Wednesday, March 16, 2011

GOSH and Foxy Wine News Network being investigated

The CRTC plan to lift ban on false news prompts political investigation – February newspaper headline.

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TRAWNA – (GOSH Wine News Services) – The multiple award-winning GOSH Wine News Services has confirmed that it is under investigation by Parliament for spreading false or misleading wine news. Its sister company, Foxy Wine News Network, is similarly being looked at.

 

A CRTC proposal that could make it easier to broadcast false or misleading news has prompted confusion and criticism among opposition MPs and consternation to many of the unions that represent Canadian journalists.

 

It has also led to allegations of interference by the Prime Minister's Office and a hastily called investigation by federal politicians.

 

"I don't know when I've been so pressed for details," said Dean Tudor, founder and co-owner of FauxVoixVinCuisine and Foxy Wine News Network (both are owned by GOSH Wine News Services). "This has been all so self-referential. Why now????"

 

A Parliamentary group has been pressing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for years to do something about a regulation that bans the broadcast of false or misleading news because the wording appears to contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 

The commission recently announced it was proposing to change the wording of the regulation to say that it applied only in cases in which broadcasters knew the information was false or misleading and that reporting it was likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.

 

 "We've looked everywhere to try to find out who's pushing this, and we can't find anybody," said a spokesperson for the unions. But GOSH Wine News Services has deep sources who insist that the action has been spearheaded by the Liberal Control of Beverages in Ontario, A Have-Not Province, in order to try to shut down the GOSH/FauxVoix/Foxy Wine News Network complex, citing issues related to the health and safety of members of the public.

 

One example has been the amazing success of Freggie™, the all-fruit and vegetable ICB wine which has been shown to be all too healthy, and is taking away sales from other ICBs on the shelves. As most intelligent readers know, Freggie™ does not exist except in the mind of Dean Tudor. Yet sales demand for this product continue to plague the liquor and wine stores of Ontario, A Have-Not Province.

 

But as an opposition spokesperson said, "We all know our Prime Minister well enough to say we don't have to be in the realm of conspiracy theory here. We can draw our conclusions and they are pretty clear."

 

Behind the scenes, officials say the timing is purely coincidental, the PMO had nothing to do with it, and that the CRTC simply realized it eventually had to answer the concerns of the regulatory committee.

 

More on this story as it happens…


Chimo!  www.deantudor.com AND http://gothicepicures.blogspot.com


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Posted By Dean Tudor to FauxVoix VinCuisine at 2/27/2011 12:00:00 PM

Friday, February 18, 2011

CWHFA (Kwee-Fah) Adopts NOT

TRAWNA – (GOSH Wine News Services) – GOSH Wine News Services has just learned that there has been widespread adaptation by various wine writing groups, such as the Canadian Wine Hacks and Flacks Association, of the word "NOT".

 

Apparently, the key word NOT is now being used in Canada to mean one different concept when said in context of another concept, and that the two could be mutually exclusive but only in certain circumstances, as in "Not necessarily bilingualism, but bilingualism if necessary".

 

For example, it is now permissible to speak of VNOTQA wines such as the former CellaredInCanada™ or (the newly minted term) InternationalandCanadianBlends™. These are, of course, VNOTQA wines. Similarly, the new ICNOTB wines can be quite parallel to the VQA wines, and indeed will be priced as such.

 

The LCBO, according to "Not the Nine O'Clock News", will have to contend with its rival, the LNOTCBO, which is responsible for home made wine, (not) Fruit Wines of Ontario, and the FauxVoixVinCuisine website. Of course, the whole matter should be non-referential except for that latter sentence.

 

Both the LCBO, a Clown, er, Clone, er, Crown Corporation of A Have-NOT (that word again!!) Province, and the LNOTCBO, A Have Province Unto Its Own, will stock the ICNOTB and VNOTQA wines together, on the same shelf.

 

GOSH has also learned that this use of the word NOT has been both endorsed and authorized by the Federal Government of Canada, to appear on all official documents.

 

Indeed, the funding grant given to Paroles Canada Words (the agency responsible for the creation and maintenance of Canadian words in play) plainly stipulates that wherever possible the words NOT and NE…PAS are to be both employed and enjoyed irrespective of actual meaning and circumstance.

 

More on this story as it develops……NOT


Chimo!  www.deantudor.com AND http://gothicepicures.blogspot.com

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Quee-Fah The Mother of All Wine Apps

TRAWNA – (GOSH Wine News Services) – GOSH reveals that the world-renowned Canadian Wine Hacks and Flacks Association (Quee-Fah) has been developing a new wine app for mobiles.

 

To be called, simply, The Mother Of All Wine Apps (MOAWA), it features drop-down menus galore and a patented winnowing process via a simple question-and-answer processed routine. Suggestions can be saved and printed out.

 

It'll be extremely useful for spur of the moment recommendations, for scanning store shelves, for restaurant suggestions, and for wine snobs.

 

Version 0.9 is in beta, and will cover the following –

 

-detailed information on all the wine basics, including every one of the 17,000-plus wine regions of the world, every single vintage note since the 11th century for each of these regions, all of the 24,578 grape varieties grown, and terroir microclimate notes (with accompanying Google maps and Google historical maps for every 12-hour period in the history of the earth). There is also a long detailed history (with artwork) of winemaking, beginning with the Sumerians.

 

-detailed travel notes to each one of these 17,000-plus regions, with new regions being added daily. Notes include the usual (accommodations, food, points of interest, local wines)

 

-detailed descriptions of viticulture, including life in the vineyard, the cycle of the grapevine (from grape to basket), organic and biodynamic techniques, with a selection of horns.

 

-detailed descriptions on how to taste and appreciate wine, with material about red, white and rose wines, sparkling wines, dessert wines, fortified wines – even fruit wines! There are literally scores of millions of wine choices by taste and style (when associated with a region or a country or a meal or food choices).

 

-wine and music choices. MOAWA has a database of every single piece of music created since 20,000 BCE, all nicely reconciled with the wine database. There are mood and spirit relationships with the wines and the notes. You are only three touch screens away from millions of wine and music recommendations, custom tailored to your musical preferences and to the preferences of all of your friends via Facebook, MySpace, etc. Make your own "wine ringtones" from any number of eight-bar samples that are created from every single tune ever written.

 

-wine and literature. References are indexed to every single piece of literature, play and cinema, all cross-referenced for your convenience. Wines are listed in context of the prose so that you can begin to spout words at two touches of the screen.

 

-a directory to some 12.5 million wineries on this planet, complete with names and addresses, websites, capacity, grape varieties used, rated-ranking notes, names of top employees and winemakers, full tasting notes on every single commercially available wine (plus any experimental wines), tasting notes on library and earlier vintages, and tax filings. The system also has the capacity to add notes for every single vine growing in the winery's vineyard; this will be offered with MOAWA 2.0! Everything here is cross-referenced and itemized, accessible with only three screen touches!!!

 

-a directory of every single wine store and branch location in the world, with complete names and addresses, websites, labels and wines for sale (plus how much stock for each), rated-ranking notes, names of top employees and wine advisers, and full tasting notes on every single commercially available wine -- exclusively written by that store's staff.

[NB: For proprietary legal reasons, the Liberal Control of Beverages in Ontario (LCBO) directory is not available to the Good People of Ontario, A Have-Not Province. One member of the CWHFA suggested that you could purchase MOAWA through the offshore grey market]

 

-a Google directory (with full analysis) to every single wine collector in the world (minimum range: 800 bottles or $15,000 appraised value), complete with a GPS location finder and a security camera to determine the whereabouts of the owner at every moment of the day.

 

-a directory to every single one of the 42 million hotels, restaurants, bistros and cafés in the world that sell wine, with names, addresses, websites, employees, wine cards, stocks, etc. It is updated every time a bottle of wine is sold or taken from inventory. There is also a sorting capability by selling price, enabling you to see at a glance what the current restaurant price is for the wine plus local taxes and local tips (in either Canadian or US dollars plus Euros if needed). Every single wine card on the planet has been analyzed and cross-referenced to find you the best wine value in terms of what food you want to eat – no matter where you are in the world!

 

-a directory and finding aid for each of the 12,000 wine auction houses in the world. This will enable you to constantly check on the current status of the value of your wine collection. Prices can be sorted by 78 different parameters, including the upper limits that taxation agencies will accept for charitable donations. There is also a subset for every single charity in the world that will issue a tax receipt for a donated bottle of wine. The MOAWA has the ability to run the wine-auction database against the wine store database, your personal cellar database, and against the charity database (with reported wine donation tax receipts) in order to find you the BEST deal for your donated wine, automatically factoring in cost of shipping from your home cellar.

 

-suggested wine and food pairings for every single food, wine, cooking method, spicing component, and the like, that has ever been developed by mankind. You can pick through wines with meals or wines with foods, wines for every occasion in any of the 15,000 religious and government statutory (and non-statutory) holiday calendars of the entire world.

There is also a reverse lookup function via food pairings for your wine. Each food-wine match is rated on how close it comes to Nirvana; a rating of 90 means that it is 90% close, as in Perfection Salad.

 

-there is also a spectacular wine and cheese matching subset that is so involved and detailed that we have no space here to cover it, except to mention that every single molecule of wine and every single molecule of cheese is covered,

 

 

-a word-by-word Boolean index to every single PRINTED wine tasting note in all the major AND the minor books and periodicals ever published as regards wine. We estimate this database to contain titles of some 5,400,260 unique newsletters and magazines (not to mention the frequency of them all) and 400,000 books – guaranteed at least 4,775,000,000 (and counting) notes. This includes Parker Junior who fought the CWHFA at every turn. Join us with the "creative writing bot™": write your own wine reviews of wines you have tasted, based on our suggestions for phrases used by other reviewers! A boon to budding wine writers!!

 

-a detailed and comprehensive, cross-referenced word-by-word Boolean index to the 7.5 billion wine blogs on the Internet, and to email versions of wine newsletters – a resource worth the price of the app by itself.

 

-notes on how to build any one of 10,000 different wine cellars from scratch, with at least 1 million different wine recommendations (updated). There are also several scores of cellar management software programs to pick and choose from, including manuals and simulations.

 

-how to keep track of your own wine notes, backed up continuously. This edition allows you to tag and snag a label image for your personal tasting records, in addition to finding wine-food pairing notes for the table.

 

-a social networking feature that lets you post wine notes to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yuwie, Ning, MySpace, Google Buzz, Flickr, Orkut, LinkedIn, Ustream and others as necessary. In addition, you'll be able to retrieve any of the 8 billion wine notes posted by others to Facebook, etc., in any sequence of retrieval by 84 different parameters. Also, you'll be able to communicate continuously with your other MOAWA purchaser buddies and complain about deficiencies and bugs in the special MOAWA forum. This will lead nicely to MOAWA 2.0.

 

The DeLuxe version of MOAWA (available for just a few dollars more) will include "Sensurama"™, the technique developed by the CWHFA for smelling aromas and bouquets at a distance through your mobile. In addition, there will be full capability for photographing a wine bottle or label, at which point you can receive just about everything ever written on that particular wine within nano-seconds. Be informed!! There is also a translation function that will allow you to recall any text ever written about wine in any of some 25,000 languages and dialects, including Tagalog and Esperanto. An optional pull-out corkscrew is also available for those who are convinced that the corkscrew will not go away.

 

 

AND, of course, there is a continual stream of massive updates every second of the day, with major updates being announced by a gong. For example, every time a bottle of any wine is sold or comes off a bottling line, the winery and wine store databases are updated. Current vintage releases from every winery in the world will be available to you as it happens. Your personal preferences will also be reconciled.

 

 

And the best part of it is this: YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET for the basic flash drive module! That's right – all of this data resides in flash memory inside your mobile device. You pay just once for the basic setup data ($1.99 or $4.99 for the DeLuxe model featuring Sensuroma™, TagALabel™, TranslateWine(TM) and Corkscrew™).

 

Updates, though, will cost you some money – and for these updates you must be connected to the Internet.

 

While The Mother of All Wine Apps is still in beta testing mode, the CWHFA plans to offer the service at a flat rate of $1.99 for the basic app (as outlined above), $4.99 for the Deluxe version, and $17 a year for the continual updates.

 

How is all this accomplished? Two words:  CCTV and RFID.

 

The Treasurer of the CWHFA has gone on the record as saying that the Quee-Fah expects to rake in billions of dollars this year.

 

The CWHFA has hired master huckster Dan Aykroyd who has his own winery in Ontario to handle the sales….so, come on down!!!

 

More on this story as the MOAWA passes beta…

 

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Liquor Boards to License Wine Writers in Canada

This just in from WNS (Weird News Service) --
 
TORONTO -- (WNS) --  The Liquor Control Boards of Canada has today announced that
it will begin licensing alcohol beverage writers in Canada. A spokesman for the LCBs,
who asked to be nameless, said that this would be yet another source of revenue for the
coffers of the provincial governments. "We like to grab a lot of money from the alcohol
beverage industry. It makes us feel good, and it pads our bottom line."
 
Exemptions would be made, of course, for those writers who contribute to the government's own
"Food and Drink" and "Cellar" magazines. But other publications such as "Toronto Life", "Tidings",
"Vines" , "TAPS" and "Wine Access" would be forced to hire only licensed wine
writers or writers from other countries.  Newspapers and broadcasters will also have to
apply for licensed writer status.
 
Accreditation would be essential, according to the government. There will be no
grandfathering. Each writer would have to pay to take an online course, which is
several weeks in duration, followed by a comprehensive fault and flaw analysis tasting,
followed by a tasting of Ontario and BC wines (not necessarily VQA and not necessarily grapes).
Beer and spirit writers will have their own nosing programs.
 
Those who succeed in these endeavours will be invited to take the test which is a
necessary prelude to the licensing process.  There will be testing fees and annual levies
assessed for membership. It is also anticipated that the liquor boards will receive a 15% royalty
on all alcohol beverage writing fees, but it is unclear whether these funds will come from
the publication or from the writer or, as in the case of wine auctions, from both.
 
All writing about alcohol in Canada must be submitted to the provincial Quality Assurance
Laboratories for controls over the expressions in writing and the actual tasting notes, for a
fee. Any re-submissions, extra proofreading, and heavy copyediting will be assessed a
separate fee, which must be paid by the writer and not the publication.
 
When asked about photographs, the spokesperson denied their existence. "We get
all our shots from stock libraries". When asked about blogging, he said that
"Everybody blogs. Nobody has any time to read any of them…we really don't care."
 
Administration of the provincial programs will need some co-ordination, and is expected to take up some time, perhaps employing over 100 civil servants in the operation.
 
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

Sunday, November 21, 2010

CWHFA (kwee-fah) to form new Early Departure Committee

It was announced earlier today that the Canadian Wine Hacks and Flacks Association will be setting up a new committee, called the Early Departure Committee.
 
This has been in response to many complaints from the wine industry that CWHFA (pronounced: quee-fah) members were accepting invites but then leaving tastings at an early hour.
 
Said the Prez of the CWHFA (pronounced: quee-fah), "Too many of our members have been taking advantage of the lax mood of the wine industry. They RSVP, turn up on time, sit around (or stand around) waiting for non-CWHFA members to arrive, and then just take off as soon as they can, usually just after the main course. Indeed, we  have noticed some members ordering coffee just after the soup. This has just all got to stop."
 
The EDC may, of course, refer the matters over to the Ethics Commitee which may then issue one or more "Certificates of Dispensation" to the appropriatre parties upon proper payment of fees.
 
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

New iPhone App to announce wine functions for CWHFA members.

The CWHFA (pronounced: quee-fah) is happy to announce that it has developed a new iPhone application for its members. The app is free, but you must be a member of the CWHFA group in order to download and access it.
 
It's being seen by many as a major perk of membership.
 
The app, called Wino Function, has been developed with the co-operation of the wine industry. Simply put: your iPhone will beep continuously starting at 20 minutes before the beginning of any wine function in the GTA. Or, if you live in the Canadian hinterland of Lake Erie, Winnipeg, Halifax, or Prince Rupert, the beeps will start 20 minutes before any wine function in your own area or region. The beeps are bilingual, but closely match the harmonics of "How Dry Am I?"
 
By picking up the phone, you will receive a text message itemizing details of the upcoming tasting. Depending on where you are at the time, you may never be late for another tasting again.
 
It is considered a boon for those who attend several functions a day, because in addition to the announcement of the next upcoming tasting, there will always be a handy list of excuses for an early departure from a currently happenng tasting.
 
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Membership Dues Rise from Zero to $25 for Quee-Fah

GOSH Wine News Services -- Breaking story -- The introductory period of FREE membership in the new CWHFA (pronounced quee-fah) has passed.

 

The Canadian Wine Hacks and Flacks Association welcomes all sommeliers, consultants, and bloggers to join us for the ridiculous rate of $25 a year. Our only stipulation is that they not be paid any money directly by wine producers or trade associations. Barter and trade, free samples, trips, and the like are okay alternatives, and welcomed. Our wine suppliers do not send out single bottle samples; they only send out full cases of the product. That's a magnanimous dozen bottles of a single wine to try with every conceivable food choice. Plus, through our exclusive contacts at the liquor boards of Canada, we guarantee total access to the tasting labs for the new releases...with no cap on numbers!!.

 

Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

Sunday, October 24, 2010

CWHFA (Kwee-fah) initiates Certificate of Dispensation.

The new Ethics Committee of the CWHFA (pronounced Quee-fah) has decided to move ahead with allowing its members to have a conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
 
But there are two stipulations: there must be a "Certificate of Dispensation" granted by the Ethics Committee; and this granting can only happen once a month.
 
The "Certificate of Dispensation", based on the Roman Catholic Church sliding scale of fees for dispensations, will be $100 for RCs, $150 for others, and $200 for atheists. The Ethics Committee will collect the fees and turn them over to the General Slush Fund (GSF) operated by the CWHFA.
 
All of this must still be finalized by the National Executive, but the CWHFA PR spokesperson suggested that would not be a problem. When asked, he said, "No problem".
 
 
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

Friday, October 15, 2010

Education Courses announced by CWHFA (Kwee-fah)

Today, CWHFA (pronounced: quee-fah) has announced that it will begin offering wine courses through its Education Committee.
 
The Committee has determined that its first series of consumer education courses will focus on a "Master of Wine Writing" Advanced Level Certificate. Said the Committee Chair, "There's the MW (Master of Wine), and the MS (Master Sommelier). So why not an MWW -- Master of Wine Writing?"
 
It's a self-referential series of courses. All the basics of wine, all the basics of journalism, all the basics of hackery, all the basics of flackery -- these will be covered over a two year period. And the coverage will be intense.
 
The main objective is to self-perpetuate the CWHFA. Through the MWW program, the group will be assured of a continual stream of new members.
 
One of the entry-level courses is the mastery of "The Faint Praise Index".
 
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Membership rising, but we need more writers from outside the GTA

There are now over 45 members in the CWHFA (quee-fa) organization. Unfortunately, just about all of them are in the GTA. I say this because we are a NATIONAL group, and we'd like more members on a NATIONAL basis.
 
We want to be from "sea unto sea", so that we can begin our national mandate.
 
Take a minute to consider our cause: join us if you live outside the GTA.
 
Regardless or origin, once we get 100 members, we can promulgate ourselves. That's promulgate, not flagellate or fellatiogate.
 
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com