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Rage, machines and hopes for 2010

Joe McElderry has lost out to Rage Against the Machine – it seems that a significant proportion of the British record-buying public really have turned on Simon Cowell and given him a festive slap under the miseltoe. It’s an upset, but its significance lies in what the power of the Internet might achieve next. Motivational…

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Raging and plotting against the machine

It’s been interesting to be following pre-Christmas sales on the internet for the last three or four days, for two reasons. One reason is personal – my book, The Fame Formula, has leapt up the Amazon sales chart by several thousand places in the last three days. The other reason is that I’ve been watching…

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Clinton, Copenhagen, Afghanistan, Suppression and the X Factor

The suppression of information takes many guises, I’m beginning to realise. Many guises, but at the heart, the old ways of doing things still rule. Someone pulls strings and the neck of the bag tightens. Take, for a start, Hillary’s Secret War, a book detailing the ways in which a rightwing think-tank’s output on the…

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Why Tiger Woods PR disaster could scare brands off sports stars for good

Another piece, by me, on the Tiger Woods brand disintegration has appeared in Guardian Online’s Media section. It looks at the way that sports endorsement has been shifting away from volatile and risky sports stars, and at where the big money is settling in the aftermath of the Tiger Woods PR meltdown. “Let’s get one…

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The Sleb's Prayer and The Exterminating Factor

Have you overdosed on the X Factor? Are the opinions of the judges getting you down? Have you felt like venting your feelings about the loss of your favourite contestant? Did Danyl’s departure in the semi-finals really get your goat? Did Lucie losing out to Jedward rile you to the point of despair? Or are…