Matt T

News

The Telegraph's lead headline is now about George Osborne's brother. It's not hard to work out why the media is in crisis, is it?

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 2/23/2010 04:43:00 PM Comments: 1

News and opinion

It's interesting to see that the Daily Telegraph has scrapped the idea that news should be unbiased and is now editorialising in news articles. I know newspapers always do this to some extent but it's still a bit surprising to see how far the D.T has gone. Headline today:

Lisbon Treaty: more of Britain's powers surrendered to Brussels

This is on the web version, Private Eye noted this week that the Daily Mail now has different headlines and (perhaps) story angles on its website than the print version - think this is a risky business.

Labels: EU, Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 11/04/2009 06:35:00 AM Comments: 0

Sealions and lottery predictions

Do you remember, perhaps even only five years ago, when the Daily Telegraph was a serious newspaper?

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 9/16/2009 11:11:00 AM Comments: 1

Dumbing down

There's something a little strange reading about 'dumbing down' in the Daily Telegraph.

I can't quite put my finger on it...

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 6/23/2009 04:04:00 PM Comments: 2

Telegraph's Real Cost of Living Index

Has anyone spotted this for April? It seems to be late, unless I've missed it.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 5/12/2009 06:53:00 PM Comments: 0

The Telegraph's Real Cost of Living Index

Think back to mid-2008 and the Telegraph launches its Real Cost of Living Index. This alternative to the CPI or RPI is designed to better show what the 'average family' or indeed the 'hard-working family' is experiencing of price rises.

Well apparently their cost of living is falling by 4.8% per year. Bizarrely a few weeks' ago when it was down by 4.3% on the year the Telegraph was of the opinion that it's not as representative as 'food prices'.

But outside of Telegraph hackdom we should rejoice at this news. The cost of living for hard working families, dare I say the 'coping class', is falling by 4.8% per year. If the error in the measurement of the CPI/RPI is matched by one in the GDP deflatior This means far from falling this year, personal incomes are in fact rising.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 4/07/2009 08:11:00 PM Comments: 0

Jeff Randall's rant

Hilarious stuff. A friend once noted that Jeff Randall would blame Gordon Brown if his toilet was broken, and he comes close.

When he tries to make things sound bad, it just sounds silly.

Since the turn of the millennium, Britain's finest have paid about £1.2 trillion – trillion – in income tax.

The turn of the millennium is now eight or nine years ago, lumping all years into one is something I'm sure Jeff Randall would criticise Gordon Brown for*.

It has does have some comic, almost bathetic, moments, though.

It gets worse. Rural communities are banned from hunting foxes

It ends in the somewhat strange suggestion that teenage thugs are most of a threat to members of the Army. This man used to be employed by the BBC, to its shame.

* Er, but Jeff Randall would criticise Gordon Brown for anything. So I mean 'a normal critic of Gordon Brown would criticise him for'.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 4/03/2009 02:28:00 PM Comments: 0

Carol(e) Thatcher

Good lord the nutters really are taking over, aren't they? A Telegraph journalist asserts that there is a "political vendetta" against Carol Thatcher (Carol Thatcher, note, not Mrs Thatcher). "Sir" Mark Thatcher declares that the BBC is "behaving like the Stasi". The Times, which almost to a man has covered the story well, has more details.

Thatcher, who had been drinking, her spokeswoman admitted, is alleged to have referred to “the golliwog frog”, thought to be a reference to the French player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who has a white French mother and a black Congolese father. As some rolled their eyes and others challenged Thatcher about her use of the word, she is said to have responded, “well, he’s half-golliwog”,

But still it continues. Mrs Thatcher, apparently, unbelievably, has described Carol(e)'s sacking as 'political correctness gone mad'.

Does anyone remember it was not long ago the Telegraph was seen as a better newspaper than The Times?

Labels: Mrs Thatcher, Telegraph, The Times

posted by Matthew @ 2/06/2009 10:28:00 PM Comments: 0

Really?

Andrew Porter, the Political Editor of the Telegraph, says:

As a proportion of GDP, this is the highest level of government debt ever recorded - even more than Britain ran up in the wake of the Second World War.

I thought government debt as a % of GDP was about 250% just after the second world war?

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 11/25/2008 11:29:00 AM Comments: 1

Catchy headline

The Telegraph greets Obama's election with this headline:

Barack Obama benefits from changing make-up of American voters

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 11/05/2008 05:30:00 PM Comments: 0

Mindless extrapolation?

According to the King's Fund, the healthcare thinktank, if the NHS continues to grow at its present rate it will account for one in every two pounds spent in Britain by 2046.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 8/24/2008 12:12:00 PM Comments: 0

Telegraph on Sarkozy

Only the Queen, with her gift for putting her guests at their ease, managed to look slightly shorter than Mr Sarkozy. Not that it matters one jot to us that he is only 5ft 5in tall. Many great men have been short and for all we know he could be taller than Napoleon.

Miaow.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 3/27/2008 11:53:00 AM Comments: 0

News just in

Matthew d'Ancona, political journalist (perhaps Editor?) on the Sunday Telegraph, is backing the Republican candidate in the 2008 Presidential election.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 3/16/2008 11:55:00 AM Comments: 0

Shame on the No.6 bus

You've all been on a bus when a bunch of 'hoodies' (or whatever teenagers are called nowadays) get on and start playing music very loudly out of their mobile phones. Well the fightback has started here, with me. On the no.6 bus winding its way through the mean streets of Kensal Rise, I was trying to get my new mobile phone to play a soundclip I had downloaded. I didn't have the Nokia headphones with me, but I thought maybe you could play it through the speaker on the phone you listen to when having a normal phone call.

You can't. And also pressing 'clear' which usually stops any function, doesn't (I suppose for obvious reasons) stop the background player. And then you have to go through about five menu options to find the player to stop it again.

So there I was, on the no.6 bus with teenagers and grannies, and my phone on full volume blasting out through its stereo speakers..."Welcome to today's Daily Telegraph podcast. Britain's best-selling quality newspaper".

Labels: London, music, Technology, Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 4/23/2007 09:07:00 PM Comments: 2

News values

I guess this post has a short shelf-life, but as of 21:53 on Thursday 22nd March 2007, the Daily Telegraph's website has as the paper's main headline:

Bremner delivers Brown's 'real' speech

i.e. that a not particularly funny TV mimic is doing what is almost certainly a not very funny show.

Labels: Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 3/22/2007 09:53:00 PM Comments: 3

Charles Moore?

Surely this article was written by someone other than Charles Moore, despite his name being on it?

I give as evidence:

Like the character in When Harry Met Sally, North Korea and Iran have looked at the nuclear powers and said: "I'll have what she's having."

When Harry Met Sally is a popular (at the time) film, which was released only 18 years ago in 1989. If this is Charles Moore, then surely it is the most recent cultural reference he has ever made?

Update: NO, IT ISN'T. I hadn't got to the end of the article. It ends with, and this is scarely believeable, a reference to Bridget Jones, who I think was invented in the early 1990s.

Vanguard, Valiant, Vengeance, Victorious. As Bridget Jones might put it, v. v. v. v. important.

Labels: Nukes, Telegraph

posted by Matthew @ 3/03/2007 10:21:00 AM Comments: 4