veritas is the name given to the virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good roman should possess.
while in vino veritasin vino veritas: in wine there is truth. (when a person is under the influence of wine he shows himself in his true colours.) or more commonly you are likely to say things you will regret when you are pissed.
veritas is also the name of robert kilroy-silk's new euro sceptic party, due to launch this week (feb 2nd). it would not be fair to say that veritas broke off from the uk independence party (ukip) more it was a case of kilroy-silk throwing a hissy because they wouldn’t let him be the leader. so he has flounced out and has now set up his own gang. now it appears the promise of a bit of power in the new party means other people from ukip are deserting that party for veritas.
“damian hockney said ex-chatshow host mr kilroy-silk would "deliver better" as the leader of a euro sceptic party.
he said mr kilroy-silk had made him deputy party leader of veritas, latin for truth. “
hockney is currently elected to the london assembly and ukip (quite rightly) want him to give up his seat for a ukip member. it will be interesting to see what he does. why? because hockney had proposed a motion that requires any successful ukip election candidate who later left the party to resign their seat to allow a genuine representative of the party to take their place. it was a motion that was passed by ukip. true it is no longer binding on hockney – but it’ll be an instant measure of the virtue of the man and the new party. (oh hell what i am i thinking he will keep the seat. we all know it!) (oh and this will be the fourth political party hockney has been a member of – he’s like my mate paul, only for paul it is rugby clubs).
have to ask though for a party that is euro sceptic why the choice of veritas as a name – why not use the english word truth? could it be that veritas gives you a sense of gravitas? and let’s be fair these little self important inadequate politicians need all the help they can get in looking, sounding and feeling important. and as any marketer will tell you the brand is all important – just a shame they have chosen a name that smacks of europe!
mind you given what has recently been said by a member of ukip you can see why there is a much to join the new party of the perma-tanned unctuous one. ukip have had to suspend a member for the somewhat outlandish views of “suggesting the criminally insane should be killed” but it’s ok john houston does actually say that their organs should be used to benefit the law abiding citizens of the country. (are you listening george w bush – it could be away to make your love of the death penalty more acceptable – have a lottery for the organs… somehow i wish i hadn’t said that i expect it to be someone’s policy in the next 5 years ….)
houston also went on to say “"the problems for the human race - environmental and others - can only be dealt with on a global scale, and that calls for a radical alliance of the english-speaking nations, which they are uniquely able to do."” (i am guessing that michael howard is kicking himself for not being able to get that nugget out into a speech).
ukip claim that houston never mentioned any of these thoughts when he was being selected – well they would say that though.
it’s odd really all this reminds me of the various far right and far left groups who spend most of their time arguing over the smallest slight, the minutest of differences between themselves, and winning the struggle between them becomes all important. to the outside world they all appear to be nutters to be shunned and avoided at all costs. with only a few people squandering their votes on them, they should not be given the chance to influence the direction of serious politics. yet sad to say both the main uk political parties take them seriously and will do all they can to win those few “extreme” votes and will make the claim that it is better that they talking about it than the far right or far left does.
all veritas and ukip need are archer, aitken and thatcher junior to join them and well it would be perfect.
and talking of thatcher – this is from the telegraph
“queueing up in london's freezing temperatures on tuesday, mark thatcher was spotted patiently waiting his turn alongside several hundred other visa applicants at the us embassy.
thatcher, who recently pleaded guilty to being linked to a botched coup in equatorial guinea, needs the visa to travel to america to see his wife and children.
"he looked very nervous standing there," says my source.
"a few people asked him whether it was true that he'd attempted to overthrow president bush but he didn't appear to find their comments amusing."
like all other applicants, thatcher may have to wait up to a week for a visa but his status as a convicted felon won't aid the process.
when i call, a spokesman for thatcher insists: "mark wasn't queueing with anyone. he had an appointment at 8am to discuss his application. the meeting went very well and we're now awaiting the decision."
one can only hope that the american’s show more taste than we did and stop him from travelling to the usa – after all he is a felon! one hopes that he is under some sort of terrorist watch after all he did try to overthrow the leadership of a country, though i suppose he could use the pre-emptive strike there were wmds there (that would be wads of money and diamonds). on second thoughts the yanks will let him in – they let his batty mum in!
Monday, January 31, 2005
rejoice
let the bells sing out. rejoice rejoice the heavenly hosts proclaim.
pat is back! pat is back!
yes after some terrible times with computers i seem to be up and running again so the virtriol, the venting, the spleen, comedy and poetry that you have all come to expect will continue again!
(ok i know you never get any of the above from me - but a man has to dream, and dream i do!)
just be happy i am back.
pat is back! pat is back!
yes after some terrible times with computers i seem to be up and running again so the virtriol, the venting, the spleen, comedy and poetry that you have all come to expect will continue again!
(ok i know you never get any of the above from me - but a man has to dream, and dream i do!)
just be happy i am back.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
guilty
ho! ho! ho!
sometimes you just have to laugh at another person's misfortunes. it may not be clever, it may not be big but it is therapeutic and i am smiling just that little bit more because of my old pal mark thatcher.
admittedly he will not be banged up inside some nasty south african or zimbabwean jail, but in order to escape jail he has had to cop a plea and pay a large fine.
although he still protests his innocence we all know he is guilty.
so it is nice to hear him wriggle and weasel out of it. thatcher, who once lost his way in a rally, maintained that he thought his helicopter was going to be used as an air ambulance “but in his plea bargain statement, sir mark says he came to realise the helicopter was to be used for mercenary activities before the deal was finalised.” (bbc)
just a shame he never told anyone – well if he was lucky he might have made a few bob or two so why rock the boat!
of course now that thatcher has turned grass (oops sorry i mean concerned citizen) he is just going to be hit with a large fine and can now leave south africa.
he said of this
“speaking outside court, an emotional sir mark said: "there is no price too high for me to pay to be reunited with my family and i am sure all of you who are husbands and fathers would agree with that." (bbc).
you wonder why he didn’t think of that before he got involved in the shady dealings in the first place – though i doubt he ever thought about being caught.
and it was nice to see the family standing behind all the way in texas – good on yer girl stand by your man.
the only thing that would have made it sweeter would have been jeffery archer being implicated in it all. mind you now that thatcher is about to spill the beans to keep himself free who knows who else may have to spend time playing bitch in a south african prison.
this story covered by the bbc , guardian, telegraph (you have to register for the telegraph story but it is free...) and i am guessing any decent news source - especially those edited by people my age who still remember what maggie put us through.
bloddy hell hunt ban now thatcher - it's like class war never went away.
sometimes you just have to laugh at another person's misfortunes. it may not be clever, it may not be big but it is therapeutic and i am smiling just that little bit more because of my old pal mark thatcher.
admittedly he will not be banged up inside some nasty south african or zimbabwean jail, but in order to escape jail he has had to cop a plea and pay a large fine.
although he still protests his innocence we all know he is guilty.
so it is nice to hear him wriggle and weasel out of it. thatcher, who once lost his way in a rally, maintained that he thought his helicopter was going to be used as an air ambulance “but in his plea bargain statement, sir mark says he came to realise the helicopter was to be used for mercenary activities before the deal was finalised.” (bbc)
just a shame he never told anyone – well if he was lucky he might have made a few bob or two so why rock the boat!
of course now that thatcher has turned grass (oops sorry i mean concerned citizen) he is just going to be hit with a large fine and can now leave south africa.
he said of this
“speaking outside court, an emotional sir mark said: "there is no price too high for me to pay to be reunited with my family and i am sure all of you who are husbands and fathers would agree with that." (bbc).
you wonder why he didn’t think of that before he got involved in the shady dealings in the first place – though i doubt he ever thought about being caught.
and it was nice to see the family standing behind all the way in texas – good on yer girl stand by your man.
the only thing that would have made it sweeter would have been jeffery archer being implicated in it all. mind you now that thatcher is about to spill the beans to keep himself free who knows who else may have to spend time playing bitch in a south african prison.
this story covered by the bbc , guardian, telegraph (you have to register for the telegraph story but it is free...) and i am guessing any decent news source - especially those edited by people my age who still remember what maggie put us through.
bloddy hell hunt ban now thatcher - it's like class war never went away.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
truth
how does the old saying go? the truth will out (or perhaps it is the truth is out there – but that would point out that i watched x-files... ooops just have).
the truth is a many splendid thing – one man’s truth is another man’s bare faced lie. the idea of absolute truth has been (and will continue to) argued over for thousands of years. most of us accept the world is a complicated and complex place made up of many shades of grey. we may wish it to be black and white, but we know it will never be.
people like michael moore will use the fact that no one challenges him in court as proof that he is telling the truth (mind you that is the same defence that david icke uses so i am not so sure that is necessarily one to hide behind). mostly i suspect that moore is not taken to court because his opponents do not see the point in getting into a debate with him over his claims because they know that in doing so gives him even more legitimacy, secondly they know that once a debate has been opened all arguments then come under scrutiny, and finally they know the truth is not an easy thing to prove.
what on earth or you going on about pat ?
well partly it is this story just off of the bbc website:
“intelligence officials have confirmed the us has stopped searching for weapons of mass destruction in iraq. “
the “existence” of these wmds is the main reason we went to war with iraq, in fact tony blair after the event continued to claim that wmd’s would be found now they had ousted saddam, they have not been. they were never going to be.
we are now left with:
“mr duelfer said when he released his interim report in october that former iraqi leader saddam hussein had still had the desire to restart wmd programmes, when he could.” which holds as much weight as my desire to have sharon stone sit on my face.
the importance of this story is huge, especially for the bbc. the bbc came under attack from the government of tony blair for daring to say that they had “sexed” up the existence of wmds to make it easier to go to war.
but by jingo they did, do they regret, goodness gracious i don’t think so. (oops that’s me swiping doonesbury doing his impression of rumsfeld. it is funnier when he does it.
at the time of hutton report the truth was blair’s truth, now it appears that truth is not so true anymore!
following on from that the daily telegraph (among others) are reporting that mi6 is to hire a quality control watchdog in order to safeguard the quality of it’s intelligence. apparently “a businessman with management experience had already been appointed before the report's release to check the agency's overall operations”.
now i am missing something here – and i might be doing the businessman in question a disservice (unless of course it is digby and then i am spot on…) but what on earth do they know about the events and information that the intelligence services are reporting on? how are they to know they have gotten the full story ? how are they to validate it – use google ? get their secretary to phone someone up?
surely this is something that has to be done within the service and frankly questions of validity are the things that the government who is using the information should be raising – especially before it goes to war based on it all.
(and yes there are issues where hold on if this is information that can’t be used in court because of national security how can it be allowed to go to an external agency for vetting – what the private sector is more trustworthy than the judiciary ?)
the butler report had said “had thin sources.
it only had five main sources on the ground in iraq. it also gave more credence to untried agents than normal and had agents working beyond their expertise.” again someone senior in whitehall and the government should have asked the question at the time….
but they didn’t and guess what we went to war and we now find there was not a shred of evidence.
in my mind having an outside agency involved is not going to help especially if they are of the quality of group 4 or jarvis, with those in charge you know we probably would have invaded the wrong country……
and what are they going to call it? offshh! or ofcensored ?
the truth is a many splendid thing – one man’s truth is another man’s bare faced lie. the idea of absolute truth has been (and will continue to) argued over for thousands of years. most of us accept the world is a complicated and complex place made up of many shades of grey. we may wish it to be black and white, but we know it will never be.
people like michael moore will use the fact that no one challenges him in court as proof that he is telling the truth (mind you that is the same defence that david icke uses so i am not so sure that is necessarily one to hide behind). mostly i suspect that moore is not taken to court because his opponents do not see the point in getting into a debate with him over his claims because they know that in doing so gives him even more legitimacy, secondly they know that once a debate has been opened all arguments then come under scrutiny, and finally they know the truth is not an easy thing to prove.
what on earth or you going on about pat ?
well partly it is this story just off of the bbc website:
“intelligence officials have confirmed the us has stopped searching for weapons of mass destruction in iraq. “
the “existence” of these wmds is the main reason we went to war with iraq, in fact tony blair after the event continued to claim that wmd’s would be found now they had ousted saddam, they have not been. they were never going to be.
we are now left with:
“mr duelfer said when he released his interim report in october that former iraqi leader saddam hussein had still had the desire to restart wmd programmes, when he could.” which holds as much weight as my desire to have sharon stone sit on my face.
the importance of this story is huge, especially for the bbc. the bbc came under attack from the government of tony blair for daring to say that they had “sexed” up the existence of wmds to make it easier to go to war.
but by jingo they did, do they regret, goodness gracious i don’t think so. (oops that’s me swiping doonesbury doing his impression of rumsfeld. it is funnier when he does it.
at the time of hutton report the truth was blair’s truth, now it appears that truth is not so true anymore!
following on from that the daily telegraph (among others) are reporting that mi6 is to hire a quality control watchdog in order to safeguard the quality of it’s intelligence. apparently “a businessman with management experience had already been appointed before the report's release to check the agency's overall operations”.
now i am missing something here – and i might be doing the businessman in question a disservice (unless of course it is digby and then i am spot on…) but what on earth do they know about the events and information that the intelligence services are reporting on? how are they to know they have gotten the full story ? how are they to validate it – use google ? get their secretary to phone someone up?
surely this is something that has to be done within the service and frankly questions of validity are the things that the government who is using the information should be raising – especially before it goes to war based on it all.
(and yes there are issues where hold on if this is information that can’t be used in court because of national security how can it be allowed to go to an external agency for vetting – what the private sector is more trustworthy than the judiciary ?)
the butler report had said “had thin sources.
it only had five main sources on the ground in iraq. it also gave more credence to untried agents than normal and had agents working beyond their expertise.” again someone senior in whitehall and the government should have asked the question at the time….
but they didn’t and guess what we went to war and we now find there was not a shred of evidence.
in my mind having an outside agency involved is not going to help especially if they are of the quality of group 4 or jarvis, with those in charge you know we probably would have invaded the wrong country……
and what are they going to call it? offshh! or ofcensored ?
Monday, January 10, 2005
sarnies
was in my local tescos metro this morning. hunting and gathering for the food i need to get me through the hard day at work.
hoping against all hope to get the king of sandwiches, though some see it as a humble thing, i see the cheese and pickle sarnie as the pinnacle of food creation. simple easy and tasty.
but not in tescos.
i could find a thing called the limited edition cheese & chutney sandwich though.
the job i am in limited implies a certain amount of collectability, a certain amount of keepability, a certain amount of investment. it does not imply a sandwich you are planning on eating before the day is out.
added to that they describe it as being filled with thin slices of cheddar cheese – which would be a fine thing except that have put them all together and so many of them they have become a thick wedge of cheese (which is no bad thing – it’s just not a thin slice…)
sometimes marketing speak goes to far and becomes utter bollocks.
i give you the limited edition sandwich – easier to find than the cheese and pickle sarnie – but remember it is limited.
hoping against all hope to get the king of sandwiches, though some see it as a humble thing, i see the cheese and pickle sarnie as the pinnacle of food creation. simple easy and tasty.
but not in tescos.
i could find a thing called the limited edition cheese & chutney sandwich though.
the job i am in limited implies a certain amount of collectability, a certain amount of keepability, a certain amount of investment. it does not imply a sandwich you are planning on eating before the day is out.
added to that they describe it as being filled with thin slices of cheddar cheese – which would be a fine thing except that have put them all together and so many of them they have become a thick wedge of cheese (which is no bad thing – it’s just not a thin slice…)
sometimes marketing speak goes to far and becomes utter bollocks.
i give you the limited edition sandwich – easier to find than the cheese and pickle sarnie – but remember it is limited.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
censorship
(in a bizarre twist of fate this piece has taken over 3 days to write as i struggle to get a computer to work. twice computers have crashed while i was writing it. so somewhere along the way some of what i was going to write has been lost , some of the tone and some of the wit has disappeared…..
furthermore the show has been shown – the world remains in place we have not swung out of orbit, civilisations have not come crashing down. in the end over 45,000 people complained and i still reckon about 10 of them saw the show.)
tonight the bbc are planning on broadcasting an as live performance of the jerry springer the opera. this is part of the bbc's plan to show that opera has something for everyone. it will be shown on bbc2 (the channel no one really watches because it is seen as "high brow") at 10pm and it will be preceded by a warning. as you probably know the opera is based on the (in)famous jerry springer show, it's a show in which jerry allows his guests to air their personal problems and issues, because these people were "normal" it often degenerates into a slanging street brawl. it is a show that was like watching a train wreck; you knew it was a bad thing to do but you just couldn't drag yourself away from watching it. perhaps it was an element of cultural snobbery which allowed us to watch as gutter tramp americans going wild. (the attempt to have it work over here failed.. too much stiff upper lip i guess.) perhaps it's a bit of the but for the grace of... go i. perhaps it's as close to grand guignol most of as well ever get. so the tv show is available to most people with a tv. the opera is available if you want to go along and put down your hard earned cash and get a ticket, you can buy the soundtrack, you can see the posters. the beeb wants to show it, and that is where the trouble starts. because the late night start on bbc2 is not enough for some people. it has still managed to create an uproar. the sun news paper had it on it's front page of january 6th. going on about the 15,000 complaints that had been received about the showing of the opera on tv. john beyer of mediawatch uk (go to their site and you will know instantly what sort of people they are) describes it as "pigsty tv", "its sick and offensive". and why is that - well mainly because it has about 8000 sweary words in it's 2 hour running time (even i am impressed by that amount of swearing and if my math is right it's 66.6 words a minute - now check out that number!) mediawatch has said "the stream of obscenities is not in accordance with the bbc's taste and decency guidelines." (hate to break it to you but 8000 is not a stream it's a fucking tsunami of foul mouthy, and just a hint of bad taste on my part.) peter luff a conservative mp (you knew there had to be at least one of them in this) has said he does not "believe in censorship" will "defend the right for a theatre to perform a play that some find offensive." but by having it on tv where children might be able to see it is irresponsible. the sun in their editorial asks will bbc bosses be encouraging their families to watch it. so lets have a little look at this. 15,000 complaints seems a lot. but if you think bbc2 might have an average audience of a million viewers that means 985,000 have not complained. of course the more people who watch the show the less impressive that number of complaints looks. peter luff who is not for censorship (oh yes he is!) doesn't mind sikhs being offended by plays but by jingo do not upset christians. he is part of a party that doesn't want a nanny state, but is quick to make a decision for the rest of us when it comes to what we watch in case some kids get to see it. it's the job of the parents to make sure kids do not see inappropriate shows not the bbc. (and frankly i get tired of the kid card being played all the time.) and the sun a newspaper who shows nipples, revels in revealing the sex scandals of the celebrities of the world and is left lying around the place where children can easily see, seems an odd one to take the moral high ground. especially in the case of this story they seem to be happy not to be totally accurate. how so pat - surely the sun wouldn't lie... well lets go back to that 8000 cuss words. it seems the 8000 is arrived at if you include it every time someone says it - including the chorus (remember it's an opera) so if you have 15 or 20 people in the chorus one fuck in the libretto becomes 15 or 20. so the actual count is more like 400 distinct uses of swear words. which brings it in line with my usual output. so the moral high ground is occupied by some people who are only able to be there through loud outrage rather than by right of argument.
from all of this you would think i am against censorship. far from it; it’s easy to make the claim i will defend the right of anyone to say anything or i think nothing is taboo and everything should be allowed to be said. in fact i have sat in many meetings where such arguments have been made.
but we all know that there are some things that just can’t be said that’s why we have hate crime to prevent people from inciting racial hatred through the use of words.
the question of censorship isn’t a yes or no – it’s a question of where and who draws the line.
and make no mistake the freedom of speech is fine and dandy, and contrary to what i have said above, needs to be defended. but with that freedom also goes responsibility. if you go out of your way to offend someone or some group you have to expect them to protest. once they do though there is no point using the “it is an attack on my freedom of speech” attack at that point.
mind you there is a duty on the part of the protestors to at least have seen, heard, read what they are protesting against. in the case of jerry spinger the opera it is a good bet that the people who were contacting the bbc to complain had not seen the show and were only on the phone because someone had told them that this was a vile show.
but freedom of speech is not access to knowledge or access to power. the information we get is in the main controlled by a few people and these gatekeepers are the ones that decide what does or doesn’t make the news and what does or doesn’t inform the debates of the day. it is there that censorship takes place.
oh well in the style of the springer show and in the style of the sun’s reporting i leave you with a ditty.
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
(repeat ad nauseam)
furthermore the show has been shown – the world remains in place we have not swung out of orbit, civilisations have not come crashing down. in the end over 45,000 people complained and i still reckon about 10 of them saw the show.)
tonight the bbc are planning on broadcasting an as live performance of the jerry springer the opera. this is part of the bbc's plan to show that opera has something for everyone. it will be shown on bbc2 (the channel no one really watches because it is seen as "high brow") at 10pm and it will be preceded by a warning. as you probably know the opera is based on the (in)famous jerry springer show, it's a show in which jerry allows his guests to air their personal problems and issues, because these people were "normal" it often degenerates into a slanging street brawl. it is a show that was like watching a train wreck; you knew it was a bad thing to do but you just couldn't drag yourself away from watching it. perhaps it was an element of cultural snobbery which allowed us to watch as gutter tramp americans going wild. (the attempt to have it work over here failed.. too much stiff upper lip i guess.) perhaps it's a bit of the but for the grace of... go i. perhaps it's as close to grand guignol most of as well ever get. so the tv show is available to most people with a tv. the opera is available if you want to go along and put down your hard earned cash and get a ticket, you can buy the soundtrack, you can see the posters. the beeb wants to show it, and that is where the trouble starts. because the late night start on bbc2 is not enough for some people. it has still managed to create an uproar. the sun news paper had it on it's front page of january 6th. going on about the 15,000 complaints that had been received about the showing of the opera on tv. john beyer of mediawatch uk (go to their site and you will know instantly what sort of people they are) describes it as "pigsty tv", "its sick and offensive". and why is that - well mainly because it has about 8000 sweary words in it's 2 hour running time (even i am impressed by that amount of swearing and if my math is right it's 66.6 words a minute - now check out that number!) mediawatch has said "the stream of obscenities is not in accordance with the bbc's taste and decency guidelines." (hate to break it to you but 8000 is not a stream it's a fucking tsunami of foul mouthy, and just a hint of bad taste on my part.) peter luff a conservative mp (you knew there had to be at least one of them in this) has said he does not "believe in censorship" will "defend the right for a theatre to perform a play that some find offensive." but by having it on tv where children might be able to see it is irresponsible. the sun in their editorial asks will bbc bosses be encouraging their families to watch it. so lets have a little look at this. 15,000 complaints seems a lot. but if you think bbc2 might have an average audience of a million viewers that means 985,000 have not complained. of course the more people who watch the show the less impressive that number of complaints looks. peter luff who is not for censorship (oh yes he is!) doesn't mind sikhs being offended by plays but by jingo do not upset christians. he is part of a party that doesn't want a nanny state, but is quick to make a decision for the rest of us when it comes to what we watch in case some kids get to see it. it's the job of the parents to make sure kids do not see inappropriate shows not the bbc. (and frankly i get tired of the kid card being played all the time.) and the sun a newspaper who shows nipples, revels in revealing the sex scandals of the celebrities of the world and is left lying around the place where children can easily see, seems an odd one to take the moral high ground. especially in the case of this story they seem to be happy not to be totally accurate. how so pat - surely the sun wouldn't lie... well lets go back to that 8000 cuss words. it seems the 8000 is arrived at if you include it every time someone says it - including the chorus (remember it's an opera) so if you have 15 or 20 people in the chorus one fuck in the libretto becomes 15 or 20. so the actual count is more like 400 distinct uses of swear words. which brings it in line with my usual output. so the moral high ground is occupied by some people who are only able to be there through loud outrage rather than by right of argument.
from all of this you would think i am against censorship. far from it; it’s easy to make the claim i will defend the right of anyone to say anything or i think nothing is taboo and everything should be allowed to be said. in fact i have sat in many meetings where such arguments have been made.
but we all know that there are some things that just can’t be said that’s why we have hate crime to prevent people from inciting racial hatred through the use of words.
the question of censorship isn’t a yes or no – it’s a question of where and who draws the line.
and make no mistake the freedom of speech is fine and dandy, and contrary to what i have said above, needs to be defended. but with that freedom also goes responsibility. if you go out of your way to offend someone or some group you have to expect them to protest. once they do though there is no point using the “it is an attack on my freedom of speech” attack at that point.
mind you there is a duty on the part of the protestors to at least have seen, heard, read what they are protesting against. in the case of jerry spinger the opera it is a good bet that the people who were contacting the bbc to complain had not seen the show and were only on the phone because someone had told them that this was a vile show.
but freedom of speech is not access to knowledge or access to power. the information we get is in the main controlled by a few people and these gatekeepers are the ones that decide what does or doesn’t make the news and what does or doesn’t inform the debates of the day. it is there that censorship takes place.
oh well in the style of the springer show and in the style of the sun’s reporting i leave you with a ditty.
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
fuck me fuck me fuck me it’s an opera with swear words
it’ll stink up the place like fucking great big turds
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
and all those fukcing cunts in mediawatch uk
shag dogs of a peculiar pedigree
(repeat ad nauseam)
Thursday, January 06, 2005
normalcy
it is surprising just how quickly things have returned to normal after the festive break.
the number 25 bus still can't run it's route without the driver having to have a long stop, so all the time saved by them not having to collect tickets is lost when they make up or lose time at various rest stops.
the central line and the hammersmith and city line have managed to have delays on them each time i have used them.
and the mayor of london and various train operators wonder why we are annoyed at the recent above inflation raise in transport prices.
sainsburys they have solved the problem of conspicuous consumption that is such a problem of the capitalist west. how have they done this? simple most of their shelves are empty. i am sure sainsburys are missing a potential marketing angle to this... the sainsbury's diet. we have no food to feed you don't expect to gain weight.
and look here i am moaning.
more things change the more that stay the same!
the number 25 bus still can't run it's route without the driver having to have a long stop, so all the time saved by them not having to collect tickets is lost when they make up or lose time at various rest stops.
the central line and the hammersmith and city line have managed to have delays on them each time i have used them.
and the mayor of london and various train operators wonder why we are annoyed at the recent above inflation raise in transport prices.
sainsburys they have solved the problem of conspicuous consumption that is such a problem of the capitalist west. how have they done this? simple most of their shelves are empty. i am sure sainsburys are missing a potential marketing angle to this... the sainsbury's diet. we have no food to feed you don't expect to gain weight.
and look here i am moaning.
more things change the more that stay the same!
naked
enough.
let this year be an end to it.
i like naked bodies as much as the next person (well ok probably more than most) but there comes a time when enough is enough.
what am i talking about - it's those sodding "naked" calendars of normal people stripping off for a good cause and making a calendar of it.
at least one of these calendars has gone too far, well at least in the eyes of the organisation they belonged to. apparently it left little to the imagination and has resulted in 9000 of the 10 000 calendars being pulped. this has meant that something that was done for charity has meant that the people involved now have a £15k debt to deal with, and the charity they were doing it for has nothing.
so on behalf of the rest of us i am begging all you farmers, weavers, firemen, toilet attendants, traffic wardens, cheerleaders (no what am i thinking you lot can still strip off), dentists, pizza deliverymen please when 2005 comes to an end do not have a 2006 calendar ready to hit the shelves. just give the production money to the charity of your choice.
lets leave the saucy calendars to the professionals. the people who make the bare walls of offices and factories a nicer place to stare at while trying to complete the daily drudge. so naked tailor, so naked shelf stacker just leave the calendars to the jordans, nells and abi titmuss' of the world. it may not be fair but it is right.
(sidebar: another thing I would like to see the end of now we are heading into 2005 is the feeble joke book that is chucked out there at Christmas time in the vague hope that it will prove to be a publishing sensation. Lets have no more crap town books – not funny, not even close. Lets have no more parody books of successful books and films, lets have no more half arsed celebrity comedy books (flanimals – who bought it , according to amazon.co.uk a lot of you did, why? Why? Why? was it a present for someone you didn’t like……)
the nadir of this species of book has to be the “fuck off” book (ok it also gives me an opportunity to say fuck) which comprised of lots of basic illustrated cartoons which have the punch line of “fuck off”. Oh look laughed so hard there goes a rib.
Mind you for a truly funny book, though not at all pc, check out the modern toss book. I laughed so hard I had an accident.
let this year be an end to it.
i like naked bodies as much as the next person (well ok probably more than most) but there comes a time when enough is enough.
what am i talking about - it's those sodding "naked" calendars of normal people stripping off for a good cause and making a calendar of it.
at least one of these calendars has gone too far, well at least in the eyes of the organisation they belonged to. apparently it left little to the imagination and has resulted in 9000 of the 10 000 calendars being pulped. this has meant that something that was done for charity has meant that the people involved now have a £15k debt to deal with, and the charity they were doing it for has nothing.
so on behalf of the rest of us i am begging all you farmers, weavers, firemen, toilet attendants, traffic wardens, cheerleaders (no what am i thinking you lot can still strip off), dentists, pizza deliverymen please when 2005 comes to an end do not have a 2006 calendar ready to hit the shelves. just give the production money to the charity of your choice.
lets leave the saucy calendars to the professionals. the people who make the bare walls of offices and factories a nicer place to stare at while trying to complete the daily drudge. so naked tailor, so naked shelf stacker just leave the calendars to the jordans, nells and abi titmuss' of the world. it may not be fair but it is right.
(sidebar: another thing I would like to see the end of now we are heading into 2005 is the feeble joke book that is chucked out there at Christmas time in the vague hope that it will prove to be a publishing sensation. Lets have no more crap town books – not funny, not even close. Lets have no more parody books of successful books and films, lets have no more half arsed celebrity comedy books (flanimals – who bought it , according to amazon.co.uk a lot of you did, why? Why? Why? was it a present for someone you didn’t like……)
the nadir of this species of book has to be the “fuck off” book (ok it also gives me an opportunity to say fuck) which comprised of lots of basic illustrated cartoons which have the punch line of “fuck off”. Oh look laughed so hard there goes a rib.
Mind you for a truly funny book, though not at all pc, check out the modern toss book. I laughed so hard I had an accident.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
missed
well 2005 is here and to celebrate here are some of the things i meant to write about last year but just never got around to.
so this is a big hairy arsed post - fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride... it's a dull one.
blunkett – oh so much could have been said about this affair, and in the press so much was. although one of the key questions was never raised – what did she see (geddit) in him? obviously power is an aphrodisiac, which explains why david mellor and robin cook got to shag around.
it many ways it didn’t bother me too much that he had “helped” a friend of a friend get a visa. because let’s be honest if we were in a position to help a mate we would. what galls is that the visa was for a nanny, oh hold on what i should say it was for cheap labour. for a government that wants to impose quotas on the number of people seeking to enter the country to live and to work, the idea that we can still find time to get a visa sorted out for cheap labour, sorry a nanny, is just wrong.
this doesn’t even touch on the fact that blunkett and co have pontificated on marriage and stable relationships – yet here is a man who was shagging another man’s wife and not taking steps to make sure he was protected. true david is trying to take responsibility for his possible sprogs, but if you are going to tell people how to live their lives you have to be able to live by the same rules.
i don’t expect politicians to be role models – i want them to be a little like me. what i do want from them though is not to be total hypocrites.
as for the money for the train ticket – as one wag in the newspapers pointed out the crimes wasn’t that blunkett had passed the ticket on to his squeeze but just how much the ticket cost….
(sidebar 1: it appears kimberly was not at it just with david blunkett but with some other chaps as well. must be fun being her husband at the moment. bet no one is laughing at him. nope not one person, no one at all.
sidebar 2: in canada there is a current scandal about politicians and immigration only there it is over extending visas to romanian erotic dancers. now that’s a visa policy i can get behind.
sidebar 3: blunkett also got into a spot of bother because of his biographer who reported some of his less than pleasant comments about his colleagues. i am guessing that when david fell on his sword (geddit) few tears were shed!)
geez if that was the short version of my blunkett piece imagine how long it could have been!
faith – a number of things made me want to talk about faith. there was the article in wired magazine about intelligent design, which seemed to be at first glance creationism version 2.0, the basic stance of the intelligent design brigade is that science doesn’t have all the answers and there are still things that can’t be explained and these things might be the result of a “cosmic designer” (whether it be “god” or extra terrestrials). then there were several articles about atheism (and more and more i am finding atheists to be just as much tub thumpers for their own “faith” as those they rail against) some of which argued that there was a decline in religious faith others which pointed out that religious faith had been replaced in many people’s lives with new age beliefs.
of course there has been the ongoing debate about islam and christianity. and with christmas there has been acres of print about christmas just being about mammon (most of the people who took this line seemed happy enough to go out and spend a fortune buying presents…..)
and what does any of this have to do with the price of coffee pat? you ask. well just that this year i have realised that i had lost a lot of faith in recent years, but it’s not a bad thing to have faith.
true if asked i couldn’t explain why i feel this way. it’s like trying to explain colours to the blind or cliché to the illiterate. and true i can reconcile my faith with any number of seemingly contradictory ideas (marxism, evolution and naked cheerleader websites and i know for a fact that boybands are the work of satan …..) i know that faith has not made me a better person, nor has it made me a good person, it has just made me a slightly more contented person.
olympics: still don’t want them in london. i am annoyed that london transport have been able to give the bid advertising space but have still managed to put the fares up (and the first day of the fares being up what do i get – delays!). the fact that seb coe and digby jones are involved in the bid makes me hate it even more. seb is a tory and that’s bad enough, but at least he looks like he has an idea about what sport is about (well he should he is a gold medal winner after all) but digby (also a tory) and looks like he is in training for the uk’s olympic dart team or sumo team.
having them in london will take away the magic of the games. there will be weeks of anticipation of how well our team will do only to watch all the medals go to americans, russians and australians. then there will be calls for more to go into sport to ensure that we can win more gold medals, because it is good for the country’s morale. when really all that tax money is doing is making a few overpaid athletes a little bit richer, and them a lot happier, while my 10 minute euphoria over kelly holmes winning is soon replaced with the knowledge i have to go to work tomorrow.
if you want sport to make a difference make sure kids have playing fields to play on.
digby: i don’t really know digby jones so it is probably a bit rich of me to say this: but i hate him. i hate him for all he stands for and i hate him because invariably he is on radio 5 first thing in the morning and the people who interview him never ever question him and just let him spout.
it doesn’t help that he has now been made a sir and is involved in the olympic bid.
it’s digby’s job to save that business is wonderful and that government and the unions are evil. he does it very well and he does it often.
so there he was going on about outsourcing (that’s moving work from the uk abroad because it is cheaper), its good for uk plc says digby because it means that british workers can get better jobs, assuming that they can 1] find them 2] have the necessary skills for them. that’s ok they can retrain…. the only jobs that never seem to be outsourced are the senior expensive mangers and board members. why can’t they be outsourced to china and india – i am sure there are loads of competent people there who could do the job just as well and for a tenth of the price. hell most of their staff are there.
digby is one of those people who believes the market is right, at all times. and as long as shareholders are making a profit that is all that matters. what invest for the future? pay a reasonable amount of tax so that we have schools and health service that is more than adequate for everyone. why on earth would we want to do that.
as if that wasn’t enough he shares the same birthday as me. sometimes life does suck.
porn – i was going to write about porn because there were two news items that made me wonder about the whole subject. first off there was the story about larry flynt’s hustler empire opening up a store in the uk, birmingham. then there was the news that boots the chemists were planning on offering sex toys in their stores as something special for the ladies, (echoes of the old style barbers who would offer gentlemen “something for the weekend”..)
now i like porn, i like it a lot. so my shock and outrage at the stories were nothing to do with being a prude. it was more of a case of hold on a minute porn isn’t something that should be easily available (hey that’s why in newsagents it’s on the tops shelf!). porn by it’s very nature needs to be a little bit seedy, a little bit sleazy. a lot of the fun of going out to buy porn is in the fact that you are going into a semi den of iniquity. it’s like the first time you bunk into cinema to see an x (well as it was in my day, you youngsters just have 18s), or the times when you go into the pub to buy your first underage drink.
so that frisson you get when you enter a porn shop could soon be replaced with the dread i always feel whenever i enter a supermarket.
hunters – i know i know i should just let it go but….. there have been several more stories in the news about this, culminating in the boxing day hunts, the appeals to the court of human rights etc. i am sort of hoping that the hunters do cause a civil disturbance because i have the solution for it. generally hunters strike me as being all part of the hang ‘em , flog ‘em brigade, who warble on about the decline of standards that would be rectified with the return of national service.
so if hunters break the law they should be publicly birched. the younger ones sent off to do a year in the army. repeat offenders could be branded with a h. or they could also be made to run from the hounds and hunt saboteurs could be employed to chase them to ground. if they get to their hole in time then no national service for them..
galloway – just a simple aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh and uuuuuuuuuurgh will service.
identity cards – they are going to cost lots of money, the contract is going to be given to a private company who will promise much, under deliver and over charge, the system will not work . it is an infringement on civil liberties (oh no i am turning into a bleeding hunter..) and what’s worse there is no proof that is going to stop terrorists in anyway shape or form.
it’s another of those bad ideas that the government has that will not go away and they won’t kill it off like they should do.
instead we will have to listen to them try to justify it time and time again until the darned cards are with us. i won’t be any safer, but i will be out of pocket!
star wars: no not the movie the continued desire of the bush administration to have a space shield, a strategic defence initiative. again all the proof goes to show that it is unlikely the usa will ever suffer an intercontinental ballistic missile attack from anyone. so the idea of creating a defence for a threat that is not there is so typical of the fighting the last war mentality.
and surely if there is one thing that 9-11 proved is that all you need to do is fly a plane into a building and you have done the deed.
but no they are pressing ahead with it. so recently they had a test of it, well they were going to but the weather was bad so they had to postpone. well that’s ok then i am sure most nuclear threats will only take place when the weather is good, so you can combine the launch of a wmd with a bit of a picnic.
i have to say i am not sure that i am ready to trust a system that is going to be based the technology that *ahem* found saddam’s wmd programme….. yup that’s a nuke lets launch…shit it’s a passenger plane, no worries its aeroflot……. works for me.
(sidebar: of course tony has stepped up to the plate and agreed to allowing this system to have some of it’s necessary tracking devices based at fylingdales. of course this means if there is such a threat then we have just painted a very big bull’s-eye on ourselves. and what do we get for this gesture of solidarity, of standing shoulder to shoulder…. mmmm nothing, not a thing, nada. that tony he bargains hard!)
well there you go some of the pieces i was going to write and never did.
however if i had of written them at the time they would have been wittier, better edited and more interesting. but on that you will just have to take my word.
so this is a big hairy arsed post - fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride... it's a dull one.
blunkett – oh so much could have been said about this affair, and in the press so much was. although one of the key questions was never raised – what did she see (geddit) in him? obviously power is an aphrodisiac, which explains why david mellor and robin cook got to shag around.
it many ways it didn’t bother me too much that he had “helped” a friend of a friend get a visa. because let’s be honest if we were in a position to help a mate we would. what galls is that the visa was for a nanny, oh hold on what i should say it was for cheap labour. for a government that wants to impose quotas on the number of people seeking to enter the country to live and to work, the idea that we can still find time to get a visa sorted out for cheap labour, sorry a nanny, is just wrong.
this doesn’t even touch on the fact that blunkett and co have pontificated on marriage and stable relationships – yet here is a man who was shagging another man’s wife and not taking steps to make sure he was protected. true david is trying to take responsibility for his possible sprogs, but if you are going to tell people how to live their lives you have to be able to live by the same rules.
i don’t expect politicians to be role models – i want them to be a little like me. what i do want from them though is not to be total hypocrites.
as for the money for the train ticket – as one wag in the newspapers pointed out the crimes wasn’t that blunkett had passed the ticket on to his squeeze but just how much the ticket cost….
(sidebar 1: it appears kimberly was not at it just with david blunkett but with some other chaps as well. must be fun being her husband at the moment. bet no one is laughing at him. nope not one person, no one at all.
sidebar 2: in canada there is a current scandal about politicians and immigration only there it is over extending visas to romanian erotic dancers. now that’s a visa policy i can get behind.
sidebar 3: blunkett also got into a spot of bother because of his biographer who reported some of his less than pleasant comments about his colleagues. i am guessing that when david fell on his sword (geddit) few tears were shed!)
geez if that was the short version of my blunkett piece imagine how long it could have been!
faith – a number of things made me want to talk about faith. there was the article in wired magazine about intelligent design, which seemed to be at first glance creationism version 2.0, the basic stance of the intelligent design brigade is that science doesn’t have all the answers and there are still things that can’t be explained and these things might be the result of a “cosmic designer” (whether it be “god” or extra terrestrials). then there were several articles about atheism (and more and more i am finding atheists to be just as much tub thumpers for their own “faith” as those they rail against) some of which argued that there was a decline in religious faith others which pointed out that religious faith had been replaced in many people’s lives with new age beliefs.
of course there has been the ongoing debate about islam and christianity. and with christmas there has been acres of print about christmas just being about mammon (most of the people who took this line seemed happy enough to go out and spend a fortune buying presents…..)
and what does any of this have to do with the price of coffee pat? you ask. well just that this year i have realised that i had lost a lot of faith in recent years, but it’s not a bad thing to have faith.
true if asked i couldn’t explain why i feel this way. it’s like trying to explain colours to the blind or cliché to the illiterate. and true i can reconcile my faith with any number of seemingly contradictory ideas (marxism, evolution and naked cheerleader websites and i know for a fact that boybands are the work of satan …..) i know that faith has not made me a better person, nor has it made me a good person, it has just made me a slightly more contented person.
olympics: still don’t want them in london. i am annoyed that london transport have been able to give the bid advertising space but have still managed to put the fares up (and the first day of the fares being up what do i get – delays!). the fact that seb coe and digby jones are involved in the bid makes me hate it even more. seb is a tory and that’s bad enough, but at least he looks like he has an idea about what sport is about (well he should he is a gold medal winner after all) but digby (also a tory) and looks like he is in training for the uk’s olympic dart team or sumo team.
having them in london will take away the magic of the games. there will be weeks of anticipation of how well our team will do only to watch all the medals go to americans, russians and australians. then there will be calls for more to go into sport to ensure that we can win more gold medals, because it is good for the country’s morale. when really all that tax money is doing is making a few overpaid athletes a little bit richer, and them a lot happier, while my 10 minute euphoria over kelly holmes winning is soon replaced with the knowledge i have to go to work tomorrow.
if you want sport to make a difference make sure kids have playing fields to play on.
digby: i don’t really know digby jones so it is probably a bit rich of me to say this: but i hate him. i hate him for all he stands for and i hate him because invariably he is on radio 5 first thing in the morning and the people who interview him never ever question him and just let him spout.
it doesn’t help that he has now been made a sir and is involved in the olympic bid.
it’s digby’s job to save that business is wonderful and that government and the unions are evil. he does it very well and he does it often.
so there he was going on about outsourcing (that’s moving work from the uk abroad because it is cheaper), its good for uk plc says digby because it means that british workers can get better jobs, assuming that they can 1] find them 2] have the necessary skills for them. that’s ok they can retrain…. the only jobs that never seem to be outsourced are the senior expensive mangers and board members. why can’t they be outsourced to china and india – i am sure there are loads of competent people there who could do the job just as well and for a tenth of the price. hell most of their staff are there.
digby is one of those people who believes the market is right, at all times. and as long as shareholders are making a profit that is all that matters. what invest for the future? pay a reasonable amount of tax so that we have schools and health service that is more than adequate for everyone. why on earth would we want to do that.
as if that wasn’t enough he shares the same birthday as me. sometimes life does suck.
porn – i was going to write about porn because there were two news items that made me wonder about the whole subject. first off there was the story about larry flynt’s hustler empire opening up a store in the uk, birmingham. then there was the news that boots the chemists were planning on offering sex toys in their stores as something special for the ladies, (echoes of the old style barbers who would offer gentlemen “something for the weekend”..)
now i like porn, i like it a lot. so my shock and outrage at the stories were nothing to do with being a prude. it was more of a case of hold on a minute porn isn’t something that should be easily available (hey that’s why in newsagents it’s on the tops shelf!). porn by it’s very nature needs to be a little bit seedy, a little bit sleazy. a lot of the fun of going out to buy porn is in the fact that you are going into a semi den of iniquity. it’s like the first time you bunk into cinema to see an x (well as it was in my day, you youngsters just have 18s), or the times when you go into the pub to buy your first underage drink.
so that frisson you get when you enter a porn shop could soon be replaced with the dread i always feel whenever i enter a supermarket.
hunters – i know i know i should just let it go but….. there have been several more stories in the news about this, culminating in the boxing day hunts, the appeals to the court of human rights etc. i am sort of hoping that the hunters do cause a civil disturbance because i have the solution for it. generally hunters strike me as being all part of the hang ‘em , flog ‘em brigade, who warble on about the decline of standards that would be rectified with the return of national service.
so if hunters break the law they should be publicly birched. the younger ones sent off to do a year in the army. repeat offenders could be branded with a h. or they could also be made to run from the hounds and hunt saboteurs could be employed to chase them to ground. if they get to their hole in time then no national service for them..
galloway – just a simple aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh and uuuuuuuuuurgh will service.
identity cards – they are going to cost lots of money, the contract is going to be given to a private company who will promise much, under deliver and over charge, the system will not work . it is an infringement on civil liberties (oh no i am turning into a bleeding hunter..) and what’s worse there is no proof that is going to stop terrorists in anyway shape or form.
it’s another of those bad ideas that the government has that will not go away and they won’t kill it off like they should do.
instead we will have to listen to them try to justify it time and time again until the darned cards are with us. i won’t be any safer, but i will be out of pocket!
star wars: no not the movie the continued desire of the bush administration to have a space shield, a strategic defence initiative. again all the proof goes to show that it is unlikely the usa will ever suffer an intercontinental ballistic missile attack from anyone. so the idea of creating a defence for a threat that is not there is so typical of the fighting the last war mentality.
and surely if there is one thing that 9-11 proved is that all you need to do is fly a plane into a building and you have done the deed.
but no they are pressing ahead with it. so recently they had a test of it, well they were going to but the weather was bad so they had to postpone. well that’s ok then i am sure most nuclear threats will only take place when the weather is good, so you can combine the launch of a wmd with a bit of a picnic.
i have to say i am not sure that i am ready to trust a system that is going to be based the technology that *ahem* found saddam’s wmd programme….. yup that’s a nuke lets launch…shit it’s a passenger plane, no worries its aeroflot……. works for me.
(sidebar: of course tony has stepped up to the plate and agreed to allowing this system to have some of it’s necessary tracking devices based at fylingdales. of course this means if there is such a threat then we have just painted a very big bull’s-eye on ourselves. and what do we get for this gesture of solidarity, of standing shoulder to shoulder…. mmmm nothing, not a thing, nada. that tony he bargains hard!)
well there you go some of the pieces i was going to write and never did.
however if i had of written them at the time they would have been wittier, better edited and more interesting. but on that you will just have to take my word.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
2005
everything back to normal.
by the end of this week everyone would have told their "i had a wonderful christmas and a fantastic new year" stories.
by the end of this week shops will be back to opening at the right time.
by the end of this week the west end will not be filled with hordes of people all fighting over sale items.
ah bliss.
welcome to 2005 - pretty much the same as 2004!
by the end of this week everyone would have told their "i had a wonderful christmas and a fantastic new year" stories.
by the end of this week shops will be back to opening at the right time.
by the end of this week the west end will not be filled with hordes of people all fighting over sale items.
ah bliss.
welcome to 2005 - pretty much the same as 2004!
Thursday, December 30, 2004
humour
like so many things humour is in the eye of the beholder.
i am english and of a certain age so benny hill, carry on, morcambe and wise and citizen smith are among the things that make me laugh. hell even charlie drake and some mothers do have them can raise a titter from me.
there was even a time when i thought i could be a comedian, (no seriously it was up there with policeman, probation officer and international man of mystery as a possible career) but then i realised i was not as funny as i thought. a good sign is when you are the one laughing hardest at your own wittisms.
as the years have gone by and i have become more and more bitter, cynical and twisted and in doing so i have left behind my carefree youth to adopt the mantle of a misanthropic misery guts i find that i like dark, twisted and warped humour. sometimes i direct it at myself other times it is other people.
and while the two funniest jokes in the world end with "yes it does" and "he was collecting coconuts" (just typing those words has brought a smile to my face), there is nothing quite like real life to provide you with moments of pure humour.
in a past life i had a thing for liza minnelli so her recent trials and tribulations have been of a passing interest. but her recent accident has me smiling like a chesire cat! as if falling out of bed is not enough she had to get the police involved. and then to end this story off there is the little bit at the end about being sued by her ex husband and bodyguard because she beat them and forced them to have sex. liza is of course keeping a low profile on this - she is countersuing them both.
i hate to break it to a friend of jacko's but it is a little too late to worry about your good name now!
in it's own little way it is as funny as andy fordham breaking down on celebrity fat club (i read about it!) or princess margaret and the hot water.
i am english and of a certain age so benny hill, carry on, morcambe and wise and citizen smith are among the things that make me laugh. hell even charlie drake and some mothers do have them can raise a titter from me.
there was even a time when i thought i could be a comedian, (no seriously it was up there with policeman, probation officer and international man of mystery as a possible career) but then i realised i was not as funny as i thought. a good sign is when you are the one laughing hardest at your own wittisms.
as the years have gone by and i have become more and more bitter, cynical and twisted and in doing so i have left behind my carefree youth to adopt the mantle of a misanthropic misery guts i find that i like dark, twisted and warped humour. sometimes i direct it at myself other times it is other people.
and while the two funniest jokes in the world end with "yes it does" and "he was collecting coconuts" (just typing those words has brought a smile to my face), there is nothing quite like real life to provide you with moments of pure humour.
in a past life i had a thing for liza minnelli so her recent trials and tribulations have been of a passing interest. but her recent accident has me smiling like a chesire cat! as if falling out of bed is not enough she had to get the police involved. and then to end this story off there is the little bit at the end about being sued by her ex husband and bodyguard because she beat them and forced them to have sex. liza is of course keeping a low profile on this - she is countersuing them both.
i hate to break it to a friend of jacko's but it is a little too late to worry about your good name now!
in it's own little way it is as funny as andy fordham breaking down on celebrity fat club (i read about it!) or princess margaret and the hot water.
sales
i love them.
i hate them.
every time there is a sale on i go in the hopeful expectation that there will be things i need, not just want, but need. pretty much each time i am rebuffed and disappointed.
so currently i want to buy some expensive tech stuff - there is the apple ibook i want - oh cheers apple.com and apple store you are not even bothering to have a sale......
then there is the nikon d100 i want - nice one jessops £20 off (and considering the mark up they have on that they are still making mondo bucks).
just going to have to look harder.
so what about the books, cds and dvds i could get (notice i have skipped clothes and household goods. lucky i am a slob!)
oh borders make a big song and dance about their sale - but it amounts to a bunch of books chucked in boxes with no rhyme or reason. pretty much the same at foyles. blackwells actually have some items for sale and they have them on shelves for you to look at! (and i bought some). haven't tired waterstones yet, not that i need to as i have enough books to last me for years. besides which i have a few months to wait until the sequel to "quicksilver" comes out.
hmv have yet again got one of their many sales on - where certain dvds seem to be permanently on sale, but sometimes they are half price, sometimes they are part of a buy one get one free, or just have a basic sale price. oddly in all those guises the prices are roughly the same once you take into account the offer. hmv are like the enron of the sales world. virgin's sale prices just seem to have no basis in reality, so why bother going there.
while the national gallery proclaim their sale in big letters throughout the gallery and it seems to be about 5 items and the stuff they have left over from christmas. i know you are an art institution and should not be sullied by commercialism but i can tell you now: it's not a sale not by a looooong chalk.
and what i really hate about sales is that they are always packed (which is part of the reason for them i know) but it still doesn't make going to them any better. i suppose that is why i don't do clothes and household goods, because as bad as it is in some of the stores i have mentioned above its even worse in the other ones.
just walking around in the centre of london is an assault course at the moment.
but i just have to do as one of those stores might just have that copy of larry adler plays gershwin i have been after.
criminey christmas is over and i am still a grinch.
more things change the more they stay the same.
i hate them.
every time there is a sale on i go in the hopeful expectation that there will be things i need, not just want, but need. pretty much each time i am rebuffed and disappointed.
so currently i want to buy some expensive tech stuff - there is the apple ibook i want - oh cheers apple.com and apple store you are not even bothering to have a sale......
then there is the nikon d100 i want - nice one jessops £20 off (and considering the mark up they have on that they are still making mondo bucks).
just going to have to look harder.
so what about the books, cds and dvds i could get (notice i have skipped clothes and household goods. lucky i am a slob!)
oh borders make a big song and dance about their sale - but it amounts to a bunch of books chucked in boxes with no rhyme or reason. pretty much the same at foyles. blackwells actually have some items for sale and they have them on shelves for you to look at! (and i bought some). haven't tired waterstones yet, not that i need to as i have enough books to last me for years. besides which i have a few months to wait until the sequel to "quicksilver" comes out.
hmv have yet again got one of their many sales on - where certain dvds seem to be permanently on sale, but sometimes they are half price, sometimes they are part of a buy one get one free, or just have a basic sale price. oddly in all those guises the prices are roughly the same once you take into account the offer. hmv are like the enron of the sales world. virgin's sale prices just seem to have no basis in reality, so why bother going there.
while the national gallery proclaim their sale in big letters throughout the gallery and it seems to be about 5 items and the stuff they have left over from christmas. i know you are an art institution and should not be sullied by commercialism but i can tell you now: it's not a sale not by a looooong chalk.
and what i really hate about sales is that they are always packed (which is part of the reason for them i know) but it still doesn't make going to them any better. i suppose that is why i don't do clothes and household goods, because as bad as it is in some of the stores i have mentioned above its even worse in the other ones.
just walking around in the centre of london is an assault course at the moment.
but i just have to do as one of those stores might just have that copy of larry adler plays gershwin i have been after.
criminey christmas is over and i am still a grinch.
more things change the more they stay the same.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
fear
right away, right up front i have to say that this is going to be one of those rambling things where i know i had a point to make at the start, somewhere in the middle i will realise that i have lost it and towards the end i will just meander to a stop. (in many ways like most of the conversations i find myself in....)
ok so why am i talking about fear?
a number of factors have sparked this.
firstly a member of the curry club II mentioned he had seen a programme on the tv about campaigning based on the fear factor. politicians now get us to vote based on what they can make scare us. (hey joel).
secondly another pal (wotcha nevile) wrote an email saying how, because of various circumstances he was feeling fearless.
thirdly there was the moment while watching "the grudge" with sarah michelle gellar (look i was tired ok, it spooked me, i was alone at home in the dark - ok enough already!)
fourthly i had read something about seneca, a stoic, who basically said prepare yourself for the worst and you won't be too upset. admittedly he used a lot more words, bigger and better ones and has been read by more people than i will ever be.... (find out a little about him here or here
and then today there was this from the bbc website
"In his New Year message, the prime minister said he understood people's confidence was undermined by the fear of crime and insecure national borders."
and this goes a long way to proving the first point.
while this commentary piece from the guardian points to the current fears we have about things that in many ways are beyond our control (which is where seneca comes in); such as the recent earthquake and tsunami that has potentially killed over 100,000 people with more to go because of the possibility of a large outbreak of disease.
and when you put all this together what do you have?
well to be honest i am not sure. each of us encounters a level of fear in our daily lives from the silly phobias that we might have of the dark, spiders or hunters. or it might be the fears of modern living: being mugged, robbed, being made redundant or forced to listen to an endless diet of urban music. or we might have the fear of not being in a relationship or it might be the fear of commitment.
in some way or another we deal with all of these fears - some more successfully than others.
which is why we are shocked and horrified when an event like the earthquake/tsunami. it is an event so beyond our ken that we have to find ways to make it manageable and personal (such as the death of some of the attenboroughs (who cares?) or the death of over 40 britons, or in the case of the survivors they will talk about how poor the rescue services were in dealing with the disaster, as if it is something that happens everyday).
we do this partly because we are being told endlessly by those around us in politics or in the media that there are all these things we have to fear (immigration, weapons of mass destruction, organised crime, boybands and the like). they do this because they want to tell us that although they do not have all the solutions they are best able to protect us from this potential harm they have mentioned.
they want us to be on our guard against something, anything. it's not quite orwell's 1984, but it is not the carefree days we used to enjoy. so the media and politicians will get us to agree to stricter immigration rules, harsher punishments for criminals and get us to agree to carry an ID card.
in the meantime when something like the earthquake and tsunami that has devastated indonesia, sri lanka , thailand etc occurs it catches all and sundry on the hop.
as it should - thats part of the beauty of an act of nature (or of god) is that it happens and you just can't stop it or really prepare for it. (that guy seneca he had the right idea!) so in some senses it is pointless to go on about what could or couldn't be done about it, or to make the argument that it only happens to the poor.
but by the same token those world leaders who are always talking about the threats to our ways of life (that would be you george and you tony) have to be prepared to actually respond when a crisis occurs. it's not good enough to say the right words and look soulful in front of the cameras. now is the time to gird your loins and do the right thing. whether it is making sure that there is money available, whether it is excusing those countries who are affected their debt, ensuring that the knowledge, materials and manpower is made available in order to clear up the situation that has occurred.
in order to do that though there is a chance, just a small chance that they have to let go some of the fears they have been feeding us, and instead offer out something that looks and smells a little like hope. so instead of offering us a shield from which we can hide behind to protect us from the unknown fears, they start offering us a vision of the world as a better place.
fear is easier though. you can change it to suit the times and the circumstances. you can always offer up fear and a ready made solution to it. we all know that as bad as this tragedy is in a few days time it will be replaced in the headlines by some wayward celebrity showing her draws to another overpaid footballer or singer. cynical but true.
meanwhile as vision and hope are a little harder to do politicians and the media will avoid like the plague.
this is the point i mentioned when i started this. i have sort of come to a stop.
i may just come back to this at a later date.
ok so why am i talking about fear?
a number of factors have sparked this.
firstly a member of the curry club II mentioned he had seen a programme on the tv about campaigning based on the fear factor. politicians now get us to vote based on what they can make scare us. (hey joel).
secondly another pal (wotcha nevile) wrote an email saying how, because of various circumstances he was feeling fearless.
thirdly there was the moment while watching "the grudge" with sarah michelle gellar (look i was tired ok, it spooked me, i was alone at home in the dark - ok enough already!)
fourthly i had read something about seneca, a stoic, who basically said prepare yourself for the worst and you won't be too upset. admittedly he used a lot more words, bigger and better ones and has been read by more people than i will ever be.... (find out a little about him here or here
and then today there was this from the bbc website
"In his New Year message, the prime minister said he understood people's confidence was undermined by the fear of crime and insecure national borders."
and this goes a long way to proving the first point.
while this commentary piece from the guardian points to the current fears we have about things that in many ways are beyond our control (which is where seneca comes in); such as the recent earthquake and tsunami that has potentially killed over 100,000 people with more to go because of the possibility of a large outbreak of disease.
and when you put all this together what do you have?
well to be honest i am not sure. each of us encounters a level of fear in our daily lives from the silly phobias that we might have of the dark, spiders or hunters. or it might be the fears of modern living: being mugged, robbed, being made redundant or forced to listen to an endless diet of urban music. or we might have the fear of not being in a relationship or it might be the fear of commitment.
in some way or another we deal with all of these fears - some more successfully than others.
which is why we are shocked and horrified when an event like the earthquake/tsunami. it is an event so beyond our ken that we have to find ways to make it manageable and personal (such as the death of some of the attenboroughs (who cares?) or the death of over 40 britons, or in the case of the survivors they will talk about how poor the rescue services were in dealing with the disaster, as if it is something that happens everyday).
we do this partly because we are being told endlessly by those around us in politics or in the media that there are all these things we have to fear (immigration, weapons of mass destruction, organised crime, boybands and the like). they do this because they want to tell us that although they do not have all the solutions they are best able to protect us from this potential harm they have mentioned.
they want us to be on our guard against something, anything. it's not quite orwell's 1984, but it is not the carefree days we used to enjoy. so the media and politicians will get us to agree to stricter immigration rules, harsher punishments for criminals and get us to agree to carry an ID card.
in the meantime when something like the earthquake and tsunami that has devastated indonesia, sri lanka , thailand etc occurs it catches all and sundry on the hop.
as it should - thats part of the beauty of an act of nature (or of god) is that it happens and you just can't stop it or really prepare for it. (that guy seneca he had the right idea!) so in some senses it is pointless to go on about what could or couldn't be done about it, or to make the argument that it only happens to the poor.
but by the same token those world leaders who are always talking about the threats to our ways of life (that would be you george and you tony) have to be prepared to actually respond when a crisis occurs. it's not good enough to say the right words and look soulful in front of the cameras. now is the time to gird your loins and do the right thing. whether it is making sure that there is money available, whether it is excusing those countries who are affected their debt, ensuring that the knowledge, materials and manpower is made available in order to clear up the situation that has occurred.
in order to do that though there is a chance, just a small chance that they have to let go some of the fears they have been feeding us, and instead offer out something that looks and smells a little like hope. so instead of offering us a shield from which we can hide behind to protect us from the unknown fears, they start offering us a vision of the world as a better place.
fear is easier though. you can change it to suit the times and the circumstances. you can always offer up fear and a ready made solution to it. we all know that as bad as this tragedy is in a few days time it will be replaced in the headlines by some wayward celebrity showing her draws to another overpaid footballer or singer. cynical but true.
meanwhile as vision and hope are a little harder to do politicians and the media will avoid like the plague.
this is the point i mentioned when i started this. i have sort of come to a stop.
i may just come back to this at a later date.
Monday, December 27, 2004
tories
are they a dead party?
you have to say that they are pretty much.
is this a good thing? there is a part of me that says yes (it's the part of me that remembers thatcher....), but there is another part of me that says no it is not.
why isn't it pat (i can hear you cry) why are you saying the demise of the party of the fox hunter (no not them again!) is a bad thing.
firstly and mainly it means that there is no real opposition to the madcap schemes of new labour. the problem of being in opposition and with no real chance of getting into power you spout nonsense and make stupid plans and policy because you know you have no chance of being voted in to make those ideas realities. it is why the liberal party can always go on about increasing tax to fund education (it's not a bad idea) and why they can go on about increasing tax on the super wealthy (even better idea), we know they won't get in and they know they won't get in but we all feel much better that the ideas are out in the open so we can pay them lip service. but then we will vote for one of the two serious parties.
the problem is that more and more there is only one serious party and that is new labour. the conservative party has found itself moved more and more to right, appealing more and more to a hardcore votership and being less and less in touch with the common people.
part of the reason has been mismanagement - the internecine fighting over europe which has dragged on and on, the election of frankly unelectable leaders (hague, duncan-smith and now howard) and the fact that they have no one on the front bench who is, how to put this .... well frankly likeable....
the other reason has been the incredible skill at which blair and the new labour project has stolen all the jewels that used to belong to the conservative party. you want low taxes - well new labour will offer them to you, you want private enterprises in the public services - new labour, you want tough law and order - see new labour, you want harsh immigration laws - check out new labour, you want ID cards, you want wars, you want to allow big business to get away with tax evasions, you want a little bit of sleaze... all can be done by new labour.
so the tory party has to move to the right. it has had to learn to almost goosestep, it's got to dust down it's brown shirts or else there will be no clear blue water between them and new labour.
oh the tories can bang on about having to speak the unspeakable in order to prevent extremist parties from getting the vote, they are not scared of the BNP getting a vote or two - they are worried that they are losing votes to the BNP.
so what do the tories do - they think of ways of cutting government, they think of ways of cutting red tape for businesses, they think of ways of cutting taxes and all the while preaching the mantra that our services will not be cut (and they expect us to believe them).
but in the course of looking for smaller government they support the ID card bill - lets see how that works and interferes with the average persons liberty.
in the course of cutting taxes they are expecting the market to provide but look at how well the market has done with building schools and hospitals (say hi jarvis - or is that bye jarvis because you have not done a good job of it?). look at how well the market has done with sorting out transport in this country - oh not well at all.
the tories solution? more of the same......
still they will be cutting back on the numbers of mps that will be in parliament. (which is a little bit of irony while they talk about brussels being a place where we are governed by the faceless they actually want to reduce the numbers of mps - that means more of us are represented by fewer of them.... it should be the other way round. they should be able to hear our voices and they should be dependent on each and every vote!)
the irony of it is that it will be a bit of vote winner for them. not because we want less representation it's just that those people who do represent us we don't trust.
and the ones i don't trust the most (well aside from galloway of respect) are the tory party. hell they can't even keep their most electable mps in position of power.
heres to an interesting 2005 as howard and the tories try to convince us that they really care.
you have to say that they are pretty much.
is this a good thing? there is a part of me that says yes (it's the part of me that remembers thatcher....), but there is another part of me that says no it is not.
why isn't it pat (i can hear you cry) why are you saying the demise of the party of the fox hunter (no not them again!) is a bad thing.
firstly and mainly it means that there is no real opposition to the madcap schemes of new labour. the problem of being in opposition and with no real chance of getting into power you spout nonsense and make stupid plans and policy because you know you have no chance of being voted in to make those ideas realities. it is why the liberal party can always go on about increasing tax to fund education (it's not a bad idea) and why they can go on about increasing tax on the super wealthy (even better idea), we know they won't get in and they know they won't get in but we all feel much better that the ideas are out in the open so we can pay them lip service. but then we will vote for one of the two serious parties.
the problem is that more and more there is only one serious party and that is new labour. the conservative party has found itself moved more and more to right, appealing more and more to a hardcore votership and being less and less in touch with the common people.
part of the reason has been mismanagement - the internecine fighting over europe which has dragged on and on, the election of frankly unelectable leaders (hague, duncan-smith and now howard) and the fact that they have no one on the front bench who is, how to put this .... well frankly likeable....
the other reason has been the incredible skill at which blair and the new labour project has stolen all the jewels that used to belong to the conservative party. you want low taxes - well new labour will offer them to you, you want private enterprises in the public services - new labour, you want tough law and order - see new labour, you want harsh immigration laws - check out new labour, you want ID cards, you want wars, you want to allow big business to get away with tax evasions, you want a little bit of sleaze... all can be done by new labour.
so the tory party has to move to the right. it has had to learn to almost goosestep, it's got to dust down it's brown shirts or else there will be no clear blue water between them and new labour.
oh the tories can bang on about having to speak the unspeakable in order to prevent extremist parties from getting the vote, they are not scared of the BNP getting a vote or two - they are worried that they are losing votes to the BNP.
so what do the tories do - they think of ways of cutting government, they think of ways of cutting red tape for businesses, they think of ways of cutting taxes and all the while preaching the mantra that our services will not be cut (and they expect us to believe them).
but in the course of looking for smaller government they support the ID card bill - lets see how that works and interferes with the average persons liberty.
in the course of cutting taxes they are expecting the market to provide but look at how well the market has done with building schools and hospitals (say hi jarvis - or is that bye jarvis because you have not done a good job of it?). look at how well the market has done with sorting out transport in this country - oh not well at all.
the tories solution? more of the same......
still they will be cutting back on the numbers of mps that will be in parliament. (which is a little bit of irony while they talk about brussels being a place where we are governed by the faceless they actually want to reduce the numbers of mps - that means more of us are represented by fewer of them.... it should be the other way round. they should be able to hear our voices and they should be dependent on each and every vote!)
the irony of it is that it will be a bit of vote winner for them. not because we want less representation it's just that those people who do represent us we don't trust.
and the ones i don't trust the most (well aside from galloway of respect) are the tory party. hell they can't even keep their most electable mps in position of power.
heres to an interesting 2005 as howard and the tories try to convince us that they really care.
Friday, December 24, 2004
peace
to my readers (oh yes there are more than one of you) i wish a special seasonal greeting.
so to adam, cliff, jay, jim, joel, kenny, kent, kevin, nate, nick, nigel, paul, tammi and the others i have no doubt missed.
i say to you all have a merry christmas and a happy new year.
may any of the troubles you had in 2004 disappear in 2005.
and lets hope that 2005 is indeed a year of peace - well we can hope.
have a good one folks.
normal miserable service will be resumed shortly.
best
so to adam, cliff, jay, jim, joel, kenny, kent, kevin, nate, nick, nigel, paul, tammi and the others i have no doubt missed.
i say to you all have a merry christmas and a happy new year.
may any of the troubles you had in 2004 disappear in 2005.
and lets hope that 2005 is indeed a year of peace - well we can hope.
have a good one folks.
normal miserable service will be resumed shortly.
best
misery
they say misery loves company, they could be right but i can be really miserable all on my own thank you very much.
and if you think i have been miserable recently about the run up to christmas - i will spare you the utter despair i go through during the new year festivities. i time when just the letter NYE are enough to turn me into a raving lunatic who wants to hunt down and kill all those insipid smiling twits who go on and on about how much they love you because they are too drunk to realise that 1] you are a total stranger and 2] you are the same sex they are.
so yes at this time of festive joy and pleasure i am indeed the grinch, scrooge and jack skellington all rolled into one - the difference is there is no walt disney ending that comes along and turns my heart of stone into a heart of gold.
bah humbug.
but even i can raise a smile when stories like this appear.
posties refusing to deliver mail to a no go street because they are always being attacked. where one of the posties was even soaked in urine. in a one of gesture the postal service managers will go out in pairs to deliver the mail in order to make sure that the households get their post on time. frankly (geddit) if it was down to me i'd soak all their post in piss until they learnt to behave.
but it is this sort of attitude which means that i will never get elected.
my local mp is in the news again. apparently oona king has mentioned that an mep once propositioned her for sex, the unnamed mep offered her £10,000 , now i have to say she is a tasty lass (but no diane abbot hubba hubba - who could almost qualify as top tory totty since her recent move to the dark side of private education), but £10k is a lot of money and to my untutored eye and taste there are going to be very few people who are going to be worth that much for a roll in the sack. and sadly oona isn't one of them.
what has gotten everyone up in arms is that this was something that had been dealt with many years ago, that in an ulrika like move oona is not saying who so all the meps of the time are tarred with the allegation. (sod the fact they wanted to buy sex what are we doing sending someone to represent the people of the uk who has a spare £10k for an orgasm?).
given oona's poor showing with sending out eid cards to the wrong faith (and not sending me a card this year.....) perhaps one can say she is looking for victim status ahead of the forthcoming election against galloping george galloway.
even though i am offended by oona not being able to send me a card i will still have to get off my fat arse and campaign for her.
hunters - i still hate them. once again i have had to listen to some arse on the radio going on about it being an infringement of liberty, it being against human rights etc - this from a bunch of landowners who will fight tooth and nail to stop you walking across their land!
i know i have banged on about hunters a lot and there will be at least one more to come before the year is out.
hirst's shark is up for sale and it looks like saatchi is going to sell it. i have to say it is an impressive piece. i have seen it a couple of times and have been deeply moved by it. in fact a lot of hirst's work has had that effect on me. equally a lot of it has left me thinking that this is all about money for old rope. i suppose i had better get over to the saatchi gallery and see it one more time before it goes.
apparently saatchi is going to sink (geddit) some of the profits of this into buying paintings as saatchi sees painting as the new art.
and a little story to make you go aaaaaaaaah a bunch of penguins have survived an earthquake on a remote antarctic archipelago. its the biggest earthquake since 2001.
not only did the penguins survive but:
"Despite its size, 22 staff of the Australian Antarctic Division slept through the tremors.
"Nobody felt anything," a spokesman said. "
if that isn't an antidote to my cynicism i don't know what is
and if you think i have been miserable recently about the run up to christmas - i will spare you the utter despair i go through during the new year festivities. i time when just the letter NYE are enough to turn me into a raving lunatic who wants to hunt down and kill all those insipid smiling twits who go on and on about how much they love you because they are too drunk to realise that 1] you are a total stranger and 2] you are the same sex they are.
so yes at this time of festive joy and pleasure i am indeed the grinch, scrooge and jack skellington all rolled into one - the difference is there is no walt disney ending that comes along and turns my heart of stone into a heart of gold.
bah humbug.
but even i can raise a smile when stories like this appear.
posties refusing to deliver mail to a no go street because they are always being attacked. where one of the posties was even soaked in urine. in a one of gesture the postal service managers will go out in pairs to deliver the mail in order to make sure that the households get their post on time. frankly (geddit) if it was down to me i'd soak all their post in piss until they learnt to behave.
but it is this sort of attitude which means that i will never get elected.
my local mp is in the news again. apparently oona king has mentioned that an mep once propositioned her for sex, the unnamed mep offered her £10,000 , now i have to say she is a tasty lass (but no diane abbot hubba hubba - who could almost qualify as top tory totty since her recent move to the dark side of private education), but £10k is a lot of money and to my untutored eye and taste there are going to be very few people who are going to be worth that much for a roll in the sack. and sadly oona isn't one of them.
what has gotten everyone up in arms is that this was something that had been dealt with many years ago, that in an ulrika like move oona is not saying who so all the meps of the time are tarred with the allegation. (sod the fact they wanted to buy sex what are we doing sending someone to represent the people of the uk who has a spare £10k for an orgasm?).
given oona's poor showing with sending out eid cards to the wrong faith (and not sending me a card this year.....) perhaps one can say she is looking for victim status ahead of the forthcoming election against galloping george galloway.
even though i am offended by oona not being able to send me a card i will still have to get off my fat arse and campaign for her.
hunters - i still hate them. once again i have had to listen to some arse on the radio going on about it being an infringement of liberty, it being against human rights etc - this from a bunch of landowners who will fight tooth and nail to stop you walking across their land!
i know i have banged on about hunters a lot and there will be at least one more to come before the year is out.
hirst's shark is up for sale and it looks like saatchi is going to sell it. i have to say it is an impressive piece. i have seen it a couple of times and have been deeply moved by it. in fact a lot of hirst's work has had that effect on me. equally a lot of it has left me thinking that this is all about money for old rope. i suppose i had better get over to the saatchi gallery and see it one more time before it goes.
apparently saatchi is going to sink (geddit) some of the profits of this into buying paintings as saatchi sees painting as the new art.
and a little story to make you go aaaaaaaaah a bunch of penguins have survived an earthquake on a remote antarctic archipelago. its the biggest earthquake since 2001.
not only did the penguins survive but:
"Despite its size, 22 staff of the Australian Antarctic Division slept through the tremors.
"Nobody felt anything," a spokesman said. "
if that isn't an antidote to my cynicism i don't know what is
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
rummy
there are times when someone shows such a lack of common sense you find yourself having to stand and admire them for the sheer front that they have to expect to get away with it.
think david blunkett and his recent foray into nanny headhunting (and there is so much to write about that ... but all i can say is that it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke).
then there is donald rumsfeld, a man who appears to be smart and in control. a man who looks like he was a star of numerous 1970s american tv shows (he reminds me of robert culp, and if the iraq war is ever made into a musical then dick van dyke is a shoo in to play donny!) obviously running the iraq war is time consuming and so donny has his hands full (after all they have given up the search for osama - remember him?) so he has had to answer questions from marines and to have to explain why they do not have adequate kit (they might also want to ask him why they are drafting ex servicemen, why they are looking to cut servicemen's benefits....)
but of course donny is in the news not for his adept skills as an administrator, but because he couldn't find the time to sign the letters of condolences that are sent out to relatives of dead service men.
nope donny and co have used technology to speed the process up, the signatures are mechanically reproduced onto the letter. you have to hand it to him - why waste precious time when you can automate it.
as someone said:
"To me it's an insult, not only as someone who lost a loved one but also as someone who served in Iraq," soldier Ivan Medina - whose twin brother Irving was killed in Iraq last summer - told Stars and Stripes.
hey why should rummy care it's not like it is his son he is sending to war, nor the son of his friends and colleagues. it is just the strange kids of those urban poor who see the military as a way of escaping poverty or getting a career for themselves.
so i admire donald rumsfelfd for at least continuing to treat the relatives of the dead with the contempt that bush, condi, rumsfeld and co treat active troops and the rest of the american public.
but sometimes it doesn't pay to be honest.........
think david blunkett and his recent foray into nanny headhunting (and there is so much to write about that ... but all i can say is that it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke).
then there is donald rumsfeld, a man who appears to be smart and in control. a man who looks like he was a star of numerous 1970s american tv shows (he reminds me of robert culp, and if the iraq war is ever made into a musical then dick van dyke is a shoo in to play donny!) obviously running the iraq war is time consuming and so donny has his hands full (after all they have given up the search for osama - remember him?) so he has had to answer questions from marines and to have to explain why they do not have adequate kit (they might also want to ask him why they are drafting ex servicemen, why they are looking to cut servicemen's benefits....)
but of course donny is in the news not for his adept skills as an administrator, but because he couldn't find the time to sign the letters of condolences that are sent out to relatives of dead service men.
nope donny and co have used technology to speed the process up, the signatures are mechanically reproduced onto the letter. you have to hand it to him - why waste precious time when you can automate it.
as someone said:
"To me it's an insult, not only as someone who lost a loved one but also as someone who served in Iraq," soldier Ivan Medina - whose twin brother Irving was killed in Iraq last summer - told Stars and Stripes.
hey why should rummy care it's not like it is his son he is sending to war, nor the son of his friends and colleagues. it is just the strange kids of those urban poor who see the military as a way of escaping poverty or getting a career for themselves.
so i admire donald rumsfelfd for at least continuing to treat the relatives of the dead with the contempt that bush, condi, rumsfeld and co treat active troops and the rest of the american public.
but sometimes it doesn't pay to be honest.........
bullets
according to this week's private eye (a great magazine that has a unique slant on the news and often has stories you will never see elsewhere) the US military has just bought 130 million bullets from the UK military, because they face a shortage.
lets look at that number again 130 million - that's a lot of bullets. a hell of a lot of bullets.
but lets back up a bit - the US military are facing a shortage... how can that be. the simple answer is of course iraq! but lets look at the number again 130 million bullets (ok for some american militias that is barely a weekends playing in the woods.... )
from the private eye story it appears that the one factory in the usa that manufactures the bullets cannot keep up with the demand.
i am going out on a limb here and thinking that this is a factory that is dedicated just to the american military, and that because of what it does it has to be highly defended and protected - but there is only one? whatever happened to the free market, is that why there is fighting going on in iraq - so we can just bring them monopolies - say it ain't so gi joe!
but i can understand why you would want this sensitive operation to be under very strict control and so you might only want the one - that way you have total quality control and you also have complete freedom to control supply - increase it when demand is high and lower it when demand is low (again it's the market stupid....)
somewhere along the line either the military planners have forgotten to place the requisition order (hey it happens), or the usa military have gone a little too gung ho and are firing bullets off like they are auditioning for the next john woo flick.
guess what? what pat what i can hear you cry. the ministry of defense is providing the bullets to the americans at book price - not a bit of profit being made from them. now on one hand you can understand that, don't want to be a war profiteer after all. but dammit man we are also providing troops into iraq to aid the americans free of charge (and last time i looked there were not that many british companies getting fat on the riches of iraq reconstruction!)
but lets go back to that number again 130 million bullets. why in all that is holy do the british army have a spare 130 million bullets, it's not like a cup of sugar, it's a 130 million bullets.....
hey at least this bit of arms trading might be called ethical arms trade (and who remembers new labour's promises on that!)
one more time 130,000,000 bullets. perhaps they should learn to be better shots or spend less time popping off shots into wounded combatants.
just a thought.
lets look at that number again 130 million - that's a lot of bullets. a hell of a lot of bullets.
but lets back up a bit - the US military are facing a shortage... how can that be. the simple answer is of course iraq! but lets look at the number again 130 million bullets (ok for some american militias that is barely a weekends playing in the woods.... )
from the private eye story it appears that the one factory in the usa that manufactures the bullets cannot keep up with the demand.
i am going out on a limb here and thinking that this is a factory that is dedicated just to the american military, and that because of what it does it has to be highly defended and protected - but there is only one? whatever happened to the free market, is that why there is fighting going on in iraq - so we can just bring them monopolies - say it ain't so gi joe!
but i can understand why you would want this sensitive operation to be under very strict control and so you might only want the one - that way you have total quality control and you also have complete freedom to control supply - increase it when demand is high and lower it when demand is low (again it's the market stupid....)
somewhere along the line either the military planners have forgotten to place the requisition order (hey it happens), or the usa military have gone a little too gung ho and are firing bullets off like they are auditioning for the next john woo flick.
guess what? what pat what i can hear you cry. the ministry of defense is providing the bullets to the americans at book price - not a bit of profit being made from them. now on one hand you can understand that, don't want to be a war profiteer after all. but dammit man we are also providing troops into iraq to aid the americans free of charge (and last time i looked there were not that many british companies getting fat on the riches of iraq reconstruction!)
but lets go back to that number again 130 million bullets. why in all that is holy do the british army have a spare 130 million bullets, it's not like a cup of sugar, it's a 130 million bullets.....
hey at least this bit of arms trading might be called ethical arms trade (and who remembers new labour's promises on that!)
one more time 130,000,000 bullets. perhaps they should learn to be better shots or spend less time popping off shots into wounded combatants.
just a thought.
Monday, December 20, 2004
turner
i am a bit of an art fag.
there are few things i like better than to go to a gallery, wander around, stop, contemplate and be mesmerised by a piece of art that is either so beautiful it takes the breath away or so challenging it forces you to think, to ponder and to wonder. there have been exhibitions i have been to that have all been like that.
there are art spaces i go to just because that are beautiful places to be in. the whitechapel art gallery, the tate modern, the tate britain, white cube, flowers east and many others.
when the two come together it is almost a religious experience. i can think of picasso and matisse at the tate modern, mapplethorpe at the hayward gallery, gormley at the white cube, lichtenstein at the hayward, pretty much anything i saw that was photographic at the hamilton gallery... and there have been many others.
anyway i like modern art.
i like the tate britain.
i have spent many a happy hour looking at the turner prize in years gone by.
except there has been a problem with the turner prize - as each year has gone by i have enjoyed it less and less. the art seems less "art" and more commercial junk making.
this years has been the worst one i have been to.
the winner, jeremy deller, presents the viewer with a dull documentary centred around texas. this is complemented with some photos he has taken of memorial plaques he has had erected.
kutlug ataman, has a video installation of interviews of people who claim to be reincarnated. the position of the videos makes for an interesting view, but what is on view is not at all interesting.
landlands and bell, produce a mix of items which centre around afghanistan and the UN's involvement. some of it is interesting, none of it is fully engaging. the stills of the various official signs soon pales. the video installation of osama bin laden's house is both trite and poorly done, it becomes interactive because, you the viewer can control the view and route through the house.
yinka shonibare, who to my mind should have won it (but that damns with very feint praise) produces his usual signature colourful cloth constructions - but this time not only does he have a mannequin that is done out in the garb but he also has the ubiquitous video installation. this is of a courtly dance, all the courtiers are attired in the colourful cloth garb so beloved of shonibare. the dance is very formal, but also mechanical and the dancers jolt and jerk around. taking the familiar style of courtly dances and adding a new dimension (part of this is the fact that they manage to overact as they dance). the video is on a constant loop and the performers seem to go forward and then go back over what they have done again. this combined with the stagey arty gives a sense of being slightly outside reality.
you want to know what i feel when i walk out of the exhibition into some of the other halls in the tate britain, where the walls are decorated with art in which you can see the artist has not only put thought, but they have put effort, they have put passion and they have put skill into what they have done and what they have created. the feeling i get is a little close to despair that modern art has sunk so low, that some how we have to "award" and "reward" work that is little more than bad documentary, that seems to have little creative thought behind it other than one clever(dick) idea.
you know it is bad when you know you could have done all of it yourself and without too much trouble.
maybe i should just put my money where my mouth is and win the turner prize ? not next year but perhaps in a couple of years. trust me if you have seen what they had there this year you would have to be bad not to win.
i am turning into angry from tunbridge wells
there are few things i like better than to go to a gallery, wander around, stop, contemplate and be mesmerised by a piece of art that is either so beautiful it takes the breath away or so challenging it forces you to think, to ponder and to wonder. there have been exhibitions i have been to that have all been like that.
there are art spaces i go to just because that are beautiful places to be in. the whitechapel art gallery, the tate modern, the tate britain, white cube, flowers east and many others.
when the two come together it is almost a religious experience. i can think of picasso and matisse at the tate modern, mapplethorpe at the hayward gallery, gormley at the white cube, lichtenstein at the hayward, pretty much anything i saw that was photographic at the hamilton gallery... and there have been many others.
anyway i like modern art.
i like the tate britain.
i have spent many a happy hour looking at the turner prize in years gone by.
except there has been a problem with the turner prize - as each year has gone by i have enjoyed it less and less. the art seems less "art" and more commercial junk making.
this years has been the worst one i have been to.
the winner, jeremy deller, presents the viewer with a dull documentary centred around texas. this is complemented with some photos he has taken of memorial plaques he has had erected.
kutlug ataman, has a video installation of interviews of people who claim to be reincarnated. the position of the videos makes for an interesting view, but what is on view is not at all interesting.
landlands and bell, produce a mix of items which centre around afghanistan and the UN's involvement. some of it is interesting, none of it is fully engaging. the stills of the various official signs soon pales. the video installation of osama bin laden's house is both trite and poorly done, it becomes interactive because, you the viewer can control the view and route through the house.
yinka shonibare, who to my mind should have won it (but that damns with very feint praise) produces his usual signature colourful cloth constructions - but this time not only does he have a mannequin that is done out in the garb but he also has the ubiquitous video installation. this is of a courtly dance, all the courtiers are attired in the colourful cloth garb so beloved of shonibare. the dance is very formal, but also mechanical and the dancers jolt and jerk around. taking the familiar style of courtly dances and adding a new dimension (part of this is the fact that they manage to overact as they dance). the video is on a constant loop and the performers seem to go forward and then go back over what they have done again. this combined with the stagey arty gives a sense of being slightly outside reality.
you want to know what i feel when i walk out of the exhibition into some of the other halls in the tate britain, where the walls are decorated with art in which you can see the artist has not only put thought, but they have put effort, they have put passion and they have put skill into what they have done and what they have created. the feeling i get is a little close to despair that modern art has sunk so low, that some how we have to "award" and "reward" work that is little more than bad documentary, that seems to have little creative thought behind it other than one clever(dick) idea.
you know it is bad when you know you could have done all of it yourself and without too much trouble.
maybe i should just put my money where my mouth is and win the turner prize ? not next year but perhaps in a couple of years. trust me if you have seen what they had there this year you would have to be bad not to win.
i am turning into angry from tunbridge wells
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