A video I made for work
September 15th, 2009 at 00:05

Ridiculously, my work thought it a good idea that they lend me a video camera to make tutorial videos and the like for them. So today I had a play with the camera to test some things out, like how to edit the video and that sort of thing, and in the process recorded myself doing something more amazing than Derren Brown. Have a watch for yourself:

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Interview with Shadow Defence Sec Liam Fox
June 5th, 2009 at 18:23

I went down to Westminster today to see what was going on, and to check if Gordon Brown was still the Prime Minister or not. I bumped into Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox whilst down there – so seizing the moment I thought I better ask him something. I am now officially a citizen journalist:

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Political Suicide
April 30th, 2009 at 01:45

Don’t do it, Gordon! I can see you’re on the edge, but don’t jump! Your career has too much to live for!

So picture the scene: you’re a stunningly unpopular Prime Minister, heading towards spectacular defeat at the next election. People hate you for your role in fucking up the economy, you’re perceived as an emotionally retarded bureacra… how can you make it any worse?

Oh, I know, why not stick to a bunch of retired soldiers?

As repellent as I find the concept of armed forces, going to war and all that, it’s stunningly difficult not to sympathise with the Gurkhas – its pretty obvious that soldiers fighting for a country should be able to live there, so I’m really unsure what planet Brown was on today when at PMQs he continually argued against letting the Gurkhas stay.

It’s almost as if he wants to lose the next election in the most spectacular way possible. Maybe the thinking is that sure, Blair did everything bigger and better than him – Blair was more popular and lasted longer, but Brown can still achieve biggest defeat.

Coincidentally, I had a walk down to Parliament today (dispelling absolutely no clichés about Parliament being in the background of all London activities in the process), and stumbled upon a big gerkha demonstration. When we got to a pub, we saw Sky News broadcasting David Cameron speaking live from where we just were – so we dashed back to see if we could spot him. If you’re a fan of grainy, unedited videos of political speeches, you’re in for a treat:

It was quite exciting – not only was Cameron there, but so was Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne, and… Joanna Lumley. I didn’t get close enough to shout any questions or whatever, but at least now I can say that I’ve seen the leaders of all three major political parties in the flesh (I saw Brown ages ago).

Afterwards we went to the Westminster Arms, where I made a video explaining the above mess of a video, and also tried to start some political rumours:

I got to see all of this exciting stuff by skiving off of a lecture too. So there’s a lesson here, kids: Why not truant? It’s great fun.

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Mark Thomas’ “INVADE JERSEY” Tax Protest
March 18th, 2009 at 01:28

I like to think of myself as the anti-Amish. Not only do I love technology and hate Amish people, but I think that rather than steal your soul, only photography or being filmed can truly validate your existence. It’s why I moved to the CCTV capital of the world, and why today, I appeared fairly prominently in the background of a news report.

No, I wasn’t in Austria sticking up for Joseph Fritzl (though I’d still argue that the default reaction to “secret underground dungeon” is “that’s cool” rather than “that’s horrible”), but I went to a protest organised by TV’s Mark Thomas. That’s right, TV’s Mark Thomas. Not the other one.

The cause was noble: it was calling for the government to invade Jersey.

Jersey is known to be harbouring billions of pounds, having spent years avoiding tax inspections, and is thought to have links to a number of rogue corporations and shadowy groups known as hedge-funds. What makes the need for this action even more imminent is that the UK government has in fact sold off various buildings to private companies (who then lease it back) based in Jersey – in practice, this means that HMRC, the tax inspectors who collect tax and track down people who are avoiding and evading tax rent a building from a company who avoid paying tax. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that this is not on and thus support the military action.

Brilliantly, the story made More4 news tonight. Here’s their report, in which if you look closely you can see me in a suit:

Obviously though, what with this being the future and all, it was I, the citizen journalist who beat Channel 4 to the studio. In fact, I did a live broadcast to the internet. Here’s my report, as it was broadcast live:

OTHER JAMES O’MALLEY TV APPEARANCES:

• Arsing around in the background of News 24 on the day Gordon Brown became PM.
• I was on the Weakest Link. I might have mentioned this before…

UPDATE (21st March): Another video has appeared on YouTube that stars me in a supporting role:

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London MCM Expo
October 26th, 2008 at 23:18

I went to the London MCM Expo today, which was basically a big gathering of nerds who like sci-fi, animé, comics, and that sort of thing. So I made a stupid video:

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Homeopathy: Does it work?
April 16th, 2008 at 16:56

(RSS readers may have to click back to the original article to see this)

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Life immitates Art
March 25th, 2008 at 14:47

Last Summer, my friend Katy and I went down to the Natural History Museum in London and made a stupid video, where I pretended to be a creationist, and went around, “debunking the science”. If you didn’t catch it, take a look:

I thought that my video was far too ridiculous – but remarkably, some commentators on YouTube (and indeed GodTube) took it seriously. As if this isn’t mad enough, it turns out that some creationists have stolen my idea. Check out this video below – they’re totally ripping me off – but unlike me, they’re totally sincere:

The horrible thing is that its better than my video. There’s so many great lines – I wish I’d thought of them…

• “How do you know?”
• “I come here for facts, not somebody’s fantasy”
• “Its called circular logic”
• “Its a good fairy tale”

I know when I’ve been beaten.

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Weakest Link Highlights Video
March 4th, 2008 at 19:48

Here’s a video of all of the bits of me from The Weakest Link. I’ll expand on this with commentary and stuff later.

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Lets go fly a kite…
February 24th, 2008 at 18:51

…or attempt to, anyway…

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State of the Union: Highlights
January 29th, 2008 at 19:21

What’s that? You like it when idiots on YouTube rip-off the Daily Show’s tried and tested “splice reaction shots into clips of speeches” formula and package it shambolically? Excellent:

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