More4 News Blog

Stalking Billy Bragg

I don't know if journalism is supposed to be like the Stanislavski school of acting, writes Helene Cacace. Should a journalist experience the feelings and emotions of the interviewee, like a method actor and his part? Well, by the end of a recent interview with Billy Bragg I almost felt I was Billy Bragg... (well sort of).

Billy Bragg's new book 'The Progressive Patriot, A Search for Belonging' is a personal journey; a search for his own identity and the meaning of being English. Interwoven in the novel are his musical influences, from Dylan to the Clash and then musings about his own family tree - his ancestors' involvement with the Unions, with long chapters on great events in British history - the Magna Carta, the Reformation, the creation of the Welfare State.

It's probably the type of book you read over a long period alongside another, so you can digest and contemplate his theories - a luxury I didn't have as a journalist. I condensed reading into the 24 hours before meeting the author.

Oh baby baby, it's a wild (but sometimes vacuous) world

Red carpet, paparazzi, impossibly pert bosoms, botox and of course the oompa-loompa tan - welcome to the Old Billingsgate market where the UK's "who exactly are they?"-list celebs are gathering to mwa-mwa each other and part their money to a "worthy cause".

This particular event is the launch of the Fortune Forum, writes Sam Haque. It's a charity that will raise awareness (and lighten the Gucci purse strings) for Africa. Cue: the former American President Clinton and Hollywood's Michael Douglas - there to make the fabulously wealthy (but not recognisable to Heat readers) believe that this is THE place to be seen.

And, this is the place where Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens of Wild World fame is going to perform songs from his new album "Another Cup" released in November. Poor lamb - after almost thirty years of shirking the world of mainstream music, he's back - but what a crowd to showcase his beautifully profound lyrics to.

A Channel Four exclusive with Yusuf! the PR promised me. Now, my definition of certain words in the English language can be somewhat hazy but doesn't the word exclusive mean yours alone? So imagine my surprise when I see others that work in the same building as us and CNN with cameras posed to get their "scoop" with him. My hack's hackles are raised.

Chatting to the world's most popular blogger

Blogging has taken off in China in a big way. Even China's police service has a blog and it attracted over a million hits when it launched a photo section introducing the force's hottest police-women.

Partly due to a clever move by one of China's web portals sina.com, blogging has become a daily habit for many of China's rich and famous. Sina offered a blog home to around 100 Chinese celebrities; creating an enormous boost to its own traffic.  Now property tycoon Pan Shiyi has one. Hong Huang publisher of Time Out Beijing has one. Even writer Peter Mayle has a Chinese blog on Sina.

Last week Technorati revealed that for the first time it is a Chinese blog which has the most hits of all the blogs in the world.  The world's top blog belongs to Xu Jinglei an actress and filmmaker from Beijing.  She is on 10 million and rising.

While big hit blogs from around the world have focused on subjects like music, science, technology, Xu's is a little different.  She admits that her writing is totally 'za', meaning she writes on a vast range of things.  Her blog is written in a very personal way.  She writes about the little things in life, from her musings on karaoke nights out, to visits home to her grandmother, and letting off steam after frustrating days at work. Her entries move between the frivolous and the philosophical.  Her writing style is simple yet rhythmic and comfortable to read.

'If you're passionate about God you have to feel anger towards Martin Sheen's character'

More4 News may have said its teary goodbye West Wing just last week last week but in the US podcasters said farewell two months ago.

This show split American viewers right down the middle, a fact reflected in podland as Ben King discusses in his weekly Top of the Pods segment for Channel 4 News Radio's The Morning Report.

The TV Guide podcast said it the final episodes were a "classy" if "slow" way to go and agreed that "the gift from Leo from from the grave harking back to a classic early episode was nice". The gift in question? A bar napkin with the words 'Bartlett for America' scrawled on one side.

Farewell to the West Wing

The Democratic US President is stepping down, as the West Wing series comes to an end on UK TV tonight.

It's a world where the US President, with his Nobel Prize in Economics, is always the smartest one in the room.

A world where politicians have the best intentions, where people walk fast and talk faster. A world where political staffers are really quite good-looking.

But the dream's over - the hit US political drama The West Wing comes to the end of its 7 year run tonight on More4. In the video report below, Washington Correspondent Jonathan Rugman is granted backstage access both on the West Wing set and the White House.

Watch the video here

Does this look like a Million Dollar Body?

A student from Stockholm has come up with the idea of giving companies the opportunity to tattoo his body - for commercial purposes.

It's a rip off of the successful Million Dollar homepage - which featured the same idea with pixels.

The Million Dollar homepage sold pixels for $1 each. Philip Airosa, the 21 year-old Swede behind Million Dollar Body, is charging $1,000 per square centimeter.

Airosa's business partner told Channel 4 Radio's Morning Report: "We are one hour from our first tattoo".

I blame Diana for this 'Official Grief' fascism

I've been coming over all why-oh-why about grief. Or more particularly Official Grief - writes Alex Thomson.

Once upon a time British people could get themselves totalled on our road network, safe in the knowledge that once the mess was cleared up that would, pretty well, be that. Closed doors, private tears and all that.

That's how we did it. No dramas. No more though. Now you can't pass along any stretch of tarmac for more than a few without some carefully-nurtured shrine blurting out of the cow-parsley.

I blame Diana. I can still recall people wading around all those bunches of flowers and actually queuing up in the hope of being vox-popped. Queuing? I distinctly remember a palpable sense that these mourners' grief was in some way further validated by appearing on TV, by showing it off. Boy - did they ever want to be on TV?

The rise of the PVR

I was sitting on the train the other day (sounding like a terrible start to any story, writes Iain Overton). Next to me was this woman who was telling her work colleague that she had just had a PVR installed in her home.

PVR, just in case you don't know, stands for 'personal video recorder'. It lets you record TV programmes on its internal hard drive. Basically, it is like your old VCR, but without the need for tapes. And it contains more sophisticated software to record with - in some cases not just the stuff you ask for, but other programmes you might be interested in. It also means you can pause live programmes and you can rewind in case you missed something.

The snake's ass

Usually an afternoon trip to one of the slightly shabby coffee shops on Grays Inn Road is an excuse to escape the newsroom for a bit of air (Presenter Carl Dinnen writes). Today though the sun is threatening to turn the tarmac into a sticky goo. The trip out is more a reminder of how pleasant our air conditioned (slightly shabby) production space is.

On the way out of the building I cross paths with our film producer Iain Overton who remarks that it's 'hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut'. A new one on me. I suppose it's the opposite of 'colder than a well-digger's ass' (Tom Waits, that).

I once came across a snake in a Humvee rut in the desert. Sadly for the snake it was there before the Humvee. It was hot and dead. Smart chap that Iain. Wouldn't sell a chicken on a wet day (work it out).  Another colleague idly wonders if it might be warmer here than in Beirut. A quick online check reveals that it's 32C in London and 32C in Beirut. Bet they're not talking about the weather in Beirut.

Into the jaws of death

A few weeks ago I wrote a self-deprecating article for this blog about how I was a bit of a hypochondriac, which is not a good thing in a job that encourages one to venture to dodgy bits of the globe.  I joked how I had misdiagnosed a bruise for a hernia (writes film producer Iain Overton).

Unfortunately, it seems, irony has decided to give me a kick up the backside.  As I write this, I am convalescing, having fallen off a moutainside in Corsica. 

By all normal standards I should be dead.  As the doctor who treated me said: "Today was not your day to die."