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Being nice about people

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:13 / 12.10.09

I'm going to start the ball rolling, and just jump in whenever you feel like it.

Sir Terry Pratchett

I loved the first couple of Discworld novels, which I think was a combination of my age, and the freshness of the premise, while also being in a recongisable and comfortable world I'd been familiar with for years - my family's sci-fi collection. In the space between them, I hunted down Strata and The Dark Side of the Sun, and enjoyed them, also. I don't know when I stopped reading the novels at the time they came out - maybe around the fifth or sixth? I've picked up the odd one since, but I've sort of parted ways with the series.

So, I haven't read one in a good long while, but lots of other people are still reading and enjoying them. And not enjoying the books doesn't mean one can't express nice thoughts for the author, right?

So, yes. Iconic hats off to Terry Pratchett. Gives joy to millions of readers - and can potentially make someone's day just by talking to them, which is a pretty awesome thing, really. Is showing tremendous courage in the face of a terrible condition, and is using is celebrity and personal wealth to raise awareness of a condition that has probably in some form affected many of us.

11:10 / 13.10.09

That Boris Johnson chap, he can be quite funny on occasion and seems to be doing okay as Mayor of London. So good show there then.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:07 / 13.10.09

Do you think so, ES? I mean, I think that if BoJo hadn't moved into politics, I'd find him pretty adorable, but it feels like the Mayor thing might have been something of an awkward turn.

You might be being sarcastic, of course. But I hope that doesn't detract from the kind thoughts expressed for Terry Pratchett (who has written a play with Mark Ravenhill! Exciting!).

00:34 / 14.10.09

David Attenborough.

I really can't think of a bad word to say about him, only nice things. The guy's a treasure. Have you seen his latest shows? No longer about just plants or animals or insects, just about the all encompassing beauty of life. Maybe sometimes stressing survival of the fittest, which can get a little gory as we all know.

If ever there was a need for the Futurama, head in a bottle, technology Sir Attenborough is the poster boy for the job.

I vote that David Attenborough should be the second human to have the honour of being a brain in a jar, preferably with voice intact.

Sir Terry Pratchett was great but some of his more recent works have seen me quit partway through, Sir David Attenborough keeps me captivated until the end.

If we ever come across an alien lifeform it should be broken to the world by Sir David Attenborough saying " Yet even here.......

He's great.

Great idea for a thread!

07:29 / 14.10.09

Michael Palin recently declared (in the Gruaniad) that he admired David Attenborough for "constant good work in the face of popularity".

Just about sums him I reckon

13:34 / 14.10.09

Do you think so, ES? I mean, I think that if BoJo hadn't moved into politics, I'd find him pretty adorable, but it feels like the Mayor thing might have been something of an awkward turn.

I thought the idea was to be nice about people so I thought I'd be nice about someone I'm not normally nice about.

I do think he hasn't made the total shash of London that I thought he would. But then I'm SurreyBoy and know little of the intricacies of the big city.

15:05 / 15.10.09

On the subject of folk we're not normally nice about Lord Mandelson rather suits the solver fox look. That's about all I can say that's nice, but then I am a bitter curmudgeon with a shrivelled heart.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:41 / 17.10.09

One other thing about Mandelson is that a lot of the criticism of him is couched in the language of barely-concealed homophobia - if you count up how often he is called "fabulous" or "swishy", how often he is portrayed as flouncing or throwing strops, I think it will significantly outnumber other parliamentarians. He actually seems to cope with this pretty well. However one feels about his politics, it doesn't seem to me that it justifies the use of homophobia as an acceptable tactical response.

Likewise, there was an awkward moment or two recently when it looked like the appropriate response to homophobia was judged to be misogyny. However, in general I'm really rather delighted by the Great British Public and their outpouring of disgust at Jan Moir's antics in the Daily Mail. Admittedly, one might wonder why almost everything else in the Daily Mail's output hasn't resulted in the same response, but better late than never, eh?

11:56 / 17.10.09

I did like what Stephen Fry said (though I'm a little pained to see he's on Twitter).

21:53 / 17.10.09

The Press Complaints Commision website actually has a dedicated link purely for complaints about that article. Charlie Brooker, on the Guardian site, has even helpfully pointed out which sections of the PCC regulations it breaches, if anybody wants to join in but can't be bothered having to think. It takes all of thirty seconds to complete the form.

07:42 / 19.10.09

They had to do that because the website crashed due to all the complaints. After the Guardian piece I imagine they've had a few more complaints on top of the record number they already had;
The Jan Moir article on the death of Stephen Gately, published on the 16 October 2009, generated the highest number of complaints for a newspaper article in the history of the Press Complaints Commission.
...but IMHO the retraction of advertising (e.g. Nestle) probably influenced them more strongly. Possibly even more influential is the police complaint;
Scotland Yard have confirmed that they are investigating a complaint against the Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir following an article that insinuated that the death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately was not "natural."
(Pinknews)

Tsuga, Fry is a Twitter luminary and along with Derren Brown sent a lot of complaints traffic to the PCC.

By the by, here's Charlie Brooker's article
"It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo."

...and I have chosen him as the person to be nice about today. Charlie! Razor tongued champion of quality! Writes about cosmology and TV and zombies! And his thumbnail pic always looks suspicious as though he's about to say "What the living fuck are you on about?"

07:49 / 19.10.09

Interesting comment from some random guy;

"Of course, it goes without saying that the PCCs refusal to look into the matter unless the family actually complains has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the PPC Chairman is Paul Dacre, (Daily Mail editor)."

15:14 / 19.10.09

Update The PCC said it had received more than 21,000 complaints since its publication
The Press Complaints Commission says it will ask the Daily Mail to respond to complaints about a column it ran on the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately.

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:23 / 22.10.09

And look who's back! It's our very own Jack Denfeld. Running-jokily the king of Barbelith, professional poker player and all around good sort. He's always been emblematic of a certain freewheeling nature and a sense of fun that the old place has been missing in these quietening hours.

Good on you, Jack, and best of luck in all your endeavours.

11:19 / 23.10.09

Dimbleby! (David, not Johnathan) Question Time presenter, has the same avuncular charm as Attenborough, hard to faze, less smug than Paxman, no-nonsense journalism just how I like it.
He definitely has the look of gravitas;

02:48 / 27.10.09

Mark Millar.

The laddie, it's true, has often been in for a bit of a hiding in liberal media circles, because he's not been afraid to speak the truth, as he sees it. But, even though he perhaps has some disturbing ideas about what exactly constitutes a fate worse than death, he was, until recently, until Hollywood got to him, like it did to Fitzgerald, an at least okay wee writer.

11:03 / 29.10.09

Speaking of avuncular charm (and with a link to Attenborough up there):

Maybe speaking well of the dead is not the optimal fuel for the nice machine, and I'll keep that in mind for possible future entries, but Sir Kenneth Clark, dead, is probably accomplishing more right now than many who are alive now.

I feel like I can only write two lines or so about him before the text collapses into shameful adulation, so to keep it brief (the next lines will refer to his work in the "Civilisation" series):

Even when advocating opinions which today can be regarded as quaint, he certainly showed that one could be charmingly wrong (in ep. 12, standing near Rodin's statue of Balzac, he launched into a rant against what he believed were de-humanizing influences in society at his time, and in that rant he put computers alongside tear-gas - the comments section in Youtube notwithstanding, it still was a bit harsh).

Here's to the cordial countenance, the smile which seemed to be always waiting for the chance to break out revealing those indomitable teeth, the evident joy he had in sharing some of the treasures he knew, and the already mentioned charm - in his demeanor, elocution and dressing style, which - only adequately, perhaps - are already as remote from most of us as all those ancient monuments, relics and works of art he brought to light in his program.

Sir Kenneth Clark, you were rad.

23:07 / 04.11.09

Since we can say nice things about things, here's one for white noise. This (almost) silent hero helps babies and pets sleep and stops minds from wandering (good thing when meeting deadlines). It masks outside noises (good thing, etc) and even provides relief for Tinnitus sufferers. What is white noise after all, I ask, if not a long nice "hush" when you most need it?

a-hem

ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

13:10 / 12.03.10

Unless someone wants to flesh this thread out - and I don't - I'm going to move for a deletion.

Anna de Logardiere

21:43 / 28.03.10

Tintin. Intrepid boy reporter, likes white dogs and writing stories for newspapers and solving mysteries.

09:38 / 04.04.10

Well yeah, but what's the deal with him and Captain Haddock? That salty old sea dog, with his probably inevitable confusion about 'boundaries' and so on. Stir Snowy and the Thompson Twins in, and Tintin's brain is bound to froth, in the immortal words of Joe Stretch, 'like a sex milkshake'.