The weekly reviews make a return this week following the summer break. I hope you enjoyed your rest from reading them. Well, unless you read my World Cup and summer reviews. Anyway, they are back and I hope you continue to enjoy reading them. There will be some news from the previous week to make up for what I missed then as the summer review coincided with it, so I’m bending the rules a bit. But who cares?
Leaked nudes scandal
Over the past couple of weeks, feminists went into overload following the leakage of nude photos, which spread across the Internet in inexplicable speed. Victims include Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Kaley Cuoco. Ariana Grande and Victoria Justice were also victimised but claim that the photos were fake. Lucky they live in the world of Photoshop otherwise their denials would have been dismissed. The leaked photos were posted on 4chan and the photos were obtained from iCloud accounts. The hackers were able to access the accounts via a flaw in the Find My iPhone service.
Since then, Lena Dunham, Emma Watson and Seth Rogen lambasted the hackers and people posting the pictures:
However, others decided to make fun of the subject:
An artist from Florida called XVALA wanted to display the photos in a museum. Because nudity is one of the main themes in art. Well, to a certain degree. Anyway, he changed his mind and sympathised the victims.
It is, of course, very bad-mannered to leak nude photos of anyone, let alone celebrities. But nevertheless, there was uproar. Following the scandal, women have been portrayed as objects once again. But what I want to know is, how would the public, particularly women, have reacted if there were nude photos leaked of male celebrities like Cristiano Ronaldo, Channing Tatum and Harry Styles? Would they have reacted the same? Maybe. But if that did happen, I would imagine that teenage girls across the world would be wanting to find them as soon as possible and drool all over their keyboards. Particularly if they come across this fine specimen.
All I’m saying is would the women who were outraged with the leaked photos be as outraged if nude photos of their celebrity crushes were leaked? If they do, great. If they weren’t, well, they would be a bit hypocritical. I’ll let you think about it.
And let this be a warning. If you have any nude photos of yourself in your iCloud, remove them or just put them somewhere no-one would ever find them. Like Google+.
Oscar Pistorius
On Thursday, it was the day everyone has been waiting for. Mainly because it has been going on so long that people have become really annoyed and are relieved that the time has finally come. It is the verdict of the Oscar Pistorius trial.
For the past six months, there has been a lot of interrogation, tears and glorified media. But the trial has reached its conclusion. The verdict? Oscar Pistorius literally got away with murder. He was found not guilty of premeditated murder, which caused outrage. Particularly from Joey Barton:
Following the verdict (and other verdicts no-one really cared about), Judge Masipa was about to announce the verdict of culpable homicide. Which is a fancy word for manslaughter. But she decided to go into gameshow-host mode and adjourn the trial and announce the verdict the next day.
On Friday, after, again, the verdicts of the other things no-one cared about were announced, Judge Masipa found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide. She also granted him bail, which, again, outraged former criminal Joey Barton.
The trial was then adjourned until October 13th for Pistorius’ sentencing.
Personally, I would have found him guilty of murder. I believe that if you intended to shoot someone, whether it be an intruder or your other half by mistaken identity, and that person dies, it is a murder. But what do I know? Judges should know what they are talking about. Well, proper judges, not the X Factor ones.
Scottish independence referendum
Throughout the week, as the result of the Scottish independence vote edges closer, the pressure began to intensify. So Sky News decided to lighten the mood by creating a megamix.
Various polls have different statistics: some say the “Yes” vote has the upper hand, some say the “No” vote has the upper hand; and the polls switch sides everyday. Basically, it was impossible to tell which vote is more popular as it is too close to call. And supporters from both sides tried their best to make sure people make the right decision.
The people who want Scotland to remain part of Britain the most are the politicians. Possibly the only time the major political parties have ever been united.
Looks quite sinister from a Scot’s perspective. Or anyone’s perspective.
Their plan to convince Scots to vote “No” didn’t go too well. They planned to raise the saltire in support of the Union and urged other councils to do the same to sway the vote in their direction. This was done following a recent announcement that the “Yes” vote has taken the lead. But it went disastrously wrong.
But that wasn’t the only disaster of the week. BBC weatherman Tomasz Schafernaker forgot what the capital of Scotland was live on air.
When he isn’t making rude gestures, he shows everyone his poor geography skills.
But despite all that, the polls remained even.
As David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are trying their best to convince Scotland that independence would be detrimental for them and everyone else, they were faced with some tough competition: Groundskeeper Willie.
What better way to convince voters than a speech by a cartoon character?
Royal baby
This week, it was announced that Prince Harry is going to become an uncle again. And surprise, surprise, people were wondering if there is going to be a bank holiday when the baby is born.
And people decided to bring Scotland into the equation.
I wonder if Prince George is jealous of the attention his unborn brother/sister is getting.
International break
Following the quadrennial World Cup heartbreak, England returned to action against Norway. An intake of new players such as Calum Chambers and Fabian Delph was an objective for England to rely on their young and vibrant players in order to make fans believe in England again.
The result? A 1-0 win. On paper, that’s a good result. However, the facts that England played poorly, the sole goal was scored from the penalty spot and England only had two shots on target isn’t really much of a confidence boost. Their performance was reflected by the atmosphere at Wembley as the attendance was just over 40,000, which was one of the lowest for an England game since the new Wembley was built. Fans, pundits and critics were pessimistic for England’s first competitive game since the World Cup against Switzerland, who were 11 places above them in the FIFA World Rankings. But hey! Maybe England could play well against them, or even win despite being average. If Kim Kardashian can win GQ Woman Of The Year, anything is possible, I guess.
What was the score? England won 2-0. How did they play? Pretty well. How popular was Roy Hodgson? Not very.
But a great start to the Euro 2016 qualification campaign as the other teams in England’s group are very beatable. Well, unless your pessimism about England is so high that you worry about them even when they play against San Marino.
There were also winning starts for Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. (Yes, even Northern Ireland.) The home nation who went home pointless was Scotland, who lost to World Cup winners Germany 2-1 despite a valiant performance. Scotland goalscorer Ikechi Anya was exuberant in spite of the defeat.
Ikechi Anya proving what everybody already knew. FIFA is unrealistic.
However, although Wales won, they scraped a 2-1 win. Usually a 2-1 win would be a good result. But Wales were playing against Andorra. A country with a population of 86,000 – 5,000 less than my hometown, Southport. And Andorra even took the lead early on. Thankfully, Gareth Bale saved the day by scoring a brace.
So a good start for teams in the British Isles.
Thanks for reading. Here is a video of an elephant painting.
Bradley Cates' Blog 