Thought for the Day

Being a recent graduate during a recession is like turning up to a party at midnight. Every one's either gone home, having sex or throwing up and in no way interested in the nice bottle of fruity Cabernet you brought along. You may as well not have bothered coming at all.

Dunblane survivers in drinking and having sex SHOCKER!!!!11

Warning: Capital letters will be used extensively in this post to demonstrate just how shocking a story this is. Reader discretion is advised

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It seems the Scottish Sunday Express have uncovered the shocking truth about the Dunblane survivors who recently turned 18. Apparently they have been drinking ALCOHOL having SEX and talking about it on SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES. One of them even has a TATTOO, and another was making RUDE GUESTURES in a photograph.

For some reason the Express website disabled commentsand has since removed the story - bizarre they should hide such insightful investigative journalism.

However you can still read the article here, and read some of the reaction to it on this blog.

I won't insult anyone's intelligence by commenting on it further, but you can get in touch with the author at Paula.Murray@Express.co.uk if you have any... thoughts on the article you wish to impart to her.

I'm feeling all Mary Whitehouse

Yesterday, the front page of The Sun was once again dedicated to Jade Goody, like the front page of most tabloids for the last few months. Now it seems, she is losing her sight while her mother begins a round-the-clock vigil at her bedside - meanwhile Jade is fighting to get home from the hospital, to live out her last few weeks with her sons.

Of course I only know all this because we all know everything regarding her final moments. We've had no-holds-barred coverage on everything she's been going through since the news was delivered her cancer was terminal. Its got me wondering where the media will venture next in their coverage. Perhaps we'll have Jade's final moments in GLORIOUS High-Definition, or get heart-monitor updates on Twitter.

I'm sure most people can understand wanting to cash-in on the media interest to provide a future for her two sons (though I'm unsure if she receives money for every story dedicated to her), but what I find concerning is the increasing coverage of death and where its heading. In December Craig Ewert became the first person to commit (assisted) suicide on TV and it is an alarming precedent. Its true that no one has to watch it and that this was not a case of someone being killed for entertainment - he was terminally ill - but this was still death as entertainment.

And it shouldn't be. The passing of a loved one is a fact of life that we all have to deal with, but something we should deal with in private, and something people should respect as private. Not as a ratings, or readers-earner. Maybe its a little bit scare-mongery but it seems we are getting ever closer to having death on television as a regular occurrence. After all, life is cheap, and the public's sensitivity to shocks is constantly tested as we get relentlessly desensitised to violence. We just have to look at the Saw and Hostel films to give us an idea of what the movie industry feel they have to do to make us gasp. The Exorcist used to be considered one of the most disturbing films of all time, but show it to your average modern 14 year old and they are likely to just shrug and go 'So what?'

When Jade dies it wouldn't surprise me if a national day of mourning is declared. There'll be 20-page spreads in the papers charting her entire life, TV specials - you name it. But then what? Its been turned into a soap opera and once its done, the nation will need another to sustain it.

Towards the end of the fabulous 'The Truman Show', when Ed Harris' Christof is challenged that they cannot kill Truman live on air, he replies: "Why he was born live on air?"

When I saw this film recently it seemed terribly apt for Jade's situation. At 27 she has lived over a quarter of her life in the spotlight. She may not have been born in front of millions, but who she is now - her public persona - was created in front of us all on Big Brother. She's about to die in front of us all.

Shine ya Shoes Guv?

I was on TV a couple of weeks ago, but strangely I haven't really told anyone about it. I always thought that if I was on TV for some reason I'd tell anyone that would listen, but then I was on Richard & Judy, a show beaten in the ratings by Swiss Railway Adventures and with all the production quality of your average YouTube video. I'd been stopped in Milton Keynes shopping centre and was asked a question regarding the origins of St Valentines' Day, but my small screen debut made me realise why actors don't watch their performances back.

In short, I sounded a right slack-jawed yokel with all the eloquence of your average builder. But then I am from Northamptonshire with London-born parents, so an unflattering accent is somewhat to be expected. What concerned me was how this may adversely affect my quest for a job in the media. I may be articulate enough to convey the linguistic skills of an Oxford professor in print (ahem), but in reality I'm a right country-Cockney half-breed.

We're always told how first impressions count, how people make up their mind about you in the first minutes of meeting you, and how these impressions take a lifetime to break - so when it comes to interviewing is my native tongue an obstacle from the start?

A month or so ago I had an interview for an internship with Money Magpie, the financial advice website. On entering their offices, I was preceded by a smart-looking chap in a very stylish grey coat, designer glasses - he looked like a Specsavers model. I shook it off and told myself that no matter how expensive his coat was it was irrelevant in whether he was the best candidate, but is it? When greeted with the two of us; him in his nice coat with his middle-England accent, followed by me in my Topman jacket and rhyming slang do I lose the battle before its even begun? The interviewer looked positively uninterested from the off. This could have been just the way she interviews or perhaps she'd already decided a common sort just wasn't right for such a classy establishment.

I'm under no illusions, it was my first interview and I'm in no doubt I wasn't the best candidate on the day. I have limited genuine experience with little in the way of published work, but if it came down to the wire between me and another candidate, with little to choose from between the two of us, I fear I will lose out to the posh guy in the Armani coat every time.

The Most Ridiculously Pointless Carling Cup Stat Award...

...goes to Sky Sports' new 'Fan-o-metre' which found that, overall, both sets of fans were as loud as each other.