining ground on Labour according the latest poll in The Australian.
Comment: I have a poll of my own here too, albeit somewhat less scientific. Don't forget to add your vote. You can vote on the poll anytime before November 24th.
Al Jazeera: Somalia's Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, has resigned.
NY1: New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer is under fire over his driver's licencing plan.
Comment: CNN's Lou Dobbs notably has taken aim at Spitzer. The Quick Vote on his main show page is about the story and he also has a list of those who oppose the Governor's plan, under the title "Great Americans"! Hmm, methinks Dobbs is showing some bias here.
CNN Politics: FEMA's Public Affairs Director will not be taking up his new job as Head of PR for the Director of National Intelligence in the wake of the fake news conference last week.
ESPN: Boston sweep Colorado to win World Series for second time in 4 years.
Comment: Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. It was a richly deserved victory. But let us not forget, the Colorado Rockies are champions too. They are the National League Champions, and thoroughly deserved their place at the big game.
France 24: Shilpa Shetty has been so busy since winning Celebrity Big Brother, including currently starring in a musical in Berlin, that she hasn't found the time to start a family.
Comment: Shilpa, I'm available, and I would consider it an honour to have a family with you.
And Finally...
Ananova: A thief has accepted an unusual invitation - they stole a book from a modern art exhibition called "Steal This Book"!!!
Comment: This was a real book, written by Abbie Hoffman and published in 1970. I guess the thief took the title a little too literary-ly!!!
Comment: I have a poll of my own here too, albeit somewhat less scientific. Don't forget to add your vote. You can vote on the poll anytime before November 24th.
Al Jazeera: Somalia's Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, has resigned.
NY1: New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer is under fire over his driver's licencing plan.
Comment: CNN's Lou Dobbs notably has taken aim at Spitzer. The Quick Vote on his main show page is about the story and he also has a list of those who oppose the Governor's plan, under the title "Great Americans"! Hmm, methinks Dobbs is showing some bias here.
CNN Politics: FEMA's Public Affairs Director will not be taking up his new job as Head of PR for the Director of National Intelligence in the wake of the fake news conference last week.
ESPN: Boston sweep Colorado to win World Series for second time in 4 years.
Comment: Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. It was a richly deserved victory. But let us not forget, the Colorado Rockies are champions too. They are the National League Champions, and thoroughly deserved their place at the big game.
France 24: Shilpa Shetty has been so busy since winning Celebrity Big Brother, including currently starring in a musical in Berlin, that she hasn't found the time to start a family.
Comment: Shilpa, I'm available, and I would consider it an honour to have a family with you.
And Finally...
Ananova: A thief has accepted an unusual invitation - they stole a book from a modern art exhibition called "Steal This Book"!!!
Comment: This was a real book, written by Abbie Hoffman and published in 1970. I guess the thief took the title a little too literary-ly!!!
Sunday, 28 October 2007
More Than Just A Viewpoint
If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you will notice that I am adding more and more content to the page, alongside the blog. The idea being that I want Viewpoint to be more than just a blog, and to provide content that is truly more than just the usual posts.
Rest assured, I will keep looking for good content to add to the blog and the site.
Rest assured, I will keep looking for good content to add to the blog and the site.
News Roundup: Saturday 27th October 2007
Later than usual, but here we go...
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australian Prime Minister John Howard remians silent on reports that his Environment Minister leaked a story about urging the Federal Cabinet to ratify Kyoto.
BBC News: Buckingham Palace has refused to confirm that a Royal was the subject of a blackmail attempt.
National Public Radio: The Sudanese Government has declared a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur.
CBS News: The National Football League arrives in London for its first regular season game outside North America.
ESPN Soccernet: The complete list of results and scores from ALL of Saturday's Football.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australian Prime Minister John Howard remians silent on reports that his Environment Minister leaked a story about urging the Federal Cabinet to ratify Kyoto.
BBC News: Buckingham Palace has refused to confirm that a Royal was the subject of a blackmail attempt.
National Public Radio: The Sudanese Government has declared a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur.
CBS News: The National Football League arrives in London for its first regular season game outside North America.
ESPN Soccernet: The complete list of results and scores from ALL of Saturday's Football.
Saturday, 27 October 2007
The Weird World of News... In Triplicate!
I have three very weird news stories that I've found at United Press International.
1. A man who admitted having sex with a bicycle (yes, that's right, a bicycle!!!) in a Scottish hotel has been placed on the sex offenders register.
First of all, how the hell do you have sexual intercourse with a bicycle? Second, why is this man on the sex offenders register? Surely there's a nice padded rubber room somehwere that has this man's name on it.
2. British government jobcentres are carrying a job advert for a woman to strip on an internet site. Not surpisingly, the Daily Mail has it's usual conservative spin on it, condeming it by proxy. But this from a paper that blatantly shows provocative poses of Teri Hatcher from an episode of Desperate Housewives that has yet to air in the UK. Another case of do as I say not as I do.
3. Some Zimbabwean officials are disappointed to learn that you can't produce refined diesel by striking a rock with a stick!
The daftest thing about this story is that any government official believed her story long enough to give her money!!!
1. A man who admitted having sex with a bicycle (yes, that's right, a bicycle!!!) in a Scottish hotel has been placed on the sex offenders register.
First of all, how the hell do you have sexual intercourse with a bicycle? Second, why is this man on the sex offenders register? Surely there's a nice padded rubber room somehwere that has this man's name on it.
2. British government jobcentres are carrying a job advert for a woman to strip on an internet site. Not surpisingly, the Daily Mail has it's usual conservative spin on it, condeming it by proxy. But this from a paper that blatantly shows provocative poses of Teri Hatcher from an episode of Desperate Housewives that has yet to air in the UK. Another case of do as I say not as I do.
3. Some Zimbabwean officials are disappointed to learn that you can't produce refined diesel by striking a rock with a stick!
The daftest thing about this story is that any government official believed her story long enough to give her money!!!
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