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Orble resurrection

January 12th 2013 23:55
:  
I bring extraordinary news. There is life at Orble! It is not an administrative ghost town after all (even though it has looked like one for two years).

No! I have evidence that somewhere in the bowels of Orble, someone is doing something.

This stirring, this resurrection, is extraordinary because of what Orble admin has not reacted to in the past two years. Here's a quick list.

1. Approximately 9,000 requests for assistance, guidance and advice from Orble users.
2. Emails from me seeking dialogue on the question of content ownership rights.

3. Emails from me offering to buy my Orble domain names.
4. An email from me offering to buy Orble.

No acknowledgement. No answers.

It led me to label Orble a ghost town, and start blogging elsewhere (at Zoomies2, Writercises and Wine Buffs Stuff). And as I posted to my new blogs, I posted short notices on my Orble blogs, to let the followings built here know that I, at least, was alive and kicking.

That's when someone at Orble stirred into life. My Orble Zoomies blog, which two days ago was still in the Orble Top 20 despite the inactivity over the past 12 months, has disappeared from the Orble front page and as of today is ranked 583. And my Blog of Lists, until last week in the Top 30, is now ranked 647.

Wow. Thanks Orble.

By the way, I'm still interested in buying Orble. Get back to me, next time you stir.


PS The Vyoos, Bloggercises, Newly Old and Money Whither blogs listed in the Top 60 on the Orble front page are all mine. If they suddenly disappear, you'll know what happened to them.


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Literary trivia of the day

December 9th 2012 02:09
:
The Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is never described by Carroll as The Mad Hatter.

Writercises blog post: http://tiny.cc/p5s0ow
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:  
bbc thames pageant

For years I watched broadcasts of marathons. In fact I enjoyed coverage of all endurance events - human spirit is rarely so noble or so visible as when doing battle with the body that hosts it.

In the early years of marathon coverage on television, the networks used to televise the event, and put a couple of knowledgeable commentators in a booth somewhere to talk about what we were looking at.

Then they started to get more sophisticated. We got crowd interviews, helicopter vision which showed the runners as ants, lengthy graphical interludes showing us course routes and elevation, and documentary-length sideshows giving detailed histories of the city hosting the run.

All I wanted to do was watch the marathon.

This came back to me when I got online for a news catch-up this morning and saw, to my surprise, that British media had been scathing of the mighty British Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the Thames boat pageant.

The float-by of more than 1,000 vessels, part of the celebrations marking 60 years in office for Queen Elizabeth II, was "trashed" (to use The Telegraph's word) generally.

The reason? Instead of covering the pageant, they kept switching to assorted talking heads on the assumption that viewers "would far prefer to watch C-list celebs spouting nonsense" (The Telegraph again).

Parliamentarian Rob Wilson dismissed the BBC's effort as "low-grade, celebrity-driven drivel".

Stephen Fry tweeted that it was "inane" and "mind-numbingly tedious".

The Daily Mail's Jan Moir gave the BBC a lesson in quality commentary. "Turn the royal trumpets to the parp and piffle setting," she wrote. "Muffle the funeral drums. For on a molten grey stretch of the Thames, with a global television audience of millions watching, something died yesterday. It was the BBC's reputation as a peerless television broadcaster of royal events. It just could not survive under an onslaught of inanity, idiocy and full cream sycophancy."

But the best comment was back at The Telegraph where Judith Woods wrote, "The point is that sometimes, and most incontrovertibly on this occasion, the story is the story and everything else is just an immensely irritating distraction."

Yes! If the people arranging coverage of marathons take note, I may go back to watching them.


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Whitney Houston deserves the truth

February 12th 2012 03:15
:
whitney houston

There are only two valid reactions to the death of Whitney Houston today: the sadness of someone who appreciated an exceptional musical talent, or the indifference of someone whose interests in life lay elsewhere.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Ricky's tricky humour

January 21st 2012 00:02
:  
ricky gervais

I don't understand the whole Golden Globes and Ricky Gervais thing.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Cyclists, you have been Warned

January 18th 2012 01:14
:
shane warne
Australian media services are in a frenzy today with follow-ups to the story about Shane Warne having a roadside altercation with a cyclist.

Warne, who has dual A-list celebrity status for services to cricket and services to men's hair, was driving home on Tuesday when he was forced to look annoyed at the antics of a cyclist. Some reports suggest Warne may even have gesticulated


[ Click here to read more ]
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Australian thin king

January 6th 2012 05:48
:  
bikini atomic power plant
A picture of a woman in a bikini in front of a Russian atomic power plant. This picture is only vaguely related to the story below.
Many years ago I heard a marvellous story involving political intrigue, back-room diplomacy and technological marvel.

It was a story from the 1980s and involved an American scientific breakthrough, the development of a filament so thin that it could only be seen under a microscopic. It was way thinner than the cables commonly used at that time to carry stuff like electricity. It was the thinnest filament ever produced by man


[ Click here to read more ]
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Breaking and decorating

November 15th 2011 02:16
:  
Some burglars are badder than others.

Terry Trent seems to be of the less evil kinds. When he broke into a home in Vandalia, Ohio, recently, he didn't exactly follow the manual of standard burglary procedure


[ Click here to read more ]
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Cold arm of the law

May 3rd 2011 03:49
: Vyoos news
cat teases german shepherds
Roads less travelled

VYOOS EDITORIAL
You'd think Alaskans would be a little more tolerant of the spirit of adventure


[ Click here to read more ]
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Vintage television

April 22nd 2011 00:51
: Vyoos news
1936 television

In 1936, just three weeks after television transmissions began in Britain, a man in London made a decision to spend just under 100 pounds on a TV set.

[ Click here to read more ]
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