UK.gov: Name a more iconic duo than 'culture' and 'digital'. We'll wait

Seriously, do these people ever come out of their own a***holes to take a look at the world around them!

He's the type of wanker who thinks the line "Knowledge is porridge" is a belter.

I know I'm getting old . . .

...but I just can't take to the sprinkling of 'digital' throughout documents as some kind of placeholder for genuine information/thought/strategy.

If digital = culture^2 + 4 * technology then solve for 'y'.

Show your working.

Improve museums

How about dusting off some of the items in storage and letting the public see them, too many items languish in museums across the UK. ... and also tour them around the UK (not everyone can afford extortionate train ticket to London to see stuff)*

.. Though that might need a few paid staff - if my local museums anything to go by, way too dependent on volunteers - paid staff thin on the ground.

* Yes I know some stuff does tour around the UK, & kudod there, but not enough IMHO

Seeing stuff online in digital (high resolution) format is OK if you cannot get to a museum to see it in person (or its in ******* storage) but theres no substitute for actually seeing something in the real world. e.g. everyone knows Vermeer s "Girl with a pearl earring" is a tiny painting, but you only really appreciate that (and the consumate skill involved) when you see it "in person"

"using technology to drive audience engagement, boosting the digital capability of cultural organisations and unleashing the creative potential of technology"

My bullshit buzzword detector just went off.

So they are making museums like libraries so you can get internet access there, Why didn't they just say that?

It can't be anything more than because I really don't think the majority of museum staff will be technically minded enough for augmented reality. I think some are also volunteers due to the nature of the organisations.

Where we're going wrong

In the week where we also had the articles about the ZX81 and Trevor Bayliss, this highlights what the problem is. There's no support for people who invent things and hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of support if you can chain some buzzwords together.

Think I'll change job title to...

Senior Agile Digital DevOps Scrum Master Software Engineer

or Senior Software Developer for short.

My name is Matt Hancock and I am cultural. And digital.

By focusing on the synergies between buzzwords and bullshit – where the DDCMS has dual competitive advantage – this Digital Culture Report focuses on the use of digital technology to drive our cultural sector's global status and the engagement, diversity and well-being of audiences. Basically, we'll be sending £2m on commissioing reports and seminars and PR campaigns full of meaningless drivel like this that would be hurled back onto any child's desk in anger by any decent English teacher.

But, hey dn't tell anyone but this is really a clever postmodernist jape satirising the sort of rubbish these subsidy munchers shovel out in order to justify their continued existence,,,,,,, oh, OK sorry no that's not true : I really put this shit out seriously with a straight face because someone in the department wrote it and I didn't really understand it but it sounded clever and modern. Errm, really it's just about them all putting photos and videos of, you know, their stuff on the internet so you kind of don't really need to go there any more, so maybe we could just close them because as photos on the internet, well it's almost as good isn't it, and anyway it's not fair that most of it is in London which is where I live and I get mightily bored having to go out to all their events and meet all these trendy lefty arts types and listen to their awful pretentious waffle. No more. Producing meaningless mission statements longer than any produced before in the history of nonsense is going to be MY cultural contribution to the world!

It could be worse...

Imagine if Hancock was in charge of a department that had actual impact.

The cold hard economic benefit of cultural artefacts that have not been digitised is that to see and experience them you have to get of your shiny arse and pay to get to them. Then you get an unmediated experience that cannot be blown up or reduced to fit a screen with texture and colour range that is not limited by technology. Rarely is flat art all that flat so however well lit a reproduction is, it can only ever be a singular reference. Scale is one of the most important choices an artist makes and in a way everything that follows is bound up in that decision. It may seem arty farty but if you value seeing your favourite film in a cinema it is not all that different. Mind you it may be a digitally enhanced version that is just not the same.......

Warning. Sometimes there will be an emotional event that will be hard to describe.