Thursday, July 21, 2005
Yet more happenings in London. Seems like it's just to cause panic rather than danger. I saw a brief bit of BBC News 24 at lunch. They were interviewing someone (who seemed very professional) standing outside Oval tube station. Near the end of the interview the main presenter said "And, of course, the cricket is on" obviously leading into the next answer from the man on the other end of the phone, which was a very long "Er..." before dodging the question by discussing the number of people around.And, of course, the cricket is on; at Lord's.
God, it's as bad as Chinese television stating that London "is in disorder... but the airport is open" (in fairness, this statement was read out by an American, so what can one expect?). And this was before today's events.
Spot who went from City of Sound's all things Chinese post to CCTV9 (passing examples of distinctive architecture, plus beautiful and disturbing photography along the way. Feel free to swap the links classed as beautiful or disturbing).
The CCTV interface is like The Smoking Room's coffee machine. I choose Asia News and got BizChina instead. The Live button doesn't work. Clicking CCTV News brings up the caption "You are watching Music Video", and no video. Financial Report transforms into Cultural Report again with no video. Documentary turns out to be something called Cultural Express which is talking about Chinese International Fashion Week and Qingdao International Fashion Week, and G4 "covering such pop classics as Everybody Hurts, Creep and Nessun Dorma [sic]". Then onto something about French architecture which is heavy laced with images of Foster's Millau Viaduct. Suddenly there's a mention of April the 1st. Er, when exactly was this made? The business section kept referring to the 7/7* bombings as "the bombings Thursday", which I think is them aiming to out CNNese CNN, rather than renaming the day along the lines of Shrove Tuesday. Which, when it's being watched a fortnight after said attack, does create slight disorientation.
* I must say, it was nice of whoever to pick a date which isn't going to cause cross-Atlantic confusion unlike the seventh day of the thirty-first month.
Even better are some of the captions scrolling across the screen: 90% of public buses and 70% taxis will be clean vehicles by 2008, when Beijing hosts the Olympic games.
I'm not quite sure either.
But in other news, Burger King are to open their first Chinese [mainland?] restaurant in Shanghai. How exciting.
And now the poor presenter is having problems with "golf", but fortunately the stream died before the interview with golf-man started.
I'd better stop now, before I find another country's media to mock.
Anyhoo,
PS. I've finally passed the 10,000 mark. I know most other people get there in their first week, but then they write better than I do, or at least Googlebait better than I do. But no prizes for the special person as I was looking the wrong way when it happened. Oh well.
