Author Archive
Cure colic with cranial osteopathy for babies
Colic, it’s safe to say, sucks. But I found a cure. Mrs Bigmouth and I painted our heads blue, ate nothing but paint and cardboard for three weeks, danced an irish jig under the silvery moon at precisely 3.02am every morning and shouted “cakes!” every time we saw a magpie. And you know what? The colic went away!
I know what you’re thinking, Mister Science Man. You’re thinking that there’s no way we could have cured colic with our Blue Head Paint and Cardboard Diet Moondance Cake Shout Therapy. But we did, so nerrrrr. Colic goes away by itself eventually? A few babies may have a mild lactose intolerance that’s easily sorted with over-the counter drops? Some of the symptoms are due to overtiredness and overstimulation? I HAVE MY FINGERS IN MY EARS AND I CANNOT HEAR YOU NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH.
Ahem.
Mrs Bigmouth occasionally visits new-mum messageboards where parents and crazed alterna-health mentalists talk about the various ups and downs of parenting, and at the moment some of them are discussing cranial osteopathy, the ancient(ish) art of parting parents from their money. It’s a load of old toss, but of course the voices of reason keep coming up against the same immovable force: “Yeah but it worked for me!”
I understand it, I really do. Colic’s awful, you don’t want your kid to suffer, and you’ll try anything - and because colic eventually goes away, if you’ve been taking your kid to a quack you’ll naturally think the quackery cured your child. But let’s be sensible here. Handing over your cash to someone who believes in secret magic brain pulses and skull-rubbing to fix physiological issues caused by a traumatic birth isn’t smart. You’d be better off hiring a patient babysitter and going to the cinema for a few hours.
Carphone Warehouse is getting more iPhone 3Gs
Press release:
The Carphone Warehouse has today confirmed delivery of a large quantity of the Apple iPhone 3G. The handset will be available in more than 800 stores across the UK, with stock expected to arrive by 14:00hrs on Thursday 24 July. This will be the largest delivery of the iPhone 3G since stores sold out on the 11 July launch, following unprecedented demand. Orders can also now be placed online at www.carphonewarehouse.com/iphone
The website is showing “Due Friday 25th” on all models.
Giles Coren gets angry about sub-editing
Some writers get rather upset if sub-editors change their copy, as this sweary rant from Giles Coren demonstrates:
When you’re winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear that it is wrong? It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s fucking pre-GCSE scansion.
Then again, Roland White has a different view:
Subeditors are the people who correct our mistakes. All journalism is done in a hurry, so it’s inevitable that mistakes are mad. Subeditors are our safety net. They make sure that copy fits, see that our words make some vague sort of sense and finally they write the headlice.
They are hot stuff on split infinitives, can advise on the correct way to spell Gadaffi and are virtually the only people outside Burkina Faso who care that it used to be known as Upper Volta. Imagine an English teacher with a flick knife and you’ve got the general idea.
I’ve had the odd thing butchered in editing (not by anyone I currently work with, I hasten to add). The worst was a piece for the Sunday Mail where the only original word that survived the sub-editing process was “the”; I’ve had subtle gags ruined by unnecessary exclamation marks; and I’ve been the recipient of sub-editing that takes the same approach to fixing copy as Father Ted did to fixing a little dent in a car.
Generally, though, I’m with A.A. Gill:
The joy of being a hack is that there is a back room of people far cleverer, more experienced and adept than I working to make me look clever, experienced and adept. If on occasion I fail to do so, naturally it’s their fault.
Odds and sods
Once again I’m buried under deadline mountain, so here’s some odds and sods that don’t justify full posts in their own right:
- Jeremy Clarkson’s “cocks” theory - that is, the cocks who used to buy BMWs and drive like arseholes have generally moved to Audis - seems to be true. SG08 LRA in his spanking new A4 3.0 TDI damn near killed the Bigmouth Family at the weekend.
- Still on the Top Gear tip, the TG magazine editor’s letter this month talks about how, when it comes to driving, Britain is a nation of utter bastards - red light jumping, tailgating, box junction blocking, if-I-pretend-I-don’t-see-you-it’s-okay bastards. He’s not wrong.
- A forthcoming issue of Esquire will apparently use e-ink to make its cover flash for 90 days. We must keep this technology away from Zoo, Nuts and the celeb titles.
- The new Batman movie is showing at IMAX cinemas - which could be cool, because parts of it were actually shot in IMAX. In Glasgow, it’s on at the Glasgow Science Centre from Thursday, I think.
- Dragon’s Den. Is the cameraman drunk? Is it possible for Peter Jones to be any less likeable? Is it really necessary to put down people in the way Theo Whassisface put down the ASDA worker with big ideas? Is Hamfatter the worst band name of all time, or what?
- Builders. For fuck’s sake, it’s bad enough that you’re pissing off the neighbours by building a giant castle on the back of your house, but do the builders really need to start at 7.30am and work Sunday mornings too?
- Sick spam. We’ve had weird spam, aggressive spam and now, sick spam - today’s crop includes “Baby Torn From Mother’s Womb”. I know the spammers are just lifting and/or embellishing news stories, but do they *really* think that’s going to make people think “yeah! Gotta get me some V1AGRA!”?
- When you find yourself providing tech support on an electric whisk, and being glad of the work, does it suggest that your career isn’t quite as starry as you might have hoped? Don’t answer that one.
Are they by any chance related?
It’s more apparent when you see Chung on the telly. Honest.
Watchmen trailer
Available now on Apple.com. Looks remarkably like the graphic novel.
The Supersmoker: Cigs 2.0?
A few weeks ago I promised to blog about the Supersmoker, an electronic cigarette. Sorry it took so long but hey! Better late than never!
First, though, let’s remind ourselves of the sheer awesomeness of the Supersmoker promo video, which I thought was a parody until I discovered there was a real product.
The Supersmoker is a tobacco-free electronic cigarette, and if you’ve ever used a nicotine inhaler you’ll know roughly what to expect: it delivers a nicotine hit without any of the really bad stuff you get in normal cigarettes. However, the Supersmoker - and other electronic cigarettes; there are a few different models now - adds a few interesting ideas to the equation. In addition to the nicotine, a blend of food flavourings gives you something approaching the taste of a real cigarette; when you inhale, the cartridge is heated, giving you the sensation of smoking; and when you exhale, there’s smoke. Or rather, water vapour.
So does it do what it promises to do? To an extent, yes. It tastes more or less like a real cigarette - a slightly sweeter Marlboro Light, I reckon - and it’s as close to the sensation of real smoking as you can get without really smoking.
Is it worth having? Hmmm. There are three reasons to consider it: as a cigarette replacement, as a stop-smoking aid, and as a way to beat the smoking ban. Supersmoker’s marketing has concentrated on the latter.
As a cigarette replacement it isn’t bad, and it makes a lot of sense. Cartridges work out at roughly one-third of the cost of real cigarettes, and of course you’re only getting nicotine, so it’s better for you than real smoking in the same way it’s better to be addicted to Nicorette gum than to cigarettes. Cartridges are available in multiple strengths from “I’m not really a smoker” to “I can’t believe I’m not dead yet”, but they’re still not quite the same as the real thing, and they do take a bit of getting used to.
As a stop-smoking aid I’m not so sure. The whole point of such aids is to break the habit, but with the Supersmoker you’re doing all the things you do with a normal cigarette: you’re getting the nicotine hit, you’re getting the sensation of smoking, you’re getting the feel of having a cigarette in your hands. Which makes me think, what bit of the habit are you actually breaking here?
As a way to beat the smoking ban, I think the Supersmoker has scored an own goal. By creating something that looks more or less like a cigarette and that emits something that looks a bit like cigarette smoke, I think Supersmoker has created something that will cause you constant aggravation and get you ejected from all kinds of places.
Yes, it’s legal to use it - there’s no tobacco and no combustion - but at best, I think you’ll end up in constant rows with people who think you’re smoking, or people who think that if they let you use your Supersmoker in their establishment it’ll encourage other people to spark up real cigarettes. And I really don’t fancy my chances of getting it through airport security, let alone using it in an airport - which is a shame, because that’s the one place where a Supersmoker really makes sense. In pubs, restaurants, train stations and so on you can nip outside for a smoke; when you’re airside in an airport, you can’t. Maybe I’m wrong, though, so if any Supersmoker users are reading this I’d love to hear your experiences.
My gut feeling? I think if e-cigarettes were a common sight then perhaps the aggravation factor would disappear. Until then, though, I think they’re best described as a way to save money for people who don’t mind looking a bit silly.
Highway to Heck
O Noes! AC/DC The Musical!
Excellent games designer gets excellent job
I’ve blabbed about the superb Half-Life 2 mod Minerva before, so it’s nice to see that Adam Foster’s efforts have been rewarded: he’s bagged a job at Valve, working on Half-Life 2 Episode Three.
Despicable rags
Obsolete has written a fantastic post about Robert Murat’s successful libel action against 11 - 11! - newspapers.
the truly unprecedented payout to Robert Murat by not just the Express papers but every single one of the daily tabloids with the exception of the Daily Sport, three of the Sunday tabloids and also the Scotsman is an indictment of a journalistic culture that regards the lives of those who are being written about as being of no concern whatsoever…
Murat may receive £550,000 damages; split that 11 ways and it adds up to just £50,000 a newspaper, which to the Daily Mail and Sun especially is absolute peanuts. They’ve had a year of fun, boosted their circulations, brought in far more than that through their race to the bottom, competing with each other as to who could print the more lurid stories, and at the end of it they have to cough up a whole £50,000? To spout a cliche, they literally must be laughing all the way to the bank.