“This is why we’re entrepreneurs”

An inspiring video: times like these are the best to get out there and make something happen.

Hat tip: @Zee at TheNextWeb and NewsCred

We lie, you blow all your wages on our rubbish quiz

Alas, it seems Richard & Judy’s too-good-to-be-true quiz You Say We Pay has left our screens. It comes after embarrassing allegations that the nations favourite dickish couple were getting us all to call even after they’d chosen the winner.

Hardly surprising. They were always cheating and giving the answers away anyway.

But seeing as it’s been dropped, here’s a hilarious episode of the quiz, courtesy of Adam Buxton from the hilarious Adam & Joe duo.

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The worst newsreader EVER

On my journo course at City University, we’ve spent the last week on an intensive but brilliant television masterclass. As part of that we got some excellent training on newsreading in the studio.

It’s pretty promising to come away knowing that none of us are nearly as bad as this poor sod…clearly the Americans don’t have as higher standards as we do in the UK. Watch, laugh and then pray it never happens to you.

This week’s youtubeauty, courtesy of the 800lb gorilla:

‘Snow joke

What japes we get up to on the City journo course in London. This week, in preparation for our weekly TV news programme fellow student Neil was asked to go an make a short you-tube style film in the snow, to illustrate a news story about UGC.

The result has been bluetoothed across Islington and is now on the web – hilarious through accident rather than design.

It gets funnier the more times you watch it.

Think you’ve got a lot of time on your hands?

Nothing I have seen on this earth (save the Sistene Chapel..which actually I haven’t seen) have required the time, imagination and sheer patience of these two youtubeauties.

Thanks to Shall for the tip!

Happy New Year!

Saddam Online

They say if 2006 was anything, it was the year of the video download.

We all discovered Youtube, dozens of internet phenomena were born and died there, from the Lazy Sunday Chronicles of Narnia, to their british counterpart; from the coke and mentos thingy, right up to the sale of Youtube itself for over a billion dollars.

But on the last day of 2006, its tagline as “The Year of the Video Download” has been enshrined in the goriest of ways…the full, unedited version of Saddam Hussein’s hanging’s now available for you to watch at your leisure.

Media democracy in action or just some fodder for the sickos? I don’t think we’ll ever decide. 

Damned by debt relief

This week I came across a charity called WORLDwrite who, among other things, recruit volunteers to make films as a way of fostering global understanding.

They’re touring UK universities to promote a new 28 minute documentary called Damned by Debt Relief which puts a compelling case that the G8/Live8 extravaganca of 2005 didn’t do all it promised.

The documentary was shot in Ghana by a group of WORLDwrite volunteers; Ghana was one of the so-called “HIPC” (Highly Indebted Poor Countries) that had it’s debt cancelled as a result of Gleneagles and “I hate Mondays”. What we weren’t told was all the strings that came attached, that some say, has made the situation worse.

It would appear that the idea of helping poor countries to help themselves has been forgotten and western governments still insist on telling poor countries how they should spend their money.

After living in Ghana for a while in 2003, I’m unabashedly in love with the country; I left feeling that although there was great poverty in places, it is still a modernising country, stable, peaceful, with a bourgeoning middle class and ambitious young people, like the audacious and witty E K Bensah.

Obviously there were some things I missed – see this NYTimes article on child labour in Krete Karachi (on the northern shores of Lake Volta) where I’ve been, but didn’t notice well enough.

Next March is Ghana’s 50th Anniversary of Independence. It was the first country in Africa to gain independence from Britain, so I reckon it’s a big deal. Ideally I’m hoping to go back briefly next year (money permitting), possibly with a camera in hand to see how Ghana stands on the brink of fifty.

And in contrast to all the negative, patronising publicity HIPCountries get too often, Ghana was recently surveyed as the 10th happiest country in the world – above both the UK and the US. So something’s going right!

I’m going along to the next WORLDwrite meeting in a couple of weeks to find out more – I’ll fill you in. In the meantime, watch a shortened version of their Damned by Debt Relief video – it’s a very interesting 3 minutes 30.

Yoogle Tube

Quick one tonight: with so much coverage of Google’s acquisition of You Tube, it’d be a shame not to pass brief comment.

First off, if you haven’t already, check out “A Message from Chad and Steve”, the founders of You Tube giving a post-deal piece to camera.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVxQ_3Ejkg]

First off, I’m amazed anyone called Chad could make over a billion dollars, let alone get out of bed. Secondly, this great comment came from an unimpressed viewer:

Perhaps with 1.65 Billion dollars they will be able to afford a directional microphone for their camera or noise reduction software for their editing system.

Well said Charlie.

And a final piece of brilliance. For anyone who didn’t get today’s Metro (yes I read all the coolest papers), check out the video CV of Aleksey Vayner. The Yale graduate sent this video along with an 11 page CV (!!) for a job at financial firm UBS. The film’s called “Impossible is Nothing” and includes great mantras such as

‘As a world-level athlete in several sports, I have developed an insatiable appetite for peak performance and continuous learning. My trainer and world martial arts champion often said, “Impossible is just someone’s opinion.” I live by those words.’

Vayner gives us his philosophy over footage of him lifting weights, playing tennis and smashing bricks. Unsurprisingly, someone at UBS found this so pant-wettingly funny it made its way onto You Tube.

Aleksey says “Ignore the losers”…so don’t feel obligated to watch.