Catching readers' eyeballs.

When timing is everything

ST had this pic today (Nov 7):

It seemed like a very good "action" snapshot...  until I saw TODAY's pic:

I think ordinary readers will agree with me this latter one is the better shot. The elapsed time between the two moments could not have been long so I wonder why the ST photographer did not capture the second scene, or if he did, why did the editors choose the published one.

------------------------------------------------

Photo op gone too far?

Yes, we all know politicians love "photo op" moments, from kissing babies to twerking (okay, I take that back... I have not seen pics of politicos twerking). But don't you think this pic of the Camerons is kind of bizarre? What next? The man looking like Fu Manchu come Chinese New Year?

-------------------------------------------

For sure, it was not Love Potion No 9...

Still on catching readers' eyeballs, I think ST should have projected this bizarre but fascinating story below more prominently, perhaps with a small tongue-in-cheek illustration:

    

I just love that judge's wickedly funny comments!

What better way to wrap up than to put here that old, old song, Love Potion No 9! (Apparently, it was used in a 1992 movie starring Sandra Bullock)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ8b7iEgJog

Why dolphins are so special and should live free!

I want to put up only one must-watch video today: the story of how a wild dolphin in trouble in Hawaiian waters came to humans to ask for help!...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/dolphin-asks-divers-for-help-caught-in-fishing-line_n_2534674.html

(I came across this amazing story, thanks to Auntie Florence.)

In case the embedded video in the Huffington Post story can't be viewed, it can be found on YouTube too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9I4BxuryY

India's 'space Nano': rocket science, reinterpreted...

An Indian rocket has successfully launched and settled a space probe into an Earth orbit, with the hope that the space voyager, called Mangalyaan, will reach Mars in 10 months. Here's the Sydney Morning Herald's report (Nov 5):

http://www.smh.com.au/world/india-launches-mission-to-mars-20131105-2wzoh.html

Yesterday's ST (Nov 4) headlined it as a "low-budget" mission:

Indeed! Mangalyaan will get to Mars in a very unusual -- perhaps unique-- way. Because India lacks a rocket that has enough thrust to hurl the space probe all the way to Mars in one go, Mangalyaan will first orbit Earth for about a month and presumably pick up "sufficient" velocity. When ready, it will -- slingshot-style, I suppose -- break out of Earth's orbit and head for Mars. This (previously untried?) method happens to be cheaper too, hence the "low-budget" label.

Will it succeed? I am sure rocket scientists everywhere are waiting with bated breath. They will have to wait one month for the first indication of success, and then -- if breakout is successful -- a further nine months. It's almost like conceiving and delivering a baby!

I have only a couple of questions to ask of the Indians, who have not even landed a probe on the moon yet. Why Mars, and not the Moon first, ie, use such a more modest mission to iron out kinks and perfect the method? Is it because China is poised to land a lunar explorer in December with a good chance of success but it had failed in 2011 to send a probe to Mars?

http://www.space.com/23202-china-moon-rover-december-launch.html

Here's an Indian report on what the Chinese think about about Mangalyaan's debut:

http://www.firstpost.com/india/indias-mars-mission-china-seeks-enduring-peace-in-outer-space-1212049.html

All said and done, I'm off on my own Mars mission now. The gravitational pull of the fridge (where the Martian object below is stored) is proving too irresistible to fight...

How to make peace, not war.

World Peace 101: Shoot with a camera, not with a gun...

Is the world getting more dangerous? I mean, is there a time-bomb ticking away that will start World War III? Well, the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates North Korea and South Korea is said to be one of the most tinder-dry flashpoints. After all, the two Koreas are still technically at war. But take a look at this recent caption story:

    
This sounds like a great idea, but only before any shooting war starts (you wouldn't want to send in the tourist hordes into civil war-rife Syria, for instance).

So, how about Celebrity Cruises organising exotic cruises into the South China Sea? One of the isles, Taiping Island (the largest in the Spratly chain and currently occupied by Taiwan), even has a landing strip that can accommodate turbo-prop aircraft.          

   
Maybe someone with deep pockets can be persuaded to fly Miley Cyrus there to twerk her stuff in a Concert for Peace (note: Taiping means "Heavenly Peace" in Chinese). But she should leave her Wrecking Ball behind. We don't want her to demolish any of the markers that claimants (six countries in all, it seems) have erected on the atolls and reefs that dot the Spratlys.          

The waters in parts of the Spratlys are said to be pristine, ideal for scuba diving and snorkelling. I think the Malaysians, who occupy Layang-Layang, are already allowing divers to go there. Click on the link below to see how beautiful the waters around Layang-Layang are:

http://www.layanglayangnow.com/

So how about it, Mr Ban? If you can endorse Psy (your countryman), give peace a chance and make smiley Miley a UN peace ambassador with special attention to the South China Sea! She might even get tongues wagging.
___________________________________________

Spy vs Spy

At last some of the people who know what's going on have admitted that countries do spy on each other! (Just don't get caught)...

So it seems a bit strange to read this:

On the other hand, this report has implications. Such a no-spying accord -- to be truly worth the ink on the paper -- may mean that Germany is being invited into that close circle of US-led countries that share intelligence. Merkel seems to have played her cards right.

But when I think of Spy vs Spy, I am reminded of the Mad magazine version. Here are two YouTube tributes to those two iconic "spies", Black and White:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVGuNsqw2ZU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNq9ILO337g

______________________________________________

Make movies, not war!

Finally, bystanders of the world, I'm sure you'd rather have China and the US shoot movies that vilify each other than have them shoot bullets at each other, right? So this NYT article that The Sunday Times carried should be "good news"...

What did the horse say? (No, it's not 'neigh')...

Next... 'unsalted butt'?

There's this supermarket chain that keeps coming up with strange product display signs. Some time back, it put up a sign for young coconuts with the word "coconuts" abbreviated. If correctly done, the sign should have said "Young c'nuts". Unfortunately, not only was the apostrophe missing in the actual sign, the abbreviated word was "c*nts"!

More recently, KA -- who also has two dogs, like me -- spotted this sign at an outlet of the same supermarket:

So what will this supermarket come up with next? "Unsalted butt" instead of "Unsalted butter"?

KA (he's very sharp-eyed) also snapped this pic:

Then there's this major shopping mall with copies of this big poster pasted on all the floors...

...Why on the floor? Granted, it's not a real surveillance camera pointing upwards, but if I were a woman, I'll find it weird to have to walk across one of these posters.

I'm adding this next one to my "Keep Calm" collection (thanks, Liane):

Liane also took this pic:

It gives me an excuse to wrap up with these wife-themed jokes:

Backseat driving

A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband.

Suddenly, her husband burst into the kitchen. 'Careful,' he said, 'CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my gosh! You're cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. Oh my gosh! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They're going to STICK! Careful. CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you're cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you LOST your mind? Don't forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them. Use the! Salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!'

The wife stared at him. 'What in the world is wrong with you?You think I don't know how to fry a couple of eggs??'

The husband calmly replied, 'I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I'm driving.'

What did the horse say?

    A guy was sitting quietly reading his paper when his wife walked up behind him and whacked him on the head with a magazine. 

'What was that for?' he asked. 

'That was for the piece of paper in your trouser pocket with the name

Laura Lou written on it,' she replied. 

'Two weeks ago when I went to the races, Laura Lou was the name

of one of the horses I bet on,' he explained. 

'Oh darling, I'm sorry,' she said. 'I should have known there was a

good explanation.'

Three days later he was watching TV when she walked up and hit him

on the head again, this time with a frying pan, which knocked him out cold. 

When he came to, he asked, 'What was that for?' 

'Your horse phoned.'

Behind the headlines (Part 2)...

Headline poser: What's "wrong" with these two examples?

Answer: These two gentlemen's hosts were not impressed; in fact, their "charm" was deemed offensive (ie, going by the respective headlines, not the stories)!

With such ambiguity in mind, you should easily spot the unintended meaning in this next headline too...

Yup, seems it's the judge (with the disparaging tongue) who needs more reformative training! Sometimes you need a headline that needs more words to achieve clarity:

In this puzzling headline below, is it the teaching assistant or the student who is underaged? Why not write it as "Teaching assistant gets jail for sex with underaged student"?...

  
Here's another poser: if you are incontinent, should you take raspberries?...

_______________________________________

For the rest of today's blog entry, I'll highlight praiseworthy headlines...

______________________________________________

____________________________________________

_____________________________________________________

_______________________________________

This catchy headline probably caught your eye...

...just about the same story below, but the headline -- while accurate -- is not as catchy:

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Very clever, this depiction of an "education arms race"!...

This strap heading's use of "rebels without a clue" (playing on "Rebel without a cause") is classy...

_________________________________________

__________________________________________

Last one...  the headline writer skillfully zoomed in on the most interesting part in the story and used that in the headline. Very good!...

Behind the headlines (Part 1)...

My collection of noteworthy headlines is building up, so here's some recent ones:

Don't mess with this "hands-on" judge! He not only issues a gag order, he literally means it and personally takes action.
_____________________________________________

There's nothing wrong with the headline below.

I'm just waiting for some clever (and imaginative) headline writer to come up with:

Till debts do us part

____________________________________

I've said this before; it takes equal parts of imagination and inspiration to come with a recipe for a creatively crafted headline. This one is accurate but mundane...

But this one, reporting the same story, has pizzazz...

_____________________________________

This is a really really bad headline! Headline writers are not supposed to resort to what we call "label headlines" ie those without action words (verbs). This label headline does not even make sense...

______________________________________

This is not the way to use "probe/probed" in a headline...

It gives the impression the poor guy is yelling out "Ouch! Ouch!". Ditto for this one:

There is no ambiguity when "probe" and its variations are used in the contexts below:

_________________________________________

This one is misleading. But, then, it might have  been intentional...

The Mahathir in question is not the famous one we seem to have been led to believe!...

_____________________________

This one was spotted by KA:

Okay... so that makes the kids "lab rats"?
______________________________________

Finally, one constant fear of a headline writer is the headline's unfortunate juxtaposition with an ad that somehow -- unintentionally -- "connects" to it...