'A baby, who was brought back from the dead after she was accidentally knocked into a river by her mother, has lost her battle for life.
The mother and the three-year-old were unharmed after their ordeal, which happened around half a mile downstream from a house owned by George Michael, the popstar.'
Could it be anything to do with search engine optimisation, I wonder? Bad Torygraph!
24 comments:
"Half a mile downstream from George Michael" is, I think, a euphemism for being stoned.
Ha! If it wasn't, it is now. At least in this quarter of this tiny Cornish harbour town.
It wouldn't be very good SEO - can you imagine George Michael fans searching for him only to find this story is about an unrelated family tragedy that happened quite some way from one of the many houses he owns. That wouldn't exactly be a good quality visit.
You should start a new blog tracking spurious celebrity mentions in otherwise proper news stories. If you build it, they will come.
I think there's a school of thought that says it doesn't matter what quality of hit it is, as long as it's a hit.
Maybe the Torygraph is moving to the Gawker model of paying its writers according to the amount of hits they get...scary thought.
I like the sound of this blog, though. Perhaps I could call it 'I'm A Superfluous Celebrity, What Am I Doing In Here?'
Tom Peterkin is guilty of trying way too hard. Typical of the new breed of newspaper reporter - no fags, no booze, no news sense.
. . . and now I've boosted the Torygraph's site stats with that visit. Damn!
Sky did the same thing. It could just be to offer some glimmer of interest to the human algae who are incapable of digesting any piece of information that doesn't have a sleb factor.
Although here's another shocker: Telegraph readers now have to have the word martial explained to them.
Malc: Better the Torygraph than the Mail, I'd say. Now there's a paper that I'm convinced is being deliberately provocative in order to get page views from non-traditional Mail readers.
Tim: I'd expect it from Sky, and the Mail, and any of the tabloids. But the standard of news reporting at the Telegraph is generally quite good and sensible and balanced. (I don't read the columns - I gather they aren't bastions of reasonableness and equilibrium).
Also, if Telegraph readers need the word 'martial' explained, someone had better tell serial offender Matthew Norman at the Independent to stop using spurious and wrong Italian plurals for fear of confusing the populace.
Oooh, optimal! Thanks P.
For the proper "celeb" angle they should have asked George Michael for a comment.
That's just the sort of sloppy writing I have to suffer from my marketing department.
So the baby was unharmed then, even though it later lost its battle for life? Grrr. Possibly it was an unrelated illness (too lazy to actually follow the link) but how would I know?
LC: Ooh, oblong! Now there's a word I haven't heard in a while.
Billy: George was probably too 'upriver' (in chuffy!'s parlance) to notice what was going on.
Bella: Hello! No, I think that was just me doing some over-zealous editing. Three people fell into the water, sadly the baby didn't survive but the other two did.
Did the baby survive? The Times article (I've not looked online, I'm talking about the paper edition) which fails to mention Mr Michael said it was pronounced dead at the hospital, but was then later found still to have a heartbeat and was fighting for life.
Dave: That was true, but it later died. How much of the blame for this can be attributed to George Michael has yet to be determined.
I always used to feel sorry for people who were "shot and killed" in Northern Ireland. Seemed so unlucky on the same day. What did the baby die of the second time?
From this string of comments I am getting the suspicion that some of you believe that George Michael takes drugs....;)
lol, no seriously, does anyone know why he looks so gaunt these days, drugs or some illness?
I believe there is some evidence which suggests the existence of the 'George Michael Radius of Tragedy', where the scale of tragedy that befalls you increases the closer you get to the epicentre. If this is what happens at half a mile, I dread to think what would happen if you stood on his doorstep. You'd probably have to liste to 'Careless Whisper' or something equally dreadful.
word verification: qyqpuk - 20 minutes of Albanian ice hockey
Nothing to do with this, but may I refer you to page 22 of The times today (Saturday). It's the Opinion section, should you be able to trace it online; in particular the bit headed Alpha mail.
That last comment was from me. I'm at my mother's, and blogger didn't seem to recognise me.
Thanks Dave - just found it. I'll stick that on the other blog tomorrow.
Hmmm. P. could your Facebook status update mean what I think it means...
Hahahaha Wyndham, I hadn't thought about it like that! No indeed, I've only been through the trauma of moving house and having no internet - the Blue Kitten isn't due for another couple of months or so.
Also rest assured that blogworld will hear the tidings long before Facebook does.
Oh, righto.
As you were.
I saw an old Monty Python episode last night that began in almost the exact same way!
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