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Showing posts from October, 2015

Cameron crashes head-first into satire

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The head on collision between reality and satire finally took place today, resulting in the merging of the two into one entity. I am referring to David Cameron's " assault on poverty " which was declared today at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. Satirical newspaper NewsThump has simply published their reaction  with pretty much the same headline as the BBC because there's little warping of reality necessary to make what has been said sound ridiculous. To say Cameron walked into that particular punchline is damning with faint praise. Considering his leadership is already seen as being particularly harsh against poorer families, with tax credit cuts across the board, increases in food bank use and benefits cut for the poorest under-25s being approved under his leadership. The rest of the speech seemed to be punctuated with another ideological attack on his opposition counter-part Jeremy Corbyn, declaring him a Britain-hating, terrorist sympathis

Blockbuster Video: A warning from History

A blockbuster originally started out as the name of a bomb designed to level a city block in wartime. Since then it has become associated with a major commercial cinema hit. This then became the name of a once booming video rental chain empire, an empire that came crashing down in 2013 in the face of complete technological obsolescence, irrelevance and Netflix.  Blockbuster’s hubris during the rise of Netflix is now legendary after the company turned down the opportunity to buy its burgeoning competitor due to fears that it would undermine its core rental business which is now a historical curiosity in the same way as TV rentals. Hindsight being 20-20 this is a great lesson for any modern media or technology company. Never underestimate your own relevance. I share this cautionary tale as we face the inevitable decline of televisual and media empires. The media empires have existed more or less the same way for about 50 years. Print and broadcast dominated the schema. Then in t