“Read about the things that happen throughout the world… Don’t believe in everything you see or hear… Read all about it… News of the World… News of the World” were the immortal words of Paul Wellar in The Jam’s hit song News of the World. The song has recently been regained popularity as the theme tune to the BBC2 show Mock the Week. In attempted synergy with the BBC2 programme, the News of the World decided that they would Mock the Weak and decided to hack into the voicemail inbox of kidnapped children.
The upshot of these actions was that the News of the World decided to close down with its last edition being printed on Sunday 10 July 2011 – which didn’t really bother me because I have plenty of toilet roll anyway. The final edition proclaimed the paper to be the finest newspaper in the country, but they had lost their way. This was an honest assessment, and also true – as evidence of how much they had lost their way, the final edition barely mentioned the major news story of the day…
For all its criticism, it’s easy to overlook all of the good work that the News of the World did – very easy in fact. But they have done a fair amount to reveal the corruption within society (albeit, each one of the “reveals” should basically have had the headline “every man has his price”) yet to give them some credit, when they finally closed, the News of the World did manage to puncture and bring down another giant of society and – but unfortunately it was themselves… and in addition, they did some great work making our neighbourhoods safe by chasing all of those paediatricians out of town…
Such is the murky world that these phone hackers worked within, there are currently very few key players in the story and many people are keeping their heads down. Piers Morgan for example is currently keeping very quiet – for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying that former editor of the News of the World Piers Morgan is any way implicated in the phone hacking scandal, just that he is being uncharacteristically quiet at the moment – obviously he may have eventually have become bored of the sound of his own voice. Morgan did however pipe up briefly on Twitter to call Hugh Grant a “screechy, sanctimonious little prick” - presumably with only 140 characters allowed on Twitter, he couldn’t fit in the hashtag #PotCallingTheKettleBlack.
Another key player in the whole affair is Rebekah Brooks, formerly know as Rebekah Wade, although the phase “Rebekah Wade” sounds more like the instruction you would give to someone called Rebekah when they have to walk waist deep through excrement – which to be fair isn’t a million miles away from what she’s currently doing.
The doyen of News International and revered as being highly intelligent – although she appears to be unable to spell the name Rebecca. She first shot to fame as the first female editor of The Sun and gained infamy when she was questioned for allegedly beating up her then husband Ross Kemp (from Ross Kemp on Gangs and Ross Kemp in Afghanistan fame). In what was possibly the most bizarre story of that year (2005) Ross Kemp was allegedly beaten up by Brooks at exactly the same time that his on-screen brother Steve McFadden was allegedly beaten up by his girlfriend. That said, there have been allegations that the other halves in question were assisted – as the co-ordinated attacks bore all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.
The conduct of those involved, as well as the serious and potentially criminal activities of the participants has unsurprisingly led to calls for an inquiry, this has gone through a few embarrassing stages:
1. Initially, Rebekah Brooks was asked to head up an investigation into the phone hacking at the News of the World. Whilst it was half logical as she was at the time the Chief Executive of News International, it was also half bonkers as she was the former editor of the News of the World and was thus being asked to investigate herself – and apparently the sly attempt at saying that News International was asking Rebekah Brooks to investigate the actions of Rebekah Wade didn’t wash either.
2. Then, the Metropolitan Police force was asked to hold a criminal investigation into the matter, but this plan fell down when people remembered that the Metropolitan Police force had allegedly taken payments from the News of the World. This was further compounded when it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police decided not to re-open their investigation in the matter because News International told them there was nothing to investigate – which is something that I will remember if I ever get arrested in the Greater London area. The issue was also referred to the Press Complaints Commission back in 2009, who believed that there was no case to answer – which was PCC gone mad…
After being held so close, Brooks was eventually hived off by the Murdoch empire, although she technically resigned in order to ensure that she could fight off the allegations coming her way. She was then taken in for police questioning, which was done by appointment; although there was some confusion when Brooks failed to turn up at Scotland Yard – apparently, the details of the appointment were left on her voicemail, but the message was deleted before she could hear it…
After Brooks was arrested and released, the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir John Stephenson then decided to resign, presumably without a stain on his reputation and also because he hadn’t done anything wrong and even if he had; he’s resigned now – so it he can’t be at fault because he no longer does that job. Then the next day, the Deputy Chief Commissioner John Yeats also resigned – presumably he just wanted to keep up with the current trends.
Although the bar was then raised by former News of the World whistleblower Sean Hoare, who didn’t have a job to resign from – so he died instead. The exact circumstances are unknown, but they are not being referred to as suspicious – perhaps it’s commonplace for 40 year old whistleblowers to drop dead at the exact time that the scandal they helped to uncover peaks. He could of course have committed suicide like Dr David Kelly did…
Another key player is Dick Fedorcio, the Director of Public Affairs at the Metropolitan Police – actually he’s not a key player at all, I’ve only mentioned him because his first name is Dick.
After much jockeying for positions, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks appeared in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. However, there was a slightly embarrassing moment when the all turned up at Downing Street with a bottle of wine & a cheeseboard and enter through the back entrance like they normally do…
But on this occasion, the three were there to answer serious questions. Rupert Mudoch announced the day as the most “humble” of his life – and thus looked every bit a the man of the 80 years that he is as he had clearly confused the words “humble” and “humiliating”.
For good measure, a “comedian” then went and shoved a plate of shaving foam in Murdoch’s face; Murdoch and his family asked why there wasn’t enough police protection, the answer was obvious – the bulk of the Metropolitan Police force had resigned in the previous week.
Rupert Murdoch’s words were quite clear during the speech as he said that the News of the World was only 1% of News Corporation’s business empire which practically revealed what his primary concern was, which is News Corporation’s proposed takeover of BSkyB. Following complaints, the matter of the proposed takeover was referred to the Competition Commission – although ironically there is only one Competition Commission, so they may not be the best judges…
Murdoch gave some undertakings when trying to mount a full takeover of BSkyB. One of which was to carve out Sky News as an independent company to ensure it was free from interference, albeit with exactly the same shareholders, thus bringing the phrase “smoke and mirror” to mind more than a fire at Robert Maxwell’s old house. The other trade-off was for BSkyB to demonstrate that they understood their responsibilities as a broadcaster and wouldn’t follow News International’s lead by getting involved in phone hacking – this was to be done via a pseudo-reality TV show called The Only Way is Ethics.
There are no two ways about this, the situation surrounding News International is a significant one; every major Political party has turned their back on Murdoch and News International, which is despite Murdoch being seen as a “kingmaker”. Every leader of Labour and the Conservatives in the last 20 years has “got into bed” with Murdoch in order to try and gain votes – with the exception of William Hague… who merely shared a room with him in order to save costs.
At one point, the situation became so serious that Ed Miliband became disorientated and he accidentally gave an opinion… But finally as a sign of how bad the situation was; Andy Coulson suggested that he was about to resign for a third time… that said… he has got another job lined up… he’s going to be sewing mailbags in Wormwood Scrubs…
* I do of course realise the irony in the fact that my last ‘blog post was about super injunctions that I thought that the there should be a greater freedom of expression allowed for the press… but I didn’t want them to be that free…
** And I do of course appreciate that this ‘blog post is significantly out of date – even if you read it 5 minutes after I uploaded it…
Saturday 6 August 2011
Sunday 12 June 2011
Super In… Justices?
At current, there is probably no more of a political “hot potato” than super injunctions, there is currently a requirement to clarify every word and ensure that the print and verbal media doesn’t reveal the details of any super injunctions – just to clarify, the phrase “hot potato” is in no way a reference to Wayne Rooney… that would be the “stupid potato”.
One of the major stories relates to an unnamed premiership footballer took out a super injunction against the Sun, which was going to reveal details of his affair with former Big Brother star Imogen Thomas – the unnamed man quite rightly (or leftly) didn’t want these details splashed all over the newspapers, so he took out the super injunction and thus ensured that just speculation, instead of exact details, was splashed all over the newspapers.
The unnamed premiership footballer’s name was quickly found out and rumours spread rapidly on Twitter, to the extent that it was alleged that the unnamed premiership footballer was attempting to take legal action against anyone who Tweeted details linking him to the super injunction – this made the incident a first for two reasons:
1. It was the first time that someone had attempted to take legal action against 75,000 people that they didn’t know the details of, save for their Twitter username; and
2. It was the first known occasion where a rumour on Twitter appears to be true…
With the vast bulk of people effectively knowing who said footballer was, the following picture was printed on the front page of the Scottish Sunday Herald:
which then pushed to focus of people on Twitter to speculate as to whether Andy McNab was the premiership footballer in question – as well as providing a excellent spying device for men wearing trench coats, as they could simply cut out the eyeholes on the newspaper and spy on their subjects with ease.
During a Parliamentary debate on 23 May 2011, John Hemming MP named Ryan Giggs to be the unnamed premiership footballer whom had taken out said injunction, he used his Parliamentary Privilege in disclosing the premiership footballer’s name – and presumably it is the same Parliamentary Privilege that allowed Hemming to have over 20 extra-marital affairs and remortgage a property (under the second homes allowance) which he already owned and then use the proceeds of this remortgage to pay off the borrowings on a premises which his business operated from. Allegedly…
Nonetheless, the moment Hemming said those fatal words “Ryan” and “Giggs”, the world then knew that the words “football” and “player” could be used to describe Giggs both together and/or independently. In addition, the House of Commons in its entirety fell silent, aghast at what Hemming had said – this silence was broken by a large clunk as the Queen’s Private Secretary threw Giggs’ imminent Knighthood in the bin.
Despite all this, the injunction is still very much in place as there is of course more to privacy than simply knowing the two parties involved. It is alleged that the taking of the super injunction is to prevent the extortion of the unnamed player by Thomas – in which case then perhaps a visit to the police station may have been more appropriate course of action, instead it appears that, in terms of helping this unnamed player out, the Giggs were given to lawyers and PR people.
The reasons stated above do at least appear to be logical and there must be a serious reason for the unnamed player to want to gag the world’s media – in all honesty, if I’d been shagging the former Miss Wales for 7 months, I’d be happy to notify people of this via projecting that fact onto Big Ben (by that I mean the landmark in London – not just a large person called Ben).
Since he was named in Parliament, Giggs has continued to lead a fairly normal life and managed to play in the Champions League final; where despite speculation, his shirt bared the name “Giggs” and not “unnamed premiership footballer”. He also took part in the Manchester United end of season bus parade; where the Manchester United bus was emblazoned with the number 19 – that being the amount of players that United would have needed on the pitch if they’d have stood any chance of beating Barcelona. Unfortunately United only fielded 11 players and things got rather Messi for them…
As alluded to before though, Twitter is not necessarily the most reliable source for information, recent allegations “exclusively revealed” (or if you like, “incorrectly revealed”) on Twitter suggested that Jeremy Clarkson was having an extra-marital affair with Jemima Kahn. Khan was quick to rebut the story on Twitter and Tweeted that she was just good friends with Clarkson. Clarkson himself chose not to rubbish the rumours – presumably he Khan’t believe his luck that people think he might be having an affair such an attractive woman.
Clarkson is not the only one who has been “outed” or has tried to gag the media recently; Max Mosley was in the news after unsuccessfully taking a case to the European Court attempting to get legal direction on his idea that the media should serve notice on a person if they are planning to run a story about them. At which point this person could then go and apply for an injunction – although at least it marked a change in the respect that Mosley was trying to gag someone, instead of being gagged and whilst he was publically embarrassed, he probably enjoyed the humiliation. Allegedly.
Also, is believed that a well known Hollywood actor has prevented the press from revealing details of what he ate before going to bed – this being the first known example of a “supper injunction”…
However, in the past month two notable injunctions have been lifted: it was revealed that Sir Fred Goodwin believed that RBS stood for “Red-Blooded Stud” and he was alleged to have been having an affair with a senior colleague at RBS during the height of the credit crunch – although I suppose it is reassuring to note that the taxpayer isn’t the only person to have been shafted by him and I suppose it was good to hear about his “boning” rather than his “bonus”…
Then a few weeks ago, Andrew Marr revealed that, whilst questioning Politicians about their private lives, he had imposed a super injunction on the media to prevent them revealing that they he may have fathered an illegitimate child with an unnamed female journalist. Such an occurrence raises many valuable questions. Is it fair that the woman can remained unnamed whilst Marr’s name is out in the open?... Did the decision to award the super injunction in the first place, given Marr’s media job, increase the lack of credibility that they have?... and most importantly… Who on earth would want to have an affair with Andrew Marr?...
* Please note, any reference to Ryan Giggs is merely to state that he was named in Parliament by John Hemming MP on Monday 23 May 2011 as being the unnamed premiership footballer whom had obtained a super injunction against The Sun newspaper and with reference to Imogen Thomas. At no point am I saying that the statement made by Mr Hemming MP bares any factual accuracy whatsoever, be it in whole or in part.
Furthermore, I hope the above disclaimer is strong enough in legal terms, as I don’t want to go to prison because it’s filled with nasty men who may do unspeakable things to me – I’ve head that some prisoners have more sex than Ryan Giggs. Allegedly…
One of the major stories relates to an unnamed premiership footballer took out a super injunction against the Sun, which was going to reveal details of his affair with former Big Brother star Imogen Thomas – the unnamed man quite rightly (or leftly) didn’t want these details splashed all over the newspapers, so he took out the super injunction and thus ensured that just speculation, instead of exact details, was splashed all over the newspapers.
The unnamed premiership footballer’s name was quickly found out and rumours spread rapidly on Twitter, to the extent that it was alleged that the unnamed premiership footballer was attempting to take legal action against anyone who Tweeted details linking him to the super injunction – this made the incident a first for two reasons:
1. It was the first time that someone had attempted to take legal action against 75,000 people that they didn’t know the details of, save for their Twitter username; and
2. It was the first known occasion where a rumour on Twitter appears to be true…
With the vast bulk of people effectively knowing who said footballer was, the following picture was printed on the front page of the Scottish Sunday Herald:
which then pushed to focus of people on Twitter to speculate as to whether Andy McNab was the premiership footballer in question – as well as providing a excellent spying device for men wearing trench coats, as they could simply cut out the eyeholes on the newspaper and spy on their subjects with ease.
During a Parliamentary debate on 23 May 2011, John Hemming MP named Ryan Giggs to be the unnamed premiership footballer whom had taken out said injunction, he used his Parliamentary Privilege in disclosing the premiership footballer’s name – and presumably it is the same Parliamentary Privilege that allowed Hemming to have over 20 extra-marital affairs and remortgage a property (under the second homes allowance) which he already owned and then use the proceeds of this remortgage to pay off the borrowings on a premises which his business operated from. Allegedly…
Nonetheless, the moment Hemming said those fatal words “Ryan” and “Giggs”, the world then knew that the words “football” and “player” could be used to describe Giggs both together and/or independently. In addition, the House of Commons in its entirety fell silent, aghast at what Hemming had said – this silence was broken by a large clunk as the Queen’s Private Secretary threw Giggs’ imminent Knighthood in the bin.
Despite all this, the injunction is still very much in place as there is of course more to privacy than simply knowing the two parties involved. It is alleged that the taking of the super injunction is to prevent the extortion of the unnamed player by Thomas – in which case then perhaps a visit to the police station may have been more appropriate course of action, instead it appears that, in terms of helping this unnamed player out, the Giggs were given to lawyers and PR people.
The reasons stated above do at least appear to be logical and there must be a serious reason for the unnamed player to want to gag the world’s media – in all honesty, if I’d been shagging the former Miss Wales for 7 months, I’d be happy to notify people of this via projecting that fact onto Big Ben (by that I mean the landmark in London – not just a large person called Ben).
Since he was named in Parliament, Giggs has continued to lead a fairly normal life and managed to play in the Champions League final; where despite speculation, his shirt bared the name “Giggs” and not “unnamed premiership footballer”. He also took part in the Manchester United end of season bus parade; where the Manchester United bus was emblazoned with the number 19 – that being the amount of players that United would have needed on the pitch if they’d have stood any chance of beating Barcelona. Unfortunately United only fielded 11 players and things got rather Messi for them…
As alluded to before though, Twitter is not necessarily the most reliable source for information, recent allegations “exclusively revealed” (or if you like, “incorrectly revealed”) on Twitter suggested that Jeremy Clarkson was having an extra-marital affair with Jemima Kahn. Khan was quick to rebut the story on Twitter and Tweeted that she was just good friends with Clarkson. Clarkson himself chose not to rubbish the rumours – presumably he Khan’t believe his luck that people think he might be having an affair such an attractive woman.
Clarkson is not the only one who has been “outed” or has tried to gag the media recently; Max Mosley was in the news after unsuccessfully taking a case to the European Court attempting to get legal direction on his idea that the media should serve notice on a person if they are planning to run a story about them. At which point this person could then go and apply for an injunction – although at least it marked a change in the respect that Mosley was trying to gag someone, instead of being gagged and whilst he was publically embarrassed, he probably enjoyed the humiliation. Allegedly.
Also, is believed that a well known Hollywood actor has prevented the press from revealing details of what he ate before going to bed – this being the first known example of a “supper injunction”…
However, in the past month two notable injunctions have been lifted: it was revealed that Sir Fred Goodwin believed that RBS stood for “Red-Blooded Stud” and he was alleged to have been having an affair with a senior colleague at RBS during the height of the credit crunch – although I suppose it is reassuring to note that the taxpayer isn’t the only person to have been shafted by him and I suppose it was good to hear about his “boning” rather than his “bonus”…
Then a few weeks ago, Andrew Marr revealed that, whilst questioning Politicians about their private lives, he had imposed a super injunction on the media to prevent them revealing that they he may have fathered an illegitimate child with an unnamed female journalist. Such an occurrence raises many valuable questions. Is it fair that the woman can remained unnamed whilst Marr’s name is out in the open?... Did the decision to award the super injunction in the first place, given Marr’s media job, increase the lack of credibility that they have?... and most importantly… Who on earth would want to have an affair with Andrew Marr?...
* Please note, any reference to Ryan Giggs is merely to state that he was named in Parliament by John Hemming MP on Monday 23 May 2011 as being the unnamed premiership footballer whom had obtained a super injunction against The Sun newspaper and with reference to Imogen Thomas. At no point am I saying that the statement made by Mr Hemming MP bares any factual accuracy whatsoever, be it in whole or in part.
Furthermore, I hope the above disclaimer is strong enough in legal terms, as I don’t want to go to prison because it’s filled with nasty men who may do unspeakable things to me – I’ve head that some prisoners have more sex than Ryan Giggs. Allegedly…
Sunday 8 May 2011
‘AV It
In a rare move for the United Kingdom, we had a referendum only a few days ago on the subject of the “Alternative Vote”. This referendum was such that there was the chance that, if we had voted Yes, then a loser who is well liked could one day become your local MP – which would offer a potential career opportunity to Peter Andre.
Campaigning on the matter had been quite limited, but what there was of it was of astonishingly poor taste, unpredictable and largely quite insulting – a bit like Charlie Sheen’s recent behaviour… he should have stuck to making furniture polish…
The reason for the poor taste in the campaign is the fact that the propaganda did not follow strict party lines, hence no accountability and therefore the ability to print whatever you wanted – a bit like the journalists at the News of the World used to, because Andy Coulson knew nothing about the stories been borne out of phone hacking. Poor old Coulson was just an innocent bystander who, even though it wasn’t his fault, was forced to resign from his job – twice.
The No Campaign was clear: one person should only be allowed one vote – something which they slightly undermined themselves with when they told me about this twice (once in a flyer addressed to me at my flat and once in a flyer addressed to me at my parent’s house) I believe this is due to me being on two electoral registers and therefore able to make a bit of mockery of the No Campaign’s one person, one vote ethos.
The whole notion of holding this referendum on the Alternative Vote is slightly bizarre, mainly because it wasn’t featured in the manifestos of any political party at the 2010 general election. Despite the myth and the garbage spewed out by the No Campaign, Nick Clegg does not want use of instant run-off in elections; he would like the a Parliament that is a proportional representation of how the electorate voted – and a smooch and cuddle from David Cameron.
Another pitiful argument used on behalf of the No Campaign was the assertion that the people would fail to understand how to vote and that it was too complicated. This statement is a tad insulting, whilst I am not a huge advocate of the intelligence of the general members of the public I would expect that the bulk of people are able to count to 3 – it really isn’t that hard, I can count up to 68… as soon as I get to 69 I start thinking of other things and giggling like a little girl.
Yet saying Alternative Vote is harder to understand that First Past the Post is probably a valid statement. However making a cup of tea is harder than making a glass of water and yet I am still prepared and capable to making a cup of tea – so I think I have just blow that argument out of the water and/or cup of tea.
A few more of the arguments used by the No Campaign include the bizarre accusation that the referendum is un-British and their leaflet contained a picture of a running race where the person coming fourth out of four is declared the winner under the Alternative Voting system – which would not have been the case as his votes would be reallocated first. Although I suppose if you put those two augments for No together, what could be more British than a British person coming last in a running race?
Possibly the worst argument of them all was the typical “very few other countries use it, so why should we” which I suppose is a valid point in respect of its limited use on a macro level. The No Campaign reeled off Alternative Vote using countries such as Australia, Papa New Guinea and Fiji; which is news to me as I was of the understanding that Fiji was currently under the rule of military dictatorship – but then apparently I’m not capable of even understanding the system, so what do I know?
I should not say that the Yes Campaign have been a great deal better in their arguments and literature; probably their lowest moment was when they stated that we should vote Yes because the First Past the Post system allowed the expenses scandal to happen and hence implied that such a scandal wouldn’t happen in a House of Commons elected via the Alternative Vote. Quite why this assertion is made is beyond me – it’s not as though an improved Patient/Doctor care charter would have convinced Harold Shipman that what he was doing was wrong; and the 37th relaunch of the FA’s Respect Campaign failed in its attempt to prevent Wayne Rooney from launching a volley of profanities at the referee… the assistant referees… the opposition players… the opposition supporters… his own supporters… and, bizarrely, a cameraman…
No doubt that whist people joked that they would fill in the their ballot form with Yes as their first preference and No as their second preference; the arguments and information presented were so unclear that if would have been preferable if their was an option to vote Maybe – and if there was, then the overused joke about filling in the referendum ballot paper using an Alternative Voting method would work better as it contained 3 options instead of 2.
Unfortunately things hit rock bottom in the campaigns when the arguments became:
• The Liberal Democrats said that you should vote Yes to ensure that you get less Conservative MPs – despite being in a Coalition Government with the Conservatives.
• The Conservatives said that you should vote No to ensure that we don’t end up always producing a Coalition Government – despite them currently being part of a Coalition Government.*
But of course the key thing to remember is that the Coalition Government is working…
When the final votes came in they were: 6.15m people voted for Yes – which is quite a lot of people to vote for Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Chris Howe and Steve Squire’s 1970s prog-rock band… and 13.01m people said No… well… it could have been that… or it could have been that Ian Paisley was the only person to vote that way… and he completed his ballot paper in his usual manner…
* That might not be strictly true – hitting rock bottom may have occurred when Peter Stringfellow was asked to present the argument for the No Campaign the during a debate on Radio 2…
Campaigning on the matter had been quite limited, but what there was of it was of astonishingly poor taste, unpredictable and largely quite insulting – a bit like Charlie Sheen’s recent behaviour… he should have stuck to making furniture polish…
The reason for the poor taste in the campaign is the fact that the propaganda did not follow strict party lines, hence no accountability and therefore the ability to print whatever you wanted – a bit like the journalists at the News of the World used to, because Andy Coulson knew nothing about the stories been borne out of phone hacking. Poor old Coulson was just an innocent bystander who, even though it wasn’t his fault, was forced to resign from his job – twice.
The No Campaign was clear: one person should only be allowed one vote – something which they slightly undermined themselves with when they told me about this twice (once in a flyer addressed to me at my flat and once in a flyer addressed to me at my parent’s house) I believe this is due to me being on two electoral registers and therefore able to make a bit of mockery of the No Campaign’s one person, one vote ethos.
The whole notion of holding this referendum on the Alternative Vote is slightly bizarre, mainly because it wasn’t featured in the manifestos of any political party at the 2010 general election. Despite the myth and the garbage spewed out by the No Campaign, Nick Clegg does not want use of instant run-off in elections; he would like the a Parliament that is a proportional representation of how the electorate voted – and a smooch and cuddle from David Cameron.
Another pitiful argument used on behalf of the No Campaign was the assertion that the people would fail to understand how to vote and that it was too complicated. This statement is a tad insulting, whilst I am not a huge advocate of the intelligence of the general members of the public I would expect that the bulk of people are able to count to 3 – it really isn’t that hard, I can count up to 68… as soon as I get to 69 I start thinking of other things and giggling like a little girl.
Yet saying Alternative Vote is harder to understand that First Past the Post is probably a valid statement. However making a cup of tea is harder than making a glass of water and yet I am still prepared and capable to making a cup of tea – so I think I have just blow that argument out of the water and/or cup of tea.
A few more of the arguments used by the No Campaign include the bizarre accusation that the referendum is un-British and their leaflet contained a picture of a running race where the person coming fourth out of four is declared the winner under the Alternative Voting system – which would not have been the case as his votes would be reallocated first. Although I suppose if you put those two augments for No together, what could be more British than a British person coming last in a running race?
Possibly the worst argument of them all was the typical “very few other countries use it, so why should we” which I suppose is a valid point in respect of its limited use on a macro level. The No Campaign reeled off Alternative Vote using countries such as Australia, Papa New Guinea and Fiji; which is news to me as I was of the understanding that Fiji was currently under the rule of military dictatorship – but then apparently I’m not capable of even understanding the system, so what do I know?
I should not say that the Yes Campaign have been a great deal better in their arguments and literature; probably their lowest moment was when they stated that we should vote Yes because the First Past the Post system allowed the expenses scandal to happen and hence implied that such a scandal wouldn’t happen in a House of Commons elected via the Alternative Vote. Quite why this assertion is made is beyond me – it’s not as though an improved Patient/Doctor care charter would have convinced Harold Shipman that what he was doing was wrong; and the 37th relaunch of the FA’s Respect Campaign failed in its attempt to prevent Wayne Rooney from launching a volley of profanities at the referee… the assistant referees… the opposition players… the opposition supporters… his own supporters… and, bizarrely, a cameraman…
No doubt that whist people joked that they would fill in the their ballot form with Yes as their first preference and No as their second preference; the arguments and information presented were so unclear that if would have been preferable if their was an option to vote Maybe – and if there was, then the overused joke about filling in the referendum ballot paper using an Alternative Voting method would work better as it contained 3 options instead of 2.
Unfortunately things hit rock bottom in the campaigns when the arguments became:
• The Liberal Democrats said that you should vote Yes to ensure that you get less Conservative MPs – despite being in a Coalition Government with the Conservatives.
• The Conservatives said that you should vote No to ensure that we don’t end up always producing a Coalition Government – despite them currently being part of a Coalition Government.*
But of course the key thing to remember is that the Coalition Government is working…
When the final votes came in they were: 6.15m people voted for Yes – which is quite a lot of people to vote for Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Chris Howe and Steve Squire’s 1970s prog-rock band… and 13.01m people said No… well… it could have been that… or it could have been that Ian Paisley was the only person to vote that way… and he completed his ballot paper in his usual manner…
* That might not be strictly true – hitting rock bottom may have occurred when Peter Stringfellow was asked to present the argument for the No Campaign the during a debate on Radio 2…
Sunday 24 April 2011
A (John) Terrible Mistake?
A few weeks ago John Terry was reinstated as captain of the England football team. Such a decision raises many questions: Do we as a nation believe that time spend in the wilderness is a qualifier for redemption? Can the urge for a strong leader outweigh our misgivings towards said leader? And why on earth would anyone want to captain our bunch of overpaid also-rans on two separate occasions?
It was just over a year ago that it was revealed that John “Daddy of the year” Terry was found to be taking his work home with him and filling in for his absent left back colleague Wayne Bridge, by sleeping with his former girlfriend, allegedly. Capello promptly met with Terry and striped him of the captaincy – being stripped in public was quite embarrassing for Terry, as he normally gets stripped in the Wayne Bridge’s old bedroom.
People understandably felt sorry for Bridge, being publicly embarrassed through no fault of his own can’t have been pleasant – and to laugh at a man being publically embarrassed through no fault of his own would have only been fair if Bridge was appearing on a reality TV show.
No doubt Bridge will now want to put Terry and Chelsea behind him; to this end he has bagged himself a new girlfriend, none other than Frankie Sandford from the Saturdays. I would question the wisdom of him on this point – if you want a new start and to forget Terry and Chelsea… don’t enter into a relationship that will be referred to as “Sandford-Bridge” by the tabloids…
Nonetheless, the whole reinstating of Terry shows really how important a strong, charismatic and inspirational leader is. Such people can be a rare commodity, looking at the Tory party between the years 1990 to 2005 shows how difficult things can be. Fortunately for them, the Labour party recently found a leader who fulfils all of the above– but they decided to elect his brother instead.
Ed Miliband does however appear to get an unnecessarily large amount of criticism from the press, whilst he is busy trying to unite the Labour party; the press make accusations that he is trying to UNITE the Labour party. That said, Ed Miliband doesn’t appear to be the most charismatic and fired up person in the world – on the eve of the recent protests in London about the Governmental cuts he Tweeted:
“Speaking at the march today for a real and credible alternative to this Tory-led Govt. See some of you there. #march26”
I’m not really sure that when the Egyptian protestors descended into Cairo recently and rallied against the former Government led by President Mubarak that the rallying cry was “See some of you there”. But whether they did or not, ultimately they were successful and the Government was toppled – that said, most dodgy Pyramid schemes tend to collapse at some point.
I suppose the latest protests were designed to be more peaceful and to this end, Miliband had to be cautious not to stoke the fires (especially the ones burning on Oxford Street) too much. Prior to the off, it was said that anyone there with the sole purpose of partaking in violent and unruly acts were not welcome… but despite that the Metropolitan Police turned up anyway.
The pressure on a leader can be immense at times, Miliband himself has recently announced that he’s getting married to the woman he loves/the person his spin doctors have told him to marry in order to appease Middle England. Interestingly though his brother David will not be the Best Man. However David is invited, along with certain member of the Shadow Cabinet, there’s no need for anyone to officially RSVP though – the invite just says “see some of you there”…
All of this criticism is for a man who is ultimately in opposition, the pressures on David Cameron, like Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major before him, must be immense. Recent troubles in Libya called for clear and decisive action, that is well thought out and planned efficiently – this was somewhat undermined when we got confused with the time difference and sent our SAS men into Benghazi in the middle of the night, so when they landed in the middle of nowhere in a helicopter, they didn’t have a clue where they were. The idea that going in the middle of the night as a clever disguise was quite preposterous; I might not be the sharpest chisel in the box (although I am pretty good at the wordsearch in the Times – I am not good enough to do the crossword yet) – but I think would competently spot a helicopter landing in the dark, the fact that something has 50 foot rotating blades and travels at 150+ miles per hour means that it will be quite noisy and therefore easy to spot, even at 3 in the morning.
In this respect I do feel for Cameron, as the situation in Libya does appear to be a bit of an unknown. The people of Libya clearly want Gadaffi out*, but the international community do not really appear to know their objectives – or indeed how to even achieve the objective that they’re not even sure of. A lot of the current debate is currently centring on whether the UK army currently have “Boots at ground level in Libya”… obviously if there isn’t, then our servicemen and woman will have to get their toiletries from another place, such as Lloyds Pharmacy or a more general retailer like Tesco.
The opposition facing Gadiffi is intense – irrespective of whether there are many Boots stores in Libya or not. He must live in fear and that fear will be greater than the fear felt by Terry when he opens the News of the World. With Gadaffi being hounded out by his people, he could be forced into exile from Libya – if that is that case, then you should watch out for him appearing on the well known Middle Eastern TV property show Home Under the Hamas.
The key thing for a leader however, is often the quality and unity of their lieutenants… if the people around you are of good quality and have faith in you, you will often succeed. Gadaffi recently had ignominy of having his Foreign Minister walk out on him and flee to the UK. The Foreign Minister in question, a man named Moussa Koussa (a man who is also presumably friends with Jack Black, Shaquille O'Neal, Jacques Chirac and Evil Knievel), took a bold move to flee to the UK, as he is said to have been involved in the Lockabie bombing and there was a real chance of him getting arrested when he arrived… that said… he was promptly questioned by Scotland Yard in respect of the Lockabie bombing… to which Moussa Koussa confirmed he was involved… so he was released and allowed to walk free…
Not really anything to do with the main body of this ‘blog post, but about 2 months ago I happened upon a protest against Gadaffi’s regime and the protestors were chanting “1,2,3,4… Gad-af-fi no more” which was good, but the word “Gadaffi” could easily been substituted for anyone else’s name. If they had chanted “1,2,3… remove Gad-af-fi” then it would give the impression that they were putting in a lot more effort. If you would like me to think up any chants in an attempt to remove any tyrants form power, please let me know.
It was just over a year ago that it was revealed that John “Daddy of the year” Terry was found to be taking his work home with him and filling in for his absent left back colleague Wayne Bridge, by sleeping with his former girlfriend, allegedly. Capello promptly met with Terry and striped him of the captaincy – being stripped in public was quite embarrassing for Terry, as he normally gets stripped in the Wayne Bridge’s old bedroom.
People understandably felt sorry for Bridge, being publicly embarrassed through no fault of his own can’t have been pleasant – and to laugh at a man being publically embarrassed through no fault of his own would have only been fair if Bridge was appearing on a reality TV show.
No doubt Bridge will now want to put Terry and Chelsea behind him; to this end he has bagged himself a new girlfriend, none other than Frankie Sandford from the Saturdays. I would question the wisdom of him on this point – if you want a new start and to forget Terry and Chelsea… don’t enter into a relationship that will be referred to as “Sandford-Bridge” by the tabloids…
Nonetheless, the whole reinstating of Terry shows really how important a strong, charismatic and inspirational leader is. Such people can be a rare commodity, looking at the Tory party between the years 1990 to 2005 shows how difficult things can be. Fortunately for them, the Labour party recently found a leader who fulfils all of the above– but they decided to elect his brother instead.
Ed Miliband does however appear to get an unnecessarily large amount of criticism from the press, whilst he is busy trying to unite the Labour party; the press make accusations that he is trying to UNITE the Labour party. That said, Ed Miliband doesn’t appear to be the most charismatic and fired up person in the world – on the eve of the recent protests in London about the Governmental cuts he Tweeted:
“Speaking at the march today for a real and credible alternative to this Tory-led Govt. See some of you there. #march26”
I’m not really sure that when the Egyptian protestors descended into Cairo recently and rallied against the former Government led by President Mubarak that the rallying cry was “See some of you there”. But whether they did or not, ultimately they were successful and the Government was toppled – that said, most dodgy Pyramid schemes tend to collapse at some point.
I suppose the latest protests were designed to be more peaceful and to this end, Miliband had to be cautious not to stoke the fires (especially the ones burning on Oxford Street) too much. Prior to the off, it was said that anyone there with the sole purpose of partaking in violent and unruly acts were not welcome… but despite that the Metropolitan Police turned up anyway.
The pressure on a leader can be immense at times, Miliband himself has recently announced that he’s getting married to the woman he loves/the person his spin doctors have told him to marry in order to appease Middle England. Interestingly though his brother David will not be the Best Man. However David is invited, along with certain member of the Shadow Cabinet, there’s no need for anyone to officially RSVP though – the invite just says “see some of you there”…
All of this criticism is for a man who is ultimately in opposition, the pressures on David Cameron, like Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major before him, must be immense. Recent troubles in Libya called for clear and decisive action, that is well thought out and planned efficiently – this was somewhat undermined when we got confused with the time difference and sent our SAS men into Benghazi in the middle of the night, so when they landed in the middle of nowhere in a helicopter, they didn’t have a clue where they were. The idea that going in the middle of the night as a clever disguise was quite preposterous; I might not be the sharpest chisel in the box (although I am pretty good at the wordsearch in the Times – I am not good enough to do the crossword yet) – but I think would competently spot a helicopter landing in the dark, the fact that something has 50 foot rotating blades and travels at 150+ miles per hour means that it will be quite noisy and therefore easy to spot, even at 3 in the morning.
In this respect I do feel for Cameron, as the situation in Libya does appear to be a bit of an unknown. The people of Libya clearly want Gadaffi out*, but the international community do not really appear to know their objectives – or indeed how to even achieve the objective that they’re not even sure of. A lot of the current debate is currently centring on whether the UK army currently have “Boots at ground level in Libya”… obviously if there isn’t, then our servicemen and woman will have to get their toiletries from another place, such as Lloyds Pharmacy or a more general retailer like Tesco.
The opposition facing Gadiffi is intense – irrespective of whether there are many Boots stores in Libya or not. He must live in fear and that fear will be greater than the fear felt by Terry when he opens the News of the World. With Gadaffi being hounded out by his people, he could be forced into exile from Libya – if that is that case, then you should watch out for him appearing on the well known Middle Eastern TV property show Home Under the Hamas.
The key thing for a leader however, is often the quality and unity of their lieutenants… if the people around you are of good quality and have faith in you, you will often succeed. Gadaffi recently had ignominy of having his Foreign Minister walk out on him and flee to the UK. The Foreign Minister in question, a man named Moussa Koussa (a man who is also presumably friends with Jack Black, Shaquille O'Neal, Jacques Chirac and Evil Knievel), took a bold move to flee to the UK, as he is said to have been involved in the Lockabie bombing and there was a real chance of him getting arrested when he arrived… that said… he was promptly questioned by Scotland Yard in respect of the Lockabie bombing… to which Moussa Koussa confirmed he was involved… so he was released and allowed to walk free…
Not really anything to do with the main body of this ‘blog post, but about 2 months ago I happened upon a protest against Gadaffi’s regime and the protestors were chanting “1,2,3,4… Gad-af-fi no more” which was good, but the word “Gadaffi” could easily been substituted for anyone else’s name. If they had chanted “1,2,3… remove Gad-af-fi” then it would give the impression that they were putting in a lot more effort. If you would like me to think up any chants in an attempt to remove any tyrants form power, please let me know.
Sunday 6 February 2011
Old (fashioned) and Gray
Last week Andy Gray was involved in a huge scandal… when it was revealed that he used to be paid £1.7million per year to… erm… talk about football. Along with Richard Keys, he was also involved in a sexism scandal, and what with a sexism scandal being bigger than a sex scandal it was promptly pronounced the “scandal of the year so far” – which is hardly a great accolade given that it occurred during January.
The sexism scandal erupted after Gray and Keys were caught off camera, and indeed off guard, making comments about the female assistant referee (formerly linesman) Sian Massey. Gray and Keys suggested that it was ridiculous that a woman was running the line as woman don’t know the offside rule, a rule which isn’t that tricky to understand anyway – a few of my friends explained it to me in the pub the other day and it involves a pint glass being nearer to the edge of the table than an ashtray, as long as it is behind or level with a beermat.
Gray and Keys were eventually sacked/resigned before they were sacked, after new footage of them making sexist comments emerged, but they are not alone in making sexist remarks on television: for example I really like Loose Women… however, I severely detest the idle gossip of the television show with the same name, some of which could be taken as sexist towards men.
The new footage of Gray showed him asking a female presenter to tuck his shirt in for him and this was enough to get him sacked… he most certainly was not sacked from Sky Sports (a brand name of BSkyB – owed by Rupert Murdoch) for allegedly taking legal action against the News of the World (part of the News International Group – owned by Rupert Murdoch) with respect to the phone hacking scandal – anyone who makes such a suggestion can be on very rocky legal ground. As such, I am glad that I have categorically stated that that was not the reason Andy Gray was sacked from Sky Sports.
Keys on the other hand eventually resigned [because he was about to get sacked and] after new footage came to light of him asking Jamie Redknapp if he had “smashed it” and made a reference to “hanging out the back” of a woman. It was viewed as sexist that Keys referred to a woman as “it”, although quite clearly the “it” in “smashing it” refer not to her, but to her… erm… “women’s area” – a place which Keys would ironically say is nowhere near a football pitch.
It does seems strange that Keys uses the phrase “smashing it”, implying an element of brutality and aggression and he then follows it up with the phrase “hanging out the back of” suggesting that Redknapp would merely place his cock inside the unnamed woman and just… well… leave it there – but to be fair, Redknapp may be too worn out after spending all of his spare time “smashing it”… and solving the mystery of why his dad believes that Peter Crouch is a good football player.
I suppose that the comments made by Gray and Keys went some way to proving that age old saying that football is a game of two half… wits. But their comments were pale in comparison to the infamous comments made by Ron Atkinson when he called the then Chelsea defender Marcel Desailly a “lazy thick nigger” – perhaps in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have just used the phrase “pale in comparison”…
Credit given where it’s due to Atkinson, he chose not to scrape the barrel and highlight the work that he did for black footballers during his tenure as manager of West Bromwich Albion – in a “I’m not racist, some of my best friends are black” kind of way. He simply offered the explanation that he was not aware that the microphone was switched on – which is a perfectly plausible excuse that could have been used at any point during Atkinson’s commentary career.
Atkinson appreciated that his comments were unacceptable, the same couldn’t have been said of Jimmy Hill, who came out in defence of Atkinson, claiming that the word “nigger” was part of the football culture and what Ron Atkinson said was no more offensive than when Hill is referred to as “chinny” – so called because of his rather large chin, which apparently can now be seen on Google Earth, as can the local farmers’ fields which get ploughed whenever Hill walks though them.
Whilst Hill is clearly affected by such comments (although I’d advise him to just take them on the chin…) I do think he’s missed the point to some extent, perhaps if I was to open the paper and see reports of a man being horrifically attacked in a chin related incident, then his words may have carried some substance. On a similar note, if America in the 1960s had been awash with the “chin riots” and Martin Luther King had a dream about “little boys and girls with big chins being able to join hands with little boys and girls with normal-sized chins” then Hill’s defence of Atkinson may have being more justified – and Martin Luther King would be a bit weird... *
Unfortunately for Hill, there is no uprising led by the likes of Jay Leno and Bruce Forsyth and accordingly people will still make snide remarks about chins. But within calling him “chinny” there is no slur on his ability to do his job. As where Andy Gray and Richard Keys’ comments were doing exactly that to Sian Massey, commenting on her ability to do her job with a reference to a ridiculous stereotype. We shouldn’t forget that women have had to flight a long struggled to get equality and were only allowed to vote in the UK in 1928 – I suppose their ability to vote is now apparent with us having a hung Parliament… bloody women… always dithering on the big issues…
So as where Atkinson looked as competent as Mr Bean and Hill left himself a mountain to climb; Gray showed that he could only see things in black & white and Keys unlocked the portal that sent his career into freefall mode – on a temporary basis, he and Gray will probably be commentating on ESPN come the new season. People in the public eye should be careful, the Orwellian concept of Big Brother appears to be rampant, yet the Thought Police aren’t quite as active at the moment – they have probably bore the brunt of the Government’s cuts in this period of austerity. As such, if you are about to offend, then it may be better to keep your views to yourself.
But presumably Keys and Gray were given a nice send off by Sky Sports, their colleagues apparently held a big party for them… Keys and Gray were dressed smart for the occasion – albeit Gray with a little assistance in terms of getting tucked in… and there were good times with the female presenters from Sky Sports News – who are most definitely employed due to their ability to read the news and understand sport… and Keys and Gray were even given a bakewell tart… “bake well tart,” one of the scoffed… “that’s an instruction I give to my wife”…
* Absolutely nothing to do with the ‘blog per se, but when I was in Next a few months ago I saw a bathroom loofah, which was one single white loofah and the packaging referred to it as “Martin Loofah King”… I’m not really sure of that is the best way to honour one of the greatest civil rights campaigners ever to have existed. I’m guessing it probably isn’t; and in any event, I would question the symbolism of having just one white loofah, surely Martin Luther King would have preferred a 2-pack of loofahs – with one white loofah and one black loofah, just a thought…
The sexism scandal erupted after Gray and Keys were caught off camera, and indeed off guard, making comments about the female assistant referee (formerly linesman) Sian Massey. Gray and Keys suggested that it was ridiculous that a woman was running the line as woman don’t know the offside rule, a rule which isn’t that tricky to understand anyway – a few of my friends explained it to me in the pub the other day and it involves a pint glass being nearer to the edge of the table than an ashtray, as long as it is behind or level with a beermat.
Gray and Keys were eventually sacked/resigned before they were sacked, after new footage of them making sexist comments emerged, but they are not alone in making sexist remarks on television: for example I really like Loose Women… however, I severely detest the idle gossip of the television show with the same name, some of which could be taken as sexist towards men.
The new footage of Gray showed him asking a female presenter to tuck his shirt in for him and this was enough to get him sacked… he most certainly was not sacked from Sky Sports (a brand name of BSkyB – owed by Rupert Murdoch) for allegedly taking legal action against the News of the World (part of the News International Group – owned by Rupert Murdoch) with respect to the phone hacking scandal – anyone who makes such a suggestion can be on very rocky legal ground. As such, I am glad that I have categorically stated that that was not the reason Andy Gray was sacked from Sky Sports.
Keys on the other hand eventually resigned [because he was about to get sacked and] after new footage came to light of him asking Jamie Redknapp if he had “smashed it” and made a reference to “hanging out the back” of a woman. It was viewed as sexist that Keys referred to a woman as “it”, although quite clearly the “it” in “smashing it” refer not to her, but to her… erm… “women’s area” – a place which Keys would ironically say is nowhere near a football pitch.
It does seems strange that Keys uses the phrase “smashing it”, implying an element of brutality and aggression and he then follows it up with the phrase “hanging out the back of” suggesting that Redknapp would merely place his cock inside the unnamed woman and just… well… leave it there – but to be fair, Redknapp may be too worn out after spending all of his spare time “smashing it”… and solving the mystery of why his dad believes that Peter Crouch is a good football player.
I suppose that the comments made by Gray and Keys went some way to proving that age old saying that football is a game of two half… wits. But their comments were pale in comparison to the infamous comments made by Ron Atkinson when he called the then Chelsea defender Marcel Desailly a “lazy thick nigger” – perhaps in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have just used the phrase “pale in comparison”…
Credit given where it’s due to Atkinson, he chose not to scrape the barrel and highlight the work that he did for black footballers during his tenure as manager of West Bromwich Albion – in a “I’m not racist, some of my best friends are black” kind of way. He simply offered the explanation that he was not aware that the microphone was switched on – which is a perfectly plausible excuse that could have been used at any point during Atkinson’s commentary career.
Atkinson appreciated that his comments were unacceptable, the same couldn’t have been said of Jimmy Hill, who came out in defence of Atkinson, claiming that the word “nigger” was part of the football culture and what Ron Atkinson said was no more offensive than when Hill is referred to as “chinny” – so called because of his rather large chin, which apparently can now be seen on Google Earth, as can the local farmers’ fields which get ploughed whenever Hill walks though them.
Whilst Hill is clearly affected by such comments (although I’d advise him to just take them on the chin…) I do think he’s missed the point to some extent, perhaps if I was to open the paper and see reports of a man being horrifically attacked in a chin related incident, then his words may have carried some substance. On a similar note, if America in the 1960s had been awash with the “chin riots” and Martin Luther King had a dream about “little boys and girls with big chins being able to join hands with little boys and girls with normal-sized chins” then Hill’s defence of Atkinson may have being more justified – and Martin Luther King would be a bit weird... *
Unfortunately for Hill, there is no uprising led by the likes of Jay Leno and Bruce Forsyth and accordingly people will still make snide remarks about chins. But within calling him “chinny” there is no slur on his ability to do his job. As where Andy Gray and Richard Keys’ comments were doing exactly that to Sian Massey, commenting on her ability to do her job with a reference to a ridiculous stereotype. We shouldn’t forget that women have had to flight a long struggled to get equality and were only allowed to vote in the UK in 1928 – I suppose their ability to vote is now apparent with us having a hung Parliament… bloody women… always dithering on the big issues…
So as where Atkinson looked as competent as Mr Bean and Hill left himself a mountain to climb; Gray showed that he could only see things in black & white and Keys unlocked the portal that sent his career into freefall mode – on a temporary basis, he and Gray will probably be commentating on ESPN come the new season. People in the public eye should be careful, the Orwellian concept of Big Brother appears to be rampant, yet the Thought Police aren’t quite as active at the moment – they have probably bore the brunt of the Government’s cuts in this period of austerity. As such, if you are about to offend, then it may be better to keep your views to yourself.
But presumably Keys and Gray were given a nice send off by Sky Sports, their colleagues apparently held a big party for them… Keys and Gray were dressed smart for the occasion – albeit Gray with a little assistance in terms of getting tucked in… and there were good times with the female presenters from Sky Sports News – who are most definitely employed due to their ability to read the news and understand sport… and Keys and Gray were even given a bakewell tart… “bake well tart,” one of the scoffed… “that’s an instruction I give to my wife”…
* Absolutely nothing to do with the ‘blog per se, but when I was in Next a few months ago I saw a bathroom loofah, which was one single white loofah and the packaging referred to it as “Martin Loofah King”… I’m not really sure of that is the best way to honour one of the greatest civil rights campaigners ever to have existed. I’m guessing it probably isn’t; and in any event, I would question the symbolism of having just one white loofah, surely Martin Luther King would have preferred a 2-pack of loofahs – with one white loofah and one black loofah, just a thought…
Tuesday 28 December 2010
It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid… just bored
I am currently in a place of emptiness. Nothing of any great innovation, interest or importance happens… and before you ask – I am not trapped inside the mind of Katie Price, and nor have I gone for a holiday to Slough. I am instead talking about the short period that exists between Christmas and the New Year.
Quite what we are supposed to do during this four day period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve is anyone’s guess. Having previously helped to stimulate the retail industry in the run up to Christmas and then the alcohol industry during Christmas, I now find myself helping out the sitting-on-my-arse-starring-blankly-at-the-television industry during this four day period.
It would be nice if something more meaningful could happen, perhaps in future years a major golf tournament could be organised, it would last four days so would therefore be ideal. Of course playing golf in this kind of snow and frost would be far from prefect and all participants should have either yellow or red balls – and to be honest, if that’s the case, then I think said participant would probably rather miss the golf tournament and instead pay a visit to the doctor… particularly if they are female.
Golf, understandably, doesn’t make it into the television schedules around Christmas time, so instead comedy specials are normally on offer; in the old days, The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise were the staples of Christmas Day television. This year Ronnie Corbett did his own show, The One Ronnie, and Morecambe and Wise did nothing – presumably using their usual pisspoor excuse that they had both been dead for over ten years. That said, for anyone prepared to stay up late, there was some first rate comedy on Sky – Australia were attempting to play cricket, and presumably in a tribute to Morcambe and Wise… their batsmen played in a manner which suggested that they had also been dead for over 10 years.
Although in terms of comedy, you can’t beat the woefulness of Christmas cracker jokes. Recent research has suggested that it is essential to have really bad cracker jokes, that way no-one will feel left out by not getting the joke – I’m guessing a similar rationale is used for making policies in the current Government. As such and in keeping with the general content of this ‘blog, I feel it is only appropriate to list some of the Christmas cracker jokes I came across this year:
- What is the difference between a computer with a broken hard drive and England goalkeeper Robert Green? One of them doesn’t save anything… and the other one is a computer with a broken hard drive.
- What do Piers Morgan and a chef who keeps dropping his pancakes have in common? They are both useless tossers.
- How may policeman does it take to crack an egg? None… it fell down the stairs.
- What is the difference between Frank Bruno and Michael Barrymore? One has been battered around the ring… and the other one is a boxer.
- Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn’t.
Christmas crackers are however just one of the many traditions that adorn Christmas, another such tradition is putting Christmas presents in a stocking. This tradition, allegedly, originates from when Santa was visiting the home of a poor elderly man and his three younger daughters - obviously they are younger, if they were “older daughters” then the man should have probably asked serious questions as to whether the children were Fathered by himself.
As the man was unlikely to accept charity, Santa had to be discreet about where he hid the presents for his daughters, those presents being a bag of gold coins for each daughter. Thinking with a clear and logical mind, despite probably having already drank many glasses of sherry, Santa put the gold coins into the girls’ stockings, which were hung up above the fire to dry out. Whilst this was a nice gesture, it does give an insight into what Santa gets up to on the other 364 days of the year, perhaps he regularly puts money into ladies’ stockings in strip clubs? It certainly gives a different meaning as to exactly what “Lapland” is – although I think any stripper would probably object if Santa’s method of payment was to put numerous coins into her underwear…
Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of Christmas is that all of a sudden many people change their attitude and everything somehow gets Christmas crow-barred into it – be it Christmas lights in the window, or your local delicatessen renaming itself “Cheeses of Nazareth” for the entire month of December.
On top of the renaming and redecorating things, Christmas is the season of goodwill and one can easily spend the two to three weeks preceding Christmas getting out of all sorts situations simply with the words “let me off please, it’s Christmas”… a few weeks ago I was walking through a shopping centre and a Christmas pudding on roller skates crashed into me, the Christmas pudding laughed it off and skated away thinking that that “because it was Christmas” his action were acceptable. Personally I thought his actions were unacceptable – just like vandalising the Cenotaph and then claiming that, despite being a history student, you weren’t aware of what the monument was.
Whilst I did manage to come up with the witty response of “I would like to douse you in brandy and set you on fire”, said response lost its effect as it came to me about half an hour later and I was the only person in the room at the time. That said, such an event shouldn’t detract from the fact that Christmas puddings are interesting little things, where else could you get such a high content of fruits and alcohol? – other than a Michael Barrymore party…
On the whole, food in general plays a large part in the Christmas experience for many people. For some reason at Christmas, quite a lot of people illogically think it’s appropriate to fill up a bowl with hard shelled dried fruits, such as pistachios and cashews… they must be nuts. More bizarrely, there was also a story recently regarding the supermarket Morrisons, whom apparently requested that a squirrel taste-test various nuts to see which were the nicest and therefore included in Morrisons’ selection boxes of nuts… Morrisions did miss one important trick though… they forgot to ask Eamonn Holmes to do the same thing with the selection boxes of chocolate…
Quite what we are supposed to do during this four day period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve is anyone’s guess. Having previously helped to stimulate the retail industry in the run up to Christmas and then the alcohol industry during Christmas, I now find myself helping out the sitting-on-my-arse-starring-blankly-at-the-television industry during this four day period.
It would be nice if something more meaningful could happen, perhaps in future years a major golf tournament could be organised, it would last four days so would therefore be ideal. Of course playing golf in this kind of snow and frost would be far from prefect and all participants should have either yellow or red balls – and to be honest, if that’s the case, then I think said participant would probably rather miss the golf tournament and instead pay a visit to the doctor… particularly if they are female.
Golf, understandably, doesn’t make it into the television schedules around Christmas time, so instead comedy specials are normally on offer; in the old days, The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise were the staples of Christmas Day television. This year Ronnie Corbett did his own show, The One Ronnie, and Morecambe and Wise did nothing – presumably using their usual pisspoor excuse that they had both been dead for over ten years. That said, for anyone prepared to stay up late, there was some first rate comedy on Sky – Australia were attempting to play cricket, and presumably in a tribute to Morcambe and Wise… their batsmen played in a manner which suggested that they had also been dead for over 10 years.
Although in terms of comedy, you can’t beat the woefulness of Christmas cracker jokes. Recent research has suggested that it is essential to have really bad cracker jokes, that way no-one will feel left out by not getting the joke – I’m guessing a similar rationale is used for making policies in the current Government. As such and in keeping with the general content of this ‘blog, I feel it is only appropriate to list some of the Christmas cracker jokes I came across this year:
- What is the difference between a computer with a broken hard drive and England goalkeeper Robert Green? One of them doesn’t save anything… and the other one is a computer with a broken hard drive.
- What do Piers Morgan and a chef who keeps dropping his pancakes have in common? They are both useless tossers.
- How may policeman does it take to crack an egg? None… it fell down the stairs.
- What is the difference between Frank Bruno and Michael Barrymore? One has been battered around the ring… and the other one is a boxer.
- Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn’t.
Christmas crackers are however just one of the many traditions that adorn Christmas, another such tradition is putting Christmas presents in a stocking. This tradition, allegedly, originates from when Santa was visiting the home of a poor elderly man and his three younger daughters - obviously they are younger, if they were “older daughters” then the man should have probably asked serious questions as to whether the children were Fathered by himself.
As the man was unlikely to accept charity, Santa had to be discreet about where he hid the presents for his daughters, those presents being a bag of gold coins for each daughter. Thinking with a clear and logical mind, despite probably having already drank many glasses of sherry, Santa put the gold coins into the girls’ stockings, which were hung up above the fire to dry out. Whilst this was a nice gesture, it does give an insight into what Santa gets up to on the other 364 days of the year, perhaps he regularly puts money into ladies’ stockings in strip clubs? It certainly gives a different meaning as to exactly what “Lapland” is – although I think any stripper would probably object if Santa’s method of payment was to put numerous coins into her underwear…
Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of Christmas is that all of a sudden many people change their attitude and everything somehow gets Christmas crow-barred into it – be it Christmas lights in the window, or your local delicatessen renaming itself “Cheeses of Nazareth” for the entire month of December.
On top of the renaming and redecorating things, Christmas is the season of goodwill and one can easily spend the two to three weeks preceding Christmas getting out of all sorts situations simply with the words “let me off please, it’s Christmas”… a few weeks ago I was walking through a shopping centre and a Christmas pudding on roller skates crashed into me, the Christmas pudding laughed it off and skated away thinking that that “because it was Christmas” his action were acceptable. Personally I thought his actions were unacceptable – just like vandalising the Cenotaph and then claiming that, despite being a history student, you weren’t aware of what the monument was.
Whilst I did manage to come up with the witty response of “I would like to douse you in brandy and set you on fire”, said response lost its effect as it came to me about half an hour later and I was the only person in the room at the time. That said, such an event shouldn’t detract from the fact that Christmas puddings are interesting little things, where else could you get such a high content of fruits and alcohol? – other than a Michael Barrymore party…
On the whole, food in general plays a large part in the Christmas experience for many people. For some reason at Christmas, quite a lot of people illogically think it’s appropriate to fill up a bowl with hard shelled dried fruits, such as pistachios and cashews… they must be nuts. More bizarrely, there was also a story recently regarding the supermarket Morrisons, whom apparently requested that a squirrel taste-test various nuts to see which were the nicest and therefore included in Morrisons’ selection boxes of nuts… Morrisions did miss one important trick though… they forgot to ask Eamonn Holmes to do the same thing with the selection boxes of chocolate…
Sunday 28 November 2010
I’m not ashamed of my actions… said the man in the balaclava
The right to protest is always an interesting area to look into. A few Wednesdays ago marked the first time I had travelled to London in 18 months and there were also 50,000 people protesting on the streets of London – I am informed that the two events are unconnected, I am neither that unpopular nor an instigator of mass protests.
These 50,000 people were protesting about the proposed increased level of student tuition fees in a protest in Central London, “We shall not, we shall not be moved” is what the protesters sang… until Countdown came on, at which point they went home or decided to smash up the Troy headquarters in Milbank.
The small minority who descended on Milbank took all the headlines. As one they, unfortunately, caused a detraction from the key issues – that being of university funding. One these moronic protestors threw a fire extinguisher off the top the Tory’s Milbank headquarters – which just like airbags in cars, was an instance health and safety equipment potentially causing more harm than good.
Although to be fair, the throwing of the fire extinguisher may have been to assist his fellow protestors put out one of the effigies of David Cameron or Nick Clegg that the protestors had set alight – yet if this was his rationale, then it would have been far safer to throw a fire blanket. It was later to revealed that said protestor was a student from Cambridge – fortunately he attended Anglia Ruskin University and not Cambridge University, proving that we do at least have some form of good education standards in this country.
One chap who did undermine my last assertion, was the student decided to show there should be no financial barriers to students wanting to attend university by kicking an overhanging glass window until the window smashed. What with the window overhanging, it smashed all over him and he was covered in shards of glass – thank god this man had a good university education, otherwise he might have done something that made himself look like an idiot.
I don’t mind protestors, but in my opinion it’s important to clearly think about how your protest will be perceived? Are you protesting for the right reasons? Are you getting your message across? Think back to 2009, when a group protested about the banks’ role in “causing” the Credit Crunch on a day to coincide with the submit of the G20 finance ministers. The idea of the protest was a logical one – the banks had lent irresponsibly, thought it was continually possible to achieve double digit growth and were taking on risk-laden transactions with little personal consequence if things went wrong. The execution of the protest was woeful – the protestors smashed up RBS’ headquarters in Central London. What with the RBS being majority owned by the taxpayer, the protestors basically cost themselves some money. Such actions must be like complaining about the state of television by smashing up your new 32 inch flatscreen.
I understand the motives of the protestors who were campaigning against an increase in student tuition fees. Nick Clegg is once again being made to look like a lapdog for David Cameron, quite how he can pledge to abolish tuition fees and then support them tripling is anyone’s guess. This Government is often said to be unpopular and “no-one voted for it” – but that is our electoral system and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats collectively took 59.1% of the vote at the General Election. This compared to the 35.2% of the vote that Labour took in 2005. Henceforth, the major problem facing the Government, which was also faced by Gordon Brown when he took over from Tony Blair, is the lack of a mandate to rule, David Cameron doesn’t have a mandate, Nick Clegg also doesn’t have a mandate – indeed the only person to have a mandate is William Hague, although he strenuously denies this allegation and claims they were sharing a room to save costs, that way the money saved can be spent on repairing Milbank.
There have been cuts, things have had to change and Higher Education is not the only sector that is suffering from these cuts. The military has had a massive slash to its budget, with the Government reorganising certain defence arrangements, particularly with respect to warships: The Prince of Wales warship will lay redundant for a sustained period and will be fully bought into service many years later than expected – which draws an uncanny parallel with the man the ship is named after. As well as that, the UK and France are due to share warships under a groundbreaking military initiative – presumably part of a European initiative for the UK to pair up with a partner whom is terrible at fighting wars. I have no idea what would happen if the UK and France went to war with each other… well… other than that the UK would claim victory upon France’s surrender.
Following the lack of good news in the Higher Education sector, there was a second protest scheduled a fortnight later, with demonstrations all around the country, with many more students involved and this time and also less violence – I’m guessing this protest constituted a re-sit for all those who had performed poorly the first time around.
I saw part of the protest in my local city centre where there was a helicopter getting involved in the proceedings, presumably from the police’s side of things – it wouldn’t be a very good idea for the students to protest about the cost of university by one of them bringing a helicopter with them… although it does make you wonder at times that if these students decided not to protest, then perhaps all the extra money that has been spent on police and other security during these protests could maybe be allocated to university funding… just a thought…
One of the protestors I saw summoned his entire educational ability and made a placard which simply said the words “FUCK THE TORY ARSEHOLES”… something which is highly offensive… especially to Nick Clegg… because that’s his job…
*P.S. Subsequent to writing this I remembered that during the first protest I saw a protestor on the news, he was quite bafflingly dressed as a panda – I still to this day have no idea what the message behind it was… although it may have been that the average student is about as active as a mating panda…
These 50,000 people were protesting about the proposed increased level of student tuition fees in a protest in Central London, “We shall not, we shall not be moved” is what the protesters sang… until Countdown came on, at which point they went home or decided to smash up the Troy headquarters in Milbank.
The small minority who descended on Milbank took all the headlines. As one they, unfortunately, caused a detraction from the key issues – that being of university funding. One these moronic protestors threw a fire extinguisher off the top the Tory’s Milbank headquarters – which just like airbags in cars, was an instance health and safety equipment potentially causing more harm than good.
Although to be fair, the throwing of the fire extinguisher may have been to assist his fellow protestors put out one of the effigies of David Cameron or Nick Clegg that the protestors had set alight – yet if this was his rationale, then it would have been far safer to throw a fire blanket. It was later to revealed that said protestor was a student from Cambridge – fortunately he attended Anglia Ruskin University and not Cambridge University, proving that we do at least have some form of good education standards in this country.
One chap who did undermine my last assertion, was the student decided to show there should be no financial barriers to students wanting to attend university by kicking an overhanging glass window until the window smashed. What with the window overhanging, it smashed all over him and he was covered in shards of glass – thank god this man had a good university education, otherwise he might have done something that made himself look like an idiot.
I don’t mind protestors, but in my opinion it’s important to clearly think about how your protest will be perceived? Are you protesting for the right reasons? Are you getting your message across? Think back to 2009, when a group protested about the banks’ role in “causing” the Credit Crunch on a day to coincide with the submit of the G20 finance ministers. The idea of the protest was a logical one – the banks had lent irresponsibly, thought it was continually possible to achieve double digit growth and were taking on risk-laden transactions with little personal consequence if things went wrong. The execution of the protest was woeful – the protestors smashed up RBS’ headquarters in Central London. What with the RBS being majority owned by the taxpayer, the protestors basically cost themselves some money. Such actions must be like complaining about the state of television by smashing up your new 32 inch flatscreen.
I understand the motives of the protestors who were campaigning against an increase in student tuition fees. Nick Clegg is once again being made to look like a lapdog for David Cameron, quite how he can pledge to abolish tuition fees and then support them tripling is anyone’s guess. This Government is often said to be unpopular and “no-one voted for it” – but that is our electoral system and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats collectively took 59.1% of the vote at the General Election. This compared to the 35.2% of the vote that Labour took in 2005. Henceforth, the major problem facing the Government, which was also faced by Gordon Brown when he took over from Tony Blair, is the lack of a mandate to rule, David Cameron doesn’t have a mandate, Nick Clegg also doesn’t have a mandate – indeed the only person to have a mandate is William Hague, although he strenuously denies this allegation and claims they were sharing a room to save costs, that way the money saved can be spent on repairing Milbank.
There have been cuts, things have had to change and Higher Education is not the only sector that is suffering from these cuts. The military has had a massive slash to its budget, with the Government reorganising certain defence arrangements, particularly with respect to warships: The Prince of Wales warship will lay redundant for a sustained period and will be fully bought into service many years later than expected – which draws an uncanny parallel with the man the ship is named after. As well as that, the UK and France are due to share warships under a groundbreaking military initiative – presumably part of a European initiative for the UK to pair up with a partner whom is terrible at fighting wars. I have no idea what would happen if the UK and France went to war with each other… well… other than that the UK would claim victory upon France’s surrender.
Following the lack of good news in the Higher Education sector, there was a second protest scheduled a fortnight later, with demonstrations all around the country, with many more students involved and this time and also less violence – I’m guessing this protest constituted a re-sit for all those who had performed poorly the first time around.
I saw part of the protest in my local city centre where there was a helicopter getting involved in the proceedings, presumably from the police’s side of things – it wouldn’t be a very good idea for the students to protest about the cost of university by one of them bringing a helicopter with them… although it does make you wonder at times that if these students decided not to protest, then perhaps all the extra money that has been spent on police and other security during these protests could maybe be allocated to university funding… just a thought…
One of the protestors I saw summoned his entire educational ability and made a placard which simply said the words “FUCK THE TORY ARSEHOLES”… something which is highly offensive… especially to Nick Clegg… because that’s his job…
*P.S. Subsequent to writing this I remembered that during the first protest I saw a protestor on the news, he was quite bafflingly dressed as a panda – I still to this day have no idea what the message behind it was… although it may have been that the average student is about as active as a mating panda…
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