The latest Big Brother fills me with with as much as anticipation and hope as a Manchester City bid to win European qualification.

So it was good to find out about an alternative that has more merit and is more believable: Who wants to be a superhero?

The Sci Fi channel has outclassed Channel 4 - is that an achievement these days?- with a group of hopefuls battling it out to become a superhero.

Each must demonstrate their superpowers rather than ability to be foul mouthed and dim. It looks fun and more believable and entertaining than Channel 4’s effort.

I forgot to add business documentaries to my last post.

However, Channel 4 aired a quite extraordinary programme on doing business in China this week.

The piece followed Peter, an upper class old boy with an innovative air conditioning unit, Tony an honest and straight forward cushion producer and Vance Miller a low priced kitchen manufacturer and a dubious character often in trouble with Trading Standards.

Vance (pictured) was an inspired choice not least because he is on the run in China after evading police arrest for an alleged kidnapping in Manchester. He managed to get on the plane to China after the incident.

The documentary crew followed all three in their pursuit of riches. Easy money China ain’t. The pitfalls are plentiful and Vance was often out conned, which must be particularly galling for a sharp businessman like himself.

In the course of the filming Vance suspected the granite mine owner was ripping him off so he bought the mine and became his boss for £30,000.

Cultural differences were exposed when Vance was offered donkey private parts as a delicacy to build a relationship. It was big and it was unpleasant. Vance wasn’t sure if his Chinese supplier was making fun or being respectful.

The impression is that China has not even begun to meet its peak. It is a free for all. Pure capitalism. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Chinese Dickens with the conditions that were shown. The steps leading down to the mine were scarier than finding Edwina Curry in your bed in the morning.

To do business you need to speak the dialect, have contacts, understand the etiquette, be proactive, be patient, be prepared to lose money, know who to trust, trust no one and much more.

As for Tony and Peter, Tony got his factory built and won substantial orders from the US. Peter went into partnership with a shady character who was a seasoned businessman. However, he had a gentleman’s agreement. The product was selling after the customary drinking, eating and “wenching” and karaoke sales pitch. Whether he got paid is another matter.

Apparently there is a part 2 next week, an original bit of TV that you should switch on for.

For more views read The Guardian and Scotsman.

Take cooking, gardening, property and reality TV shows out of the programme listings and you are left with some huge gaps to fill in the schedules.

It seems that TV executives are playing it safe and dull. It is formulaic with no imagination.

With another mind numbing Big Brother on its way and desperate attempts to generate some interest in something that delivers little more simulation than a test card you would think that a little originality is being sought.

This last week has seen the Joe Strummer biopic “The future is unwritten” hit cinema screens, it chronicles punk band the Clash. I think there is a correlation between punk and the current situation TV has put itself in.

In 1975 rock has become predictable, boring and stale, fed on a diet on self congratulatory and self indulgent uninspiring trash. The age of the rock dinosaurs and I do not mean TRex. We are at that same point. We need a TV punk revolution. We need TV that is judged on originality, intelligence and is entertaining.

If TV advertising revenues are down and executives blame the Internet they should think again. Internet, Internet TV, blogs and many other media channels are not just succeeding because they are new or exciting, but because many of their editors and writers want to say something that engages with their audience.

If TV wants to fight for audience share it needs to not rely on a little sensationalism, proven but increasingly ineffective formulas and the inertia of viewers not to turn it off.

I was talking to a journalist today about following up and he is getting aggravated by a new ploy by some of the less able PR agencies.

If it wasn’t bad enough getting a call saying, “Did you receive the e-mail?,” he is getting calls after he has had his e-mails tagged. Essentially if he deletes an e-mail it means he is not interested. With the tagging the PR executive is able to note if an e-mail is opened read and deleted. The inevitable follow up asking for an explanation and trying to resell in again follows.

If a release is strong enough it will be used. Treating journalists as people incapable of making a decision is insulting and patronising. It will back fire.

The better solution would be to invest in thinking and writing stories that sell and not trying to pressurise a journalist into submission.

Virtuaffinity wins a Big Chip award.

Well done to Jamie Clouting for winning Best Rising Star.

Second Life version pictured.

Information received by text, not by Twitter.

The new, the must have, the….

No it’s Twitter.

The latest mini blog / MSN messenger type tech application is gaining in popularity.

But what is the commercial, communications or fun value?

I am following the Big Chip awards from PushON’s twitterings. I have to admit it is proving useful and if they win an award I will appreciate knowing as it happens or within a reasonable time frame.

It just seems though on many other occasions someone telling me that they are listening to a tune or having a drink is not incredibly interesting or welcome. We have mobiles.

Am I missing something? Still if fulfilling the challenge is to get Frankie Howerd on my blog it must have some value.

The Big Chip awards has a habit of being quirky and odd when it comes to its entertainment.

The North West biggest digital media awards used a lady that grinded her metal clad groin with a metal rotating disk a few years ago. You had to be there, luckily I was not. Last year a bizarre take off of Kraftwerk played on some perculiar digital devices. And this year the awards are going to be presented in virtual world Second Life.

The awards ceremony will be streamed live from the evening’s proceedings at the New Century Hall in Manchester and will be available to Second Life’s estimated 6.5m users worldwide.

Tony Wilson, who is hosting the event will be digitally recreated online.

Those not able to go can follow the action as it happens by logging on to the PushON blog.

Good luck to Virtuaffinty PushON with their 2 nominations.

MEN Media, which includes the Manchester Evening News, is to make 80 redundancies.

The reason given has been a poor advertising climate and new media investment.

The issue will be how can the group, which includes 24 newspapers, continue to operate at the same level of editorial quality and quantity if the staff numbers are reduced so drastically?

Any answers?

Judi Goodwin is a journalist and teacher of creative writing based in the North West. She will be holding a feature writing class this summer, which will be worth attending.

Judi’s key tips are:

1. Keep fit and well. High energy copy never came from tired, hung-over or weary journalists. Make sure you eat well, rest well and get plenty of exercise – and write early in the day before you become tired.

2. Complete all your research before you start writing. Confident writing comes from the knowledge that you have all the facts at your fingertips. Though of course, if you realise something vital is missing, it’s never too late to fill the gaps.

3. Let talking to people be the backbone of your research. An enthusiastic expert can fire your passion for a subject much more than researching via books or the web.

4. Enjoy your writing. Remember it can be fun. Before you begin, close your eyes and remind yourself you have all the skills you need – and you’re going to enjoy it. Then be prepared to play with the words.

5. Do your best to memorise the information before you start writing. The time you invest in transcribing notes or reading and re-reading your research will mean you can write faster and more fluently without having to stop to check your facts.

6. Don’t get it right, get it written. Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s only the first draft.

7. Contributing to prestigious titles can sometimes trigger the terror that brings on writer’s block. If it strikes, pretend you are writing to your mum or best friend - or for the local rag. It makes it less scary.

8. Write quickly and spontaneously without monitoring yourself. Resist the temptation to continually keep checking as you go. Unless you suspect you are seriously off track, leave the revisions until the piece is complete. Editing on the hoof only inhibits the creative part of your brain.

9. Use sights, sounds and smells in your writing to bring it to life. While you’re doing the interview, or at the location, make notes in any spare moments of the things you can see and hear. What are they wearing, is their collar a little frayed, a button missing? What does their home/office look and smell like?

10. Write from the heart - edit from the head. In other words plug into your passion when you write. You can always tone it down later if you decide you’ve gone OTT.

11. Wait a while before you revise. A couple of hours delay will help you be more objective about your own work. If possible edit next day - you will instantly see what changes are needed. Then, with a little polishing, you should have lively, engaging, energetic copy. Good luck.

Found on the Connect Media website.

Web 2.0 is the talk of the chattering business classes, well some of them, and this point was highlighted over the last few weeks by a number of talks about the subject.

Northern Guardian correspondent Helen Carter touched on the growing importance of the Internet to her role as a journalist as mentioned in the entry of 11th May.

I was lucky enough to see Mike Ryan of web agency Idaho give a seminar at Salford University on Thursday about Web 2.0.

The first point Mike made was that Web 2.0 was a bit of marketing speak to glitz things up, which obscured the issues.

He went on to explain the key correlations in what is generally classed as Web 2.0 site, of which Alexa claims there are 47,000:

Collaboration
Community
Content creation
Cheap and fast
Collective intelligence
Cumulative learning
Connection
Core values

Nothing it seems that does not begin with a capital C. I can be a cynic but it does begin with a “c” so I am happy to use it, will it be Web 2.0?

Mike went on to outline the possible changes ahead of us.

Web 3.0 will give users a more effective search based on context and not on recognition of a word. He used three words to describe the next generation of search: connected, open, intelligent.

Mike also stated that change was gathering pace. We should not be surprised to see web servers in light bulbs, voice activated computers and an online agent to buy for you.

Mike also featured in a debate at the Circle Club, which brought some conflict of opinion. Tom Cheesewright covers some of the issues on his blog.

Is Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 so radically different? Your bank holiday has now been spoken for you to ponder.