Advertising In The News of the Screws
The Times yesterday published a list of the major advertisers in the News of the Screws since the beginning of the year.
Some of the companies I’ve never heard of, so it just shows what a waste of money some advertising is.
Here are a few points.
- Sky spent the most.
- The second highest spender was everything everywhere. Who the hell are they?
- The next few were companies like Boots, O2 and P&G, with a few other companies that I don’t use like Proctor and Gamble, Tesco, Asda and Vodafone.
- The next was a company called Shop Direct. See point 2.
- Some of the rest were respected companies like BT, Vauxhall, Dixons, B & Q and Unilever.
- At the botton was T J Hughes and Specsavers. The first of these is now bust and the latter probably does better with its TV adverts.
I know I don’t ever read adverts, but you can read what you like into this list.
Some companies advertising policies really work, as I don’t, know who everything everywhere, Shop Direct and another called Harveys are. I’m assuming the latter isn’t the sherry maker, as no-one drinks sherry these days.
Fleet Street’s Darkest Hour
You’d think it would be now, but read this piece on the BBC web site.
Note that even George Orwell got in on the act.
Popbitch Was Late This Week
Usually I get Popbitch on a Thursday, but this week’s edition turned up today.
It has an interesting piece on the News of the Screws, which if the story is true, gives a whole new meaning to phone hacking.
Has Rebekah Brooks Been Sacked?
You can find out here.
Is The Public To Blame For The Antics of Tabloid Newspapers?
I don’t like the celebrity culture and to paraphrase the evil doctor, when I see any celebrity culture, I reach for my off switch or turn the other way.
About the only time I have anything to do with it, is when I hear some Z-lister being named in the media, I might search the Internet to see who they are. But that is as far as it goes! I do read the obituaries in quality papers, as I’m interested in what makes people tick or worth remembering.
I will also admit to buying the Sun occasionally. Of the tabloids, with the exception of the Evening Standard, it is the only one with any sensible horse racing coverage.
But as to most of the dross they print, about celebrities, I have no interest, except where there is a serious side, like with superinjunctions and business practices, that may have cost us all dear as taxpayers.
To me the tabloids are summed up by this true story.
I was at the Ipswich Inter Milan match in the San Siro, when I found myself sitting next to a journalist, who worked for one of the more outrageous tabloids. We chatted about various topics concerning football and Ipswich in particular and I can’t remember how it came up, but we started discussing my coeliac disease. I then said that the statistics indicated that there must be at least one footballer, who must be a coeliac. I suggested it might make a story, as it might help those with the disease. He then said that the readers of his rag wouldn’t be interested. But if I knew a footballer who was gay, then that would be a very valuable story.
So do these crap newspapers exit because it’s what the general public wants. Or at least what they think they want?
I’ll put in a true story from way back and incidentally from before anybody in the UK had heard of Rupert Murdoch.
During the enquiry into the Profumo Affair, which was held in public, only one newspaper printed the proceedings in full. It was The Times and they printed it because they said they were a newspaper of record and it was their duty.
Sales soared!
The News of the Screws Screws Itself
The News of the Screws has been a good earner, but after this weekend, it will be no more.
I suppose though, that it will reinvent itself as something like the Sun on Sunday!
I shall not be bothered if we don’t see a replacement.
It’s funny but if you type “news of the screws” into Google, you get the News of the World web site! And newsofthescrews.com and newsofthescrews.co.uk are both registered to News International.
Is The News of the Screws Too Powerful For Advertisers To Boycott?
I haven’t read the News of the Screws in years. Advertisers are boycotting the paper because of their hacking of mobile phones.
But is this counter productive and against the best interests of the so-called readers of the paper? Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert has said on Radio 5, that he will to continue to write a column for the paper. He stated the reason was that as a crusading journalist, who fights against financial abuse, the best way he can get his message over is in the largest circulation, English language paper in the world. He also said that this week his column would carry a message deploring the hacking.
I admire his stance and understand his point. After all, if you’re a crusading journalist it matters to you, whether you get your message over or not.
It’s the same with the Central Office of Information, who are one of Britain’s biggest advertisers. Should they pull their advertising of such things as benefits and valuable public information from the paper? I suspect they should, as probably News of the Screws readers are too stupid to understand it.
It’s a difficult area and I suspect the best solution would be to impose sanctions against the paper, if any wrongdoing is proved.
July 7th 2005, Six Years On
Today is six years to the day since the London bombings of July 7th, 2005.
I didn’t suffer in any way and wasn’t even in London at the time, but still my heart goes out to anyone who suffered loss or endured physical or mental trauma at the time.
I must admit though I’m getting rather annoyed with the media images shown every time the horrendous bombings are mentioned. Showing the bus with its top open as if operated on by an enormous tin-opener surely doesn’t serve any purpose,when Wikipedia can illustrate the scale of the horrors, by just showing the emergency services lined up outside Russell Square station.
It is about time the media moved on and stopped showing the damaged bus and trains.
But then they rarely do!
For over five years now, every time the BBC talks about breast cancer, they show the same poor lady being scanned.
Is This The End of Train Building In The UK?
Does the loss of 1,400 jobs at the Bombardier factory in Derby mean the end of train building in Derby?
After all Alsthom has gone from Washwood Heath and the only light on the horizon is the news that Hitachi might be assembling the IEP in the North East. I say might be, as I have my doubts that the IEP will ever be built in it’s proposed bi-mode form, where an electric train hauls a diesel engine around the country for the places where there are no overhead wires. But then the IEP was always a creation of civil servants to avoid electrification, rather than a sound engineering proposal.
So what new trains do we need?
It would seem that at last we have got the message that every other country in the world got years ago and that is that trains should be powered by overhead wires carrying electricity. London to Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea now appears to be on track for completion in the next few years. It would also appear that Network Rail are developing a system to install the overhead wires using effectively a series of three factory trains. Wikipedia says this.
In an effort to minimise disruption during the electrification works, Network Rail is developing new “factory engineering trains” to facilitate the process of installing overhead lines. There will be three types of trains: the first train will be used to install pylons, followed by a train to hang the wires and finally there will be a train which will check the installation. The system is expected to be able to install 1.5 kilometres of electrification in one eight hour shift.
Why wasn’t this developed years ago, as it doesn’t seem to be the most difficult of technology to develop, especially, if you have lots of electrification to do? There is only one answer, politicians and civil servants like to do things on the cheap!
If the engneers get this right, then we should at last see a rolling program of electrification with the Midland Main line an obvious candidate.
So all of this will mean we will need more electric trains. And ones that go fast too! Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we had a unified fleet that could be run London to Swansea, London to Sheffield and London to Newcastle and Edinburgh, as surely economies of scale would mean cheaper trains, even if there are a lot of them. There is a precedent here in that the InterCity 125 ran on the same lines when it was built and because it was such a good and updatable design it still does.
We could almost be in a virtuous circle here, in that say the Great Western and Great Northern routes prove to be a great success, then there will be a clamour for more electrification, because it cuts carbon emissions and the customers like it. We might even see lines like Chester Holyhead electrified to improve connections to Ireland and Edinburgh to Aberdeen to improve links to the far north of Scotland.
Small pieces of fill in electrification will also open up possibilities. As a simple example, when I went from Liverpool to Edinburgh a few weeks ago, I went by two diesel trains, but the fill-in Network Rail are scheduled to do in that area, may mean that in a few years, it could be a new electric train.
So there will be a need for a lot of high speed electric trains, which at present will be satisfied by Hitachi and built in the North East. But it will only be an assembley job at best, with all design in Japan.
The next large batch of trains are the Thameslink and CrossRail trains for London. The first order has gone to Siemens and any sane person would use the same trains for both lines.
Other than that there are not too many orders in the pipeline.
There will be a need for more electric trains for the Liverpool, Blackpool, Wigan and Manchester services when they are electrified.
There is also a need to replace all of the ageing diesel trains, such as Pacers, all over the UK.
So looking at it sensibly, the fast electric trains will probably be built by Hitachi and the commuter electric trains will be built by Siemens.
There is just a significant number of scraps left.
One thing we’re good at though in this country is train refurbishment. We have to be as it’s the only way we can keep the railways running. But over the last year, I’ve had some memorable journeys in forty year old InterCity 125, where the standard of passenger comfort is up there with the best new trains.
So for example as the new trains arrive for Thameslink, there will be a large number of old ones that can be refurbished for the newly electrified services in the North West. If you doubt that refurbished trains are any good, just travel from London to Swansea and back in a day as I did.
Some respected commentators have argued that if you put good trains on old lines and improve the infrastructure, you create traffic and because people change from cars to trains, you cut carbon emmissions.
I’ll use two examples.
Cambridge to Ipswich was a Cinderella line with crap rolling stock and a frustrating timetable. It was given a modest improvement with some more comfortable hand-me-down trains and a better schedule and the investment was rewarded by an increase in passengers. They’ve even seen fit to put three-car trains on the line at busy times.
Where I live now, two lines, the North London line and the East London line have been upgraded and given new trains. The positive affects have been well documented and show that a not outlandish level of investment can bring a very high rate of return.
So it would appear that tactical investment can be positive.
Another scheme that is being brought forward is the improvement of the Ipswich to Lowestoft line, by putting in a passing loop at Beccles. This would mean an hourly service would be possible.
These last three schemes all use Bombardier trains, which are powered by electricity or diesel as appropriate.
Just as Ipswich to Lowestoft is showing improvement in passemger numbers, I don’t think it takes much thinking to know that there are many other lines in the UK, that could benefit from improvement.
A lot of the cross-country lines are very much overcrowded, but how many civil servants ever travel by train from say Ipswich to Birmingham? If they did they’d go from Ipswich to London and then get a Virgin train to Birmingham.
But if these lines are to be improved and the dreaded Pacers replaced, then we need more modern two, three and four coach trains. And Bombardier has the designs that work and they are available virtually off the shelf!
So perhaps we won’t see large numbers built, as after all the main UK fleet of trains is one of the newest in Europe, but we will see quite a few small orders for services that are not high speed or high density. But who’s to say that these won’t go to a cheap Chinese manufacturer as obviously a trip to Shanghai is more exciting that one to Derby.
We won’t see too many exports either, as our loading guage is so much smaller that to deliver trains even to Europe is a logistical nightmare.
So where does our future lie in the manufacture of trains?
We will probably make the high speed trains we need, but as I indicated above, will we really make any more than we need with extras for export?
One of our strengths is in the technology that goes on trains, as I indicated in this post. But then we have always been good at niche markets and in some ways there is more money in the design than the actual manufacture.
We are also very good at train rebuilding and you can argue that this has been one of the great successes of the last few decades.
So we will still be building trains, but the industry will be very different.
The Various Extremes of Phone Hacking
I say extremes here because I’m defining the various limits.
For instance, if the Police hack the mobile phone of a missing person or a suspected criminal, to see if they can solve a serious crime, then that is probably acceptable, providing everything is recorded and it is performed under a set of legal rules. In some cases they may be required to get similar permissions as they do when they tap a phone.
On the other hand, if say I lost my mobile phone and needed to retrieve the various voice messages on that phone and I asked someone who said he could hack the phone and tell me what was stored, then no offence would be committed. It wouldn’t actually happen, as I know how to retrieve my messages from another phone and frequently do.
I’ve also changed my pin, so for an individual to hack my phone and read the messaes would be fairly difficult. But then who would want the secrets I don’t have.
Much more important to me are my text messages and I can’t remember anybody being accused of hacking these. In fact, I suspect that the Police probably use text messages to find out if a mobile phone is working or switched on. I know I send text messages to people I want to contact from my desktop and when I get an acknowledgement they’ve answered, I might ring them.
So did those people get hacked because they didn’t change their pin number? If you look at them, a lot fall into the group of people who have twenty four legs and an IQ of 12. i.e. Z-List celebrities and/or politicians. So I suspect that many were partly to blame.
The Anonymous Widower 