Archive
Year: 2008
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Politicians behaving badly
February 25, 2008
Shocking behaviour at the weekend as Hello Magazine pin-up Nicholas Sarkozy verbally abused an unfriendly bystander at the Salon International de l'Agriculture. When have French farmers ever deserved such treatment? Happily, video footage of the incident is all over Youtube. The clip I saw already had over 200,000 hits - see below [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axDyUNWyuw8&rel=1] A question – is it a good political strategy for politicians to lose their rag on TV? Remember the old adage that...
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Behave! Etiquette is online.
February 22, 2008
In a meeting last week, a colleague made a comment about following proper 'netiquette'. The large part of my experience with the internet showed that the norm in blogs and comments is to berate someone for simple errors, verbally assault anyone you don't agree with, ridicule positions that are not extreme, or write offensive and irrelevant statements and stereotypes. Is 'netiquette', I asked, a word that permits otherwise inexcusable public behaviour, simply because it happens...
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When is a blog not a blog?
February 21, 2008
A while ago we pondered the merits of Euractiv's blogactiv platform as it boldly sought to change the face of the EU blogosphere. The intention seemed, and still seems, good. Now and again, when we get the time to read, there seems to be some decent posts from some interesting people. One could of course say the same of this blog (with the exception of us being interesting as people), we know. However, a post...
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Sex still sells for us and for EUTube
February 19, 2008
As with all bloggers, watching the statistics on traffic has become a bit of a way to while away the hours. We can't help but click that refresh button repeatedly in the hope that the line on the graph moves every upwards. Who said consultants aren't vain? There are of course some simple home truths out there. There is a correlation between the number of posts we make in any given week and the number...
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Should we all be going local? Focusing on public affairs’ triple bottom line as elections approach
February 18, 2008
Whether you are an MEP or a public affairs practitioner, after a while in the Brussels Bubble, there is a tendency to go native. Arcane, albeit clearly interesting, discussions about the boiling point of paint, the details of inter-institutional agreements or the latest spat between Commission services can take over from what real people (i.e. not us) care about. Thankfully, elections are the pin-prick that our bubble occasionally requires. And while there are those who...
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Why is their politics cooler than ours?
February 15, 2008
Barack Obama definitely has the wind in his sails as he heads towards a possible (probable?) Democratic nomination. And an increasingly cool wind it is too. The latest foray of pop into politics sees hip-hop grandee, Wiil.i.am, front man for the Black Eyed Peas and producer of the Pussycat Dolls, lend his voice in support of Obama in the way he knows best; a pop video. The combination of Obama's spoken words and singing raises...
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“Obviously, the markets for EU-related books are not tremendous”
February 12, 2008
So reads the EPP press release that trumpets the new EU textbook by Alexander Stubb MEP. Apparently the first edition sold 12,000 copies. That he finds time to write EU textbooks that are "not only for nerds" in between winning plaudits for his online efforts and being an MEP is in our view impressive. Even more so that it only took 298 pages to explain how the EU really works, when fellow blogging MEP Richard...
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Online polling finds new currency with the EU
January 31, 2008
The European Commission communicated with the people today. In fact, it launched an online poll, asking us to vote on the design of a commemorate 2 EURO coin. The coin will be released on 1 January 2009 to mark the 10 year anniversary of the Euro. I’ve never seen an online poll of this nature being launched by the Commission before and I can’t help but think that this could be a useful way to...
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Italy’s comic turn
January 25, 2008
Another Prodi government falls, albeit with at least some grace. The FT joins the recent chorus of English language newspapers reveling in a beautiful country's ugly decline. Italy looks on with resigned disdain at a distant political class seemingly incapable of action. Perhaps it takes a comic to believe that some form of pride can be restored to the country through a hard hitting blog and a web-based election list where anyone can put themselves...
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Commission Strikes Back with EUTube
January 17, 2008
In case you haven't noted, Commissioners are apparently getting lobbied left, right and centre from a plethora of Member States who have all suddenly realised that committing to a renewables target of 20% by 2020 actually means you have to do something to achieve it. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cysaOnlv_E&rel=1] The Commission's comms department has struck back with a EUTube video reminding us all of why the targets Member States want to back away from are apparently still a...