Diana Watch

Ah, how quickly complex international financial problems and banking crises get boiled down to “Blame the foreigners! They are stealing our jobs!” Do we want to run a book on how it takes someone to blame the Jews?
There are very few bad days that start with coming down stairs to be greeted by a headline on the Sunday Times that if Jack Straw’s new plan come to fruition Jeffery Archer could lose his seat in the House of Lords. Ah, it gives you a warm feeling inside. Who would have thought that some of our Lords were corrupt? The problem is not that they are corrupt, although some might see that as a problem, but there is no sanction against them as they are life peers, that’s life peers! For life. No matter what. One of the most significant betrayals of this Labour Government, if you don’t count the introduction of tuition fees, is their half-arsed, half carried out reform of that place. They promised all sorts of things such as a fully or partially elected upper chamber, but only managed to get rid of the Hereditary peers and replace them with people that they liked and wanted to get into the Cabinet and couldn’t wait to get them elected, although as one of them was Peter Mandelson it was unlikely to happen, again.
Whilst we talking about the Lords, a quick mention of my new favourite Lord. He is Lord West of Spithead, surely a made up name, who is the Security and Counter Terrorism Minister. He has said this week “We never used to accept that our foreign policy ever had any effect on terrorism” he then added, “well, that was bollocks.” I’m sorry? What was that? He added “they [the Blair Administration] were very unwilling to have any debate about how our foreign policy impacted on radicalism” oh my, sense is being spoken at last. He also described terrorists as “Bastards”. Oh, good man.

You may remember from last week, although you probably don’t, I had to look it up, that I said that now racism was over, what with the election of Barack Obama and everything, we should now concentrate on sexism. Well this week President Obama signed an equal pay act. Oh yes, I can change the world. Who would have thought that I have the ear of the Leader of the free world? Anything else that anyone wants? I’m sure that we can give it a go.
Now it seems that electing a black man in American politics, it’s gone on in Africa for a while, was such a good idea that now even Republicans (if this was a Simpsons script there would be the Imperial March from Star Wars now) are doing it. Michael Steele has been voted chairman of the Republican Committee. It was said that he was the most moderate of the 5 candidates but as the other 4 were middle aged white Republicans that really isn’t saying very much. He has said that he will “rebrand” the party. Not change it policies. Not shift it’s slightly unpleasant values so that people might consider voting of them again, oh no, rebrand. Make it look all shiny and new without changing the actual content. A rose by any other name would still stink of homophobia, big business interests over that of the individual and the distinct whiff of gun powder that can only come from a recently fired hand gun.
On his web-site he claims that Democrats “are posed to implement increased taxes, excessive spending and” and this is my favourite bit, “fleece our personal freedoms.” I’m sorry? This from the party that bought you the Patriot Act, water boarding and illegal government phone tapping. Oh and increased taxes? I’m pretty sure that the stimulus package that none of your party voted for this week contained quite a few tax cuts for middle and working class families not just the incredibly, and therefore most likely to vote Republican, wealthy.

Slightly sad local news now. A family that was involved in a nasty road accident, which I believe killed several members of the family, have been burgled whilst they recovered in hospital. Now this is awful, don’t get me wrong, and their upset faces were all over the front of the Dorset Echo, our local rag, following the burglary. My question is this; did this same newspaper print their address following the crash? Exactly as it did when my dad was involved in a crash. We opened the paper to find that, without our permission, they had printed our whole address. A local paper in Kent did exactly the same to my Parents-in-law when they inherited some money. Not really a helpful activity I think you’ll find. It puts those in the story at risk of, umm…. oh yes, burglary. But the paper does get 2 stories for the price of 1 I suppose.

I read an interesting Social Attitudes survey in the Guardian this week. The part that really caught my attention was the section on Commitment to work. It grabbed me because it compared the work ethics of countries with high levels of benefits to those with low. The results were very interesting because they found that in countries with high benefits, such as Norway and Sweden, there is a really strong work ethic but countries with low benefits, such as New Zealand, Australia and GREAT BRITAIN, have a very low commitment to work. So not only are we not really committed to work and if you’ve ever been served in a British shop or restaurant you’ll know that to be true, but we are considered to have low levels of benefits. I’m assuming that this survey did not appear in most British tabloids who all seem to think that the worlds repressed come here because we are giving away the nations wealth to anyone who wants it.
I suppose that, in a way, we are but you have to be a bank to qualify. Nice link don’t you think. I don’t really won’t to criticise Gordon Brown’s handling of the economy because these thing do take time but it does seem that he is using the plan of trickle down economics, by only giving money to the banks, as put forward by such people as Milton Freidman. The plan is you help a few at the top get really, really, offensively rich and then they will spend etc and their wealth will trickle down through the economy until it comes to rest at the bottom. The problem is that he is trying it 20 years after it has been shown that it doesn’t work. The money goes to the top, say, 5 to 10% and they spend it. But the companies with which they spend are owned by them and their friends. The money just goes round and round. The money doesn’t trickle down because workers wages are keep as low as possible to make more money for share holders, who are mostly banks, pension funds and really, really wealthy people.
One of the problems that Gordon Brown has that the people he asks for advice are economists and economists are one of those groups of people who all think differently and have their own brilliant solutions to the problem if only we would implement theirs. Sit 10 economists in a room and ask them all the same question and you will get 15 different answers and that will only be from 6 of them. 2 of them will be hedging their ideas and betting against the others and themselves and the other 2 will be trying to work out how to divide up the opinions of the others into tiny bits in order to sell them to banks, pension funds and each other. All at a massive profit. Until someone defaults on their opinion and it all comes crashing down around them. It still won’t be their fault though.

And so to the weekly fun that is the Awards. I’m told that we are in “awards season”; I’m not really sure what that means. Is it like grouse season? Can I go out and shoot wild awards? Anyway,

The Award for Fantastically Descriptive Acronym of the Week,

This goes to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons or BAAPS. Enough said I think.

The Award for Best Made Up Medical Condition of the Week,

Ladies and Gentleman, pray silence for Cello Scrotum. It has come out this week that a letter to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 1974 about a condition called cello scrotum was a hoax. The person who wrote the letter, who was a GP at the time, now sits in the House of Lords, Baroness someone or other, did so in response to another letter, which she was convinced was also a hoax, about Guitar player’s nipple. The condition was said to only affect man who played the cello, although you probably could have worked that out from its name. It seems, however, that some did take it seriously as it has been referenced in several articles since. Good work I say.

The Award for Tossers of the Week,

The Naturalist (not naturist, that’s a very different thing), all-round lovely bloke and most people’s fantasy Granddad, David Attenborough has revealed this week that he gets hate mail form people because he fails to credit god in his programs. He said “they tell me to burn in hell and good riddance.” It’s a god of love that they believe in is it?

Well I’m off to watch Mr Attenborough’s new program on Darwin and Evolution at 9 o’clock on BBC 1, have a good week.

Diana Watch

Ah, young love. Seeking nothing but the simple pleasures in life. Eating Chinese take-away. Sat outside the hospital. In the rain. I’ve put my work shoes away for a week and it feels good.
Lets be honest, that’s a phrase I use to often, there has only been one story this week. That is, of course, a model of the new first family that fits within the eye of a needle. I believe that President Obama is the first black man to have this honour.



One of the things that I have noticed this week is that during the coverage of the swearing in (do you think that they practised first?) was that very few people used the term “Black” and used “African American” instead to describe his race. Does this mean that I am wrong? I’m not sure anymore. I feel like the man in a Chris Rock sketch rapping along to Dr Dre but missing out the N word when anyone of colour is a around but bellowing it out when alone. It can be confusing for a bleeding heart liberal.

There has been a mighty fuss at the end of this week about the BBC not showing the appeal from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) which is a group of charities that get together and run mass appeals for major disasters. The reason sited by the BBC for not showing the appeal was the fact that it was for Gaza and showing it after the news, as is usual for such an appeal, might seem like a lack of impartiality because the news may have contained articles about the Israel/Gaza war. Now the debate isn’t that interesting but what is quite interesting is the fact that the decision has been cover constantly on the main news programs on the terrestrial channels, News 24 and the BBC website. The BBC news website even had a click through link to the DEC website. So without showing the appeal itself they are making sure that everyone is aware of the appeal and giving them easy access to it. I don’t think that that has happened by accident, someone at the BBC is having a bit of a chuckle to themselves and people should really stop having a go. They have raised the awareness of the appeal by going on and on about it without having to show it.

There is to be a drive to recruit men to work with children in Nurseries and general child care. This is, obviously, a good idea. Children get to see both sexes doing the care thing and therefore their attitudes are set before anyone can notice. The only problem I can foresee is the excellent and positive attitude of the British mainstream media, oh and most of the public. As a male nurse I can assure you that a vast number of people do have a 70’s attitude towards these things. As Scroobius Pip said “not every man who plays with a child not their own is a Paedophile, some people are just nice.”

Now that racism has been ended by the election and inauguration of Barack Obama perhaps now we can concentrate on sexism, sorry but I’ve been listening to Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 in order to avoid George Lamb on 6music. Did you know, for instance, that there is a pay gap of 17% between man and woman in this country for like for like jobs and that the conviction rate for rape stands at just 6%. I know it is a hard crime to prove but are 94% of woman who decide to go through the humiliating process of reporting a rape lying? The incredibly misogynist response in the press to proposed changes in the Murder and Man slaughter laws giving women an equal footing in the press a couple of weeks ago was also rather shocking. The basic premise of the headlines and editorials was that the changes in the law would mean that woman who killed their husbands would get away with it. As it stands at the moment men can claim that they snapped and killed their nagging wives in a moment of madness, woman, however, are more likely to premeditate the killing of an abusive partner and therefore aren’t able to claim provocation. The proposed change would alter this, fairly I think. I really don’t understand how woman can work for newspapers like The Mail or The Express as they are always unpleasant towards their sex.

Let us hope that 2009 will be a good year for science as it has lost out a little bit in the last few years, what with newspapers turning against it, flawed reporting in most outlets and a President who clearly didn’t believe in facts. It has started quite well on both sides of the Atlantic. President Obama has lifted the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and over here there is a lot of hype around the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s masterwork “The Origin of Species”. Also the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills committee has criticised Prof John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientist, for failing to challenge ministers over their policies on cannabis and homeopathy. They went as far as to accuse him of defending the government’s reclassification of cannabis and it’s funding of 4 homeopathy specialising hospitals despite a complete lack of evidence. Oh my, some sense has reached our centre of Government, bring it on I say.

You know that at some point I would get round economics at some point didn’t you. 2 things this week, 1, the ONS has realised the spending figures of you and me, well probably not me as I’m a tight arse, for December and can you guess what? Oh yes, you’re right, spending in December was up 1.5% on the year before which, as I’ve mentioned before, was a record. So new record spending then! See I told you that it wasn’t your fault.
The other thing that I wanted to mention was the small town of Lewes in East Sussex which has introduced its own currency, the Lewes Pound. It is worth the same as the British Pound but it can only be spent in about 400 local shops thus keeping all the spending local and not in big chains. Brilliant! This is a scheme that could be rolled out to every town in the country, oh yes.

Shall we do some awards now as it is Burn’s Night and I’ve got Haggis to eat. Have you ever seen Haggis? It looks horrid, but it tastes fantastic. Significant other also found a poem of his on the BBC website entitled “Cock up your Beaver”. Oh come on that’s funny.


The Award for Rather Mean Sentencing of the Week,

This goes to a court in Thailand that has jailed an Australian novelist for insulting the Monarchy, which is sort of fair enough as it is their law, don’t agree with it myself but there you go. His book had sold just 7 copies.


The Award for Fun Spoilers of the Week,

This goes to every single news outlet that published the identity of the Stig, the Top Gear test driver. Do you understand that we all think that you are now spoilsports with no sense of humour? Part of the fun is not knowing.

The Award for Surprise Return of the Week,

This goes to Kenneth Clarke. Who would have thought that a pro-European who has openly supported the Governments VAT cut and has said that taxes will have to go up, whoever is in charge, openly disagreeing with David Cameron. Oh my, this could be fun.

The Award for Picture That Will Definitely Make You Smile,



Look! He’s leaving! Is there anything more sweet?

That will do for this week I think. Went to see Frost/Nixon this afternoon and it is fantastic, really well acted and a great script. Go and see it. Significant other also says that Slumdog Squarepants is fantastic but not, as advertised, the feel good film of the decade but it is great.