Exxon Valdez oil spill:

(i) an expression which also won the 1989 'doublespeak award' where 35 miles of Alaska shoreline with oil were presented as "environmentally clean" by the company.

(ii) Time: about 54.10

(iii) what was actually meant by the use of the term 'clean' was that natural inhabitants could live there and not that every single oil stain was off every rock.

I found quite interesting the list of the winners of the doublespeak awards over the years en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak_Award.
Thank you Met for introducing us to this notion!

Good answers, astarti. You've qualified for Stage 2.

I'm heartened by the willingness of a second member to engage in this competition.

But due to their speed of replies, I still fear the possibility kjg might actually be a machine in an ongoing Turing test — with me having unwittingly been assigned the role of evaluator. The answer that continues to elude me, however, is what use a robot could have with cookies.


__________


Thank you for posting that link to the Doublespeak Award. I knew of its existence, but had never previously gone through the list. Interesting indeed.

Just a couple of past winners that gave me pause for reflection:


1987 – Oliver North and John Poindexter

For anyone feeling ignorant about contemporary American history, the Iran–Contra affair* is a fascinating episode to do some reading on.


2017 – Kellyanne Conway

I tip my hat to Conway because "alternative facts" was such a memorable expression. Not only comedic, but consequential to some extent. And a reflection of our time.

Query how much hope there is for productive dialogue in civilised society, when opposing sides on an issue cannot even agree what the facts are. We're in the midst of an obscene era of science-denial (with biology, for example, now being attacked on ideological grounds). Where feelings and individual perception are sometimes allowed to trump objective reality. And where empirical data is frequently ignored or contemptuously dismissed in favour of lived experience. [I'm old enough to remember when "lived experience" used to be called "anecdotal evidence".]


__________


The web page for the Doublespeak Award helpfully also referred to the Big Brother Awards*.


Wikipedia extract:

The Big Brother Awards (BBAs) recognize "the government and private sector organizations ... which have done the most to threaten personal privacy". They are named after the George Orwell character Big Brother from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. They are awarded yearly to authorities, companies, organizations, and persons that have been acting particularly and consistently to threaten or violate people's privacy, or disclosed people's personal data to third parties.


I had forgotten about these, and wasn't aware so many countries had their own versions.

Here's an image of the Bulgarian trophies awarded two or three years ago:

QUESTIONS


Both questions relate to Part C and the video by UNKLE.


1.  Find the visual reference to a entirely separate band in the Be There video. Then post a video of a song by that other band.

[It would be more fun if the video and/or song were interesting to you, or at least not completely uninteresting. There should be time to make a thoughtful curatorial choice here, because no one is likely to be able to immediately answer Question 2.]


2.  Be There was released last century. And it's possible to work out that chronology from the contents of the video itself.

Excluding the copyright details at the very end, I spotted four things pointing to the fact that filming took place in the 1990s or (for one clue) at the latest in 2000 — as opposed to any year more recent than 2000.

Of the four things I found, two were straightforward. The other two required more thinking and research, and would be difficult for non-UK residents to identify (e.g. knowing what to look for, where to research, and even which Google search terms to use).

Find and describe three clear, persuasive pieces of evidence pointing to the fact that filming for Be There did not take place later than 2000.


EDIT: For the purpose of this Question 2, please discount the clothing worn, the specific Futura imagery featured, and what was already at the time a quaint use of a portable cassette player.


________________


In case no eligible member responds correctly beforehand, a clue for Question 2 will be posted in 48 hours — at around 20:00 UK time on Wednesday 24 February.

Well, not referring to the era, but Futura is also a punk band :



When the door opens op the subway you can see a billboard with 1999 on it behind the guys.

The newspaper in the window refers to the introduction of the euro, which was in 1999.

And as a non-UK resedent I request a dispensation for the entry of the Walkman use,
which would be highly unlikely for a cool girl after the introduction of the ipod in 2001.
Since I can not spot clues which you declare to be almost impossible for non-UKians.

Cheers!

Well, met... didn't know editing posts was not allowed. Just removing a typo.
But I had my answers ready, just to come back to the forum to an .... edited question.

So when edited posts are not allowed I would claim also editing the question is not allowed.

Of course it's your quiz.

1. Find the visual reference to a entirely separate band in the Be There video. Then post a video of a song by that other band.

Answer:

The band is The Cramps. The girl in the video wears a The Cramps shirt. The video I choose is ‘Bikini Girls With Machine Guns’. Because it is a catchy song and because of the title, which I think is pretty hilarious:



2. Be There was released last century. And it's possible to work out that chronology from the contents of the video itself.

Answers:

1. The billboard in the beginning of the video mentions “New fares from 3 January 1999”.
2. There seems to be an Underground ticket machine near the track, the girl tries to get something out of that machine. That means there are no Oyster cards yet, which means that the video is filmed before 2003.
3. The paper in the window refers to the euro as something that is happening and has not happened yet.
4. The video is filmed on Underground station Morning Crescent, part of the Northern Line. The seats on the Northern Line in the video have a total different lining (or moquette as it is called) than nowadays. I cannot really find specific info on the history of changes of this moquette, but I know it is different than 20 years ago.

Very cool, I think that’s it! I wasn’t too sure about the other two answers I gave.

I made a typo on the dates!!! Its 1.20 here! I won't correct it but please take in account the wiki quote on Charing Cross where is the correct date.

dedlok — While acknowledging the fine efforts of Dive Jedi, kjg, astarti and stikfan, I'm declaring you the winner of the competition. Congratulations.



This kind of scenario always leaves me conflicted. You were ineligible under the competition rules* to participate in the first place, due to having an insufficient number of posts (the minimum being 91 undeleted posts).

On the one hand, my focus is with principle, fairness to others, and thin-end-of-the-wedge considerations. On the other hand, I'm rather fond of well-executed rule-breaking — clever graffiti being another such example.


Since:

(i) you were the sole member to identify a piece of evidence that was difficult to spot; and

(ii) the prize at stake of cookies is inconsequential to anyone bar a monster,

in this instance I chose the path of potential chaos over order.


__________


Will try to follow-up later today with reference answers and additional commentary.

QUESTIONS


Both questions relate to the artwork in Part B.


1.  Name the artist who produced this editioned piece, its title, and its year of creation.


2.  From left to right, identify next to the numbers below each person depicted.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.


[Deductive logic may be required in one case, given the limited detail that can be gleaned from the high-contrast portrait.]

________________


In the unlikely event that no eligible member responds correctly beforehand, answers will be posted in 24 hours — at around 20:00 UK time on Wednesday 24 February.

kjg — Some comments on your answers to Question 2:


1.  Well spotted.


2.  What you believed may have been a ticket machine is in fact a vending machine the actress briefly plays with out of boredom.

And even if one considers the presence of a vending machine on the train platform, it still isn't germane to the particular timeline the question relates to — i.e. distinguishing (a) the years up to 2000, from (b) the year 2001 onwards.

My good mates on the London Underground Forum (shout out to metrailway, reganorak and Tubeboy) say most platform vending machines were removed later, circa 2007–08:

districtdavesforum.co.uk/post/392631/thread


[For members who find threads like the Mrs Banksy thread to be of interest, or who enjoy animated masturbatory posts with running commentary on Banksy or Stik hammer prices in mid-auction, do check out the London Underground Forum. The banter on the LUF seems, at the very least, equally as stimulating.]


I should add that London Underground ticket machines are located by the entrance of stations before the turnstiles, rather than on the train platforms. Also, notwithstanding the introduction of Oyster cards in 2003, paper tickets continue to be available for purchase.


3.  Not quite, but will comment on this in the reference answers.


4.  The video was indeed shot in Mornington Crescent. I verified this myself, comparing stills from Be There with photos of that station — to make sure I wasn't simply parroting (possibly inaccurate) information from Wikipedia and other online sources.

The next part of your answer, however, is based on a false premise. Because filming took place in a Northern Line tube station, you assumed the carriage scenes were shot on a Northern Line train. The assumption was reasonable but incorrect. Those scenes were filmed on a train from the Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line, or District Line (Wimbledon–Edgware Road section).


That said, your general idea about different moquettes being used over different periods was very good. At one point, many tube lines had their own moquette designs to give them separate visual identities.

By the way, thank you for introducing me to the term "moquette". It opened a whole new and magical world on Google. I am now looking forward to my next chat with strangers on the train during morning rush hour. When I casually slip this word into the conversation, their facial expressions will almost surely betray how impressed they'll be.

And although I already buy too many books, Seats of London: A Field Guide to London Transport Moquette Patterns might now be on my Amazon wish list:



In Be There, the moquette is the one below, which was introduced in trains running on the Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line, and District Line (Wimbledon–Edgware Road section only) between 1990 and 1994:






The above was phased out, but only around 2003 (being later than the time distinction that the competition question relates to). It was gradually replaced by this:




And since 2014, the seating of about four lines* on the London Underground has the following moquette (a design based on Liquorice Allsorts):

After a while I managed to go through the whole video, very very interesting, personally I enjoyed the part about dictionaries and foreign languages, although a little off the main topic.


State:



(i) "economically nonaffluent", also included in the title of one the chapters of the book


(ii) 27:10


(iii) the real meaning being nothing but "poor"; the expression was used by the president of the City University of New York when talking about "poor students" attending the school.

Cut-off time.

A full week seems more than fair, and I need not have been concerned about unmanageable numbers of participants entering the competition.


____________________


This Stage 2 shall be exclusive to kjg, astarti and viz.

It relates again to the notion of doublespeak, covered in the two videos in Part B.



STAGE 2 TASK


At the start of his 1989 C-SPAN interview, William Lutz confirms what doublespeak is:

Doublespeak is language designed to evade responsibility, make the unpleasant appear pleasant, the unattractive appear attractive. Basically, it's language that pretends to communicate, but really doesn't. It is language designed to mislead, while pretending not to.


And when host Brian Lamb asks him whether it's done consciously, Lutz explains:

Oh, yes! Very consciously. Doublespeak is not a slip of the tongue or a mistaken use of language, it's exactly the opposite. It is language used by people who are very intelligent and very sophisticated in the use of language, and know that you can do an awful lot with language.


While the above offers a helpful general description, there exists a variety of specific kinds of doublespeak. They include (but aren't necessarily limited to) the four types mentioned in Lutz's book on the subject.


__________


kjg, astarti and viz:

Define or describe one specific type of doublespeak you feel you most need to be on your guard against when reading or listening to what others are saying.


Answers may be a straight cut-and-paste from a Google search result, or phrased in your own words. They might cover a well-recognised category of doublespeak, or something different that still falls within the realm of the concept. They can be a single sentence in length, or a few paragraphs.

Your choice entirely. What's important is that your answer be considered, and that you be satisfied with it.


If needed, these two web pages (among countless others) can offer guidance or inspiration:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak_Award


This is meant as a leisurely exercise, and one that could possibly benefit each participant. If you intend to complete the task, please do so within a fortnight, by 20:00 UK time on Thursday 11 March.

Good luck.

Apologies about the delay with these reference answers for Monday's competition, won by dedlok. I've tried to group most of the information into a single standalone post.


____________________


C.






UNKLE (featuring Ian Brown) - Be There (1999)
- uploaded by UNKLEofficial



____________________



REFERENCE ANSWERS


If there's anyone who took an interest in the images posted just above the music video, these are by the late great Corinne Day*. Her photography was pivotal in helping to define a fresh, raw aesthetic during the 1990s — a style generally viewed as a riposte to the polished glamour of the 1980s.

[From this perspective, it's also worth checking out the work of Juergen Teller (past and current) and David Sims (past).]


__________



1.  Find the visual reference to a entirely separate band in the Be There video. Then post a video of a song by that other band.


The visual reference to a separate band was the Cramps t-shirt worn by the actress, Emma Griffiths Malin.








The Cramps - What's Inside A Girl? (live at Eden Jaaphal, Amsterdam on 9 March 1990; Stay Sick! tour with Candy del Mar on bass)
- uploaded by CasaAzul65





2.  Be There was released last century. And it's possible to work out that timeline from the contents of the video itself.

[...]

Find and describe three clear, persuasive pieces of evidence pointing to the fact that filming for Be There didn't take place later than 2000.



2.1  Fares-increase sign (around 0:24)


See 'New fares from 3 January 1999', behind James Lavelle and just above his head as he enters the lift — clear evidence that the video was not filmed later than 2000.

These information notices of train fares increasing in price in the new year typically go up in December, and are taken down at some point in January.








2.2  Newspaper sheet blowing in the tunnel (around 4:29)


Main headline: The euro school of thought that is inevitably wrong.

Janet Bush wrote the article, and it was published in The Times newspaper on Tuesday, 5 January 1999.






The date of this newspaper, combined with its reasonably good condition, evidenced that filming took place around the same period — and, all the more so, not later than 2000.


While the headline alone arguably offered a clue about the date, it wasn't indisputable, given that such an article could easily have been published after 2000. The euro would remain a constant in the news for years.

Nevertheless, a relaxed approach was taken for the competition — because that article by Bush was tough to find.

Google did assist, with one search hit leading to a separate academic paper dated 31 October 2002*. On the second page in footnote 5, Bush's article is cited, albeit with a misquoted title. Importantly, the relevant newspaper and date are identified, allowing for an eventually-successful search on archive.org*:






Not sure whether the effort was actually worth it, but I did feel satisfaction after finally tracking down the newspaper's date.



2.3  "0171" London telephone number on actress's hand (around 2:09 and 4:19)








The actress in the video has a couple of nightclub stamps on her right hand, along with a handwritten telephone number — possibly 0171 435 8867. [The last two digits are difficult to read. They may actually have been deliberately illegible, so that people like me wouldn't try calling at three o'clock in the morning. Note as well that the telephone number might have been an improvised addition during filming, since it doesn't look like it's present in the scene from 1:54–1:58.]

dedlok ably spotted the key part of this number, being its "0171" national dialling code. That format for London was deactivated on 14 October 2000, when it was completely replaced with "020" — clear evidence that the video was not filmed later than 2000.

Source*


____________________



Side Notes On The Filming Locations


Most of the in-station filming was done in Mornington Crescent, a London Underground station on the Northern Line.

This would include the scene below at 2:15, featuring the hunched man / creature at the front end of the platform (in the direction of travel):






However, compare with the scene at 2:40. It also shows the front end of the platform, as the train is leaving the station:






For purposes of the video storyline, these two shots are meant to be the same location. But in reality, they're obviously not. The train platforms have different designs, and even different widths.

The second shot was likely to have been filmed somewhere on the Circle Line or Hammersmith & City Line.


__________


Consider a flashback scene in the video. Starting at around 4:12, the train is coming into the station. As the carriages whizz by the actress, blowing her hair, we see that the blurred train is silver-grey throughout:










This was probably another Mornington Crescent scene, and the train may have been 1959 Stock* or 1962 Stock* — older models that still serviced the Northern Line at the time. The one below is an example of 1959 Stock (visually also similar to 1962 Stock):






But now look at the original scene of the train entering the station, starting at around 2:25, and of the actress boarding it. It's a different train altogether, with bright red doors:








This appears to have been filmed on the Circle Line or Hammersmith & City Line. At the time in 1999, the trains servicing these lines were C69 Stock and C77 Stock**. The one below is an example of C77 Stock (visually also similar to C69 Stock):





__________


In the still that follows, the London Underground logo can be seen on the wall through the carriage window. The parallel bar of the logo would typically have the relevant station's name on it — but in this case it's been blacked out to hide the name:






We also know the in-carriage filming took place in a Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line, or possibly District Line train (Wimbledon–Edgware Road section) — due to the moquette design of the seats, an issue previously brought up by kjg.

Source*


Corroboration is provided by the car line diagram / map visible behind the actress when the train doors shut before she has a chance to exit. Although out of focus, the design and colours are still recognisable as a car line diagram for a Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line, or District Line train (Wimbledon–Edgware Road section):







____________________



2.4  Car line diagram / map in the train carriage (around 5:13)


The car line diagram is most clearly visible at the end of the video, behind Prince Edward and to the left:






Let's crop and rotate:






Now compare against the relevant car line diagrams below, dated July 1999 (top map) and December 1999 (bottom map):




Sources**


Some points to note regarding the map in Be There:

(i) the name for Sloane Square station, positioned underneath the yellow line;

(ii) Westminster station not yet showing a connection with the Jubilee Line; and

(iii) the distance in the design between the positions of Kensington (Olympia) station and Earl's Court station.


The fact that the map in the music video corresponds to the July 1999 version (as opposed to the December 1999 version, released after the Jubilee Line extension) is clear evidence that filming occurred before December 1999 — and, all the more so, not later than 2000.



END OF POST.