Tag: Journalism

my tuition fee loan was withdrawn halfway through my degree LOL

 

Because I’m bummed out, I gave GPT-4 a bunch of notes, barely a draft, along with some samples of my writing style, and prompted it to come up with the following. I’ve resisted the urge to edit, only swapping out a few bits here and there with this and a longer second version. I think it sounds more pretentious than I usually do, and more upbeat – and I’ve never been accused of being upbeat.

Just a silly little experiment really. Clicking the ‘I’m not a Robot’ captcha on the plagiarism check was hilarious. It’s 0%.

Depending on who trains them, I think machines will be able to display empathy and humour, even if we can’t prove they have souls – just like real children. Continue reading “my tuition fee loan was withdrawn halfway through my degree LOL” →

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1. Journalism Attracts the Worst

Monday January 9, 2023

Well, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I was down with stomach flu but needed to write a presentation on ethics in journalism; so, delirious with discomfort and permanently online, seasonally depressed and unable to keep a drink down for the purposes of self-medication, I’ve been reflecting on that old ethical dilemma of whether journalists actually have any.

Ethics, that is. Continue reading “1. Journalism Attracts the Worst” →

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Notes From an Elderly Schoolboy: Part 1

As a mature journalism student in my hometown, I just had to visit my old school and provide a statement.

 

Due to less than stellar book sales – which I’m going to attribute to the effect on the markets of Brexit, Covid and Putin – I’ve gone back to school.

Like an addict mistaking sobriety for enlightenment only to return to the bottle, I’ve decided to hobble around Portsmouth University on a bad knee like a fat ghost, hoping against hope that Student Finance England will get their act together before all my credit cards are maxed out. Continue reading “Notes From an Elderly Schoolboy: Part 1” →

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Lithuanians and Other Bogeymen (2009)

lith flash

While desperately searching various drives for my old short stories but finding only corrupted files I came across an old project report, (Back in 2009, Vilmantė, Sölvi, Dina and I produced a heartwarming wee Choose Your Own Adventure style Flash game about villains of the week, those dastardly Lithuanians, and that’s why there’s no such thing as racism anymore.)

It made me smile to remember a time when the knee-jerk armchair generals and vicious bigots of this country were all up in arms about ‘swarms’ from the east rather than the south-east.

The rhetoric may be saccharine and naive but I thought I’d share the report regardless. I’ve stripped most if not all of the business/marketing guff since I didn’t write it anyway; besides, no one visits this blog flushed with expectation for Target Group Analysis and User Scenarios, right?

If nothing else, it shows that you can get away with using colourful language like the S, F and N-words whilst trying to make some sort of sense of this shitty fucking world full of C-words. Continue reading “Lithuanians and Other Bogeymen (2009)” →

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Scottish Defence League March on Parliament


You wait ages for a racist then 50 turn up all at once; well it looked like 50 to me but the Police estimate 150 so what do I know? There were more people filming them though, that’s for sure – it’s the festival after all – and although the Police also put the counter-protest at 350, by far the greatest number of boots on the ground belonged to the Old Bill. Continue reading “Scottish Defence League March on Parliament” →

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Proof of Life, Wine Guide and a Video for Katie and Shaun

"There will be no miracles here." The grounds of my girlfriend's workplace. I took this before we met. I disagree wholeheartedly.
The grounds of my girlfriend’s workplace. I took this before we met. I disagree wholeheartedly.

It’s been over a month since I posted anything here and even though I have nothing I feel comfortable sharing with you I still feel it polite to show a little love to whoever reads these things as it can’t all be people stumbling upon this site by mistake. It’s not that we don’t love you, we’re just so busy. Continue reading “Proof of Life, Wine Guide and a Video for Katie and Shaun” →

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Please Ensure That You Write at Least 200 Words per Box.

A photograph of a poorly finished Gibson.
They taught us to always include an image with an article so here’s this one of the guitar I’ve just stripped down and finished. It has nothing to do with the post itself, but then nor does my sex life, which is what it pretty much replaced for a fortnight. It doesn’t have any strings because I was an idiot and thought I’d save a pound by ordering them online.

I remain connected to my Teesside classmates through Facebook and Twitter. It’s fun to see the relationships between them growing; strangers becoming buddies, flirts becoming fucks – all that dirty romance. Continue reading “Please Ensure That You Write at Least 200 Words per Box.” →

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