The Real Article is delighted to announce a new team member: Kerri McDonald. Kerri brings a wealth of experience in communications to The Real Article. Check out her profile and get in touch! 

 

This week I came across an email about the Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad writing - this year awarded to Molly Ringle for her description of a lovers' kiss: 

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

The Real Article has finally joined Twitter. Are we fashionably late to the party? Or just in time? You be the judge. Follow us: @TheRealArticle.

Recent tweets:

The world of journalism lost one of its stalwarts this week with the passing of Graeme Hunt. Not only was he a brilliant writer and dogged researcher, he was an impassioned industry mentor - my first mentor to be exact.

Graeme took me under his wing as a student working part-time at the National Business Review. Under his tutelage I learnt to write confidently, extended my vocabulary (often debating the use of words that, in my naiveté, had never heard before) and became a fairly competent researcher.

Over the past few months we have seen a dramatic shift in the reporting of high-profile court cases. Television coverage straight from the courtroom, the introduction of online social media commentary and a mix of Disney-like villains in the defendant box, has resulted in some dramatic storytelling. 

The recent David Bain retrial, Clayton Weatherston murder trial and (to a lesser degree) the Taito Phillip Field fraud trial, caught the public’s attention in a manner we have not seen for quite some time. 

It's a sorry state of affairs right now. Yes, I'm talking about the "economic recession" – the talk of the town. I'm joining the ranks of the journalists / TV presenters / politicians / baristas / bus drivers / water-cooler loiterers to bleat about the downsizing of our economy.

There are now fewer than 10 days left of 2008. The election has long past – history didn’t get made (see Politiking in Style) with National sweeping into power and promptly disposing of, or postponing, many of the policies and legislation the Labour Government had put in place including the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

History has been made. America has elected its first black President - Barack Obama, and my, didn't they do it in style. Here in New Zealand, history may also be made this coming Saturday.If we vote Labour in for a fourth term, Helen Clark's name will be printed in  the history books as the fifth longest standing Prime Minister in New Zealand's  political history (alongside Richard Seddon, William Massey, Keith Holyoake and Peter Fraser).

It’s been a while since my last blog – but there’s a very good reason. I have become an athlete. Countless hours of watching the Olympic Games have reawakened the competitor in me.In which sport, you ask – swimming, athletics, synchronised diving? Actually none of the above – my sport du jour is Playstation 3’s Buzz! Okay, so you could argue I’m more of a ‘Mathlete’ than ‘Athlete’ – but nonetheless, a very competitive one at that.