An example of bad journalism and clutching at straws



I came across a BBC article today (OK, in truth it was posted on my facebook wall!) which details that surgeons in Swansea have seen an increase in men getting non-cancerous chest lumps by taking body building supplements.

On the surface it appeared to be a good story and as a user of such supplements, I was intrigued enough to read on.

Sure enough they have a quote from a doctor

A Step Back in Time Part 4: Mogwai

mogwai



A bit of a change of style for my next 'ASBIT' as this week features post-rock pioneers Mogwai.

I didn't really know much about this band when I saw them live back in March 2006 and if I'm being totally honest, I don't know much about them now.

All I really know is they are a (mostly) instrumental, noisy and interesting band from Scotland and they were formed back in the mid-90s.

In hindsight, I'm not even too sure why

Winchester News Online - week 4 critical reflection

The second proper week of WINOL finished yesterday in the culmination of the live bulletin. We continued the trend of improving with every week and yesterday was a lot tighter and professional and from a production side, it was definitely the strongest broadcast to date.

We had a lighting masterclass with Dave which helped us improve the lighting and dressing of the set. Although it was a blow to lose our regular Director Leanne, Cara stepped in and did a good job leading the production.

How to get more followers to your blog


An interesting little feature on blogger is the 'Next Blog' button. This brings up a totally random blog which can prove to be not only interesting, but useful as well as you can find people with similar interests and hobbies etc.

Following these people on facebook will open up your blog to a whole new audience in different countries across the world and is sure to increase your hit count.

By the way, I realise the above picture is not my blog but I haven't got the task bar in my template so I haven't got the option to use the 'Next Blog' button directly from my page!

A Step Back in Time Part 3: Bad Religion

It's over 4 years on from this gig and I still cant believe how lucky I am to be in the position to say "I saw Bad Religion at the Academy 2." Now This might not mean a lot to most people, but to me it is still difficult to comprehend.

bad religion live


Bad religion are a legendary punk band, there is no other way to describe them. They have been cranking out material since 1980 and boast and impressive back catalogue of classic punk rock albums. They have also toured the world over and inspired a countless number of other bands.

Not tonight dear, im too tired

I read a great story in The Times this week.

A major company in Japan has told its workers to knock off early all this week. So, rather than leaving at 7pm, they left at 5.10pm.

Not too unusual, right?


Wrong! It turns out this story has more to it than your usual story about flexi-time.

The strange part concerns what the workers were supposed to be doing with the extra time off.

DJ Hero

Check out my mates excellent blog review of DJ hero and be sure to watch the video featuring a guest appearance from yours truly!

While your there you might as well check it out his whole blog at http://mark-lovell.blogspot.com its good stuff!

A Step Back in Time Part 2: The Used

My next tale begins (and ends) on a cold night in January back in 2003 when Utah's The Used landed in Birmingham.


One of my all time favourite gigs at one of my all time favourite venues. The Academy 2 in Birmingham is exactly what

Winchester News Online goes live! Critical reflection

Today was the big day! WINOL finally went live and I'm happy to say that it was our strongest bulletin to date.

The two dummy runs proved to be excellent learning curves for everyone and today people finally looked confident in what they were doing.

From the production side of things, the bulletin looked very good and well polished. The black holes that plagued our other two bulletins were practically non-existent and I felt, from my perspective, the show ran very smoothly.

Again, the Wednesday was the busiest day for the production team and I was in charge of writing and editing

A Step Back in Time Part 1: Weezer

Ive decided to start my reflective gigography with a show that I still consider to be one of my favourites of all time.

It was in 2002 and (for those of you that know Weezer) it was the tour for the Green Album.

Weezer setlist Birmingham

Well, it was supposed to be but the original show at the Que Club (don't know if this venue still exists!)was cancelled and eventually moved to a bigger venue. In this transitional period, Weezer suddenly became huge off the success of the Green Album and by the time this tour

Not quite the whole picture..

I was reading a story today in one of the Sunday papers under the headline "English GCSE? It's just 2EZ." The story was about a new English exam that includes a section on the grammar of mobile phone texting.

newspapers


The article details plans by the Assessment Qualifications Alliance (AQA) to introduce the test that could earn up to ten percent of students overall GCSE mark.

Obviously, the plans have come under attacks from various objectors claiming that the plans reveal a "dumbing down" of the subject. A direct quote from the story reads: "Next year pupils will be tested on text messaging as part of their English GCSEs."

Like many people who read this, I thought the concept of teaching text message lingo in schools was ridiculous so I decided to research a bit more into it.

A Step Back in Time

Today I decided that my blog needed a new element to it. Something a bit different, a bit more personal. Therefore I decided in a moment of retrospective thinking, (while listening to the new album from one of my favourite bands Biffy Clyro ), that I wanted to write about something from my own life because it is my blog after all.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I have what can only really be described as an obsession with music. This includes talking (often at length) about music and buying more new music than I can afford. Frequently this obsession often manifests itself in the form of heavily opinionated rants and or stories of my own personal experiences of gigs and bands.

Therefore I decided to delve into my own memory banks and share some of the great gig moments I have experienced in my life. Write about what you know and all that!

Now I warn you, some memories will be hazy, others will most likely be wrong but I wanted this to be my own memories so therefore, I will tell it as I remember it. If you are a stickler for correct details then dont read it!

Part one is coming soon..

How to avoid Flickr copyright issues

Flickr is a brilliant website where anyone can upload their photos which can be viewed by anyone. Obviously there can be issues with copyright if you wish to use other people's photos for your website. Here is a way to make sure you stay safe in regards to copyright by attributing photos back to there original source:



Step 1 - Log on to 'Flickr' website.



Step 2 - Once you have chosen the image you want to use, scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see these options.

25 Great Blogger Widgets

Bloggers! check out this very useful blog post:

25 Great Blogger Widgets

Posted using ShareThis

UK libel law and the 'libel tourists'

This week, several of the mainstream newspapers including the Daily Mail have covered an interesting story that certain individuals are calling for changes in the law in order to stop so-called 'libel tourists'.



These are wealthy individuals from across the world who come to the UK to use our courts' stringent libel laws to silence their critics.

The Daily Mail has a quote from an individual who believes English libel law imposes massive restrictions on free speech

How to get more blog hits

As I have all but finished my new blog template, I wanted to name-drop a few useful blogs and blog help sites I came across. These really helped me answer some of the questions I needed to know when setting up my blog and making it look sexy! So, in no particular order:

Blog Skins - I got my template from this site. Has loads of original (and free!) skins for your blog. I chose a notebook theme as I thought it was quite fitting to my subject matter!

Blogger Buster - Loads of helpful blog advice. I found out how to add the 'read more' function from here.

World 4 Masti - A real must read for anyone planning to change their blog template but doesn't want to lose all their items and widgets.

Google Blogger Help
- More info on putting widgets into your blog.

Blog Catalogue
- Massive directory of user submitted blogs. Great place to promote yourself and guarantees you more hits.

Ping My Blog - Notifies all the major blog directories about your recent blog posts. Saves a lot of time and gives you more exposure.

WWW Observer - Some good suggestions for where to promote your blog.

How to avoid image copyright issues

I stumbled across a very simple and quick way to make sure you avoid any copyright issues when it comes to uploading any images to your blog posts.

google screenshot

Step 1 - Once on 'Google Images' click on 'Advanced Image Search'


google screenshot

Step 2 - When the screen has loaded you will need to change the 'Usage Rights' drop down menu to read 'labeled for reuse'


Now when you search for the image you want, Google will only bring up pictures that can be used by anyone.

There are also other options, for example, if you require a picture that you wish to modify in any way.

Please note: You still may have to attribute photos to their original source even if they are labeled for use by anyone. This is important to remember!

My New Blog!

Hope you like the all new Cliffs Blog! Its not 100% finished yet but as they say, Rome wasnt built in a day.

Stay tuned for new updates coming soon!

Winchester News Online - week 2 critically reflected

Winchester News OnlineWell, the second production is over and I feel it is safe to say that it's definitely getting better!

We stayed in the same roles as week 1 so I personally felt

How to embed HTML objects into Joomla

This tutorial will show you how to embed HTML objects into your articles on Joomla hopefully without any error messages!

Step 1 - Log in to the back end of Joomla

Wolves v Arsenal Molineux 7/11/09

Arsenal, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Molineux The prospect of facing Arsenal in their current form is a daunting task for any team and a Wolves side that has racked up just ten points from their opening eleven fixtures would need to cause a huge upset if they were to get anything from this game.

The Molineux faithful were in good voice from the start as

Winchester News Online - week 1 critically reflected

www.winchesterjournalism.co.ukWinchester News Online (WINOL) is a news website set up by Journalism students which aims to cover all the news and sport in Winchester and the surrounding areas.

The second and third years have been assigned jobs

Is True Blood really sucking the innocence out of children?

True Blood'True Blood' is a new smash hit US drama series that has just unleashed itself upon UK shores.

It is set in Louisiana and is loosely based around the idea that scientists have found a way to make

Advancements in UK copyright law

Following on from our lecture on UK copyright law, I found an recent article on The Register which details new

The UK's £1000 train fare, surely there must be a cheaper way?

cross country trainsIt is a rainy and cold Tuesday evening, I am stuck inside reading BBC news online so I decided to undertake a bit of investigation work.

The BBC reported today that the UK officially has its first £1000 train fare. The journey travels from Cornwall (in Newquay) to Kyle of Lochalsh (in the Scottish highlands). As someone who regularly takes the train, I found this particularly interesting as well as being totally outrageous.

Long story short, I decided to research other methods of making this journey and this is what I found..

Where is my organ donor to lend a hand?

Donor cardToday, I finally took a step that I have meaning to take for a long time. It is one of those things that I have always wanted to do but have never got round to doing.

I decided to become an organ donor.

My philosophy has always been that when I'm dead, how will I mind who is using my organs? It is also nice to think that my death could give life to another human being.

Admittedly, my decision wasn't

Carr's Gag still causing offense

jimmy carr liveReading Carole Malone's little rant in the News of the World today, I felt obliged to deliver my own personal response.

I was going to leave this issue, it is no longer a news story, however newspapers are determined to milk the story by continually printing opinion pieces on the matter.

For those of you who don't know, then basically the comedian Jimmy Carr got in trouble for cracking a joke about amputees who have been injured in war.

At a gig in Manchester he said to the crowd

About Me

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I am currently in my final year at Winchester University studying Journalism. I hope to become a music journalist although I now realise how difficult it would be to make a living from. Im currently assessing my career options so any suggestions would be welcomed!

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