'If you can imagine the business as a pie...'

The Office is the best TV series ever - we all know that. Amongst much good work, it pays homage to one of my favourite lexical categories - business speak. Like most annoying human habits, business speak seems borne of insecurity; in this case, suppressed frustration and feelings of inadequacy. Business speak is confusing and unnecessary. It masquerades as something which actively clarifies an idea, when in fact it does the very opposite. It is the antithesis of brevity, concision and clarity. At its very worst, it's used to artificially elevate the user above others and needlessly belittle those who, quite understandably, find it almost undecipherable. Make no mistake; those using it are the ones to be mocked, not those of us who manage just as well with normal English in the office as we do out of it. But now to the point of this post - classic examples...

• Synergy - e.g. 'I was tasked to create synergy within the company'. Were you? You're an arse.
• .............-wise - e.g. 'I was dressed too casually so the boss asked me how I was fixed suit-wise.'
• Eyeballing - e.g. 'Have you had that eyeballed?' 'Who's doing eyeballing today?' 'Let me eyeball that first.' Christ almighty, what's wrong with checking it?
• Functionality - e.g. 'My workstation has no functionality.' No, there's a problem with your computer.
• Workstation - e.g. see above. I'd let them have it if they were referring to the desk they sit at but they're not, they're using it as a substitute for the word 'computer'.
• Visibility - e.g. 'I've got no visibility on that.' You mean you can't see it, or you can't access it.
• Close of play - e.g. 'I'll have that over to you by close of play today.' If you're in a grotesquely boring office, where people say that sort of thing out loud, without a hint of irony, you won't be able to adequately express how unsuitable using 'play' as a metaphor for 'work' really is.
• Blue sky thinking - e.g. 'I need some blue sky thinking on how to express my desire to have some original ideas on a given subject.'
• Communicate - e.g. 'If I want you to go ahead, I'll communicate that to you.' What you'll do, is 'tell' me.
• Pre-plan - e.g. 'Can we pre-plan for that?' No, you can't. You can plan for it, or not.
• Action. (v) - e.g. 'I'm going to action that.' 'I'm actioning that as we speak.' ' Has that been actioned?' There are so many wonderfully descriptive verbs in the English language that using 'action' for all of them is more than a shame.
• Let's run it up the flag pole and see who salutes - Award for the most outlandish business related phrase I've ever heard. Breathtaking.
• Strategic incompetence - A phrase used to describe the act of doing something deliberately badly in order to avoid doing it again in the future, e.g. making someone an unsatisfactory cup of tea in order to avoid future tea-making duties. This is the only phrase I've ever heard that I like, mainly because it was created in jest.

NEWS JUST IN

HOLD THE PHONE: Archbishop of Canterbury says God won't sort climate change out for us. He's really gone out on a limb with this one - egg all over his face if God turns up!

Assuming he won't (like the best Dads he has a history of absenteeism) we've all got to face the fact that we've just lost plan A on this issue; it's back to the bloody drawing board for tackling climate change... God - he's such an enigma! Just when we were all relying on him to sort this one out. If I'd told the Christians that God wasn't going to help with this, or for that matter, anything else, they'd have questioned it. There's just no reasoning with some people, there really isn't.

Solitude with trimmings

I just realised that I haven't had a single conversation today; I'm a fresh, exciting new face in the office and my new colleagues just cannot get enough - Mission Ingratiate is complete.

I think today's unusual circumstance subconsciously influenced my choice of listening this evening. It wasn't a full-fat Morrissey evening interrupted only by unexplainable and uncontrollable outbursts of sobbing, but Jeff got a full airing.

Lover, You Should Have Come Over

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

When the Hubble telescope captured the matter in the above image, it was in fact looking back approximately 13 billion years. Clicking on the photo will take you to a high resolution version that conveys at least some of the beauty of the 10,000 galaxies in the photograph. I hadn't seen this until very recently and it upsets me to think I might never have come across it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do every time I look at it.

More details can be found on the Wikipedia page for Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Skip ITV

Inside the Guardian’s Media section on March 2, Steve Hewlett wrote much more knowledgably on ITV’s current woes than I ever could.

In short (because you’re likely to be of the generation that can barely concentrate long enough to read a house number i.e. mine) the recession does not bode well for old ITV as nobody has any money to advertise with them. Restructuring the main terrestrial channels that are not funded by license fee money is now important, as their revenues look set to shrink in coming years.

One thing about commerce pre-recession is that, unluckily for their employees, many businesses were only staying afloat because lenders could afford not to call in their debts. Failing businesses with no tangible identity or discernable strategies to create or increase business chugged along while they still could. How bereft do you feel as a consumer now that Woolworths and Zavvi have disappeared? ‘Not very’ I imagine. In the case of these businesses, you can’t help but feel that the recession didn’t cause their deaths but merely hasten them. While feeling sympathy for the unfortunate people who lost their jobs as a result, it should also be recognised that the recession is having this ‘straightening’ effect on business as it separates the wheat from the chaff. Coasting along on credit while ignoring the failings of your business is no longer an option.

This ‘survival of the fittest’ now seems to be applicable to ITV. Undoubtedly the channel is suffering due to a factor beyond their control, but it also seems about time ITV looked at the actual content they offer and see that it is also part of their problem. I read their schedule with more rampant depression than a dyslexic engineering undergraduate going through a reading list for a module on Chomskyan linguistics received in error. It is a veritable goldmine for the collector of poorly executed copies of BBC programmes. It is heaven for those yearning for embarrassing gaffes that interrupt sporting events at their climax and a primordial soup from whence all stuttering, wooden, sports presenters originated. Their few popular programmes are those that satisfy the lust of the morbidly curious voyeur, someone who thrives on others’ humiliation, is immersed in society’s love of judgment and celebrity, and lacks the imagination to do anything other than sit in front of a TV screen while other people make fools of themselves. When was the last time you watched anything on ITV and was it actually any good?

The BBC do great nature programmes and have commissioned some of the best comedies. Channel 4 import some good US TV and make entertaining documentaries. By comparison, ITV stands for nothing apart from lowest common denominator trash, and it would be neither surprising nor distressing if it ended up in the same mass grave as Woolworths, Zavvi and the rest, which it may do unless those at head office give some serious thought to improving the product they are currently offering the consumer.

Miraculous Mash-up

Take two average pop songs, put them together and what do you have? In most cases, something that manages to be even more woeful than the original ingredients.

However, here we have something miraculous - a mash-up that works! Take quirky, delicious pop morsel Katy Perry, combine with a re-hash of a 2000 vintage, cheddar-laden dance anthem and you have Hot 'n' Cold vs Toca's Miracle 2008. The opening few lines ("You... change your mind... like a girl... changes clothes.") punctuated by the first few twanging notes of Toca's Miracle bring out my game face, a strangely tortured gurning usually reserved for Timbaland bangers and tunes of a similar ilk. For those of you not impressed by Insomnia-esque build-ups, skip to the 3 minute mark to get straight to the moment in question.

'Guilty pleasures' is becoming a recurring theme...