Look South

Good evening and welcome to Look South. On tonight's show, I'll be taking a look into the curious issue of Dan Bantam's sexuality, the form and function of my office sweepstake X-Factor pick, Miss Frank, as well as looking ahead to tonight's big Pro Evolution Soccer matches and tomorrow's weather.

But before I do that, I'd just like to have a quick recap on the status of a certain Facebook group. I'm talking about The Friends of Barry Newsdesk of course. Just five days ago, I took the online law of friendship into my own hands.

I had become frustrated at my inability to drive up the blog's followership and having tried emotionally blackmailing a small group of Facebook friends, using nothing more than a six sided die and a threat of de-friending my quest for greater uptake had come to naught. Enraged I decided to widen my threat, I set up a group called the Friends of Barry Newsdesk, then invited every single on of my Facebook friends to join. A failure to join up would mean you'd be put on the hit list and, like Beatriz Carvahlo, be de-friended.

To be honest, I didn't think anyone would bother joining really. However, I was wrong, my main French pal Mess joined up. Then my fav Californian babe also joined up, Jennifer Walker Shannen, saying: "Sorry I was late to the party. You know you're my favorite, though, right?"

How cool is that? But it gets even better, ace blogger Mr London Street also signed up, using his real name, which I will not reveal here, in case he prefers to blog in cognito. He said: "Barry = legend."

LEGEND! Like Bob Marley.

Then, globe trotting around the world, my fav kiwi follower Megan Rose signed up saying: "Ooo, I love this. I get to be both a rogue stalker and a legitimate fan all at the same time. Good work Barry Newsdesk."

Well, I was bowled over with joy. At the time of writing, the Friends of Barry Newsdesk has 24 members (but that includes me....so 23 really).

The really great news though, is my blog followershipness has bounced back from 24 to 26 again!

That, my friends, is the POWER of social media.

Anyway, the rampant success of the Friends of Barry Newsdesk has caused me to have a serious long look at the blog, and I've decided to get back to some Citizen Journalism. Which is why I started writing today's post in the style of a regional news show. I know this re-focus will certainly please Tennyson ee Hemingway, as he commented not so long ago: "Well Baz, hopefully this will get you back to doing the Citizen Journalism we love. I've missed that part of your blog lately."

Have you noticed what I've been doing readers? I've been using quotes. That's something proper journalists do to pad out their stories.

I'm also hoping that my re-focus will bring back Mr C, whose comments I have missed. Maybe he's sulking because I haven't thrown the welcome back party? Don't worry Mr C, I will, I really will. I just want to make sure things are back on the straight and narrow first.

BACK TO THE NEWS

I'm starting to think that Dan Bantam might be on the verge of telling me that he prefers boys to girls. As older readers of the blog will know, Mr Bantam (my boss) became Dan (my flatmate) when not so long ago he split up with his wife Clare. I had always thought he was a big hit with the ladies, he certainly takes care of his appearance, professes to be a wizard in the kitchen and almost all his friends are girls.

The thing is readers, I'm not stupid, I'm a man of the world. And, when the other night at an office karaoke party, Dan did a cracking Lola, I realised the score. It's a mixed up muddled up world readers. Each to his own and all that. But I have to admit, I do feel a little bit uncomfortable walking around the flat in my pants these days. Dan has made several disparaging remarks. More than Gill ever used to make.

Then, after his customary night out in Clapham at the weekend I heard more than one voice in his room. It was clear that he and A.N.Other were a bit merry, pretty soon I heard his stereo fire up Lady Gaga's insufferable new album and there was the unmistakable noise of the beast with two backs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not a homophobic, but under my roof?! I think I'm going to have to ask Dan to respect my wishes and not bring fellers back to the flat readers. I think it's only fair, particularly as I've not had much luck lately in that department. Not the fellers department readers, I don't bat for that side.

Sometimes though, when I see how happy Dan is these days I wish I was a bit gay. Maybe a bisexual or something. The best of both worlds. It would up my potential target market by 50 per cent. Although, I wouldn't want anyone too big. I think it would be intimidating. I've heard that Indian men have got small willies, so it might be an ego boost to get one.

Anyway, since I'm exploring fresh new avenues of sexuality, I decided to take part in the office X-Factor sweepstake. I've got Miss Frank. They're a band, so Louis Walsh has got em, and they're unusual in that they all got to Boot Camp as solo artists, but weren't good enough to make it on their own so were clumped together by the judges.

Listen to me readers, I sound like a natural. But I got all this info by listing to Suzi and Dan chatting about last night's show, during which the judges chose the Final 12. I won't bore you shitless with a description of the rest of the show's entrants. Although, I have to confess the red blooded male part of me would have rather had Kandy Rain - another band composed entirely of ex-strippers. They're a bit more pleasing on the eye than Miss Frank. If you don't believe me, check out the everyone's fav newspaper, the Current Bun.

Actually, The Sun isn't everyone's fav rag, really, it's read by illiterate morons. But it is full of tits and as Dave the roofer says, you can't put a price on tits. I'm going to go off-piste here readers, but the Sun recently came out in favour of David Cameron. A famously right-wing rag in the 80s, the Sun switched its political allegiances and, if it's own PR is to be believed, almost single handedly convinced the British public to give New Labour's Tony Blair a chance.

They're not driving the political agenda of this country readers, they're bandwagon jumping mercenaries who prey on the 'minds' senseless tit-lovers. I know that David Cameron will get in readers, but I'm a socialist at heart, always have been and it'll be a dark day indeed.

The Sun's sudden switch back to the Tories seems a tad desperate. It would be like me pretending to me a Man Utd fan last season and then deciding that I'd follow Chelsea this year.

Speaking of football (and seamlessly getting the show back on track), tonight will see Newsdesk Utd, my Pro Evolution Football team take to the field for the first time in ages. I have to confess, I've been looking at adverts for Fifa 10 by EA Sport. I've been a Konami Pro Evo man ever since I flogged my Megadrive and bought a Playstation. But I suppose if I can consider a life of homosexuality, and if the Sun can switch political party, then I can try out the Pro Evo rival.

It looks absolutely mint I must say. Until now I've resisted the urge to buy a Playstation 3 and have soldiered on with the PS2. But it's getting to the stage now where the difference in quality is like comparing the EA Sports Fifa 95 on the Megadrive with the PES5 I play. Things have moved on, and maybe it's time for me to move on. But not before I finish just one more championship winning campaign with the old boys Newsdesk Utd.

I've got some Cobra chilling in the fridge and I've been looking forward to this all day. Dan's out at pilates so I've got the place to myself.

Before I go though. I thought I would have a crack at forecasting the weather. They always do the weather last on the news. The thing is, I'm not convinced that they really know much about forecasting weather at the met office any more than someone simply guessing tomorrow's weather based on the what it was like today.

So, today it was a little bit chilly, quite grey and overcast, with fairly persistent drizzle. I think tomorrow, will be slightly drier, and maybe a little bit windier.

And that's THE NEWS.

Baz

Straight to bookshelf

Jobs are funny aren’t they? I mean we’ve all got to have one, but so many people don’t like theirs, it makes you wonder why they bother. I absolutely love my job at Blockbusters, but like it says in the song, love don’t pay the rent. I’m on the breadline and I really should start thinking a bit more about how I can bring in a few more spondulicks.

When I was a nipper up in Lincoln I used to dream of being a policeman, but back in those days you needed to be at least 5’11” in order to qualify. I looked long and hard at my Mum and Dad, 5’8” and 5’2” respectively and realised I’d be hard pushed to make the Force. My Mum being little didn’t matter so much, but it would be my Dad’s lack of stature that would let me down. It wouldn’t be the first time he let me down or the last either readers, but that’s a different story, for another time.

Pretty soon though I was glad that I wouldn’t be a copper. My friend Steve’s Dad was a copper and pretty much no one trusted him. Steve got pretty badly bullied for a while, then it stopped abruptly when the Dad of one of the bullies was pulled over for speeding and some cannabis was ‘discovered’ during a rectal investigation back at the local station.

No one bullied Steve anymore, but no one talked to him either. Apart from me, I wasn’t scared. Mind, I did suggest to Steve’s Dad more than once that I thought my Dad was a secret weed smoker and he was never pulled over, apart from the time he ran a red light, then the copper just let him off with a warning.

Pretty soon I decided that I wanted to be a footballer and play for Notts Forest. Although, to be honest, sports weren’t really my strong point, well, not until I took up judo, which I only took up when the bullies’ attention moved from Steve to me. I’m a black belt now readers, I’d love to run into those bastards again in a dark alley. Even though I’m a pacifist, I think I’d probably put my resolve to one side this time and give them a well-overdue pasting.

When I took up judo, the only professional judo exponent was Brian Jacks. Man, he really was the king of the dippers. Not surprisingly, I never really harboured ambitions to be a professional judo fighter.

Pretty soon I discovered girls and music. I bought a bass guitar and joined a band. Well, I formed one anyway, with Steve. We were called Cut ‘n’ Run, and played electro-funk goth fusion. We did a gig at the church hall, it went down well, but in all honesty, it was highly unlikely that I’d carve myself a career in the business. When I saw that character in the League of Gentlemen, the bassist in Crème Brulee, it reminded me a lot of Cut ‘n’ Run! You’ve got to laugh sometimes haven’t you? If you didn’t you’d cry. :-(

Anyway, I don’t want to go into too much detail about my search for a job from childhood to adulthood. Suffice to say I went to college and got a Desmond (as in Desmond Tu-Tu) in Mineral Processing and Material Reclamation. I qualified just in time for the UK mining industry to collapse. NICE ONE MAGGIE!!!

I ended up in media sales, more by accident than design, and that’s where I stayed for the next 15 years until I was made redundant and started out on my quest to become a Citizen Journalist – that was under five months and over 70 posts ago, and here we are. I’ve had over 1100 hits and 11 great followers (welcome aboard Jimmy!! - you can read my latest follower Jim's blog at this link here. It's well worth a trip.)

I have to admit, I’ve not really seen much financial reward in journalism. Not a single one of my submissions to The Metro has resulted in payment and my freesheet adult entertainment magazine, The Oyster, has proven the old adage that ‘sex sells’ to be inaccurate. All this recent talk of sponsorship opportunities looked promising, but amounted to nothing.

I was starting to think that maybe writing is not that great a career after all. There aren’t that many superstar journalists are there? Apart from Paxman, natch.

Then I thought, ‘but journalists are writers Barry, there are loads of famous writers and quite a few rich ones too’. Look at JK Rowling. I LOVE Harry Potter. They’re great, they’re so addictive, they’re meant for kids I know, but I’ve got the ones with the ‘adult’ sleeves (they’re not covered in pictures of boobs ;-) they’re just plain and serious, so when you’re reading them in public, it looks like you’re reading a proper grown-up’s book).

Writing books is not as hard as you’d imagine readers, the trick is coming up with something no one else has ever thought of that taps into a market hungry for something they didn’t realise they were hungry for. I mean to say, who would ever had thought a book series about a wizard would have been successful?! And Rowling’s books have all been turned into films, so now she’s a multi-millionnairess ten times over. Thanks books. She had a secret up her sleeve all right, or should that be wizard’s sleeve??! lol ;-))

I started thinking about what I could write about that no one has realised they want yet. I went into the local library to do some research. I basically took a pad and pen and then wrote down all the types of books they stock. It took flippin ages!!! I thought I’d write down everything and then whatever was left would be a market as yet untapped.

I stumbled across a whole section full of books that are based on films. But not the actual films, different stories featuring the same characters as in the films like Star Wars and Star Trek. There are loads of famous films that were actually books first. Most people reckon the books are better than the films, but obviously they take a lot more time to consume so people opt for the film version.

Anyway, I thought to myself ‘rather than write a book that I hope gets turned into a film, like JK Rowling, and rather than writing a new story with the same characters that were in successful films. I would write a book version of a successful film’. The beauty of this is all I have to do is sit and watch a film and write down exactly what I see.

It’s targeted at people who think that books are better than films, but they’ve read all the books that have been turned into films and they don’t want to waste their time reading books that feature the same characters that are in films, but doing different stuff.

I just need to find a popular film that hasn’t been turned into a book! It’s harder than you’d think readers. Any ideas?

Swings and roundabouts

Hey guyz. Bit of a funny one today, some mixed emotions defo going. I'm back down to 12 followers. My excellent half Polish/half Irish follower Mereck has done the off and removed his colours from the Newsdesk mast.

It's always bad when I lose a follower, but I'm particualrly distraught about losing him (no offence to the rest of you) becasue he is a proper journalist and so his follower status gave me real kudos.

Lots of people think that blogging is just vanity publishing for writers who are simply not good enough to get paid for their copy. Mind you, most of the people who say that, are journalists running scared that the mystique of journalism is being removed, the barriers to entry lowered and the new paradigm of news will do them out of a job.

When Mereck joined the ND gang, heloped me stick it to the big commercial publishing houses. Here I was forging out a lone trail. Now he's gone, it's almost as though he's aggreeing. That bloggers are just a bunch of lonely diarists spouting ill-informed, half-baked views into the ether.

As regular readers know, I never get angry when people leave me. Just disappointed.

And, besides, Mereck and all the other doubters out there can suck it and see, because I just received this email:

Hi, Barry Newsdesk

We are contacting you because we have seen references about your work online.

We would like to include you in our directory of interviews with professionals in the field of communication.

We invite you to take part in this interview. It is free.You will also be able to include any web links to samples of your work on the internet.

To start the interview just go to this web address and start responding to questions:http://www.whohub.net/interview/JOURNALISM

You can also respond to questions in any another category that seems appropriate for you. Here, you can find some examples from other professionals:http://www.whohub.net/en/authors.php

Best

Elsa Wide

Whohub is a directory of interviews with professionals in the fields of communication, arts, technology, and marketing.

Amazing eh!?

I went along to the website and completed the online interview. I really do think it's only a matter of time before I get spotted and presented with the wider credit that my Citizen Journalism deserves.

You can find my answers to WhoHub's questions here.

What is journalism?

The blogosphere has been literally a blaze with the news that Chris Wheal a leading light in the National Union of Journalists went onto another journalist's blog and slagged off blogging, saying it wasn't 'proper' journalism, becasue the blogging journalist had slagged off the NUJ.

It got me thinking. If blogging isn't journalism, then what is? Is it newspapers? Is it Sian and Bill on the BBC in the morning? Or Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight?

Is it newsbabe Sunta on XFM?

Yesterday, I revealed that journalism isn't just news. Sometimes it's features too. So clearly journalism also includes magazines. Now that opens up a whole new segment. Magazines come in all shapes and sizes. Well, actually most magazines are roughly A4 size. But they certainly come in a myriad of subjects matters.

You've only got to step inside the doors of your nearest newsagent or even WH Smith to realise that you can buy a magazine on pretty much any subjects you fancy. From fishing to photography and everything in between. And if your eyes wander north, you'll soon see just how much in between there really is!!! ;-))

Is it TV Quick?

Then you've got the whole issue of people like the people I mentioned earlier. 'Proper' journalists who write blogs. Are they simply taking a brief haitus from their chosen career in order to blog or are they still journalists? I take the view that if you're doing this career nine to five, you're doing it wrong. So these guys are still journalists. Ergo, blogging is journalism.

You need an analytical mind to be a journalist. Something Mr Whear clearly lacks. Perhaps that's why he joined the NUJ!

Food for thought.

Blue Monday

I was watching Sian and Bill this morning on the BBC and they said that today is officially the most depressing day of the year. It's all to do with the lack of sunlight, the atrocious weather, the anti-climax following the festive season, the fact that your first wage packet has yet to land and the first bills have already arrived coupled with the knowledge that the rest of the year stretches before you like a vast unclimbable mountain of doom.

Although, the 'research' to back this up claim was funded by a travel agent and promoted by a PR agency. So its scientific validity is somewhat dubious.

Still, I really do think today could be the most depressing of the year. I went down to the station to pick up a copy of Metro. I ran (well, walked quickly at least) all the way home IN THE RAIN, made myself a cup of tea and scanned the rag from cover to cover looking for my research article.

Research, I might add, that was funded by genuine editorial curiosity and not by a travel firm trying to encourage people to book environment damaging flights!!!!!!!

It was nowhere to be seem. Last week's news of the Christian bus driver refusing to do his job because the adverts carried by his bus ran contrary to his opinions was a weighty issue, making headlines on the nationals. My research helped paint a fuller picture of the nation's wavering feelings of apathy towards religion. This week that story has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Maybe I should have been a little bit more targeted in my approach, maybe I should have bought myself a travel card and rode the buses asking passengers and drivers alike.

Today's news really is tomorrow's chip paper. It is an invaluable lesson for any would-be Citizen Journalist.

Redundancy

Today, after yesterday's decision to take the plunge into the world of journalism, I went into the world seeking inspiration.

I left my flat and turned right onto my road. I'd dressed appropriately, not just for the time of the year, but also for my chosen career path. This is the sort of thing I would have worn on a dress down Friday. Although, coincidentally, it was Friday anyway. But this would be my new apparel irrespective of the weekday in question. Unless I had an important meeting.

Smart casual, with serious leanings toward the latter. Converse sneakers, faded jeans, a plaid lemon shirt, underneath the grey jumper my Mum gave me for Christmas. She's always had such excellent taste.

I went into Specsavers and spent £300 of my redundancy package on clear glass spectacles with thick black frames.

Already feeling good I went into WH Smith and bought a new pen and 'reporters' pad - 100% recycled paper, made from post-consumer waste.

I looked the part.

All needed now was news.

I sat on a bench outside what was Woolworths on the high street. Not much happened for an hour or so, a woman sat next to me for ten minutes until her bus arrived. She was youngish, wearing a work uniform. Observation is key in journalism.

Some time after, a man arrived and started unlocking the metal mesh protective window protector of Woolworths. He would not be drawn on the issues that surround the collapse of the high street store.

The weather was inclement, although not any worse than it was yesterday.

For lunch I had McDonalds. I found a copy of Metro and read it from cover to cover seeking inspiration and stumbled across a story about a bus driver who refused to drive his bus because it carried an atheist slogan.

It got me thinking. Would God be angry that the bus driver had failed to turn the other cheek? Would God be angry with himself, or herself, for failing to turn the other cheek?

Religion is a contentious issue. Perfect for Citizan Journalists.

I thought this would make an interesting article for the readers of the Metro. So I carried out a poll on the highstreet. I simply asked the two questions I had posed myself earlier: Would God be angry that the bus driver had failed to turn the other cheek? Would God be angry with himself, or herself, for failing to turn the other cheek?

I asked 30 people. 4 people completely ignored me, 1 person was verbally abusive, 12 people said they didn't know, 2 people said yes and 11 said probably not.

I sent my findings to the editor at mail@ukmetro.co.uk.

I had spent about two hours on the project (10 minutes background reading, 10 minutes considering the issues, 1 hour 30 mins collecting data and 10 minutes writing up the findings). I thought I would bill for the UK minimum wage allowance of £5.73 per hour. This seemed fair considering my inexperience.

I await a response.