Tom McArthur

Yesterday tech magazine Stuff announced that it was ditching scantily clad female models on its covers as research suggested boobs and acres of flesh put off potential readers. 

Stuff is the UK’s best-selling technology magazine and used ‘girls with gadgets’ since its foundation in 1996 at the height of the Lad’s Mag era. As editor-in-chief Will Findlater told the Guardian’s media section: “Nearly 20 years on – and with tech now an indispensable part of everyday life – our readership has changed. The covers used to help our position on the newsstand but our research tells us this is no longer the case.”

The magazine now has a reported circulation of over 77,000 and its readership has shifted over the last twenty years with around 40% of readers now women. Tech and gadgets, as we all know, is no longer the sole preserve of spotty loners.

Focus groups and test-runs of ‘non-girl’ proved their point and the August edition will mark a new start for the publication.

 “At the industry level, we see this as a big step forward for men’s lifestyle magazines.” Stuff publishing director Rachael Prasher also told the Guardian.

And she is right. Using women as props to sell products is offensive and has no place in the future of the industry.

Now it appears that the relaunch of Loaded - arguably the Lad’s Mag that started it all-  will  be boob-free too.

Simian Publishing, who took over Loaded late last year appear to be ditching the naked girls and boorish nonsense that saw Nuts close recently and are planning on investing in quality over tacky filler and cringeworthy sexism.

A spokesman for the company has told the Evening Standard that feminist writer Julie Burchill is lined up to be a columnist and there are plans for a gay columnist too.

Declining sales for the likes Loaded and Nuts led to a race to the bottom as cheap and lewd content simply lowered the tone and completely undermined their brands.

FHM and Loaded were once powerhouses of mainstream male culture and frequently mixed risqué photography with entertaining - often informative- journalism with a devil-may-care anti-establishment flair and just the right amount of puerile toilet humour to be amusing (remember Office Pest or Dr Mick anyone?) and playfully provocative.

The new edition features the Gallagher brothers on the cover - and will feature a tribute to twenty years of Brit Pop.

Personally I would like to see the new Loaded not to forget its playful roots whist still forging ahead on a new path. The likes of Rolling Stone and Vice have shown that there is an appetite for long-form journalism and reportage alongside more conventional middle-ground magazine fayre.

It should go without saying that in order to survive, the new Loaded has to get its digital presence right.

A relaunched Loaded has the potential to seize a potential mass-market middle-ground and create establish magazine genre that can entertain and inform a new generation. Such magazine offerings work well on the Continent and the potential for exploitation in the UK is huge.

Here’s hoping that Loaded may one day become the British populist answer to Vice - or something completely different but equally relevant.

One motivated and slightly drunk man in Edinburgh on Christmas Day sparked the latest bout of what the Daily Mail have called “the most outrageous drinking game yet” - but you probably think the whole thing started Down Under, especially after the social media phenomenon was picked up and mauled by that most ludicrous of the male species, the Australian bogan.

In media reports that range from sensationalist to downright sloppy, #neknominate the bastard, deranged cousin of the original #neckandnominate game has been portrayed as the very thing that will bring down western society in a booze-fueled orgy of fuckwittery.

The classic version of ‘Neck and Nominate is a casual and light-hearted drinking game that is a shining example of British boozing culture. Indeed, if one were to compare it to ‘Danger Fives’ or even ‘Ring of Fire’ it drops even further down the ‘Rash Ways To Get Alcohol Inside You’ scale.

Unleashing this drinking game on social media seems to have ruined everything. When I came across the game in the late spring of 2013 (there are some that say the game goes back to at least 2010) it was being conducted via WhatsApp and Vine and I was invited to neck a beer by a chap on a bicycle who had just ridden into his living room. I humbly accepted the challenge, finished a beer, and passed on my nomination to the next willing participant and continued with my evening. Other amusing and somewhat entertaining videos can be found here, on the Facebook page friends set up to highlight their shenanigans. There are several videos that don’t include alcoholic drinks and one kind-hearted fellow from South Africa has turned the whole idea on its head with his own interpretation of the game (although, in many circles, this is called ‘drink dodging’).

Fast forward a few months and the stakes have risen for no good reason and the game has been apparently linked with two deaths in Ireland. A tragedy, of course, but social media doesn’t kill people. Drinking games are not a new thing, and it would be wrong to bash participants of this game because of a few accidents.

It is a shame that this game has been highlighted in the mainstream media by the sad deaths of two young men, and while I lament the idiots that continue to think the game is about oneupmanship and imbibing drinks laced with pubic hair, cigarette ash and enough vodka to kill Oliver Reed, I still have faith in the original incarnation as a harmless bit of fun between mates. I will continue to look forward to my next nomination.

One year, in my desperation to get a ticket to Glastonbury, it appears I attempted to pitch my own little installation in that hedonistic corner of Worthy Farm, Shangri-La:

*NOTE: There's no record of Debs Armstrong or the rest of the Shangri-La team ever receiving this desperate stab at creativity. A sort-of Blade Runner meets Last of the Summer Wine*

In the midst of Shangri-La lies a lone bastion of wild abandon. 

When the old regime collapsed, the great tea-drinking Pleasure Barons of the newly-independent Yorkshire Republic realised that Shangri-La would be the ideal place for them to establish a presence and indulge their vast hedonistic appetites.  

Plans were drawn for a vast, sprawling pleasure palace and embassy for the Yorkshire Republic where the Pleasure Barons and their lackeys could indulge in all their worldly desires.

Shady deals with corrupt officials were made in the dark places of Shangri-La and the barons dispatched three Special Envoys to oversee the creation of the Yorkshire Pleasure Palace.

But the unthinkable happened.

As the Three Envoys made their decadent way to Shangri-La, the republic collapsed. A biological weapon launched by a neighbouring county-state destroyed the northern New Yorkshire tea plantations and the entire republic lay bankrupt, destitute and alone.

The plans (and money) for the YPP vanished into the shimmering neon night of Shangri-La, leaving the Three Envoys broke, alone and without a home.

But the spirit of Yorkshire is bright in her people, and these three people were chosen for their resilience and fortitude. Using their meagre possessions and what cultural artefacts they had with them they hammered out a small shack where they could pay tribute to their homeland and try to start out a new life.

The Shack, known as The Embassy of a Fallen State, houses three forlorn and dispossessed individuals who drink 'tea' to their old idols and quietly scheme to rebuild the old republic whilst embracing the whole spirit of their new land.

'Do eagles eat babies? Almost certainly not, especially in North American suburbs where sightings of such majestic winged creatures are rarer than rocking horse faeces.

So; why all the fuss yesterday about this video supposedly of a golden eagle attempting to snatch an unsuspecting toddler and carry it away for some human jerky meat for lunch?

Without putting too fine a point on it - people are idiots. Or rather, too many people wanted to believe that such an astounding clip could be anything but real.

The ‘golden eagle snatches kid’ video went viral, as bloggers and media organisations picked up that eagle shaped ball and ran with it. The video reached critical mass and became a digital self-fulfiling prophecy; “if the Mail Online, Guardian, and HuffPost are running it, surely it must be true?” viewers cried whilst warily watching the skies above for marauding birds of prey. Readers had faith in the basic fact-checking skills of their favourite media outlets, watched the video and clicked share.

Sadly, readers were let down by their beloved websites, at least in the initial rush to be first to cover the scary eagle baby-snatcher. Basic fact-checks and verification were left by the wayside apparently because the visual evidence was so striking. All were duped or wilfully suspended disbelief in the pursuit of pageviews.

But, no matter how online reporters, bloggers and the general public want to believe it, the video was an obvious fake, a hoax by group of university students who annually host a ‘hoax the internet’ competition. If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

It’s easy to spot these things if you know how, and one doesn’t even need much in the way of video editing or CGI knowledge to filter the wheat from the chaff.  Here are a few helpful bullet-points that will enable you to call ‘bullshit’ (or not..) on the next viral video phenomenon.

Weather, time, location.

First an easy one; what was the weather like in the video and does it match up with reports from the area? Montreal has been under snow for a week or so now, so the video immediately should ring alarm bells. Can you see obvious landmarks in the video? Compare them to a Google map or your knowledge of the area – do they match up? If they don't, the clip probably won't stand up.

Interaction

The most obvious clue in the eagle video is that NO-ONE in the video bar the camera-guy seems that arsed about the extremely unusual sight of a giant fucking bird of prey in a city park. A quick search of the internet shows that golden eagles are seldom seen in the skies of Montreal, so this particular example should provoke more of a response from witnesses. A lack of interaction indicates computer generated imagery in this case - Alex Hearn from the New Statesmen has more here.

User/source/context

The YouTube account used to post the video appears to have been set up solely for this clip. In the world of Twitter hoaxes this an obvious tell. It can be in video too. As mentioned, eagles are rare in cities, so this bird -if real- should show up elsewhere, if not on local news. It didn’t.

There’s a whole heap of other ways to check video for authenticity –ranging from simply picking up the phone and calling someone, to digital triangulation and IP address witchcraft- read more about Twitter and video verification here and here.

As an online journalist, video verification is a vital part of the job. The most obvious examples of this come from discovering raw, user-generated videos from places like Tahrir Square in Egypt or a bombed-out hospital in Aleppo, Syria. It is important to get facts right in journalism, and making sure a video is what the title or author say is part of this.

Many would say that a fake eagle video isn’t quite as important to get right as say, videos of revolution, massacre or even natural disaster – but this couldn’t be more wrong. By-and-large, Journalists (and I include bloggers in this) have a responsibility to the facts, and not to verify a simple clip like this one reveals corners have been cut. Corners are cut for many reasons, but in this case it seems apparent that every, Tom, Dick and Arianna Huffington was happy to take a short cut knowing that the video would serve them well with ‘hits.’  

This kind of behaviour breeds lazy reporters. Lazy reporters are the kind of people who, when the pressure is on, give in to despicable acts like celebrity phone-hacking or bung cash-filled envelopes to police officers for stories.

Trust is undermined too. A story that initially was reported as true, is now an elaborate hoax. Readers begin to wonder what else their news provider has got wrong over the years. The old Sky News maxim, "never wrong for long" has taken it's toll. There’s no shame in getting a story wrong, though, providing all involved learn from the error (and publish a correction) and I appreciate that the ‘sharing game’ has to be played to attract revenue, but allowing ourselves as journalists to be tricked by videos like this, we are applying another slash to an industry already dying of a thousand cuts.

A caveat: My own employer, MSN, fell victim to this video. I called shenanigans early on, smug fucker that I am.

Not entirely convinced that eagle child snatcher video is legit. I Hope you've all stood it up before RT/ripping for your own sites.

— Tom McArthur (@TomMcArthur) December 19, 2012

A short(ish) thing I've bashed together after discovering the life of this remarkable, wonderful man. It reads a bit like an obit, but more people need to know of great men like this.

‘Whether by luck or good management, it has been the greatest thing I have done.’

In May this year a knight of the realm turned 103. Without any fanfare Sir Nicholas Winton celebrated the third year of his second century with friends and family at his home in Hampstead, north London.

                      But in his now-distant youth, Sir Nicholas did something that changed thousands of lives forever.

On March 14 1939, aged 29, battling crippling British bureaucracy and the looming menace of war in Europe, Nicholas Winton packed a small group of Czechoslovakian children onto an aircraft bound for England. These children escaped almost certain death at the hands of the Nazis. This small group of frightened children were only to be the beginning.

By the start of hostilities in September 1939, his ‘British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, Children's Section’ had managed to get 669 youngsters out of Czechoslovakia. Almost all of their parents ultimately perished in Auschwitz.

Nicolas Winton was born into a Jewish family in 1909 with German relatives. As war became inevitable in the 1930’s Winton was well placed to understand the Nazi threat.

Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2011, he said:

“Even though the true horror hadn't yet emerged, we knew what was happening as we were putting up relatives and friends in our house. So I became convinced of the dire necessity to do something.”

In December 1938, whilst he was preparing for skiing holiday in Switzerland Winton, a young, left-leaning stockbroker received a phone-call from a friend urging him to leave his skis at home and head to Prague as the great machine of war began to gather steam, casting a dark shadow over Europe.

He found himself immersed in refugee camps in the Sudetenland, an area under German occupation. To Winton and others – if not the rest of the world – it seemed inevitable that the rest of Czechoslovakia would soon fall to the Nazis. The outbreak of a second European war was inevitable.

Time soon became invaluable to the young Mr Winton and his potential charges. He quickly set up an office in a hotel and single-handedly began setting up an organisation to facilitate the evacuation of children from Jewish families at risk from the Nazis.

November 1938 and the horror of kristallnacht promptedBritish MPs to pass legislation that allowed refugees under the age of 17 to enter the United Kingdom. The evacuees had to have a place to stay, and a warranty of £50 paid to ensure their eventual return home.  Winton’s fledgling organisation took up the offer and he returned to London to help organise the process of re-homing the refugees.

Recalls Sir Nicholas in a 2009 BBC News profile:

“The problem was getting the people who would accept the children, and of course this was at a time when the evacuation of children from the south [of England] was taking place anyway.

“It's marvellous that so many people did come forward. The unfortunate thing was that no other country would come along and help. I tried America but they didn't take any. It would have made a vast difference if they had.”

“Whether by luck or good management, it has been the greatest thing I have done.”

The first ‘Winton train’ left Prague’s Wilson Railway Station for London on 19 April 1939, with 36 children on board. One of them was ten-year-old Vera Penny. 

“I thought I was going on holiday, so I was shocked when I realised my mother was crying as she put me onto the train with a name tag around my neck. There was a sea of handkerchiefs being used to wipe away tears,” said Vera in 2011.

“My sister, Helena, came to England on a Winton train in July and, although we were with different families, we kept in touch. But at the age of 14, I heard my parents had been killed in concentration camps. It was terribly traumatic, but I owe Nicholas my life.”

These early successes inspired Mr Winton to do more. Between April and August 1939 he managed to arrange seven more trains. But it was the final train, due to leave Prague on the 3rd of September that still haunts him. The Second World War started and the Germans prevented its’ departure.

“War broke out” he remembers. “We never really worked out what happened to these children. In the main they perished. I’m told they boarded the train. And then it was prevented from leaving. It’s an awful feeling.”

During the six months that the trains were running, Nicholas Winton never went back to Prague. He met every single train and ensured the refugees were paired up with their foster-families. He continued his work on the London Stock Exchange, throwing himself into his operation on evenings and in his spare time.

All told, 669 children were rescued on eight trains and one aircraft.

A quiet, modest man, Sir Nicholas kept his endeavours secret for decades until his wife Grete found a detailed scrapbook in the attic in 1988.The scrapbook contained lists of children, including their parents' names, and the names and addresses of the families that had taken them in.

The world found out about Winton's work in 1988 during an episode of That’s Life. He was knighted on the 2002 New Year’s Honours list for his work with the Czechoslovakian ‘kindertransport’. 

As the country celebrated Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee, reports of terrible working conditions for events staff emerged to taint the weekend’s revellry.

It has been reported on The Guardian website that around 30 jobseekers and 50 people on apprentice’s wages of £2.80 an hour were bussed into the capital to work as stewards were told to sleep under London Bridge before working on Saturday’s river pageant.

Two jobseekers, under the cover of anonymity, told a shocking tale of sleeping rough in wet, cold conditions with no access to private toilet facilities, before being told to change into their work uniforms out in the open. After a 14 hour shift in the relentless rain on the banks of the Thames, the workers were transported to a muddy campsite in Essex to pitch tents in the dark.

The company involved in supplying the staff for the diamond jubilee confirmed to the Guardian in a statement that any unpaid work was part of a trial programme for well-paid roles during the London Olympics. The statement also added that the experience was voluntary and that “The nature of festival and event work is such that we often travel sleeping on coaches through the night with an early morning pre-event start – it is the nature of the business … It's hard work and not for the faint-hearted."

Whilst this may very well be the case, it certainly appears to be a cynical exploitation of the unemployed and inexperienced so that a no-doubt-lucrative contract for Close Protection UK could be fulfilled. As both the New Statesman and blogger Eddie Gillard – who was first to break the story – point out, the government allocated £1.5m for stewarding, so why were people going unpaid? David Cameron and the coalition must be hoping that the ‘Jubilympics’ hype sustains them a lead in the polls, but another accounts like this of mistreatment of ordinary people by those –like workfare- who appear to have the ear of the Prime Minister make the challenge of rallying a rapidly dividing nation to his fading flag increasingly difficult.

                       Within 30 minutes of sitting down at the Leveson Inquiry, Tony Blair had the whole room eating out of the palm of his hand and had listed all his achievements whilst he was in government. He even managed a couple of sly digs at the Daily Mail. No other witness has, so far, had the court laughing along with his quips. That is how you do it. Never forget that Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a lawyer by trade and possesses a sharp mind. Are you watching David Cameron? This man is a professional and showed the world that form is temporary but class, regardless of what you think of his politics, is permanent. He arrived to give evidence about the British media, but was soon talking about hospitals and schools, all intelligent frowns and knowing smiles. It was a master class in public speaking. He acknowledged that the relationship between politics and the media had grown to cosy over the years, but smoothly implied that this had always been the case. Blair also admitted that he had made a 'strategic decision' not to tackle the issue on his watch. Why? He said to take on the modern press barons would've cost too much: 'The price you paid for that would actually push out a lot of the things that I cared more about' and went on to talk about everything but the media. What we witnessed today in Courtroom 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice was a master class from a statesman and purveyor of political persuasion the likes of which we haven't seen since he handed power to Gordon Brown. There is no-one quite like Tony. But wait: Let's not get caught in the hype of Tony Blair. Not again. His persuasive, mesmeric doublespeak has already led the UK into an illegal war, as his rather animated heckler reminded us. Blair is great at tricking the public into thinking he's answered a question, but a cursory check of the transcript or Hansard proves that he didn't. You get a feeling that he's as sincere as Jessica Ennis is fat. His comments are punctuated with classic, “you-know's” and “frankly’s” and diversionary hand gestures that appeared to be spontaneous, but on inspection were very cautious and non-committal. He assured the inquiry that there were no insidious deals with Murdoch, and his cabinet had not changed policy to appease the Digger. By admitting that he had decided to “manage, not confront” the unhealthy relationship that the media had with politicians, he revealed a chink in his armour, the flaw in his Teflon coat: He doesn't like confronting those of a similar level to him. Perhaps even his earlier swipes at the Daily Mail were an attempt to divert some attention away from Murdoch to a weaker foe. Arguably, all his problems with Gordon Brown stem from his unwillingness to deal with the man’s dissent early on in his leadership instead of letting Brown cause the mayhem he ultimately did. He didn't quite come out and say he was a personal friend of Rupert, and he was very careful not to do so. He paid lip-service to the “appalling things” that happened in Murdoch's empire, which we can reasonably assume to include allegations of phone hacking, bribery, intimidation and the corruption police officers. Blair said, in reasonable tone, that these things were only one part of News International's apparently 'laudable' work in the UK. By the lunchtime recess, and after taking a heckler in his stride (Well played for using the live feed to refute David Lawley-Wakelin's accusations there-and-then, Tony) the longest serving Labour prime minister had achieved his aim of not incriminating himself.

  When the hearing resumed after the break, those of us who have seen more of Robert Jay than we care to admit, anticipated a broadside from the cunning Queen’s Counsel. It was always in the afternoon session when he previously delivered his most devastating salvos.

  But we were left disappointed. After less than an hour of uncharacteristically indirect questioning it was over. Lord Leveson waffled on again - “throwing ideas about” in his own words – on possible ways to regulate the press in the future and then with muted thanks and one last shark-smile, Tony Blair left the courtroom.

  Those watching, hoping for revelation from Mr Blair were left deflated and reporters referred back to their notebooks and Dictaphones to see if he had said anything at all. We did, however, learn that he’s still the complete politician. Tony dripped class and conducted himself with his characteristic charm and intelligence. Say what you will about his politics, the man is a good orator. He even managed to deliver a cracking little soundbite with the memorable line, “You begin at your least capable and most popular, and you end at your least popular and most capable.”   

  Blair has aged well; a subtle tan and greying hair gave him an air of a victorious Caesar returning to Rome to answer questions on a controversial campaign on the frontier. Compare this measured, statesman to the pasty and quick-to-anger Cameron or the Aardman animation-looks of Miliband and you begin to feel a pang of nostalgia for the Brit Pop and optimism of early New Labour.

The ladies and gentlemen of Wapping were no doubt pleased with their latest front page splash for the Sun on Sunday. In stark bold letters it screamed: OLYMPIC BOMB SCANDAL – WORKER SMUGGLES IN FAKE EXPLOSIVE. Reporter Tom Wells ramped up the hyperbole to 11 straight from the lede calling it a ‘terrifying flaw’ in the Olympic Park security plan and expressing capitalised outrage that the worker in question ‘sailed’ past TWO checkpoints.

The third paragraph is italicised so you know it’s juicy;

“It looks like a bomb, it’s wired like a bomb and it has a timer like a bomb. But incredibly a worker carrying it in his digger was simply allowed to drive in UNCHALLENGED.”

What looks like a bomb but isn’t a bomb? Well, lots of things in all honesty, and all of them lack the ability to explode – hence them not being bombs.

The no-doubt-soon-to-be-ex Olympic site worker says he contacted the Sun on Sunday as he was alarmed at the lax state of security at the “ultimate prize for Al-Qaeda” and colluded with the Sun’s investigative [sic] team to smuggle the ‘Semtex’ onto site and place it at various locations.  If the Sun hacks and their tame tradie had managed to smuggle parts of a firearm or real explosive material onto the site then we would be staring down a pretty serious breach and it would’ve been quite the scoop for the chaps from News International.

But we’re not.

In essence; a bloke known to security and other personnel for several years brought a battery, some copper wire, an alarm clock and some Play-Doh onto a building site in a Tupperware box. He then videoed his daily routine driving plant machinery about. At no point did he handle real contraband or anything that could go bang, thus making the whole ‘scandal’ a bit of damp squib: R2D2’s lunchbox does not a viable device make.

There a various ways of detecting explosives, from chemical swabs and digital probes, to old classics like sniffer dogs and mirrors on sticks. All rely on the presence of – you’ve guessed it – explosives. This whole story seems to have gone-off half-cocked and it’s clear any proper research into Olympic Park security and bombs in general would’ve led this story to be spiked prior to print. The whole story appears to be little more than sensationalism for the sake of it.

The Guardian website picked up on the story and added some generic numbers and a couple of quotes from a Locog media wonk who barely conceals her contempt for being disturbed on a bank holiday Sunday:

"Clearly a Tupperware box containing batteries, a mobile phone and some loose wires would not pose a security threat on a construction site. However, we will be looking into the allegations to ensure our security regimes are as robust as they need to be at this time.”’

Well said, Locog. The security operation around the London 2012 Olympics is the greatest to be mounted in the United Kingdom since the Second World War and is reported to cost £1billion. On the face of this we have a cold-war era anti-aircraft missile providing a controversial ring of steel and fire around London. Eurofighter jets and Apache helicopters will patrol the skies above Stratford and HMS Ocean ismoored in the Thames providing a base for Games military personnel. But this is only the visible tip of the Olympic security iceberg.

Without being alarmist, it is fair to say a successful terrorist incident at the London 2012 Games would be on a par with the attacks of 11th September 2001. It is patently clear that the British government is taking the security risks seriously and any attempt to inflict violence on the Games will be met with extreme prejudice. It is to be hoped that we never see the true depth and scale of the apparatus in place to prevent such a terrible incident occurring this summer. The forces involved are competent, experienced and comfortable with the job in hand. Like most military operations of this kind, we will only hear of failures, not of the things done to prevent tragedy.

     President Barack Obama, at the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan: