Look at what you could have won...

The editorial staff here at nota benny would like to apologise for the prolonged period of silence. In the month since the last post the schedule's just been so hectic and full of exciting things to blog about that there hasn't been any time for the words to make the leap from brain to byte.

Consequently, dear reader, you've missed pregnant ruminations on such wide and varied topics as: the BBC's credibility problems (we're waiting for the other shoe to drop when people twig that star appeal and journalistic aptitude don't necessarily go hand in glove, that Brian Conley will never entertain you, not even in the middle of the afternoon, and that the Tardis isn't actually bigger on the inside than out. And that it smells of wee.); the theory that the UK's summer weather is just one big publicity stunt for the release of Evan Almighty; an appraisal of the tea and cake served at Buckingham Palace; and the delicate nature of complimenting a father on his teenage daughter without sounding like a potential sex offender.

Any or none of these subjects may crop up in the near future.

But coming soon, an investigation showing why if visiting the woods it's Swedes not bears of whom you need to be wary.

Free at last

Oh happy day. After 114 days in captivity, Alan Johnston has been freed, safe and seemingly well.

What made Alan's time as a hostage so perverse and unjust was that he had spent three years in Gaza putting the case of the Palestinian people, as much as any objective journalist can, telling stories that may otherwise be untold to a Western audience.

Whatever the Army of Islam's motive for this deplorable act, it was only ever going to work against the Palestinian cause. Yet that should not prevent them from being congratulated for letting the episode reach its only desirable conclusion.

The bile and invective I instinctively prepared at the time of the bogus announcement of Alan's death can thankfully remain unpublished. I'm glad I held my tongue at that time, in spite of a great anger. Whatever one's view of the desperate situation in the Middle East, one can't deny that progress will not be made as long as so many bitter words are spoken.

Hopefully Alan will now get time to readjust to life outside his Gaza cell and to spend time with his family, who must have had the worst four months imaginable. The mood among colleagues also seems to have instantly lightened, people relieved to have truly good news to report for once.

And then when he finally gets back to work, hopefully in some nice, quiet posting - Baghdad, perhaps, or maybe Beirut? - mine will be one of many pockets only too happy to shed a few pounds to buy him a drink.

Mighty Mika

Just when I thought there was no one left to champion the cause of real journalism over celebrity tittle-tattle, along comes MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski.



Objecting to Paris Hilton's first interview following her release from jail being the designated lead story in her bulletin, she stages a very entertaining on-air coup. As befits the daughter of a former US National Security Adviser, Ms Brzezinski wants to lead on Iraq - but there's editorial pressure from above. The adamant anchor ends up destroying the paper copy of the script in a very public display of defiance.

You'd never see George Alagiah or Sian Williams having such a public editorial hissy fit - would that they should.

What's a little unsettling is how Mika's male colleagues react to her stance. First they say she's not a journalist any more as if a "real" journalist, rather than a presenter, would see the value in the Hollywood-based Hilton story over some crumby foreign thing. Then later, one says she's "such a journalist" as if that's something to be avoided in modern TV news. Cronkite and Dimbleby must be rolling in their graves.

Has Mika Brzezinski committed the journalistic faux pas of becoming the story? Arguably, yes.

And there is something in the Hilton story - preferential treatment for stars, say, maybe the overcrowding in LA's penal system, or even just as a matter of interest at the end of the summary - but I suspect Mika's reaction would not have been quite so intense had the item not been placed so high by her producer.

However, Brzezinski has struck a blow for sensible, adult news, for those of us who think that just because what's important in the world and what the masses want to hear about aren't necessarily the same thing, that doesn't mean we should let populism run the news agenda.

Treaty sweeties..?

One wants to be understanding but this picture (which led the BBC News website for most of Saturday) makes it look like there are closer ties between Spain and Germany than anyone thought.

In the words of the dear, departed Jeff Murdock, there is "Definite N.A.T." going on between the German chancellor and the European Commission president.

I don't wish to start any rumours, but is this a case of Señor Barroso and Frau Merkel taking the phrase "European Union" a little too literally?

Clearly mischief is alive and well in the BBC interactive newsroom.

Not everything in black and white makes sense

It's all go at St James' Park at the moment. New manager, new owner, new players, and new controversy over old ones.

Taking these issues in no particular order:

Shady transfers
Although the club and its officials have been cleared of wrongdoing by Lord Stevens' inquiry into irregular transfers, almost a quarter of those 17 league-wide player transfers about which there's still some concern came into the club during the Souness era.

And knowing that, it really comes as no surprise that these include three of the worst footballers to have signed for Newcastle United in recent years, namely Jean Alain Boumsong, Amady Faye and Albert Luque. Whiter than white? I think not.

New manager
Also mentioned by the former chief of the Met was our new boss, "Big" Sam Allardyce. I wasn't a particularly big fan of his clod-hopping football at Bolton, unlike many I had no wish to see him take the England job last year (although now I'm wondering whether I'll wish he had) and didn't like his tendency to stick by one of the league's nastiest players, El-Hadji Diouf.

Speaking of which...

New arrival
After it having been threatened for six months, we've finally got Joey Barton. Oh happy day.

How do I love him? Let me count the ways.

* He ended last season out of favour at Manchester City after an alleged training ground assault on team-mate Ousmane Dabo.

* In 2004, Barton was fined a club record six weeks' wages after stubbing out a cigar in team-mate Jamie Tandy's eye during City's Christmas party.

* During City's pre-season tour of Thailand in 2005, Barton physically attacked a schoolboy Everton fan and had to be restrained.

* Not forgetting the fact that his brother's doing life for being a racist murderer.

It's just a shame that the similarly admirable Lee Bowyer left the club just 12 months ago.

Forgive me if these words disguise my true feelings about this fine, upstanding member of the community from good stock pulling on the shirt of the team that I love. Sarcasm is notoriously difficult to convey in text.

New owner
The only change I'm remotely happy about is Mike Ashley's arrival. Hopefully he'll finally oust Fat Freddy Shepherd and bring in a chairman who actually knows something about football and treating a club, its players and, most importantly, its fans with the respect they deserve.

I've said it every time we've had an alleged new dawn since Bobby was sacked, but it will take a lot to convince me that there are better times ahead.

Sam, Joey et al, it's time you proved me wrong.

CDCWow!

This week's story about the guy from the US carrying a particularly nasty strain of tuberculosis has reminded me of an old bugbear of mine.

There have been regular updates given by the US Centers for Disease Control. As long as I've been visiting Atlanta I've been wanting to visit CDC and take the tour. Maybe you can blame a morbid curiosity in the all-conquering nature of bacteria and viruses, or possibly just a rose-tinted glamour resulting from having seen Outbreak one too many times.

There would be guided tours of galleries overlooking labs; a "Know your virus" interactive exhibit; a "Beat the Pathogen" game (which I'd have to give a little more thought to but would definitely involve dressing up in a biohazard suit); and a gift shop selling all sorts of stuff from disease-themed movies (Outbreak, 28 Days Later) and music (Anthrax, anyone?) to t-shirts saying "I went on the CDC tour and all I got was this lousy rhinovirus", "Herpes is for life, not just for Christmas", "TB or not TB? That is the question" and other such vaguely witty slogans.

But Jen swore that they didn't have a visitor's centre. Why, she asked, would they want to open that kind of thing up to the public? And anyway, what kind of sicko would actually want to go?

So for the past few years I've been banging on occasionally at anyone who'll listen about how the CDC's missing a trick.

Except it turns out they're not.

I know it won't live up to my expectations, but I'm all the happier just to know it exists.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out

Ding, dong, the witch is, well, if not exactly dead, then certainly ordering four dozen baps for the mourners and making sure his affairs are in order.

What once felt so fresh, shiny and new, now just leaves a taste so bitter that it pervades every cell of one's body.

I won't deny that the Blair government did much for the country's benefit, and I'd hate to think what the UK would be like now had the Tories stayed in power.

Yet, without retreading too much of the same old ground, the contemptuous way in which Blair and his minions treated the public in the lead-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq and the horrific debacle that followed sent his healthy balance of good will well into the red. No one's pretending that Saddam was a saint, but surely there must have been another way.

On a more personal level resentment over the royal shafting the government gave the BBC over the Kelly affair (something for which Auntie seemingly continues to pay, given that the compromising licence fee settlement awarded earlier this year looks set to cause yet more years of job cuts) still burns deeply within the hearts of many inside the Corporation. The country should hope that the malice of Blair and Campbell has not tarnished a global jewel beyond repair.

And for the people of Iraq, there is no end in sight for the tragic results of Blair's collusion in the crimes perpetrated against them. Tomorrow will bring more bombs, more murders, more misery.

I'll likely come back to this once things have sunk in and played out. Because while I'm glad to see the back of him, Tony Blair deserves a proper goodbye.

While once upon a time I'd have welcomed Gordon Brown taking power I have a horrible, nagging doubt that this may be false hope. The sense of renewal that accompanied Blair's election is not apparent today. Yet while I have no desire to see the nation seduced by David Cameron, Gordo has much work to do to prove that he and Blair are not, as George Galloway puts it, "two cheeks of the same backside".

And I can't shake the image of the closing shot of Flash Gordon: tyrant Ming the Merciless has been killed, the ring that holds his power has slipped from his finger, and a happy ending seems in store for all the peoples of both Earth and Mongo. But as the ring lies in the rubble of Ming's palace a hand comes from out of shot to claim it, and the sound of maniacal laughter rings afresh in our ears...

Hold the NIBs column!

The first in an occasional series in which an award-winning journalist scratches the cheap paint job off overpriced stories to bring you the headlines other members of the Fourth Estate really wanted to publish.

Hot girl back on market
* Huge blow to noble gene pool
* "Shit or get off the pot," heir told
* Everybody else is doing it, so why don't we
* Show me the money. SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

And yes, the BBC also covered the story in great depth. (Obligatory gallery of Kate Middleton looking fantastic here.)

NB: NIB is industry speak for News In Brief
Disclaimer: Assumptions about nature of awards made at reader's own risk. Alternative headlines not sourced from publications to which they link. Hey, can't a bloke cover his arse once in a while?

Seen and not heard

There's a device in Sylvester Stallone's sci-fi kitsch classic Demolition Man which assists the authoritarian regime of a 21st century utopia by cracking down on anti-social behaviour, such as graffiti and swearing. It's called the Moral Statute Machine, and its typical shtick (voiced by Nigel Hawthorne) goes like this:

"You are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute. "

Then there's 1984's telescreens, the ubiquitous two-way transmission devices which prove to be Winston Smith's undoing. We all know how well that turned out.

So you can imagine why the news that city centres across the country are to get closed circuit surveillance cameras which tell people off for being unsociable might send a shiver down the spine.

But don't mistake this for another ominous step towards a police state. No, it's a good, happy community thing, apparently.

"It's very public, it's interactive," says the home secretary. And, according to the BBC News website, competitions will be held at schools in many of the relevant areas for children to become the voice of the cameras.

Oh joy.

I've no idea whether these things are being used anywhere else in the world, but do they really think that lagered-up pillocks are going to take notice? That people who are so self-absorbed that they don't care about their surroundings are really going to be shamed by voices of officious seven-year-olds coming from tinny speakers?

Despite the government's insistence that these are not surveillance cameras, isn't it a fact that if the system is going to work, people will need to be actively watching what's going on, rather than using the CCTV as a tool for review in the event of a crime.

Who will decide what constitutes behaviour deserving of reprimand anyway? Will the people keeping a keen eye on our streets stick to specifications and scripts or will they begin to feel they are there as moral arbiters, ready to scorn those who offend their Middle England sensibilities?

And will these cameras ever be miked? Surely that's the next logical step. Could there not be an argument from those in charge that, despite the further infringement of civil liberties, pictures without sound lack context, and hearing as well as seeing events might prevent miscarriages of justice.

"We know it's an invasion of privacy, but how do you expect us to take care of you if we can't hear what's going on?"

All this, along with the fact that the UK already has a respect tsar and police issuing spot fines for anti-social behaviour, leaves me wondering how long it will be until the government finally joins the dots on these initiatives and does away with the established legal system altogether.

"You have contravened the Blair Sociability Act. Please report to the nearest police station for processing and sentence."

It's a shame Nigel Hawthorne's dead. Sir Humphrey would have been perfect for the job.