Martini Music – a party-time playlist

A drug free Amy Winehouse - Hollywood Gossip

Update 23 October (over the dateline)

A drug-free Amy Winehouse? I’d love to see that.

But here in Aotearoa we have a saying that is captured on billboards advertising Tui beer:

A drug-free Amy Winehouse: “Yeah right!”

So it’s not surprising she went crazy at the Q Music awards yesterday. [26 Oct update]

Still, her dad Mitch says she hasn’t taken drugs for a year. Do you believe him?

Hollywood Gossip thinks otherwise, though it seems her boob job went well.

I”ve been meaning for sometime to write a note about Martini Music. In particular I wanted to mention Amy Winehouse.

Yes, I know she’s a walking disaster zone, but her musical talent is all too obvious. I really hope she doesn’t kill herself with whatever grizzly cocktail of drugs and fucked-upedness floats her boat. There’s a lot more Martini music here too, just skip the updates if you’re not an Amy fan.

Update 10 October 2009:

I have no idea if Amy’s had a boob-job and frankly I don’t care. I think it’s great that she turned up on Strictly Come Dancing to support her 13-year-old God-daughter. Maybe, just maybe, Amy’s making a recovery. She was reportedly straight back into rehab after the performance, but her 3rd album is due to drop sometime next year.

Personally I don’t think these recent photos show anything except that Amy’s looking better than she has in a long time, but then again, I’m not sure I’d know the difference between a 32B and a 32D anyway. If you look at earlier photos, she’s not that different.

Photo: Gossip Center

Journalism education – the pint pot problem

I’m finally getting around to editing some of the video I shot on my recent trip to the USA. Today I’m uploading a short clip from the conference I attended at the Missouri School of Journalism Futures Forum.

The session I spoke in was focused on the curriculum and convergence – I guess it was about practical journalism education.

I wrote about this at the time, now here’s a brief excerpt from the session on convergence and the curriculum.

I’m talking here about what I am calling the “no teach” curriculum for senior students and the perpetual “pint pot problem”.  The curriculum has to fit into a specified number of timetabled teaching hours and if you want to introduce something new, what do you leave out?

I use the example of shorthand again, but in this context it’s more about where it might fit in an extended journalism curriculum, not about whether it stays or goes altogether. This should appease some folk who think I’m out to kill it off completely.

All  can say to that is: “Not yet.”