Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

I’m off to Venice tomorrow for a long weekend with the girlfriend, and am thoroughly looking forward to it. I’ve been before, once when I was really young with my family, and then on a whistle-stop day or two as part of a longer road-trip with some friends a few years ago.

She’s never been, and has been mentioning that fact for at least the last 12 months. Shortly before Christmas, I bought a guide book for the city, and booked flights and a hotel, without telling her.

On Christmas Day, one of my presents to her was the guide book, which she seemed a little surprised at. She asked “Are we going to Venice?”, and I told her to look inside the book. There, waiting, were the flight bookings and hotel reservation, ready to go. She had tears in her eyes, which I think is a good sign.

I admit it, I’m damned good at this relationship stuff sometimes.

Unfortunately, the weather is conspiring against us this weekend. Rain, rain, and more rain. Just like being in London, but with water below as well as above…

Anybody have any tips, restaurant/bar/sights-wise?

The girlfriend’s feeling a bit under the weather, so I’m playing the good boyfriend role and ran her a bath. With bubbles and candles.

And yes, we have a glowing rubber ducky.

I got a Gawker star, I got a Gawker star!!! And on the new commenting system, no less. These things are like gold(star)dust. And mine came from the man Denton himself, the dark overlord of Gawker.

I’ve literally commented on Gawker less than 5 times, even though I read it every day. A lot of it is too US-centric for me to have a really informed opinion, and I’m not quick-witted enough to be sufficiently snarky.

But when it comes to British media, and especially British media scandals, I know my shit, and can contribute.

I’ve been following this story for a couple of years, since the reporter got jailed and the editor resigned. It’s one of those commonly known “facts” that it wasn’t just a one-off, and I’m pretty certain I read at the time a table of how often each major newspaper had employed this private investigator to do some “research” for them.

Then it kind of got forgotten for a while, until Nick Davies at The Guardian somehow managed to get hold of some details of these gagging orders and out of court settlements. The paper splashed on it today, and by the looks of the website it’ll be doing so again tomorrow.

The problem is that the editor in question has since become the head of PR for the Tory party, so it’s being massively spun by Labour as a political issue, especially since their own head of PR got caught doing some very naughty things recently, and had to resign in disgrace. Damien McBride is his name, and it was a pretty big scandal.

But by spinning it in this way, and making it a party political issue (should he be fired, how could you hire such a man, etc), it’s detracting from the real story which is massively underhand and illegal journalism, without so much as a shred of a public interest defence.

One of the celebs that had their voicemail hacked was Gwyneth Paltrow, a week after giving birth to one of her oddly-named kids. Seriously, where the hell is there a public interest in getting stories in this manner?!

It reminds me of a line that went something like “What is of interest to the public is not always of public interest”.

Anyways, I got a Gawker star, la-la-la!

You wouldn’t believe how giddy it makes me to see this. Woo!