This year’s Turnip Prize winner is Mr. Keep Calm for his artistic creation, “Party Gate.” 

You know about the British scandal called Partygate, right? It was about the government of the day throwing parties inside (and outside) 10 Downing Street during the pandemic while the rest of the country was in lockdown and less well-connected people were being fined (some heavily) for breaking the rules. Not to mention while families were being kept from saying goodbye to dying relatives. It shocked us all that a government led by someone as correct and responsible as Boris Johnson would do such a thing. Not one of us had noticed the first two, three, or fifteen parties they threw. Even the ones that made the front pages.

So that explains the work’s title, but what’s the Turnip Prize? It was created in 1999, after Tracy Emin won the prestigious Turner Prize for a piece of art called “My Bed,” which was–you got it–an unmade bed, presumably hers, although never having slept with her, or wanted to, I can’t vouch for that. 

The Turnip contest rules specify that any work that displays “too much effort” is disqualified.

Mr. Keep Calm’s work qualified. “I was too lazy to take the gate to the recycling tip and decided to enter it into the Turnip Prize,” he said. “It’s a great honour and I can see this as an opening for greater works to come.”

Competition organizer Trevor Prideaux said, “Mr. Keep Calm . . . clearly has what it takes to be recognised in modern art circles and will be remembered in art history for no time at all!”

Did a New Zealand MP pledge loyalty to King Charles or a skin rash?

New Zealand hasn’t cut its ties to the British crown, so its MPs have to pledge allegiance to the monarch-of-the-moment, who at the moment (spoiler alert) is named Charles. So some members of the Māori Party pledged allegiance in Māori–not a controversial thing to do; it’s one of the country’s official languages–using harehare, a word for Charles that can also mean a skin rash. Or something unpleasant. 

A skin rash and its related meanings are the more common translations, but either Charles or Charlie is arguably accurate. Te reo Māori–the Māori language–is like that. One word can have so many meanings that I stopped turning to the dictionary. It was leaving me more confused than I was when I started. And if that isn’t difficult enough for someone trying to learn it, the language has multiple variants, so pronunciations and meanings shift depending on where you are and who you’re talking to.     

In the past, the Māori Party has called for New Zealand to divorce itself from the monarchy, but I’m wondering if a skin cream wouldn’t be more appropriate.

 

Countries that don’t exist

I seem to remember Ikea selling a shower curtain that featured a map of the world with New Zealand deleted, possibly because some people are phobic about rashes. But that’s ancient history–it happened at least two years ago and probably more. Who remembers that far back? The updated version of Your Planet, Edited, comes to us courtesy of Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, which was asked whether Australia existed and answered no. It was sure enough of the result to put it in a nice little text box.

And that’s how I learned about a longstanding conspiracy theory that claims Australia’s fake news. 

Are they serious about that? These days, who can tell? 

Once the news of Australia’s non-existence hit social media, an Australian wanted to know, “Does that mean I don’t have to pay my bills?”

Sadly, it doesn’t. Later searches held that Australia does, in fact, exist. And if the person who raised the question hasn’t fallen into the sea, it will be taken as proof of the country’s existence, because some people will seize on anything to prove they’re right.

 

And that gives you real confidence in . . .

. . . Sports Illustrated, which published several articles generated by artificial intelligence on its website, complete made-up names for the writers and AI-generated author photos.

Or else the articles weren’t generated by AI. It depends who you want to believe, since we can all believe whatever the hell we want these days. 

As far as I can figure out, Advon Commerce, “an e-commerce company that works with retailers and publishers,” generated the copy, and it told the owners of Sports Illustrated that “the articles in question were written and edited by humans” but that it lets writers use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. 

You know what writers are like. They can be so shy about getting their names out.

The scales have tipped heavily in the direction of the articles being generated by AI, with the weasel-words (you know: might, appears to, that kind of thing) disappearing from articles about it. The company that owns Sports Illustrated has since fired its CEO, not long after having fired three lower-level execs.

Did any of that have to do with the articles?

“We have nothing further to add to the company’s prior statements regarding AI,” a spokesperson said.

Staff at the magazine, along with the union representing them, pitched a fit when the articles first came out–they would’ve anyway, but the magazine’s owners has been cutting staff recently, which didn’t put them in a forgiving mood–saying the articles violated basic journalistic standards.

As we all know, though, cutting staff and using AI to generate articles aren’t related. I only put them next to each other because I’m a rabble-rouser from way back.

 

Your understated headline of the week . . .

. . . comes from the Guardian, a newspaper I have a huge amount of respect for, but that won’t keep me from making fun of it. It’s pretty good at making fun of itself anyway. A November 6 headline reads, “Sellafield nuclear leak could pose safety risk.”  

Yes, I could see where a nuclear leak might do that. 

Full disclosure: the online headline that I linked to is a little different but still not great. The article goes on to say that Sellafield is Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, with a crumbling building and cracks in the toxic sludge reservoir. Two days before, an article mentioned that Sellafield had been hacked as early as 2015 by groups linked to Russia and China, but that the news is only coming out now. 

So yes. It could, just potentially, post a safety risk, although I’ll admit the headline won’t win any great-headline prizes. If I get to give out the award, I’ll give it to the (sadly, unknown) paper that ran with “Red tape holds up bridge.”

 

Your heartwarming stories for the week

When California’s wildfires ripped through a stand of redwoods in 2020, it got hot enough to defoliate the trees, which normally resist burning. They don’t get to be 2,000 years old by packing it in every time a wildfire comes along. It looked like the end of the ancient trees, but they’re showing signs of life. Drawing on sugars they stored decades before, they’re pouring energy into buds that had been dormant under the bark for centuries and are now sprouting from the blackened trunks.

That has nothing to do with Britain, but what the hell. It’s a nice story. We could do with a dash of hope.

*

Back in Britain, a three-year-old’s stuffed toy–a monkey called Monkey–was lost when he and his mother were on a train, and (reading between the lines here) he had the predictable meltdown. His mother says he was distraught. I expect she was too by the time she reported the loss in Birmingham, where they changed trains.

The monkey was found in Edinburgh–it had continued on to the end of the line–and was sent to Birmingham the same day. It stayed there overnight and someone found it a little Christmas sweater with the British Rail logo in sparkly yarn, then they sent on to Bristol, where mother and son collected it. It had traveled 619 miles, on three train lines. 

No charge. 

*

In St. Paul, Minnesota, someone returned a library book, Famous Composers, that was more than a hundred years overdue. 

The library no longer charges for overdue books, so no charge there either. Which is just as well, because the person who returned it (predictably enough) wasn’t the person who borrowed it.