Viewpoint: The WhatCulture Exodus: What Just Happened?

WhatCulture announces staff departures. pic.twitter.com/FRMauHon7t

— WhatCulture (@whatculture) September 19, 2017

When I woke up this morning, I wasn't expecting this to happen.

This is a surprise in the world of new media.  WhatCulture may have originally been a film blog in 2006 called Obsessed With Film, but in recent times, it has become far more than that.  With sections covering Wrestling, Film, TV, Gaming, Comics, Sports and Offbeat stories amongst other things, WhatCulture has become one of the biggest sites on the net, with articles and lists every day.

And then there was the YouTube channels.  They started about three years ago, and the first voice and face that became a character, and more than just a narrator, was Adam Blampied.  His first video was on the WhatCulture Wrestling channel and it was this little masterpiece.




From there, Adam Blampied became a big part of the WhatCulture brand.  His face and voice became synonymous with WhatCulture Wrestling mainly, but WhatCulture in general as well.  He created the "How WWE Should Have Booked" series of videos, and the "What Just Happened" series, as well as others.

From there we got Adam vs Adam, as Adam Pacitti joined the fray.  From there would be born a rivalry that powered WhatCulture into the internet stratosphere.  Adam Blampied would also team up with Brian Zane from Wrestling With Wregret to do videos, including How WWE Should Have Booked The Invasion, and Heroes Of Wrestling.

Then Jack King aka Jack The Jobber arrived and joined the fun and games but he seemed to be a bit of a third wheel, and to be fair, he was definitely outclassed in the wit department by the two Adams, but he had his own style which made him stand out, in both a good and bad way, but mostly good.

Then Ross Tweddell arrived and became King Ross, and he became a larger than life character in general.  These four people, along with unseen editor Sam Driver, who Adam Blampied would often reference in his videos, have been the core of the explosion in WhatCulture content on YouTube.

But now, these 5 people have left WhatCulture, and also left WCPW, the wrestling promotion that they created just over a year ago, and Adam Blampied was the General Manager for, before today.

So what does this mean?  Well it means that WhatCulture and WCPW will be much the poorer.  Although most of these people didn't write the stuff they were saying, they gave it life in their own unique way, by adding in their own personality and character, and most of the rest of WhatCulture's hosts just don't have the same levels of engagement with the readers and viewers, or the same levels of personality.

It's a real loss to WhatCulture, but what about the internet?

Well, Adam Blampied's twitter account has given us a teasing clue about what happens next...

Join us. pic.twitter.com/m00QLBHssm

— Adam Blampied (@AdamTheBlampied) September 19, 2017

I guess we will be finding out soon enough, but in the meantime...

...I'm Ian Beaumont and that's What Just Happened.

Viewpoint: Can We End This Nightmare Now, Please?

So let me get this straight. Donald Trump posted footage from WWE, from Wrestlemania 23 to be precise, phtoshopped to replace Vince McMahon's head with a CNN logo, footage that showed him beating up on "CNN".

That's low. That's dispicable. That's sad. Using one fake thing, professional wrestling, to accuse CNN of being fake, and showing how he wants to beat up on them. Sadly, his fans just eat it up.

The rest of us know that he has sadly demonstrated that he does not respect the media, which we already knew, but that he also does not respect the office of President. 

This is not reality TV, this is not a ratings war. He is supposed to be the President of the USA. Instead, he is nothing more than a cult leader, destroying the United States, under the Cult Of Trumpistan. 

He's too stupid to resign, and his cabinet is too in his thrall to dump him. Somebody needs to do something to end this travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham of a presidency. 

Somebody in the Congress needs to do something, soon, whilst there is still something of the United States left to salvage.

Roger Moore: 1927-2017

With the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated. pic.twitter.com/6dhiA6dnVg

— Sir Roger Moore (@sirrogermoore) May 23, 2017

Goodbye, Mr Bond.

Viewpoint: Manchester Concert Explosion.

My first thoughts in this situation, are the same this time as they always are, they are with the families and friends of the victims. There are no words right now, that will soothe their pain, or ease them through what will be one of the hardest, toughest times they will ever go through.

My second thought is the same one I have every time somebody uses one of the T words in this kind of situation.  The T words being terror, terrorist and terrorism.  Whether the crime fits the definition of terrorism or not, I will not used the T words to describe it.  This was a crime, an act of premeditated murder.  Even describing it that way is emotive enough.  The fact that the perpetrator committed suicide in the act, just means that it saves the expense of a trial and the ongoing cost of keeping him in prison.  Rather than face human justice, the perpetrator convicted himself in the highest court of all, and all he did in the process was to allow the gods and goddesses to send him into his eternal damnation much sooner than originally planned.

My last thought here is simply this.  Carry on as normal today.  Don't let this or any other criminal act of this magnitude change who you are or what you do.

Viewpoint: The clock is ticking on Donald Trump.

We are getting ever closer, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, to a moment like this one...

...and believe me, there will be whooping and hollering around the world when he does go down.

The announcement that a special counsel has been appointed to investigate the reported meddling in the US Presidential Election by Russia and whether Trump campaign associates or the campaign itself, collaborated with the meddling, has invariably thrown a spanner into the barely functional works of this White House.

We've heard a report that apparently Donald Trump went into his White House accomodations earlier on today, and apart from food and drink requests has not emerged since.  If he has any sense at all, which is unlikely, he'd head for Moscow on the first flight he could charter, and leave everybody else behind and go into hiding.  Unfortunately, he's too much of an egomaniac and spotlight hog to want to go into hiding for very long. 

The strangeness here, is although in the history of the USA, there have 15 people impeached at the federal level, the two presidents impeached, were both acquitted in the Senate, and both were Democrats.  Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1999.  Richard Nixon was never actually impeached.  Articles of impeachment had been agreed by the House Judiciary Committee, but Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.

Whatever happens now, we are in territory that is reminiscent of Watergate, but also way greater than a bungled break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic Party.  The words "high treason" are being used in intelligence circles right now, and those words are not used lightly, or even at all.  But they are being used now.  This is a situation that may have to call for a completely new response, including possibly an election re-run, or a brand new election.  Nothing at this stage should be ruled out or in,  Everything is still on the table.

The only real question remaining is whether Trump's self-preservation instincts will overtake his grossly inflated ego, and make him head for the hills.  I'm not sure his ego will allow him to see how deep the quicksand is, or even that he is sinking in it.  And if that is the case, his whole administration might just go down with him.

Viewpoint: Eurovision Song Contest needs a change

So, at this year's Eurovision Song Contest, the UK's entry placed 15th, scoring 111 points.  Not as bad as I feared, but also not as good as I expected.

Half the juries gave the UK points, ranging from the 1 point awarded by Austria, Greece and Norway, to the 10 points awarded by Slovenia and the 12 points awarded by Australia.

4 countries awarded points in the televoting.  3 of those countries were not countries that had juries awarding points.  Only Australia awarded points in both the jury stage and the televoting stage, but the televoting only brought 3 points, compared to 12 points from the jury.  The rest of the points came from Spain (1), Ireland (4) and Malta (4).

99 points from the juries, just 12 points from the televoting. 

Now obviously politics, in the form of Brexit, played its part with the public in Europe, but considering the juries rated us so highly, putting us in 10th place overall in terms of jury scores, it makes the televoting look worse.  The televoters had us in 20th place, hence why we ended up with mid table mediocrity at 15th.

However, at almost 4 hours long just for the final, the Eurovision Song Contest is proving to be a difficult sell now, especially as in Kiev, where the event was taking place, it was almost 2am when the show finished.  The fact that the show starts at 8pm UK time, means its 9pm in most of Western Europe, ecxept Portugal and Ireland, and 10pm in most of Eastren Europe.  It's getting too long and unweildly to be just one show.

And indeed it isn't.  You have two semi-finals, one on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and it's been that way since 2004.  And in my view, the semi finals are not serving the contest well.

First off, you have the big 5, who get automatic byes straight through to the final.  The Big 5 are the biggest monetary contributors to the EBU.  The year's host nation also automatically qualifies, and then from however many countries beyond those 6 have submitted entries, they are split into 2 pools, and have to go through a semi final each to qualify.  The top 10 from each semi-final get through to the final, leaving you with 26 finalists.

Each semi final though goes on for about 2.5 hours, with somewhere between 15 and 20 songs per semi.  It makes the total investment over the whole week about 9 hours.  And again, in a place like Kiev, it's past midnight when the shows end.

There has to be a better way to do this, and perhaps there is.

Get rid of the semi-finals, and have all countries competing in a new Eurovision Weekend.  It starts on Saturday night with the entries, performing for the juries and the audience.  This process is going to be long, but during a Eurovision party, it's really the songs that matter, that's the main thing that brings people together, the music.  So, let the music take centre stage, start the event earlier, 7pm UK or 7.30pm UK rather than 8pm, and everyone can have their Eurovision party and enjoy the music.

The juries would then meet up on Sunday morning to award the points for each country, and from after the performers have finished on stage, the lines could then open for televoting.  Then, like the X Factor and Britain's Got Talent do, have a Sunday night results programme, where the country representatives can announce the jury points, and their countries televoting points, and then we end up with a winner.  So for instance, if one country was awarded 12 points from each of the other 41 country juries, and 12 points from each of the other 41 countries televoting, their final score would be 984 points.

Currently, the juries watch their own performance, untelevised, on Friday night, and they finalise their scores before the live broadcast ever happens.  Where as televoters get mere minutes to make up their mind and cast their own vote.  Leaving the lines open all through the night, into Sunday and right up until the beginning of the results show, would leave much more time to get the votes in, and you can still have some performances to start the show off well, before the results get announced.

Whilst Saturday night's programme is still likely to be about 4 hours, the new Sunday night programme would be only half that at most, and the combined length is less than the current 9 hour time investment that we are currently asked for.

NFL showing its international intentions

I could write rant after rant after rant about Donald Trump, but frankly that would be boring, so I want to tackle some other stories here for a little bit.

I am a bit of a sports fan, okay, a lot of a sports fan, and I'm getting ready for the Super Bowl this weekend, and saw with interest on a recent episode of Around The Horn, a story about the NFL playing a game in Mexico City next year.

It does look like that the NFL is showing its hand with regards to adding more international teams to their roster.  London has already seen many NFL matches with 4 more coming up next season.

But the NFL's history with the World League Of American Football, later NFL Europe League and NFL Europa; gives some interesting background.

For the 1991 and 1992 seasons, there were more North American teams than European ones.  Only one of those teams was outside the US, and it wasn't in Mexico, it was in Canada.  The Montreal Machine.  The other North American teams by the way were Birmingham Fire (that's Birmingham, Alabama, not the West Midlands), New York/New Jersey Knights, Ohio Glory, Orlando Thunder, Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks, Sacramento Surge & San Antonio Riders.

Other than New York, who already have the Giants and the Jets, none of the other cities in the North American section of the WLAF, have a current NFL franchise.  Interestingly though, Florida already has 3 teams in their state.  Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins.  The Carolina Panthers are based in the same state as the Skyhawks were but at the other end of the state.  The Cincinnati Bengals are in the same state that the Glory were.

The European teams were across a greater number of countries originally.  The UK had the London Monarchs, Germany had the Frankfurt Galaxy and Spain had the Barcelona Dragons.  When the World League became exclusively European in 1995, they added the Netherlands with the Amsterdam Admirals, and they added teams in the UK and Germany, the Scottish Claymores and the Rhein Fire in Dusseldorf.

When the London Monarchs tried playing home games in different locations in 1998, rebranding themselves as the England Monarchs, the move ultimately failed and the franchise was shutdown and replaced by the Berlin Thunder.

Gradually NFL Europe became more and more NFL Germany, as Barcelona Dragons were shutdown in 2003 and replaced by the Cologne Centurions, and the following year, the Scottish Claymores were closed down and replaced by the Hamburg Sea Devils.  Only the Amsterdam Admirals would keep going as the sole non-German NFL Europa team until the league folded in 2007.

So, whilst the NFL's international ambitions have been there for a long time, the lack of international success in terms of building teams, doesn't bode well.