The northlondonhippy

Archive for the ‘media’ Category

Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld?

“No soup for you!”, he would exclaim when he determined someone was unworthy of his tasty broth.

Ever wonder what happened to the Soup Nazi since the TV show went off the air?

He works for Apple, rejecting iPhone app submissions. “No app for you!”, he exclaimed as he considered an app from your favourite independent blogger and internet god.

I mean me.

I don’t get to have my very own iPhone app, the App Nazi says so.

Apple’s recent policy change banning independent bloggers from submitting apps to for publication on iTunes is still pissing me off.

And here’s the thing, it would still piss me off even if I wasn’t directly effected by their decision. Its wrong to silence any voice, however big or small. We all have a right to express ourselves, on any platform we choose, on any subject we choose.

I chose to put an app together to bring my content to the iPhone platform. Apple, as the provider of the platform, have locked me out.

I should have tried to publish a fart app. Apparently, you can’t have too many of them.

It could be argued that my content is already available on the iPhone platform, via Safari, the iPhone’s browser. You’d win that argument, its true.

All my app did was present this website, along with some other entertaining content provided and owned by me in a very iPhone friendly format, via a custom designed app. One tap on the northlondonhippy icon on your Home Screen and you’d be here, hanging out virtually with me. No bookmarks or URLs, just a clean, easy to read interface, with groovy NLH graphics.

It would have cost Apple pennies to host my free app. Its not like they’re strapped for cash, they’ve got billions just lying around, doing nothing.

They could shut me up with a couple of million. Or a free iPad.

But they don’t need to shut me up. Nobody seems to give a shit. I emailed a few tech websites and newspapers with my sad tale of Apple app woe. Nobody bit.

Links to my previous entry did get tweeted around Twitter and buzzed across Google Buzz, or whatever the kids are doing these days but I am still waiting for a groundswell of popular support which would push Apple to reconsider this very foolish, pointless and spiteful decision.

Apple began in Steve Wozniak’s garage, with Woz and Steve Jobs knocking together the first Apple computer. Blogging is not much different than that, we’re all out here just knocking stuff together. Some make it into the mainstream, some toil in relative obscurity, but most just seem to give up. Many blogs lie dormant after a brief, unsatisfying flurry of activity, but not this one.

I know I’m not the most prolific blogger, but I’m still here and have been for 6 fun filled years. Ok, they haven’t been that much fun, but I am still here.

I’ve been toying with the idea of hanging up my hippy hat. This isn’t meant to be a threat or some drama queen strop. I’ve considered giving up before, but I’ve always managed to find reasons to keep going and ended up reinvigorated at the end of it.

Right now, I just feel tired.

The iPhone app was meant to re-inspire me and it would have, if only briefly. But isn’t that the way this works? You are constantly searching for new inspiration to keep you going.

The weird thing is, for a niche blog that doesn’t get updated very often, I do some good business. When I look at a graph of my visitor levels, its always an upward incline. I make a bit of dosh too, with my limited advertising and solo affiliate scheme.

I’ve recently been speculating that would still be the case, even if I didn’t post anything new. There’s a lot of content on my website, six years of spewing drivel will do that. I could probably just let this website sit here, do nothing and still maintain my reach.

Yes, I’ve been giving serious thought to giving up and quite stupidly, mainly because Apple refused to publish my app. Maybe there is no place for independent bloggers in the world any more and Apple is just ahead of the curve. If your website doesn’t have a staff of 30, then no one takes it seriously and you might as well not exist.

What’s a self obsessed weedhead and middle-aged failure at life to do?

If I knew the answer to that one, fuckers, I wouldn’t be sitting here typing out this shit, would I?

My iPhone app was rejected, again. That’s twice in the last month.

I heard back yesterday. This time, the app has been rejected on the basis that Apple have changed their submission policy and no longer allow apps that “…are solely intended for an individual blogger with a small audience…”.

Isn’t that most independent bloggers?

I’ve been blogging for 6 years, my anniversary is next week. My website was never going to be mainstream, but that’s kind of the point of its existence and the existence of most blogs. We cater to niche audience, but an audience none the less.

Are my readers less important than the readers of the New York Times website? Every reader counts, whether its one thousand or one million.

Why does Apple hate me? Why does Apple hate my audience?

Why does Apple hate independent bloggers?

Let’s put this into a bit of perspective. I invested time and money into creating an app that I thought would be of interest to my readers. The app is quite simple, but well designed, effectively creating an iPhone-optimised interface linked to all my online northlondonhippy related content.

There’s nothing wrong with my app, it all works smoothly, the design is clean and simple, and the graphics are slick and professional. The price, there was none, I wanted to offer it via the iTunes store for free, I wanted to give it away to anyone who wanted it.

So why do Apple hate me?

They shouldn’t, I am an unashamed Apple fan boy.

Currently, in the room I’m sitting in, there’s a 27” Quad Core iMac, a Core Duo Mac Mini, A Core Duo black MacBook, an iPhone 3GS, an iPod Touch, an Airport Extreme, several Airport Expresses, I use Final Cut Express and Logic Studio and iWork, I buy apps, music and films….

You get the idea, I own a lot of Apple kit and just because they hate me, doesn’t mean I won’t continue to purchase their toys. iPad, you are next on my list.

And I don’t just buy a lot of Apple stuff, I recommend it to my friends and am responsible for countless sales to many recent converts.

Apple should love me, like I love them, they’re like that girl who gave you a drunken pity handjob once, but now looks at you with disgust whenever you run into her sober and you keep hoping you’ll catch her a bit pissed again, but you never do. The desire is all one way and it only ever ends in bitter disappointment.

I praise Apple on my website and won’t stop just because they hate me. I can handle rejection, I’m used to it.

In short, there’s nothing wrong with my content, including all my weed related entries. Apple don’t have a problem with cannabis and there are several marijuana related apps available on iTunes, including one that will direct you to the nearest medical dispensary. Mine’s apparently in Amsterdam, last time I checked.

So why do Apple hate me?

Why does Apple hate all indepedent bloggers?

I’ve written a couple of novels, and was watching with great interest to see if Apple would have a route for independent publishers to get books on to their upcoming iBook Store for the iPad, but now I am not so sure.

If Apple are censoring iPhone apps to the point where they won’t consider submissions from independent bloggers, is there any point to me investing more time and money developing my eBooks for the iPad, only to have Apple change their policies suddenly.

Maybe you think a northlondonhippy iPhone app is a bit pointless, maybe I do too, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is freedom of speech and expression and if I wish to bring my message as an independent blogger to an established, popular mobile platform, I should be able to do so, without any impediment from the corporation who supplies the platform. What’s wrong with giving the little guy a chance?

It would be like Sony banning you from watching homemade videos on your television, only Sony Pictures DVDs would display on the screen, but not your holiday or wedding videos.

Maybe no one would have downloaded my app, maybe millions of people would have, but I’ll never know. Apple have killed it, dead in its tracks for no good reason other than on a whim they have decided to lock all independent bloggers out of the app store.

Will Apple reconsider? If people make enough noise they might. It wouldn’t be unprecedented, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

All I wanted to do was expand my online reach, just a little. I invested time, I invested money, but more importantly I invested my hopes and dreams on a little iPhone app that I could call my own. I would never have guessed that this little dream would become a nightmare of censorship and unchecked corporate power.

Does Steve Jobs know about this? If he finds out, he’s going to be mighty pissed off.

I bet having a recipe as my top post confused a lot of my new visitors and that was the case until I posted this particularly unplanned foray into sharing my thoughts.

This is not a food blog. A recipe is something out of the ordinary. Normal service has now resumed.

As I sit here, typing away, we are around 9 hours from the expected Apple Tablet announcement. Its pretty big news so I expect you’ve already heard all about it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about it too much.

I’ve got 2 predictions, one is an easy one that’s probably true, the other is a long shot.

Prediction one: It will be a premium product with a premium price for early adopters. Yes, I mean it will be very expensive, but will be cheaper in a year.

Prediction two: It will be called ‘iBook”, which used to be the name of one of their best selling laptops. They already own it, so it would be an easy yet inventive choice. I am far less certain of this one and will be pleasantly surprised if I am right. I’ll also brag a lot about it too.

I’ve wanted something like what’s expected today for years. Yes, I will buy one as soon as they are available though I am guessing it will be like the original iPhone, sold is the USA exclusively for 6 months, then launched in the UK. That will be frustrating!

Today isn’t just tablet day. Had my mother still been alive, today would have been her 80th birthday, but she missed it by around 13 months. I miss her, a lot.

At least Apple were nice enough to schedule their announcement on the same date as my mother’s birthday, its a welcome distraction.

So roll on 18:00gmt, when the big show starts in California. I’ll be online, following the announcement live as best I can and I’ll be tweeting my impressions as well. That is, assuming the entire internet doesn’t come crashing down to a screeching halt under the weight of all that Apple Tablet hype.

Oh yes, that’s my last prediction, Twitter is going to crash like Oceanic Air 815 as soon as Steve Jobs takes the stage. Maybe I should just plan on tweeting again tomorrow.

As part of my never-ending quest to seek nothing but the truth, I’ve decided to provide the only genuinely honest review the decade that’s nearly finished.

It fucking sucked. Really, it did. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

Besides iPods, name one good thing about the noughties? Even its nickname is pathetically lame.

The decade started with the Millennium, which was supposed to be the biggest celebration of all time. I spent the night in central London, on the River Thames, broadcasting live to all over the world. Maybe you saw me there, I was in charge of a broadcast tent near Lambeth Bridge, blocking people’s views of the fireworks and River of Fire.

Ha, the River of Fire was the first major disappointment of many in the noughties, a damp squib rather than spectacular and a giant let down for those who braved the cold to witness it. I’ve never heard such a loud, collective, “is that really it?” in my life.

London crowds can be drunken and angry and the night of the Millennium was no exception. As the clock struck midnight and I was transmitting live on behalf of four different foreign broadcasters, someone unplugged our generator cable and everything went dark.  

Don’t worry, one of the technicians managed to get it reconnected and it all worked, though the cables were covered with human urine, which wasn’t so pleasant for the engineer. On top of that, the crowd attacked us and tried to steal our expensive TV gear. I can remember smacking peoples’ arms and hands away from tripods and lights as the fireworks began.

We were all ready for the Y2K bug, a peculiar glitch in some older computers that prevented it for handling 4-digit years, meaning some unpatched computers would think it was 1900, not the year 2000. We expected the telephone network to collapse, the power grid to crash, along with all the jumbo jets flying overhead.

It didn’t happen, nothing happened, crisis averted.

But that didn’t mean the noughties were crisis free, because less than a year later, George W. (for What the fuck?) Bush stole the election and became the most powerful sub-normally intelligent person in history. His presidency dominated the decade and his policies made the world a much shittier place.

Think for a second, if Al Gore had claimed the presidency instead. He should have won it, he did win it, but the Supreme Court had other ideas.

Do you think we’d be in Iraq if Gore had two terms in the White House? Probably not, but then we most likely wouldn’t have Barack Obama now.

Who’s to say?

The Bush presidency was built on the foundation of the Neo-Conservative moment and the Project for a New American Century. How’d all that turn out?

Let’s see, the entire economy melted down to near collapse and we seem to be engaged in George Orwell’s never-ending war while his Big Brother keeps track of our every thought and action.

Cool.

Bush was stupid, his advisors no smarter. They dug one stupid hole after another, each a little deeper than the last.

When the attacks of 11th September 2001 took place, you couldn’t imagine a worse commander and chief to have at the helm, unless you enjoy children’s books about pet goats, in which case he would be your number one choice.

9/11 changed everything, but the real shock and awe was how we felt as we watched the twin towers come crashing to the ground.

I’m old enough to remember when the World Trade Centre was built. I’d been lucky enough to visit the observation deck more than once, its a view you wouldn’t be able to duplicate again today without a helicopter.

We were devastated by those attacks, fiendishly simple, yet executed to maximum effect. I remember thinking that this was the beginning of the end of western civilisation and soon we would all be crawling through nothing but rubble, drinking brackish water from puddles in the streets.

How wrong I was!

9/11 was a blip, a lucky shot, a once in a lifetime terror strike from a group whose success exceeded even their own expectations. I’m sure they didn’t think the entire world would change so radically as a result of their actions, but change it did.

Keeping us secure became the number one priority, the cost being a dramatic reduction in our liberty and personal freedoms. Any extreme, radical action taken by a government could and would be justified by tagging it with an anti-terror bent.

Do you want to monitor all telephone calls and email messages? No problem.

Do you need my banking and credit history before I get on a plane? Sure thing!

How about my shoes, should I take them off too? Gosh, hope I don’t have holes in my socks!

Think how quickly we all simply adapted to these new realities, we made hardly a peep as our civil liberties were systematically stripped away.

Its become such a farce now, here in London you practically can’t even take a photograph in a public place without the police swooping down on you like you’re Mohammed Atta, scoping out another attack.

Think that’s good for business and tourism? Think again?

Terror is not the only thing that’s been scaring us in the last ten years, as the environment’s been on our minds too. You won’t see any government declaring war on climate change, even though its probably more of a threat to more people than terrorism could ever be.

The effects of climate change are apparent to anyone who can be bothered to look, yet there are people out there in the world who try to deny this inevitability. If you tried to deny the threat of terror, you would be labelled a traitor, but being a climate-change doubter will not earn you the same label.

Its probably too late to slow down climate change because we pissed away the last decade arguing about it. It would be funny, if it weren’t so damn tragic as the recent Copenhagen Climate Summit heartily illustrated.

The wars in the last ten years have been quite tragic too, especially the two major conflicts instigated by the West, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The war in Iraq was justified with false pretences and blatant, pre-meditated lies. I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I had no access to any of the intelligence available to our leaders. They knew it too, but made up a bunch of nonsense any way.

I can remember being the only idiot in the world who thought that America and Britain wouldn’t go to war in Iraq. I genuinely believed they had no grounds to initiate a conflict and that they would back down at the last minute. I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong, but not as wrong as launching that illegal and pointless war.

George W (for War Criminal) Bush and Tony Blair should both be sitting in prison cells in The Hague, awaiting their trials for crimes against humanity, but no one has the fucking balls to send them both there. The International Court should have charged them already, even if extradition would never happen. They both should pay for their crimes and sins.

But they won’t.

How many innocent lives have been lost in that pointless war? Iraq was far from perfect before the “allies” invaded, but the electricity flowed, the streets were safe and Iraq still had an educated, functional middle class.

I’m not a Saddam Hussein apologist, the guy was a nasty piece of work, repressive, iron fisted, unpleasant and vicious. But so what? Lots of countries are lead by shitbags, we don’t invade them and impose regime change just because we feel like it.

Regime change on its own is not a valid reason for war. In the case of Iraq, it turns out it was the only reason.

Saddam Hussein got strung up in a hastily organised hanging. There’s mobile phone video of it on the internet, that I’m sure you’ve seen by now. It was a very undignified end for an odious, horrible man. Though back in the 1970s, Saddam was friendly with America and funded by them, because he opposed Iran.

Things change, shit happens.

Afghanistan is a different shade of grey.

After 9/11, there was some sense in going into Afghanistan since that’s where the terror bases and training camps were. That’s also where the leader of the bad guys lived, oh what’s his name again?

Osama something or other.

They had the chance to capture or kill him in Tora Bora and blew it. He’s still allegedly alive and on the run in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The problem with Afghanistan is after they chased Al Qaeda out, they were left fighting the Taliban. Big countries like America are crappy at fighting insurgencies and guerrilla wars, see Vietnam for proof. They’ve been dragged deeper into a civil conflict than they need to be.

Today, Afghanistan is a lawless basket-case of a nation, with a corrupt, ineffectual government at its centre and powerful war lords scattered throughout the country.

President Obama seems to think more troops will help and the decade is ending with him announcing further deployments.

When will they ever learn?

How’s never sound?

And speaking of America’s first black president, Barack Obama is one of the good things to come out of the noughties, but he wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for George W. (Where’d he go?) Bush. Bush paved the way for Obama, with his stupidity, mistakes and far right ideals.

Whether you agree with Obama’s policies or not, having a mixed race president in America is good for the entire world. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime, and like most people I was moved deeply by his election.

Do I think he’s doing a good job? Its way too early to tell. He hasn’t even been in office for an entire year yet. We should give the guy a chance. Ask me again in 3-7 years, when he’s finished and I’ll have enough information to form an opinion. Clearly, I wasn’t a voting member of the Nobel panel, because I never would have given the prize to Barack, at least not yet, anyway.

Personally, it wasn’t such a hot decade for me either. Both of my parents passed away, my father in 2004 and my mother in 2008. I miss them both every day.

This was the decade I well and truly entered middle age. I’m going to be forty-fucking-seven next month. The last decade saw me diagnosed with a stupid illness and I had a sustained period of unemployment while I was between jobs.

The illness, Hashimoto’s Disease, is allegedly under control and I did manage to secure gainful employment, for which I am very thankful, but neither period was particularly pleasant for me.

The progress of technology is one good thing to come from the last decade, I’ve got the some of the coolest toys I’ve ever owned currently in my possession.

I’m on my 3rd iMac, the latest a 27” beast with a quad-core processor that is lightening fast, its like having a stylish supercomputer parked on my desk.

By far, the most amazing thing I own is my iPhone 3GS, it is a gadget of unrivalled beauty, power and usefulness. If I had to choose one piece of kit that’s revolutionised my life, its my iPhone. It does more than I could have ever imagined and its abilities just keep growing with every app I install.

Citizen journalism came of age in the noughties, with websites similar to this one springing up at a rapid rate. The word “blog” didn’t even exist ten years ago and now there are millions of them.

Blogging came along when I needed it most, I started this one nearly 6 years ago during my dark and depressing period of unemployment.

Blogging gave me something to do, something to focus on, something to make me feel like I was still a functioning member of society. I had a way to contribute, a way to participate. Somehow, I still mattered, even if I felt like I didn’t.

Blogging may have saved my life. I would have continued to sink deeper had I not discovered Blogspot back in 2004. 

And that’s where you all come in.

Without an audience, blogging is a bit pointless and while I am still not and will probably never be mainstream, I’ve had a level of support and interest that still astounds me. I’m thankful for every visitor I’ve ever had who has dropped by and hung out with me virtually.

Without all of you, I’d just be some guy writing longwinded essays for my own amusement. Ok, even with you all around, that statement is true, but its still better for having you all here.

Thanks very much for stopping by, you’ll always find a warm welcome here and I always put out on the first date.

I wish each and every one of you the very best of the holiday season. I hope the next decade sees all your hopes and dreams come true.

PS
I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I left out of my review of the decade, but this short video review from Newsweek Magazine should fill in many of the gaps. Its quite US-centric, but its only 7 minutes long, so enjoy!

Nearly 5 years ago to this very day, I wrote a little something here on the hippy that is one of my favourite posts ever. Back when I had a top-ten favourite list, this particular post was featured prominently.

Its called ASS BOMBS

Don’t worry if you can’t be bothered to re-read it right now, I’ll summarise it for you: I speculated on the lengths future terrorists would have to go through to sneak explosive devices on to planes and the additional security measures that would have to be put in place to maintain safety. This wasn’t long Richard Reid tried to blow up his shoes.

I theorised that a terrorists’ rectum would become a compartment for hiding plastique and airport security screeners would have to play proctologist to make sure all air travellers were not carrying anything up their bottoms. Instead of “take off your shoes and remove all metal objects”, their instruction would be to “bend over and spread those cheeks.”

It would certainly put flying into a brand new perspective. Making sure you wear clean socks without any holes wouldn’t seem so important any more.

It turns out, I was partially right. An alleged Al Qaeda fanatic tried to blow up officials at a meeting in Saudi Arabia with some TNT shoved up his ass, only the idiot left it stuck up there when it detonated and it only killed the bomber. You’re supposed to take it out of your bottom before it goes off.

You can read the report here in The Sun newspaper, under their clever headline; “Suicide Bummer”. Did you see what they did there?

Its unlikely as fuck that Al Qaeda visit my website, so they probably worked this one out on their own. Now that this frightening and icky technique is out there, how long before airports implement new security procedures? Not long is my guess.

Still, there’s an upside. If you’re going to have to display your ringpiece in airports for all to see, anal bleaching is set to be the next big growth industry. They’ll even have a new slogan: “Anal Bleaching…its not just for porn stars any more!”

So Mrs. Hippy turns to me last night and says, “Don’t you post on your blog any more?”

She was surfing the internet on her iPod Touch, which she does quite a bit, preferring it to using our iMac.

“Of course I do”, I said slightly defensively, trying to remember when I last posted something here. I had to check.

It was three weeks ago. That’s long, even by my somewhat lax standards. So what have I been up to in that time?

I was kind of hoping you could tell me.

I haven’t been working that much. I haven’t been doing much of anything, if you must know. I think I am perfecting the art of being and nothingness. I’m not even sure if I exist any more or even ever existed in the first place.

I might not even be fictional. I could just be imaginary, living only in your mind.

You’re staring at a blank screen right now, only your mind thinks you are seeing words written by some weird make-believe, north London-based hippy. How’s your imaginary grammar?

See, this is what happens when you start the day with a strong coffee and a skunky spliff peppered with bubble-hash. Everyone should start their day this way.

I spend inordinate amounts of time simply lost in thought. I disappear into my own little Utopia, where I right the world’s wrongs and allow my creativity to flow freely.

I used to do all that in the real world, but at some point, I stopped.

Oh I’ve worked out when it stopped and why. It was when I first got sick with my stupid Hashimoto’s Disease a couple of years ago. I didn’t realise it at the time, it probably took another year before I twigged that something was actually physically wrong with me, but in retrospect, it all fits.

Between 2004 and 2007, I wrote 2 novels and was reasonably prolific here on my website too. Towards the end of that period, the 2nd book fizzled out while I was writing it and remains one chapter shy of being complete. The first book was published, but I didn’t do enough to promote it and it languishes on virtual shelves, unread.

The first book was nearly commissioned as a TV series too, but the media is a fickle and fucked up mistress. The guy who liked it and could have commissioned it with a flick of his pen, moved on; his replacements were far less enthusiastic and the possibility of producing the series faded away.

Rather than continue to plug away trying to do something with it, I let it go too. At the time, I just thought I had lost my enthusiasm for the project, but in truth, it was probably my ill health that robbed me of my fire.

I haven’t done much of anything since.

Of course, that’s not strictly true as I still work (mostly) full time and I do post the odd piece here, but my output is not even close to the levels I reached a few years ago.

I’m still being treated for the Hashimoto’s Disease and my doctor is still adjusting my medication levels. If they ever get it right, I should feel better and be back to my old self. That’s what they tell me, anyway.

In the mean time, I’ll continue to distract myself with my vivid imagination and soft drugs.

Now, aren’t you glad Mrs. Hippy asked if I still post here? Blame her for the 5 minutes of your life I just wasted, not me.

The National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK has been in the firing line this week as Americans “debate” overhauling their healthcare system in an attempt to extend access to their 50 million residents who have absolutely no cover or access to care.

Americans are being led to believe that the free healthcare available to all of us in the UK is no good. This is so far from the truth that it would be funny, except for the fact that people’s lives hang in the balance.

The UK has a much higher life expectancy than the USA. Check your statistics and see that I’m not lying. The UK also spends less on healthcare per person than they do in the states, yet they yield better results.

Go figure!

The American healthcare system is run like a for-profit business. Think about that, someone profits from your illness and the percentages of profit are obscenely high.

Insurance companies, drug companies private hospitals, private doctors are all in the game to make money from your misery. That can’t be right, can it? Every test ordered that you don’t really need, every over-prescription is money in the bank for someone.

Just ask Michael Jackson if private healthcare on demand is a good thing. Oh wait, you can’t because it killed him.

In America, healthcare is seen as a privilege, not a basic human right. Should one only be entitled to healthcare on the basis of qualifying for insurance, rather than qualifying for need? Shouldn’t everyone have access to healthcare?

Of course they should!

Some of the scenes I’ve caught on television, of the so-called town-hall meetings have been very amusing, well amusing in as much as the ignorance fuelled anger is simply surreal.

It seems to me, that the loudest voices at these town-hall meetings are coming out of the mouths of people with the least information on the subject. These sad, twisted, ignorant people have an unjustifiable hatred of President Obama that is probably rooted in their inherent racism rather than any actual dislike of a new healthcare system.

All you need to do is listen to what they say, their buzz words, like “socialism” and “this isn’t the America I know” to understand just how misguided and ill-informed these folks are on the subject.

Ok, any subject.

At the heart of all of this is FOX News, the biased and unfair pseudo news network owned by Rupert Murdoch. FOX News provide the stilted talking points and their legions of viewers turn up at town-hall meetings, parroting the same lame shit.

I can’t say I’ve looked into it, but I am guessing a wealthy guy like Murdoch must have business interests outside the media world, say perhaps insurance or drug companies. In other words, he may have a vested financial interest in how this debate plays out. And if not him, then some of his rich robber-baron mates have got investments in the medical field. There’s a lot of profit to be protected.

Its funny how SKY News, the sister station of FOX News, under the NewsCorp corporate umbrella is taking a different tack here, righteously defending the NHS against the FOX News inspired attacks. Does one hand not know what the other is doing? Or is SKY simply pandering to their UK-based subscribers?

I think we both know the answer to that one.

I’m in a fairly unique position, having lived considerable lengths of time under both healthcare systems. Neither the US or UK systems are perfect, both excel at some things and lack in others, but overall, I know which system I would choose, if I had to…

The NHS all the way!

In the UK, I’ve never had any concerns about insurance, access to the medical system or being able to afford the costs. I’ve for the most part, had excellent care of a world class standard courtesy of the NHS.

In America I’ve been charged one hundred bucks for a wooden tongue depresser – you know what I’m talking about, a wide wooden popsicle stick.

Open your mouth and say “ahhh fuck, you just charged me a Benjamin to do that!”

In my world, life is usually quite simple and this unhealthy debate is no different. What it boils down to is this: “I’ve already got mine, so screw you if you don’t have yours!” It all comes down to compassion and America’s apparent lack of it.

The Christian right in America preach something known as “compassionate conservatism”, but sadly they don’t practise it in any meaningful or tangible way. Where’s the compassion? What would that guy Jesus do?

Jesus would move to the UK, sign on to the dole and get those holes in his hands and feet looked at for free, same for that nasty stab wound in his side.

Universal healthcare is an undeniable right, yet 50 million Americans are being denied it. Any compassionate person would recognise the inequality in the current system and want to do all they could to change it.

Where are all the compassionate folks in America? Don’t they care about their fellow man? Maybe if there are any, they could go to those silly town-hall meetings and shout down all the ignorant idiots that are making America look so stupid.

Oh and while I’m at it, lay off the NHS. Ill-informed opinion does not make a debate, it just makes you look even more like morons to the rest of the (better informed) world.

That’s a fairly bold statement up there in the title. How will I ever live up to its promise?

Simple, its completely transformed how I interact with the internet. (And please note not “simples”. I am sick of that shit already).

Again, another fairly large claim about a “complete transformation” of my surfing habits.

I ain’t lyin’ neither.

In the old days, I used a browser to explore the internet. I’d plug something into a search engine and let it transport me to another site, which might then lead me to yet another site, and so on and so forth, until I returned to the search engine to start again. Of course, I bookmarked sites too, but the point is I had to think of a site I wished to check out, then navigate to it again.

Over time, I developed my own internet rituals, visiting my favourite sites on a regular or semi-regular basis, checking for new content. This style of surfing meant I would occasionally arrive at a site to discover it hadn’t changed since my last visit, but I wouldn’t find that out until the page loaded and wasted some of my valuable online time.

And then, I discovered RSS feeds and readers. Suddenly, I didn’t have to visit all of my favourite sites to check for anything, instead I waited for their headlines to arrive in my regularly refreshed RSS reader. If I wanted to explore the article further, I could click once and easily open the page in my browser.

But RSS readers don’t work in real time, there’s no push-type system to receive the headlines. Instead, they refresh automatically at a pre-defined interval or if you are a bit obsessive like me, manually refreshing every 10 seconds just in case. It worked, but it wasn’t perfect.

Then I discovered Twitter and Twitter clients. The “client” part is important, because if you’re accessing Twitter via your browser, you are missing out on some of its usefulness. I’ll come back to that.

Twitter is more than just reading about what people had for breakfast. There are other meals and snacks to read about too.

No, what I really mean is beyond following individuals, you can also follow websites. Websites with RSS feeds can marry them up with a service like TwitterFeed and auto-generate a tweet linking to new content published on their site.

I use TwitterFeed here on my site and it auto-generates a tweet to my Twitter account, @nthlondonhippy with the title & first line of the post, along with a shortened bit ly link to the full text.

Admittedly my site is not the busiest in the world, but if you are following me on Twitter, you will be alerted to any new content. Even if you are not following me, you still may discover the tweet and it might even be how you ended up here right now.

I would speculate that around a third of the accounts I follow on Twitter are auto-generated from websites I regularly visit. Headlines and links flow onto my computer’s desktop via my preferred Twitter client, which at present is TweetDeck.

I follow many news outlets, loads of the Guardian newspaper’s Twitter accounts, the New York Times, various Apple and gadget sites, celebrity news sites, conspiracy sites, all sorts really. My tastes are varied and diverse, but luckily so are the choices available to everyone on Twitter. If you’re interested in something, chances are there’s a Twitter feed (or 20!) that would cater to you.

Twitter is also a frightening good source for breaking news. As Twitter exists in the “nearly now” and moves in real time, when something happens anywhere in the world, it doesn’t take long for it to bubble up to the surface.

There’s an organisation that uses Twitter for just this purpose, @BreakingNews – BNO News, which is run by a 19 year-old in the Netherlands. They’re scary fast and often beat the more traditional old-style media outlets by 10-15 minutes. In the age of “now”, that’s quite an edge.

And yes, I do work in the old-media, but it doesn’t worry me. The smart old-media outfits will adapt and change with technology and most of them have started already. Twitter is re-writing the rules here too.

This is where a Twitter client really comes into its own. If you’re logging onto Twitter via their website, you are presented with a fairly usable interface, with one flaw, it doesn’t refresh automatically. To see new tweets, you must manually refresh the page. It works, but its not ideal.

A Twitter client is a stand-alone app, that sits independently on your desktop and they can refresh in real time or nearly. Many of them are feature-rich and allow you to do all sorts of cool things with Twitter, often with one-click.

I have been using TweetDeck for a while, but there are others available, most of them have free versions, so you can try them out and see if they work for you. I like TweetDeck because it is column based and is collapsable into a single column, which is how I run it most of the time.

With TweetDeck, you can have separate columns for your main feed, your mentions, your DMs plus you can create other columns to filter your stream even more. You can search with a hashtag and see real-time results and you can create groups from your main followers list too.

You can also do things like reply, send a DM or retweet with one click, as well as following and unfollowing with the same ease.

With it set up like this, a quick occasional glance keeps me up to date and can alert me to anything that might interest me, while I do other things on my computer. Like write this post.

While I’ve been working on this fine piece of Twitter related prose, I’ve helped someone with an iMovie ’09 question and replied to several tweets addressed directly to me. I don’t see it as a distraction, but rather it augments whatever I’m doing and in this case, actually informs and enriches it.

If I have any sort of question that I haven’t been able to answer with more traditional means, like search engines or forum posts, I’ll tweet it. Before long, an answer will come back, one that wouldn’t have been easy to find any other way. Call it the collective knowledge and experience of everyone interacting on Twitter at that moment, or the “hive mind” if you will, but whatever you call it, it is a quite powerful tool.

You can instantly collect opinions and reactions to something from a broad cross section of the planet, or find local knowledge of an event or situation right now.

Twitter has become my point of call for just about everything online. I use it to keep track of the news, of websites I like and subjects that matter to me. I engage in dialogue with other, like minded people, sharing my own knowledge while at the same time, benefiting from other’s.

More significantly, I don’t surf in the same way I used to; I don’t really browse using a browser any more. Instead of seeking out subjects of interest to me, I have them streamed onto my desktop continuously and in real-time, cherry picking the specific pages I want to see and only then opening them up in my browser.

Just as the internet has evolved in the last 10 years, from slow dial-up connections with mainly text-only pages to fast, always on-broadband and media-rich content, our ways of interacting with the internet have changed too.

Twitter has become my internet aggregator, my media and information filter. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is it too soon to tell?

How about you?

Has Twitter changed your surfing habits? Do you use it as I do? Or have you found some other benefit I may be overlooking? I’d genuinely like to hear from anyone who might have any thoughts, so please feel free to tweet me and include my Twitter ID: @nthlondonhippy in your tweet, to make sure I see it and respond. Thanks!

You might not have heard, but Michael Jackson kicked the bucket recently. You’d think that sort of news would get around.

In truth, it did get around, shockingly fast. Thanks to TMZ.com and Twitter, the sad news spread around the world at the speed of tweet.

And just for today, MJ doesn’t mean marijuana here, it stands for Michael Jackson.

I was working the night he died, just heading into the office as the news broke.

I was early and paused outside the building to have one last smoke before going to my desk. As I flicked through a Twitter app on my iPhone. I caught one of the first tweets that stated MJ had been rushed to hospital in an ambulance with a suspected heart attack.

A colleague of mine joined me at this point and as he lit up a cigarette of his own, I told him what I had just read and we started speculating on “what if” it turned out to be the worst case and he was dead.

For both of us, working overnight in a newsroom, MJ’s death translated into utter fucking chaos for many, many hours. Whatever the outcome, I knew it was going to be a nasty-assed night.

In reality, it exceeded my expectations.

Beyond that, the rest of my night at work is not really important. It was yet another busy one, dealing with a large breaking story. I’ve had countless nights like that.

It wasn’t until after that night, and the subsequent few at work, that I really had the chance to consider the significance and magnitude of his death. That’s not meant to be an overstatement, its huge news that will carry on running for a long time, as will MJ Inc. which will exploit his passing even more than the media ever could.

Before you start thinking I’m some mega-fan of MJ’s, I’d like to take a moment to point out that I’m not. I didn’t hate his music either and I can appreciate his undeniable talent, I was just never a fan of his solo stuff.

As a child, I did like the Jackson 5, but it was practically children’s music. A-B-C, its easy as 1-2-3… It was like Sesame Street does Motown, before Sesame Street existed.

I liked some of his music videos, because they were innovative, ground was broken with several, but I never bought an MJ record.

I should also mention that I believed the allegations about him. Always did, still do. Perhaps its just my view of the smoke+fire equation, but everything I read about it, makes me think there’s something to it.

Everyone seems to be skipping over that part of the story right now, perhaps I should too.

I’m old enough to have vivid memories of Elvis Presley dying. Its difficult to really explain how momentous this was at the time. Elvis was even younger than MJ when he died, all bloated, pinching a loaf while squatting on the bowl.

Not a pretty picture.

Elvis was big when he was alive, they didn’t call him “the King” for nothing, but in death Elvis was even bigger. You only have to look at his estate’s accounts to see that he’s grossed more money since he died than he ever did alive.

Now, think of the “King of Pop”, or MJ Inc. as I’ve been thinking of it. MJ’s music is more modern, his audience is still on the young side. Elvis’s audience was mature when he ate his last fried banana sandwich, yet he has still kept on selling.

Also, MJ’s music sounds more modern, it can easily sit on the radio along side music being released today. An Elvis song sounds old, because they pretty much all are now; perhaps “dated” would be a more appropriate description.

I liked Elvis, I thought he was cool, at least until his 1968 comeback special. If you’ve never seen it, it really is worth your time. After that, he kind of became a parody of himself, which was sad to see. I do have one Elvis CD, a compilation of his Number 1 hits.

And even though I like Elvis, I’ve still managed to make a couple of jokes at his expense. Imagine the MJ jokes I could make; or better yet, don’t imagine, just think of some you’ve already heard from your mates.

Only the really funny ones, please.

Its too soon, we have to continue to feign reverence for a while longer, before we can stop whispering the jokes and speak them out in full voice, in a crowded room, to thunderous laughter without a hint of shame. Try it now and all you’ll get are muffled giggles and undeniable gasps.

No one dubbed MJ the “King of Pop”, the title was self-anointed following a spontaneous introduction when being presented with an award. Once adopted, MJ’s PR people forced the media to refer to him as “King of Pop” and after a while it stuck.

Now, no one could take that crown away from him if they tried.

His death was tragic, as is any death at a relatively young age, but his is made more so because of his immense talent. If ever there was a tortured artist…

MJ didn’t have a conventional childhood. How could he when he was rehearsing and performing from such a young age. His father sounded like quite a taskmaster, which is polite speak for motivating Michael and his brothers by beatin’ on their ass(es).

Michael told Oprah as much on tv, so it must be true.

MJ was screwed up, dysfunctional even, but I believe the current, accepted term to describe him is: eccentric.

The problem with being the King, be it Elvis or MJ, is no one ever says “no” to you. For Elvis, it was fatty foods and prescription drugs, for MJ, well we can be fairly certain it wasn’t fatty foods.

If we believe what we’re reading in the media, then MJ was using all sorts of doctor prescribed goodies that most likely killed him. Most disturbing is the report of one of the drugs being Propinal (AKA Diprovan), a powerful anaesthetic that should only be administered in a hospital because it is a continuous IV drip and requires full monitoring by a qualified doctor. The risks include respiratory arrest, which is fancy doctor-speak for: shit, he’s completely stopped breathing!

Fuck. Why didn’t I hear of this before? Talk about a celebrity endorsement! Where can I get my own private medical doctor to come round and make a few days just zip right by, while I’m comatose and probably millimetres from death? All the cool kids are going to want to do some POP (PrOPinal = POP as in the King of, its new, street name).

How messed up in the head do you have to be to want to be dosed up like you were having your appendix removed? How much would you want to escape both the entire world and yourself?

And what sort of licensed physician would administer that to someone privately, in their own home? Don’t they take an oath that says something like, “First, do no harm?”

Playing with anaesthetics sounds seriously harmful to me.

Which brings me back to where I started, with this becoming an ongoing news story. One of the biggest, most controversial pop stars in the world died suddenly, possibly at the hands of someone else.

Yes, I am talking murder.

And so is the LA Police, or so it would seem to me. Just because they say they don’t suspect foul play, doesn’t mean they don’t suspect something foul happened.

If I was to gamble, I’d say someone will end up being charged in connection with his death. Someone will become known as the man (or woman) who killed Michael Jackson.

And even though his funeral and public memorial are today, this story will run for years and years.

Expect more revelations about his private life to be competing with the twists and turns in the legal battles, criminal and civil, while he continues to break records for music sales and MJ Inc. makes hundreds of millions.

What does it say about our society that we can worship someone for their talent, while being fascinated by their eccentricity, yet repulsed by their alleged proclivities?

As a character, MJ is about as complex and rich a tapestry as you’re likely to find.

And what does it say about our society that so many talented people, in so many different areas of the arts, are so tragically fucked up? MJ’s not the first mega-star to succumb to such a sad end.

He won’t be the last, either.

I flirted with Twitter for around 6 months before I properly signed up and started tweeting. I didn’t really get it at first, which is not unusual, for it has become a virtual sub-culture on the internet, with its own rules and etiquette, that must be observed if you wish to play a part.

By rules, I don’t mean anything official, perhaps conventions or an informal code of practise would be more accurate, but for simplicities sake, I’ll stick to “rules”.

As I’ve used Twitter, I’ve developed my own set of rules, or rather they’ve evolved as I’ve learned bit by bit what works for me.

And that’s what I believe is the key to Twitter, learning what “works for you”. Different people use it in different ways and I’m going to share few things I’ve picked up since I started tweeting.

Following people:

At first, I really didn’t know who to follow beyond @wossy and @stephenfry and while they are both entertaining and prolific tweeters, it wasn’t enough to make Twitter worth my time. And its one thing following celebrities, they expect your attention and adoration, but how do you find other people to follow?

I was a bit shy about following people at first, after all you are choosing to learn a great deal about someone who is a random stranger on the internet, but I’m far less so now.

When I started, I only really followed people who followed me first. Silly, eh? Don’t be afraid to follow someone if you want to, even if their updates are protected with a padlock. Mostly, that’s to keep out spammers and pornbots, not genuine people like you. Occasionally, an account is truly private, but I’ve yet to personally encounter one.

Nearly all of us are on Twitter because we want to be followed. And who wouldn’t want some cool rockin’ hippy like me trailing them in cyberspace? Now tell me, what colour is your thong today?

Unfollowing:

Occasionally, I unfollow someone and if it is you I unfollowed, I don’t mean any disrespect. The biggest reason I unfollow people is they tweet too often and its meaningless crap – and that’s my job on Twitter!

Recently, I’ve unfollowed people because of the content of their tweets. I’m rarely offended, so if you managed to offend me, you’ve said something extremely loathsome. And I’ve unfollowed people who’ve signed up for advertising tweets – I don’t want your stream to be interrupted by a word from YOUR sponsor. It reduces Twitter’s value for everyone.

Followers:

Its not a numbers game. Don’t be suckered into thinking that it is.

At first, I was concerned about how many followers I had, and what people would think of me, if I didn’t have many. I soon learned the number of people following you doesn’t matter as much as the quality of your followers. And if the quality of your tweets is high, you will attract followers soon enough.

If you have a smaller number of like-minded people following you, that beats millions of random followers any day.

If I cared about the numbers, I’d let all the spammers and marketeers continue to follow me, but I don’t – I block them. If I did leave them in place, it would probably double my number of followers.

If you follow me, I won’t automatically follow you back. I might follow you, but only after I’ve had a look at your profile to see if your style of tweets would be interesting to me. If I don’t follow you, please don’t be offended. I only take a quick look and then make a snap decision. Sometimes I get it wrong.

And if you want me to follow you, just send me an @ message and I will. There are too many “online marketing specialists” who can help me make money on Twitter trying to follow me, or girls who want to show me their sexy private pictures, for it to be sensible to automatically follow back.

Finding people:

I stumble upon new people all the time, in many different ways.

Sometimes, someone using a hashtag I’m tracking will catch my attention.

I often look at who other people are following or followed by as well. And on occasion, I see someone I’m following exchanging @ messages with someone and while following the conversation thread, the new person catches my attention.

A lot of people think #followfriday is another good way to find new people, as its the day to recommend new people for you to follow. I have to be honest, I still don’t really get the etiquette of the whole thing. To me, every one of the nearly 500 accounts I’m following are worth it, or I wouldn’t be following them. So I choose people to recommend, knowing I’ve probably unintentionally left someone very worthy out, or I’ve embarrassed someone by recommending them. Clearly, I’m too neurotic to be playing in public with strangers.

My tweets:

I make a lot of jokes, or at least I try to, but some fall flat on their faces. I am occasionally serious, sincere, angry (more than occasionally), but mostly I am sarcastic with a dash of irony.

I tend to treat Twitter like one giant open-mike night and let my inner-comedian run wild. If you worked with me or hung out with me in person, it wouldn’t be much different, only I would type less.

The important thing is I don’t tweet anything that I would be embarrassed or ashamed of later. I’m polite and friendly to others, but most importantly I am true to myself.

It helps that I’ve blogged a long time and have learned how much of myself to share with the wider world. Too fucking much!

DM’s and @ messages:

I try to reply to all I receive, as long as you are not offering me a free MacBook Air or telling me how to get 16K followers in a week, and make money doing it!

If I haven’t replied to your message, its because I probably missed it. And Twitter’s not perfect, as some messages and tweets get missed out from client to client. I know this because I use a variety of methods to read my tweets and messages and I can see that sometimes things aren’t exactly the same from client to client or device to device.

Twitter is fast moving plus I keep weird hours most of the time so I do occasionally miss things.

If its important, message me again – I’d rather have your message twice, then have you think I was ignoring you.

I’m happy to hear from anyone, especially if you’re in Nigeria or a member of the US military in Iraq and looking to transfer large sums of cash into my bank account.

Invest time

You need to properly invest time interacting on Twitter. You can’t just send the same tweet over and over, selling your product or service. People won’t pay attention, they’ll classify you as noise.

Start out slowly, gradually building your network. Give more than you receive on Twitter, if you can answer someone’s question accurately, then do it. Don’t be self-centred or self-serving – people can smell it a mile off and will avoid you.

Know what you want from Twitter:

This is the best advice I’ve found on using Twitter, so I will pass it along. Think about what you want to get out of Twitter and be focused on that.

If you want to extend your social network, or use it to promote a product or service, go for it, but do it well. There are many guides available on how best to use Twitter for your business. Heed their advice.

I won’t lie, I joined to promote my website and “brand”. Are you shocked? Saddened? Will you not look upon me with the same adoration you had for me yesterday? I’m crushed.

Its worked, I’ve seen a dramatic upward spike in visitors to my site since I started tweeting regularly.

What I didn’t expect but found anyway, is a community of extremely nice, kind, helpful, genuine people.

I’m quite reclusive by nature and more than a bit of a loner, but I find myself exchanging @ messages with people quite frequently. Its an unanticipated, yet welcome benefit of being a member of the Twitter community.

Now, I wonder how many of them would loan me some money? I don’t need a lot, just a few grand to get this shylock off my back. You don’t want to see a certain north London based hippy with shattered knee-caps, do you?