Apparently there’s some pitch event or other going on in San Francisco this week.

I’m not really sure of the details but, whoever the organisers are, they might at least have checked first to ensure it didn’t clash with….

Smack My Pitch Up: the tech event when terrible ideas are not just expected, but rewarded.

More info on the Official Event Site

Be there - or pay $2,995 to be somewhere else.

Further to this morning’s Creature Comforts sex mash-up, I’m delighted to announce my brand new start-up…

TinyEarl.net

Launch party date tbc.
(Can you tell I’m deadline displacing today?)

About an hour ago, Adam Gee, New Media Commissioner at Channel 4, Twittered about the Channels’ new site, Sexperience. It launches tomorrow and sounds rather interesting.

But now, go to the site and watch the video on the front page. Then you’ll realise why I couldn’t resist wasting forty five minutes making this…

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Sorry Adam.

(Sexperience: Answers to your questions about Sexuality, First Time Sex, Single Life, Sex in Relationships and Pregnancy based on real people’s real experiences. Launches tomorrow.)

Talk to a random sample of journalists and they’ll tell you the same thing - no one commissions investigative journalism any more.

Talk to any editor and they’ll tell you why; it costs a fortune to produce and rarely adds anything in terms of circulation or bottom line.

In an era of plummeting circulation and competition from free online news sources, as far as a cost-benefits analysis of newspaper investigations goes, it’s all cost and no benefit. Like if ITV1 decided to produce another series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, rather than another bullshit Ant and Dec multiple vehicle pile-up.

And so it’s perhaps not surprising that - obsessive disrupters that they are - various web entrepreneurs are trying to find an alternative business model for Woodward and Bernstein 2.0.

The latest of these ideas is ‘Spot Us‘ (as in, ‘hey buddy, spot me a Dollar’) - a Knight Foundation-backed experiment in crowd-sourcing donations to support investigative reporting.

The idea is as simple as it is clever as it is well intentioned as it is doomed to failure. Someone - a pressure group, most likely - posts a suggestion for a story to the site. “Hey, wouldn’t it be good if someone investigated whether Sarah Palin’s daughter is actually her granddaughter.” (Spoiler alert: no, she isn’t unless Palin-the-younger is stacking those things up like Russian dolls. Still, score one for abstinence education, Sarah.)

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“Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. We can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.”- Sarah Palin

So, there we have it. It’s Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska who will help John McCain dodder up the stairs to the podium at next weeks RNC in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

The announcement is only hours old and everyone has slotted instinctively in to their correct hole. Obama-supporting Democrats were first to drop, accusing McCain of pandering to the disgruntled Clinton vote. Not far behind them tumbled the media - using adjectives like ’spunky’ and ‘well dressed’ while finding themselves unable to resist masturbating over the fact that Palin is a former beauty queen with a lifetime membership of the NRA.

That’s right, media, John McCain had chosen Lara Croft as his running mate. If Lara Croft passed the Article II eligibility criteria and supported arctic drilling.

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It’s been quite a day for fuck ups, all told

First I discover that I incorrectly spelt ‘Mefenamic acid’ as ‘Methanamic’ acid in the book (kudos to Zoe for spotting - no pun intended).

Then Aaron Sorkin’s researcher pointed out that I’d illustrated my Facebook The Movie post with someone who wasn’t Aaron Sorkin.

And finally, just as I was about to kick back and watch some DNC, I get a message from my little brother who is due to fly to Canada tomorrow. Turns out Zoom airlines have gone bust - less than 15 hours before his flight was due to leave.

Brilliant brother that I am, I’ve spent the last hour or so rescheduling him and ensuring that he’ll now land - albeit via Boston - just twenty minutes later than scheduled.

I knew all this technomadery would prove useful. I’m just disappointed that I couldn’t do it within my personal 35-minute flight planning and booking target. It’s more tricky when you’re scheduling someone else.

Hey ho. What a boring post. But what else are blogs for?

Now: Obama.

Waterstone’s have just published a Q&A I did with them a couple of weeks ago. Here’s an extract. Follow the link for the whole thing…

They’ve published a slightly amusing profile of me too, here.

* * * *

Paul Carr - author Q and A

Paul Carr on the end of The Bible, whoring, and having a vague interest in the great Gonzo…

What was your favourite childhood book?

The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark. I mean, just consider that for a moment, an OWL who is afraid of the DARK! He’ll starve! I won’t spoil the ending, but sufficed to say, he doesn’t starve. The sequel, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, is worth a look too, but it’s aimed more at teenage readers.

Which book has made you laugh?

Lots of them, sometimes for reasons the author intended. Most recently I laughed out loud at a few of the jokes in Boomsday by Christopher Buckley, who also wrote Thank You For Smoking. It’s a really nice modern satire on how Washington works, quite light reading but great if you have a few hours on a train or plane. He’s also one of the few authors who can write about blogging without sounding like either my dad or Douglas Coupland.

Which book has made you cry?

The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark. I mean, seriously, he’ll STARVE.

Which book would you never have on your bookshelf?

Never? Ooh, tricky one. I’m not a big fan of banning books, either personally or on a wider scale. Every book has something to teach us, doesn’t it? No, just kidding. Hell in a Handcart by Richard Littlejohn. If I were an evil dictator, I’d start by burning that, just to get the liberals on side from day one.

Read the rest…