Today the power was off all day and my usual pastimes were just not available! Internet, writing, blogging, researching – the computer battery only lasts an hour or so; watering the garden, no- we live in the country and our tank water is supplied via an electric pump, vacuuming, no- this is a joke, Mr Tranquillo always does this, baking cakes, cooking farro salad, pasta, no electric oven, no water. And so on. After a cleaning frenzy, reading and some handwriting in an exercise book (!), I ventured out for a drive and purchased, amongst other things, Vogue Living Magazine ( November/December 2013) . My enjoyment of enforced leisure and the new glossy mag slowly faded after reading the editorial by its Melbourne editor, Anne Marie Kiely.
Anne Marie Kiely opens her article “The War Against Cliché ” with reference to the clichéd use of language, a topic close to my heart and of interest to many bloggers. She notes the overuse of words such as ‘iconic’, and expressions such as “it’s not rocket science” and “at the end of the day”. Hang on, didn’t Don Watson expose these exact words and phrases in his excellent ‘Weasel Words – Contemporary Clichés, Cant and Management Jargon’ back in 2004 and subsequent editions? Or did Anne Marie just discover this 10 years later? But I digress.
She continues, “clichés are the currency of publicity machines, in the full service of capitalist consumption. They are the trend forecasters that have made pattern recognition into the big business of future prediction….They ( clichés) are suburban homes hung with hunting lodge trophies. They are the Hans Wegner ‘Wishbone’ chairs made mainstream by replica merchants … they are neo-19th century faces with full beards; library cards printed with business credentials; boxed moths; bottled gardens; flowers as food; pop- up shops; and endless typography installations ( if Eat is essential provocation in the kitchen, will POO do above the loo?). They are Keep Calm and Carry On posters ( a trend as tenacious as teenage acne); bowls of string balls; numbers stencilled onto gym- locker storage; clusters of empty frames; ‘artisanal’ everything………… clichés are the intellectually bereft speak of bloggers ( not all, but most) who think that something is good because they like it, rather than something being likeable because it’s good….. Oh, it was so much easier when a clearly defined culture of criticism placed talent in an understandable hierarchy. That was before ‘digital’ went and democratised media and destabilised structure such that all sentiment assumed equal weight.”
Hmmm. All very clever, except that Anne Marie, it seems, as Melbourne Editor of Vogue Living, is an employee of News Corp Australia. It’s hard to find many ‘publicity machines’ that are not owned by News Corp, ie Rupert Murdoch, in Australia. Media which (at present) lies outside this insidious monopoly, include privately owned blogs, many foreign newspapers, and a wealth of other online news and resources. I have recently enjoyed reading the blogs of talented writers from Italy and intriguing storytellers from Sydney, press articles from newspapers around the globe, and so on, all free and beyond the clutches of News Corp and its mighty taste sculpting, clichéd machine. Talented bloggers must present a bit of a threat to the exclusive domain of journalists such as Anne Marie Kiely.
A quick browse through Vogue Living will reveal a cluster of empty frames used as decor, (the back side page of her editorial) large advertisements for Matt Blatt replicas and Milandirect, both companies specialising in knock off designs. I am sure that other clichéd homewares were once featured in Vogue Living before they became suburban and therefore less desirable and exclusive.
As well as Vogue Living, News Corp owns the following media assets worldwide. Quickly scroll through this long list of Murdoch media assets and then decide, fellow bloggers, readers, and friends, who has the more ‘authentic’ voice? A humble blogger, talented or not, or Ms Anne Marie Kiely, employee and pawn of News Corp, arbiter of fashion, taste; exclusivist?
*Photo of me doing my Munch SCREAM face again.
ALMOST ITALIAN 
LOL how bitter and misinformed she is! A pity as it’s a less desirable quality in a human being let alone an editor or journalist.
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