parodying websites

Parody is often linked to dissent and satire, as well as irony - and today it is very much part of the current issues around populism, culture wars and woke.

One example of parody would be the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And in the news, we have: Comedy duo create Band Aid parody, Spicy Burlesque Parody 'The Empire Strips Back' and Die Hard musical parody showing at Norwich Puppet Theatre.

And back to the politics, it is suggested that 2025 was the year the far-right became a parody of itself.

This also brings us to the world of the parody website - for example: The Onion and ClickHole - Because All Content Deserves To Go Viral.

Whereas website spoofing might be legally questionable, as the Spoof website service suggests, it can actually work as a piece of political activism. In many countries, you can legally make a parody website:  Under US law a parody often counts as fair use, but it must be a “true parody” — that is one that seeks to comment on or criticize the original, not just a work that modifies the original to be funny.

The latest parody website parodies the United States' most prestigious performing arts venue, formerly known as The Kennedy Center - YouTube. The actual website is currently offering a Queue-it system because it is unable to manage the traffic wanting to enter it...

From the 'Trump-Kennedy Center', we do get this press release: Kennedy Center Board elects President Donald J. Trump as Board Chair | Kennedy Center Or as the USA Today news website asks: Did Trump rename the Kennedy Center after himself? Yes, that and more. Which has meant that artists cancel Kennedy Center shows after the Trump name change.

Also in today's news, we learn that a South Park writer has already purchased ‘Trump-Kennedy Center’ website domain to troll the president:

A former South Park writer bought two website domain names in order to troll Donald Trump after predicting the president’s move to rename the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Toby Morton saw that the writing was on the wall before the writing was on the wall, and purchased TrumpKennedyCenter.org and TrumpKennedyCenter.com back in August.

Earlier this month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the world-famous performing arts center would be renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center after a unanimous – but potentially illegal – vote from the institution’s new board, made up of members hand picked by the president. The move has already prompted public protests, as well as multiple artists to pull out of performances scheduled at the center in the coming weeks and a lawsuit that claims that the name change is unlawful as it can only be approved by Congress.

Morton, who has credits with the satirical cartoon and Mad TV, is known to have bought political domains in order to turn them into satirical. He told The Washington Post that he had purchased the Kennedy Center names after guessing the president’s plans.

And here is HOME | Trump Kennedy Center... [which does say at the bottom of the home page: 'THIS WEBSITE IS PARODY']

It's all a bit of a mess, with suggestions that Trump's White House, Kennedy Center moves could hurt the GOP in 2026, in that Trump’s ‘Marie Antoinette thing’ could cost Republicans in midterms.

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the differences between teaching pronunciation/writing to 'native speakers' and to esl/esol/tefl students

Pronouncing and writing cat, cut and cart in English is not really a problem for 'native speakers', as its' pretty transparent because the way you say it and the way you write it is obvious. It is, however, a problem for ESL/ESOL/TEFL learners, simply because the sounds might not exist in their own mother tongues.

A for the "curvaceous young phoneme called schwa...", the challenge for 'native speakers' is that they can pronounce it no problem but won't be able to spell it [do I write 'introverted' or 'intraverted'?], whereas the ESL/ESOL/TEFL learner will have a problem not to over-pronounce the weak syllable. 

So, the methods to help one group learn English will not necessarily apply to another group.

Transcribing English text to phonetic transcription would be unnecessary for the average British school pupil as they don't need to learn the English phonemes; this would only be of use later on when wanting to better understand the language at an academic level. It would be more useful to learn the phonetic alphabet for someone learning the language who has not been brought up with it - but it is by no means essential.

So, someone who hears the target language everyday and everywhere does not need to do the hard work of 'picking up/acquiring' the language, whereas someone outside that milieu does - but, then, there are some great tricks and methods for using pronunciation in and out of the ESL/ESOL/TEFL classroom.

As for the 'native speaker' student, at British and American primary/early grade levels, there has been some controversy about the methods used. In a critique of phonics, the likes of linguistics professor Stephen Krashen is a strong advocate of the whole language approach to the teaching of reading, and has written many articles in support of it. In essence, whole language proponents claim that children learn to read most enjoyably and efficiently by exposure to interesting stories that are made comprehensible to them through pictures and discussions. This is in contrast to structured decoding programmes (usually designated phonics) in which children learn to read by sounding out the various parts of words.

Children's writer and educationalist Michael Rosen asked a decade ago: Can split digraphs help children learn to read and write? - and that Some children find this useful, some find it confusing:

What is a split digraph? The words “bit” and “bite” differ both in the way they are spelled and the way they are said. The letter “e” indicates a way of saying the vowel between the “b” and the “t”. Advertisers make them up: “lite”. This tells us there’s a pattern here. Educationists say that drawing children’s attention to this helps them with reading and spelling.

And another educator explains why the split spelling cracks me up.

Finally, it does seem that it's all about simply doing lots of reading and lots of listening - whether the students grew up with the language or come to it later in life. In other words, to acquire a language you need lots of comprehensible input!

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bridget riley, artist

At 94, the British artist Bridget Riley has a lot of work to show - and she has two shows on at the moment: Exhibition Bridget Riley Point de départ | Musée d'Orsay in Paris and Bridget Riley: Learning to See | Turner Contemporary in Margate, an hour from London on the coast.

Bridget Riley | Check it out from the DISD Library | DI Library | Flickr

Here's a super documentary on Bridget Riley - Painting the Line (BBC):

With exclusive behind-the-scenes access, seldom-seen footage from the archives, insights from admirers, experts and contemporaries including Tracey Emin, Michael Craig-Martin and Martin Freeman, and a revealing interview by Kirsty Wark, this is the story of a true visionary of British art. 

Bridget Riley has been challenging our perception through painting for over 60 years, with radical work that has transformed how we look at art and invites us to feel with our eyes. With simple black and white geometric shapes, repeated curves of colour or an array of muted dots, Riley’s work moves, shimmers and - in some cases - unsettles. 

At the age of 90, Bridget Riley shows no signs of stopping. Her paintings command millions at auction, she has won prestigious awards and honours, and continues to innovate, paint, publish and exhibit around the world. BBC cameras have filmed with Riley over the past few years in two of her studios, on the cliffs of Cornwall, where she spent the Second World War, and at the National Gallery in London during the installation of her enormous mural there in 2018. 

In a rare and revealing interview with Kirsty Wark, Riley dispels the numerous misconceptions which have followed her throughout her career. Many consider her as a poster girl for the Swinging 60s, while others hail her as a titan of abstract art. However, Riley considers herself a traditional painter who has merely picked up the baton from those who have gone before her, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Monet, Cezanne and Matisse.

Finally, here's the Bridget Riley | Homepage

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yinka shonibare, artist

The future is African whether in language [Nigeria is the third largest country when it comes to English speakers] or music or politics. 

But also when it comes to art - with an exhibition happening at London's Tate Modern on Nigerian Modernism

As a review on the BBC says, Nigerian Modernism gets recognition, as "a transfer of the old ideas, old items, old technologies, old thought into a different, modern time". It is "projecting the present, and showing the way towards the future".

Certainly when it comes to art and culture, there are all sorts of adventures in art at the British Museum - from Status Symbols (1200 - 1400 AD), Ife head to The First Global Economy (1450 - 1600 AD), Benin plaque - the Oba with Europeans to The World of Our Making (1914 - 2010 AD), Throne of Weapons.

Another place to go for art in London is the Royal Academy and its summer exhibition - and back in 2014 it was British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare at the Royal Academy.

Ten years later, and Shonibare was a gorgeously recognisable artist, although some critics say he's simply doing the same thing.

Judge for yourself in a new BBC documentary: In My Own Words - Series 2: Yinka Shonibare - BBC iPlayer [and a comment about being an artist at 25:50]

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cornelia parker, artist

From the Science Museum we looked at how art and nature interact:

discover how we have questioned our relationship with society, our bodies, the environment and found patterns in nature, as we continue to interpret and explore the world around us.

Another way of looking at the world could be how we see sheds - those little huts in the garden where we leave and forget lots of stuff:

or perhaps you prefer your sheds to explode...

which takes us to a reconstructed barn

A good place to see art in London is the Royal Academy summer exhibition. 

There is some great art happening, including from Yinka Shonibare, artist - whose work, as with many artists, is interesting to be seen next to others...

Including Cornelia Parker, also at Tate Britain in London - and New Zealand's City Gallery reopening with a bang with a major Cornelia Parker exhibition.

Cornelia Parker's 'Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’ (1991). SUPPLIED / Courtesy Tate Collection

These are brilliant ideas from Cornelia Parker - giving us Art from Destruction as seen in this recent video.

Finally in a new documentary from the BBC, In My Own Words, Cornelia Parker looks back over her extraordinary life and career.

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