Diana Watch

Good Sunday to you all, how are we all today? Good I hope. I don't think that there will be a Diana Watch next week as I will be in Kent visiting Significant Other's mother. I might be able to do it but it seems unlikely, best you make the most of this one.

The French have become the first country in Europe to make it illegal to wander down the Street with your face covered. This is of course a problem for those who like to wear balaclavas or who tend to walk about with a full face motorcycle helmet on but they probably shouldn't worry, this legislation is not aimed at them.

 According to Radio 4's The Moral Maze there are 6 million Muslims in France, I think that it's safe to assume that about half of them will be woman, but only 1,900 wear the full burqa yet the French Government has seen fit to waste a lot of time debating and voting on a law that effects 1,900 who they don't like. This is not the smallest group ever to have specific laws passed that effect them alone, the British Government (under Labour) passed laws that were specifically aimed at moving the protester Brian Haw from Parliament Square. It failed.

 The arguments for a ban seem to run as follows, Woman should not be forced to wear a veil against their will, Ah, a good one, make it seem like you are on their side, on the side of choice and freedom and it is a good point but in order to do this you are forcing them NOT to wear a veil. There is no choice there.

 It's not good for community cohesion; it marks them out as different and stops communication. I bring you, again, to the point that only 1,900 woman are wearing them, I don't think that they have that big of an effect. The numbers are homoeopathically small. France is hardly a model of social integration as it is. The Islamic community already feel marginalised and disenfranchised so passing laws aimed directly at them won't help. Oh and whilst a covered face does make it harder to communicate with someone, it doesn't make it imposable. I don't communicate with the woman who lives next door to me, it's not because her face is covered (it isn't by the way), it's because she is an arse. Social Cohesion is a little more complex then the French Government would have you believe.

 As pointed out on the Moral Maze a woman can wonder around the park in a bikini and walk down the street wearing not much more and that is fine, try and have some modesty on the other hand. Now that is a little bit of a simplistic argument because to Western eyes the veil is a little more than modesty but I think that it is a point worth making because to Muslim eyes (if you can see them) it is about modesty.

 Well, this will stop men from forcing woman to wear the veil because the fine for a woman wearing it is small but the fine for a man forcing her is very big indeed. These things are true but how can you enforce it? Is an already subjugated woman going to say “My husband made me do it”, it seems unlikely. There is also the distinct possibility that if woman can't walk down the street veiled then the husband who would have forced her to wear it is instead going to force her to stay indoors. A much better solution.

 I ask you, why can't people wear what they like? I can wear a T-shirt that says “Godless Liberal” and you can wear a massive bit of jewellery that depicts a Jew nailed to a wooden cross dying in a horrific manner, that's fine with me.

 Of course some of our more right wing papers have used this ban as a jumping off point for their own campaigns against the veil, not because they feel that it suppresses women as they have no problem with that sort of thing, but because it is a Muslim thing and they don't like Muslims.

 We all seem to forget the Christianity covers it's most devout woman, they are called Nuns. In fact most religions and lots of cultures are keen on modest dress for woman so why pick on the Burqa? May it simply be because we in the West don't like Muslims very much? 

 If you want to rape a minor and then get away with it may I suggest that first you make some films that some people like and then move to Switzerland.

 First some background. In 1977 Roman Polanski was charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under fourteen, however under a plea bargain he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. He was to be sentenced to some prison time and then deported as he holds dual citizenship in France and Poland but in February 1978 he fled to France and in Europe he has stayed.

 Fast forward to 2009 and Mr Polanski was trying to enter Switzerland to pick up lifetime achievement award from the Catholic Church Zurich Film Festival but was arrested at the border by some heavily armed but very friendly Swiss border guards citing an outstanding US arrest warrant from 1978.

 He was then placed under house arrest whilst the Swiss decided what to do with him as the Americans were very keen for him to return to their shores.

 This brings us up to date. This week, after 9 months of deliberation, a Swiss judge decided that convicted child abuser Roman Polanski should not be extradited back to America to serve his time. This has annoyed the Authorities in California some what. Los Angeles county district attorney Steve Cooley said that the Swiss decision a "disservice to justice and other victims as a whole". Polanski is now free and is thought to have returned to Paris. The French don't extradite anyone.

Right, let's get on with some awards,

The Award for Surprise of the Week,

You may have noticed that last Sunday saw the final game in the FIFA World Cup (which I was home in time for following the Christening. Oh and I have proved that there is no God. I stood in front of a Church full of people and said that I believed in God and rejected the Devil, (why would I do that? He has all the best tunes, I mean have the heard the Christian ones? Shine Jesus Shine, it’s no wonder he hasn’t returned to Earth in his shining gloriousness if that is the best they can do) which were lies, and I wasn’t struck down.) and I watched it, like all right thinking people, on the BBC. The coverage was better, there were no adverts to make you miss goal and, more importantly, no Adrian Chiles. I was one of about 18 million people. What is bafflingly though is that about 3.3 million watched ITV! What were they thinking? You people are weird.

The Award for Missed Opportunity of the Week,

The man with just about the funniest name in all of the army is leaving. Sir Jock Stirrup is to stand down as head of the British Army. This is sad news to all people who find his name extremely amusing.

 Whilst it is sad for me it is also an opportunity for the army to promote someone with an equally funny name and, to be honest, I think that it is their duty. Think of the soldier’s morale. You are about to go into battle for Queen and Country. You are scared. You don’t know if you are ever going to see your loved ones again. And then you think of those inspiring words so eloquently spoken, rousing, stirring words that moved you to your very soul. And then you think of his really funny name and you go into battle with a stupid grin. That is what these brave young men and women deserve and what do the army give them? Sir David Richards? What's funny about that?

The Award for Just Being A Bit Confusing of the Week,

I don’t like Prince Charles very much, from his views on Architecture to his love of “alternative” medicine (there is medicine or there isn’t, there is no alternative, well maybe death. To quote many people, “Do you know what we call alternative medicine that works? Medicine) I find him annoying.

 He has ruined a perfected pleasant couple of fields with the stupid vanity project that is Poundbury and he attempts to stop new developments that he doesn’t like. His Foundation for Integrated Health (recently closed down due to fraud) promotes pseudo-science, such as detox (you have a liver, that’s what it’s there for) and homeopathy. He is proud to be an enemy of the enlightenment. That and I don’t like his Duchy Original biscuits and they cost too much. I don’t like him any pretty much anything he says.

 All of these things I have stated before but this week he said something sensible. He did it in a way that showed he has a degree of self awareness but that doesn't take away from the fact that he usually speaks nonsense. He accused those who deny climate change of ‘peddling pseudo science'.

 Some would now retort, “It takes one to know one” but that would be childish. Fun (and possible accurate) but childish never the less. Whilst he did acknowledge that he has been accused of doing exactly the same himself and the irony of him accusing somebody else doing it wasn't wasted on him.

The Award for Surprising Country Being Cooler Than Here of the Week, 

Another Country has pasted us on the Socially Liberal Coolness Table (and yes, I am keeping a chart. If you are very good I might show it too you one day) and it's a surprising one. It seems that Argentina has voted that Gay marriage is ok.

Now correct me if I am wrong but aren't most South American countries Catholic? Well yes they are and Argentina is no exception. Oh dear, they won't be happy about that will they? Of course the Catholic Church (who this week managed to piss off a surprising large amount people by adding to the Churches list of serious crimes, Attempting To Ordinate Woman. Now also on this list is paedophilia but unlike that the raping of children for which you are protected, if you try to or are an ordinated woman they will excommunicate you, tossers) reacted in the only way it can. It blamed someone else.

 In this case Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the highest ranking Catholic prelate in the country, decided that the Argentine Governments pleasantness towards their fellow men and women was in fact the work of the devil. Oh it's always the devil.

 Dear The Catholic Church, please try harder on your blaming things. At least try and blame something that actually exists, Love Martyn.

Like I said at the beginning there will probably be no Diana Watch next Sunday, I'm sure you'll cope.

 Have a lovely week all, I'm off to weed my allotment as the rain has encouraged everything to grow including the weeds.

Save 6Music

There is a report on the front of the Times today that claims that they have seen a leaked report from the BBC about the future of the, ummm, BBC.
The report is going to say, when it is released properly, that the BBC has grown to big and must shrink back. Well maybe, it did buy the Lonely Planet guides for no good reason, but the rumoured cuts seemed aimed at some slightly strange targets.

It has been suggested that the excellent BBC website (the first website I look at everyday) will be cut back by half and that the BBC's Asian Network will take a hit. There is also some slightly odd thinking in the paper, suggesting that the BBC should close it's Switch and Blast! services (whatever they are) which are aimed at teenagers so not to compete with E4 and ITV but they will leave BBC3 alone. You know BBC3, the channel whose stated demographic is 16-35. Hmmmm.

Anyway the thing that has riled me (and Twitter) the most is the suggestion that BBC 6Music should be closed. Noooooooooooooo! It's my favourite radio station, well maybe joint favourite with Radio4, but anyway, Noooooooooooooo!

No reason seems to be given in the article as to why 6Music should go but the decision (if it has been made) seems to be based on making it easier for commercial rivals, after all the BBC isn't supposed to compete directly with them. Fair enough I suppose, the BBC does have a bit of an advantage, but I don't think that that is a relevant argument here.

Commercial radio, by it's very nature, has to appeal to either a quite limited demographic or the widest possible (My local commercial broadcaster has gone for people who neither like music or coherent and interesting talking), where as 6Music appeals to quite a wide range of music lovers. This morning they played The Pixies followed by Naughty by Nature. How many advert funded efforts can say that? And how many radio stations (and I'm including the rest of the world here) have ever used the phrase “And now something from SquarePusher” as Stuart Maconie did last Sunday? I would imagine that it is quite a small number.

I'm not doing special pleading here because I like the station but I am pointing out the the argument is floored. I am not aware of a single other radio station that would bring you such a wide range of interesting people presenting programmes as 6Music has. Look at Sundays for instance. Huey Morgan (Fun Lovin' Criminals), Jarvis Cocker (in his first showed he read out a short story and played a Sir John Betjeman poem, is that happening on XFM?), Stuart Maconie (player of Square Pusher) and Guy Garvey (Elbow).

There is clearly some other reason for picking on the Asian Network and 6Music. The fact that the leak was to the Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch, hater of the BBC) is also significant.

This is a tacit admission on behalf of Mark Thompson, the Director-General, that he thinks the Tories will win the General Election and he wants to get the first move in. The report was even written by the former head of the Conservative policy unit, John Tate, who co-wrote the party’s 2005 manifesto with David Cameron but is now director of policy and strategy at the BBC.

He is trying to save the BBC from too much Tory interference when they come to power. He is saying, yes I understand the things that you think are wrong with the BBC, see I'm changing them, please leave us alone. 6Music has become a sacrificial lamb on an alter to David Cameron, so that Mark Thompson may continue in his job. Hmmmmm.

I read one criticism of the Save 6 Music campaign (by the way, you can write to the BBC trust by clicking on here) is that we were all suggesting other things to be cut like sport, celebrity programs and BBC3. There is a reason for that, these things do compete with commercial broadcasters but 6Music doesn't.

Please don't let this happen, I like music and want to listen to it without having cheap double glazing advertised at me.

Diana Watch

I do hope that you all remembered that the clocks went back last night (this is only relevant for UK readers).
A quick award,

The Award for Having To Work On The Night That The Clocks Go Back,

This goes to my Brother who had to work last night. Oh and everyone else who had to work to but you didn't fill my phone's inbox with rant filled texts for most of yesterday.
A couple of years ago I worked the night the clocks went back and I can assure you that it is the single most depressing incident in my life.
Working at night is bad enough but just when you think you are making progress at getting through it, at 2am it suddenly becomes 1am again and you have to go struggle on for another hour. That and the fact that we didn't get paid for that extra hour. My Brother did get paid for it though so don't feel too sorry for him.

There is a story from last week that I forgot to put in. It seems the the Brass Eye special on the media's coverage of Paedophilia was, in fact, a documentary and not a biting satire.



I think that it was this program that lead to my most favourite Daily Mail headline ever “Ban This Sick Filth”. Anyway, on with the story.
Parents in the US are downloading maps that show them were registered sex offenders live so that their children can avoid these houses when they go Trick or Treating at Halloween (for a scared of anything non-Christian, atheists are evil and will eat your babies country, they really do go in for this Pagan festival in a big way), or at least were they used to live.
Umm, there are a number of things here. The first and perhaps must important one is that the maps only show registered sex offenders. So all over those who are not registered or have yet to be caught are not on these maps. There is also the point that the data is spectacularly out of date. People do move house you know. Can you imagine how you would feel if your house wrongly came up on one of these maps?
The other thing that fails to get mentioned in the hysteria (I don't think that that is to strong a word) is that for those unfortunate enough to be attacked, which is a very small percentage, most of the perpetrators will be people that the children know.
You wouldn’t know from the Media coverage of the subject but “Stranger Danger” isn't a very big danger at all, “Parent Danger” is a much bigger problem but you can't really do CRB checks on all people who want to or have children so it is not discussed.
If, however, you do and try and protect children with, say, a scheme that gets people who regularly have unsupervised contact with children, say by driving them to football practise or any other organised club, then it is nanny state-ism. There is no logical debate in this country.
If we did have sensible debate and used best practise and empirical studies to decide the best course of action rather than debating from our own entrenched ideological positions then we would have children's formal education starting at 6. But why would a Government listen to the most comprehensive review of Primary Education for 40 years when it ignores all the other reviews that it doesn't like the results of, even if it was a review that they started.

Oooh, and then there was “naked” body scanners at airports. They have been trialled for a while all over the world with no real problems but the idea has now been dropped because of fears about child porn. I'm not really sure what the problems are but the Daily Mail is and that's what is important. Again we have the mentality that if you see a naked child you are a paedophile no matter what the circumstances and context are.

I forgot to mention that there was 1 Princess Diana front page this week and yes, it was on the front of the Daily Express, how did you guess?


The Catholic Church seems to be offering place to C of E clergy who sort of want to convert because they don't want to serve under woman Bishops and because they don't like the Anglican Church's “liberal” views on homosexuality.
I have talked before about the church's sexist employment policy before but I will make the point again.
Can you imagine if a company said “we will only employ woman up to this lowly level”? Can you imagine the fuss that would be made if they decided their employment policy was based on societal attitudes from 2000 years ago? “Well Jesus only choose man for his disciples” is their argument, well true, but they also stoned people to death and nailed your “Saviour” to some 2x4 and left him their to die. Just interested to see which bits of the culture you are keen on. And the “liberal” on gays thing. Is the Anglican Communion liberal on Gay issues? That really depends upon where you’re starting from doesn't it. If you are of the view that they should all be killed (or Jan Moir) then not wanting them all to be killed is quite Liberal. However, if you are a nice person then the Anglicans can hardly be described as even close to liberal.
Remember, they are allowed to say and do what they want. To offend as many people as they like but woe betide you if you think you have the right to do the same. To argue against them. Point out flaws in their logic. They claim that you are being intolerant or just plain mean.

Your favourite institutions are under threat. The BBC and the Royal Mail.
The Tories are threatening to rip the heart out of the lovely BBC. I don't understand what their problem is. I understand why the Daily Mail hates it. It is a commercial rival and more people like it then them. They don't like the fact the BBC is pretty impartial and has a tendency to be reasonable even handed. It isn't judgemental. It isn't mean and unpleasant to people it doesn't like. In fact it is all the things that the Daily Mail isn't. But what do the Tories have against it? It's good to them.
Just a quick mention of Nick Griffin on Question Time. Yes he should have been on there and Bonnie Greer was fantastic. Jack Straw was rubbish though. I would have liked them to have given the ghastly man (Nick Griffin not Jack Straw) a little more rope with which to hung himself. Metaphorically obviously.
The BBC, however, was less than fantastic. They should have just got him on, done the programme and got him off. No more, no less. They have decided though to go on and on about it which does have him publicity rather than just being on the programme that just made him look like a fool. The KKK are “almost totally non-violent”, for instance.
What has been amusing has been the response of the printed media which has gone into over drive in pointing out how horrid Nick Griffin is whilst, at the same time, printing stories that seem to completely agree with everything that he says. I was going to put some links here too show you what I mean but a nice man has already done a blog about it, so click here to see it.
Me thinks they protest to much.
Oh and those who do protest against him, will you please behave yourself. I’m looking at you UAF. Stand there with your placards and shut up. Don't break into the BBC building. Don't hassle his car. He just gets the chance to play the victim again, which he does very well. The same goes to those who sent rude and offensive Emails to Jan Moir; don't do it. You undermine our argument. We need our behaviour to be beyond reproach so not to give them any ammunition.
We also need to fight their ill-informed argument with facts and logic.
Immigration, for instance, is vital for our economy. A survey released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) this week said that the population of this country will rise to 70 million in about 24 years time. This was wonderful news for the right wing press who were all over that bit of the study.
They do seem to have missed out some other demographic changes that were pointed out by this study.
The number of people over 90, for instance is set to quadruple. Who’s going to pay for all those years of pension and increased NHS costs? That will have to be yours, mine and migrant workers taxes then.
They then argue that we are all turning Muslim. Well there are 2.4 million of them. And how many of us are there? Well about 58.6 million of who aren't Muslim. I think we can take them if it comes to it. There also seems to be 46.2 million who describe themselves as Christians. Again, I think you have them out numbered.
“But they get all the council houses.” No they don't. We have covered this before so here is a paragraph from a Blog that I wrote in June,

“When the BNP were elected to a local council in on a ticket that was very similar to to Gordon Brown's rhetoric, a study was carried out to find out what percentage of council homes had gone to local people. Of the 12069 homes that have been allocated by the council, 12068 went to long term local residents. 99.9% of council housing went to local people and not immigrants. Proper engagement with people on issues raised by the BNP proved that the BNP are liars. This is how Gordon Brown should deal with them, not shift towards their position because it is easier. If you spend time with people, dealing with their problems in a sensible and grown up way, arguing your point, showing were they are wrong and they will come round to your way of thinking. Oh and build some more council houses as we haven't really built any for 30 years.”

Ok so that is that covered then. Racist are idiots.

Let’s move on to that other cherished institution the Royal Mail. You should love your Postman and support him or her in her strike.
I'll run through the reason quickly as I have gone on a bit this week. The things that you don't like about Royal Mail are not the workers fault.
Branches closing, that will be management. The loss of the second post, management's fault. Your post turning up really late, again, that will be a management decision that leads to that. The post office made £300million last year. Invest that in modernisation and not reducing jobs and pay.
And the Tory plan to privatise the poor thing. That is a very bad idea indeed. Yes, for ideological reasons but also because you won't get a better service.
Can you think of an 80's Privatisation that has resulted in a better service? Electricity? Gas? Trains? Have you got a better service? Of course you haven't. They strip it bare and run it as cheaply as possible in order to make the most amount money for themselves and the shareholders, not for you and me.

OK, that will do for this week. No awards this week because I have mostly been angry for the last 6 days. I was suppose to be seeing Morrissey tomorrow evening but now it doesn't look like that will be happening does it?
I'll leave you with a clip from “The Thick Of It”. The new series started last night but here is a clip from an earlier series.



Have a good week,

Diana Watch

Are there any Dignitas clinics in Canada? I only ask because my parents are going to Canada next week for a holiday and they called me round this week and told me where all important paperwork in the house is kept. They are only away for 2 and half weeks. It sounded a little strange to me.

The last British man to have fought in World War 1 has died. He was 111. We must never forget the sacrifice that this generation made. Whilst I intend no disrespect to those soldiers who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan and their sacrifice is never to be underestimated, Harry Patch was 19 when he fought in the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, in Belgium in which an estimated 500,000 soldiers died.
The views of those who have fought should be sought when we consider war as an option. Patch did not speak about his wartime experiences until he was aged 100 and was strongly opposed to violent conflict, calling war "organised murder".
"It was not worth it, it was not worth one let alone all the millions," he said.
"It's important that we remember the war dead on both sides of the line -- the Germans suffered the same as we did."
We will remember them. We have to.

Back in a minute, just going to get a beer.

Oh that's nice.
OK, back to the typing.
On Monday the ghastly rag that is the Daily Express had a headline that was a complete and utter lie. The front page read “Now Pay £20 To See Your GP”. Well, you might think, that is very bad, the NHS is supposed to be free at the point of delivery. And so it should be but what the Express were referring to was a report from a think-tank that had realised a report that contained several suggestions on Primary care and the NHS in general and this was just one of them. It wasn't Government policy, it was just a suggestion that someone made. It's not even news, although that hasn't ever stopped them.
Whilst checking the Express's website to make sure I was quoting them correctly, I noticed the headline from Wednesday's paper. It is a classic of the genre. It combines perfect Express story elements, foreign people, the Government and Illness. The headline read “Migrants Man Swine Flu Helpline”. Nice.

The Daily Mail continues its constant attack on the BBC. As they have nothing to actually complain about the new plan is to tell it's readers how many BBC staff have been sent to cover large events such as the Glastonbury festival (excellent coverage), the Open Golf (great coverage I'm told) and Wimbledon (an event they love and demand that it stays on the BBC). What they are trying to do is insinuate that the corporation is bloated and wasteful, taking far too many staff who sit around on expenses. They forget to give you any context i.e. How many staff they have taken before.
They have also tried to make an issue of a staff reshuffle at Radio1 claiming that they are ageist because Jo Whiley, 44, and Edith Bowman, 35, have been moved from their weekday shows to the weekend. They have also tacked on the BBC's decision to replace Arlene Phillips on Strictly Come Dancing with Alesha Dixon.
Radio1 is a station with an identified demographic. They are aiming at 18-25s so they think, quiet reasonably, that the presenters should more closely reflect this target group. So no story there then.
The problem with the BBC's decision about Ms Phillips is that they have replaced her with someone who is not an expert in dance, if they had it would have been easily defensible but they went with a very pretty former winner. They have also employed Darcy Bussell and she knows a little about dance. Arlene Phillips is awful on the program. She is as natural on the program as Jordan's skin colour. We should all be glad that she and her awful simile and unnecessary hyperbole have been dropped.
You will note that the Mail have avoid pointing out that on News broadcasts that have 2 anchors, one will be an older man and one will be news totty, mostly. They haven't mentioned this because it happens on ALL channels. ITV and Sky News are the worst but the BBC doesn’t escape criticism for this.
At one point this week they wheeled out Selina Scott to put the stiletto in but she failed to say was that she was let go because she was so bad and completely lacking in anything that could, even charitably, be described as personality or charisma.
She went on and on about the Strictly issue but also bought in the Radio1 reshuffle (I'm sure that was the most important thing on her mind) but she also mentioned Holly Willoughby replacing Fern Britten on this morning. Now Britten needed replacing because she left and was not fired so this isn't really fair but this paper (yes I feel that Selina may have been prompted to mention this) doesn't like Ms Willoughby because they feel that she showed to much cleavage on the successful family show Dancing on Ice. In fact they didn't like her so much and found her dresses so offensive that after every show they had a picture of her on the front of their paper in the offending frock. “see, look at that cleavage. See how offensive it is. It shouldn't be allowed. LOOK AT IT!” and then on most other days they have pictures of other middle class, fragrant ladies, usually in a revealing frock or a bikini. Now, hypocrisy is a very strong word......
But I digress, the argument is that TV is obsessed with youth. It does seem that the Media in general is obsessed with youth and beauty but that is mostly the print media. Look at the programmes on the BBC, as this is the Mail's target, and I don't think that you will see a youth obsessed broadcaster. Radio1 IS aimed at 18-25 year olds, as is BBC3, and then you have CBBC and Cbeebies but the others aren’t. I could list the programmes on the channels but that would be boring so I won't but take a look yourself, Eastenders, The One Show, Coast, Panorama, Who Do You Think You Are. These are not youth programmes, they are ratings chasers and that is very different.
If TV was obsessed with youth how do you explain all the old men on it? Perhaps there is some sexism but I think that The Daily Mail is trying to find reasons to bash the BBC because they are a rival. The BBC tries to be even-handed and balanced, it fails and has started giving time to idiots with no experience or expertise of the subject being discussed but they are asked on simply because they hold an opposite, ill-informed, opinion.
If the Mail wants to get snippy about something may I suggest the rise in TV that aims not to tax the brain. TV for the stupid is a bigger problem. I don't mean that everyone should only watch documentaries on BBC4 but perhaps less of the One Show or Jeremy Kyle, that's all I ask.

A good week for British sport so a quick list of the successes. England beat Australia in the 2nd Ashes test. Tom Daley wins gold at the World Championship on the 10m board. Jo Jackson and Rebecca Adlington won silver and bronze in the 400m freestyle at the World Swimming Championships. Bradley Wiggins has finished 4th in the Tour de France
equalling the best Tour finish by a Briton matching Robert Millar in 1984. Mark Cavendish became the first Briton to win on the Champs Elysees in Paris and this was his 6th stage win. Oh and Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix, which was nice.

And so to the Award,

The Award for Moaning Irish Man of the Week,
This goes to Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair. He announced that his company would be cutting it's Winter flights from Stansted airport by 40%. He blamed the rise in Passenger Airport duty and the price of landing at the airport.
OK, let's run through these arguments, Passenger Airport Duty is only going up by £1 for those flights. The airport has to charge you something to land there otherwise they would make no money. Last year you run 28 planes during winter from that Airport this year it will be 24 so not such a massive difference from last year than. Oh and there is a recession on you fool. Oh and aren't you trying to convince European Safety authorities that it is a good idea to have passengers standing on a flight. Like they do on a bus or the tube. Oh yes, if Mr O'Leary get his way even a seat will be extra on a Ryanair flight.

The Award for Football Match That Made Me Smile of the Week,

Cristiano Ronaldo made his first appearance for Real Madrid this week and against which great world club side did this great event take place? Oh yes ladies and gentleman it was against Shamrock Rovers. They play in the League of Ireland and play at the council-owned Tallaght Stadium on the outskirts of Dublin. The final score was Shamrock Rovers 0-1 Real Madrid.


May have a little trouble on next Sunday doing Diana Watch next week as I’m going to be at my sister-in-laws wedding.

Diana Watch

Shall we start with a question? Ha ha, we already have. Anyway, does anyone else feel a little sorry for Home Secretary Jacqui Smith? I mean, her husband ordered the porn and she put the expenses claim for her broadband/TV package as normal knowing nothing. It really wasn’t her fault at all. The outrage in the press was nothing unexpected but bits of it were quite funny and some downright surreal. The Mail got a mother of 2 (like Ms Smith, do you see what they’ve done there?) to right an article about what woman think of porn. I assume that it was just her opinion rather than a balanced article in which some woman said that actually they found it a little arousing. The Express amused me the most. This is mostly because they completely ignored the fact that he might have downloaded the porn from a website that was owned by the owner of the Express and The Star (officially Britain’s cheapest newspaper, in so many ways) renowned tax avoider Richard Desmond. Nothing but outrage from them despite the fact that it only came to £10. I would like to point out to the husband of Jacqui Smith that you can get it for free on the internet. No cost for downloading Raw Meat 6, which I believe to be you movie of choice.

What is it that our press dislike about protesting? Is it because it is a thing that the French do and therefore it is a thing that we shouldn’t? Like cooking descent food and making good wine? And parenting our children properly? (See today’s Observer for more info on that) Whatever it is, our press don’t like it, even if they have been complaining about the very things that people are to protest about. I am, of course, talking about the G20 meeting related protests in London on Tuesday and Wednesday. The problem that the protesters had was that the problem of the world economic meltdown
is so vast and it’s causes so wide ranging that it is hard to mobilise the people behind you because, angry as they are, they don’t understand why. So you have people protesting about this and that and no real cohesion. Not like the million or so who marched against the war in Iraq and where completely
ignored. They had a single cause and no one important listened. Now you
have 5 or 6 thousand people campaigning for roughly 5 or 6 thousand
different reasons and no one important will listen but GMTV viewers will think
that they are terrorists due to some deeply floored reporting by that programme.
They started their piece with a brief outline of what they expected to happen, times that the protests would start etc, but these were only guides, you know what anarchists are like. They then started to broadcast precisely what the Mat police wanted them to say, such as making sure that everyone understood that everyone who was protesting was a violent criminal bent on the destruction of the capital. They then covered the very amusing advice given to bankers by the police. They were advised by the authorities to dress down for work, those of them that still had jobs that is, obviously, so that they didn’t look too much like bankers and, therefore, wouldn’t be targeted by protestors. I assumed that they would still go to work in a very large bank building whilst carrying a lunch box, looking slightly smug, which would give them away slightly. GMTV then followed this piece, with no way of explanation, with a piece on threats to President Obama’s life by interviewing a counter terrorism expert. Do you see how they have expertly mixed 2 completely separate stories and combined them in too one incorrect one?
The BBC really weren’t much better with their describing of everyone as either “Anti-capitalists” or “Green Protestors” thus ignoring the fact many there where just trying to protest their upset at the lack of accountability for ruining the world’s economy.
The fact that it all passed off rather tamely did seem to annoy the 24hr news channels as they had trailed wanton (is that the correct spelling or just Chinese food) destruction for 2 days and it didn’t happen. Some windows got smashed at the RBS building and they were all terribly disapproving of this, ignoring the fact that they have made RBS and its ex-chairman public enemy No.1. At one point a BBC reporter on the scene was heard to say, “it’s all getting a bit ugly now!” and behind him were several gormless people waving in the direction of the camera. Hardly the Poll Tax riots.
At the end of the G20 summit there was a photo call for all those involved in not really getting on top of the problem but it didn’t include the Canadian Prime Minister. Why not you may ask? Had his radical plans for global finance reform so outraged his fellow conference attendees that they had thrown him out? No, he’d gone for a pee and they didn’t wait for him. That’s just rude if you ask me.

See how much shorter the new version of this is. No rambling from me, oh no, and I’ve had beer.

Some awards now I think,

The Award for Worst Hair Cut of the Week,

This goes to this bloke who we saw in the pub on Monday whilst failing to win the quiz.



A mullet so bad that even my camera could not focus on it.

The Award for Outstanding Old Person Activity of the Week,

A 97 year old man from Dorset has become the oldest Britain to do a parachute jump. This is a story I have kept away from my Nana as I don’t want her getting ideas, what with her hip and all. George Moyse of
Bournemouth starred himself to another man, I assume that they had met before and jumped out of a plane together. A whole lot braver than me, I can tell you.

The Award for First Ducklings of the Year,

This goes to these ducklings that I saw on Tuesday. It really is spring.



The Award for Proving That New Buildings Can Be Both Practical and Pretty, of the Week,

This goes to Dorchester’s new health centre with is a fine looking building.



I would also like to give these really dull flats that have just been finished an award too but a very different one.



The Award for Proving that the Government Exists For Businesses and Not The People of the Week,

This week a Building Society collapsed. It is the Dunfermline Building Society and it’s financial problems were caused by some bad investments and a poor business plan, sound familiar, but did the Government bail it out like it did with all the banks and their shareholders? No, no they didn’t. They let it fold and the good bits were bought by another building society. A cynic might say that the Government didn’t step in because the shareholders of the Dunfermline were the people who invested in it and they don’t have the ear of the Government and paid lobbyists, unlike the Banks who do. That would be a very cynical person indeed though. Hello, my name is Martyn and I am that cynic.

Good news for the BMX loving, skateboarding youth of Dorchester, the skate park is nearly finished. I’m of to buy a BMX and break my ankle. Hope you all have a good week.

Dear everyone who complained to the BBC about their new CBBC presenter,

Sometimes I think that I am unshockable when it comes to the attitudes of stupid, ill-informed, nasty people but just when you think that you have a handle on it, you lot really put in the effort to keep me on my toes. You step up to the plate with such levels of ignorance that I am flabbergasted. A young lady is employed by the BBC to lull your children to sleep and educate and entertain them so that you don’t have too (and don’t give me that “oh I sit with my child as they watch the TV so it is quality time” crap because that doesn’t count) and all you can do is complain to the broadcaster that she has a bit of a stumpy arm. There are a couple of points here, 1, have you got nothing better to do with your, clearly, pointless lives then comment on the CBBC message board? Some of the comments are so offensive that the moderator has had to take them down. Comments that you must feel are ok because you put your names to them. By the way, I will be trying to get as many names as I can so that I can publish a list of shame. And 2, what do you think that you are doing? You are asking the BBC to remove a presenter because you don’t like the way she looks? Some of the comments said that children might be “scared” or “frightened” by her appearance. The interesting word there is “might”. A quick scan though your mindless ramblings seems to indicate that none of your children actually DID find her appearance anything other than mildly diverting for more than 5 seconds. “Mummy, why has that lady only got one hand?”, “Because she was born like that/had an accident/giant crab snipped it off, (delete as appropriate)”, “Fair enough Mummy, what time is In The Night Garden on and can I have some more health ruining snack food please before you serve me some prepared microwaved slop for dinner? Thank you”. (I think that is how children speak, do feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)
If you think that the children might be frighten by something and it turns out that they weren’t because they are both curious and accepting, you have to ask yourself where does the problem lie? I think that if you look deep down inside yourselves you will find out, you deeply unpleasant people.
Let the nice lady, who has a name by the way, it’s Cerrie Burnell, and she looks like this,


Get on with looking after your children so you don’t have to bother and can spend more time swapping messages with other, equally bored, parents on a website for children’s television. You really are nasty, nasty people, please go away,
Yours with levels of disgust only usually felt for Daily Express headlines and Melanie Phillips,
Martyn (with no kisses because you don’t deserve them.)

P.s. also have a look at what other people think of you on the internet, try here for instance.

Diana Watch

How can you score 5 tries and still be rubbish? Who knows but England have managed it. Is this really the team that won the world cup and were then runners up?
I’m not entirely sure that there has been any news this week that hasn’t been snow related in Britain. The first word of pretty much every news bulletin has been “SNOW!” The only time that the news got interesting was when the BBC accidentally played a clip from Christian Bale’s rant without the appropriate beep at 6:55 in the morning.



It made me laugh.

The cockpit tapes from the flight that ended up in the Hudson last month have been realised and they tell us 2 things. 1, it was a bird strike that bought the plane down and 2, the pilot, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, is the calmest man in all the world. His plane has no thrust and he’s gliding over New York but there is not the slightest note of panic in his voice. It is incredible to listen to. Even as he is about to attempt to land his enormous aircraft on a river, nothing. Not a thing. Just a calm, “We may end up in the Hudson “. Remarkable.

There are 2 things I forgot to mention last week. Bob Dylan did a Pepsi advert for the Super Bowl. I know I have complained about people selling out for adverts but Bob Dylan? Oh for fucks sake, make it stop. I know he did an ipod ad but I’m not sure that that really counts because it was sort of an advert for his album at the time but Pepsi? With Will i am from the Black Eyed Peas. It makes me very sad.
The other thing was that Iceland now seems to have the worlds first openly gay Head of State and it’s a woman. 2 underrepresented groups in one. Good work Iceland. It’s another milestone for the world and it means the Daily Mail readers will avoid your beautiful country. I’m on my way.

Do any Americans pay tax? I only ask because it seems that most of the people that President Obama knows seem to have a little trouble with it. Tom Daschle, who was going to be Health and Human Services Secretary, failed to pay $100,000 in taxes for donated limos and has now withdrawn his nomination. I’m assuming that that is a lot of donated limo travel. The new Treasury Secretary, Tim Goithner, hastily had to pay a tax bill of $42, 000 which also included penalties for late payment. These and several other cases involving Obama nominees are a microcosm of a bigger problem in this globalised, corporate world. Tax avoidance is a growing industry and big money can be made by accountants who know how to work it. It is estimated by some economists that, world wide, companies avoid paying some £280 billion. This is, of course, all perfectly legal via an exciting web of loopholes and front companies, all set up with the explicit point of not paying any tax. Governments seem powerless to close the loopholes because if they try the companies threaten to leave the country and take what little tax they do pay and the jobs they create with them to which every country they decided to relocate too. At the moment there is nothing that any singular country can do because it is competing against other countries for that company. If something is to be done then it will have to be a world wide effort and I don’t think that anyone has the appetite for that fight with all the other problems that they are trying to sort out. There does seem to be a bit a flight towards protectionism from a number of countries in the past few weeks, one of these being America. Most economists, even the ones I mentioned last week, will tell you that protectionism, whilst always playing well on the domestic market, just asking some striking power plant workers, was one of the main reasons for the length of the great Depression in the 30’s. It is a very poor idea.
One of the better plans to come out of the Whitehouse recently, on the economic front anyway, was an announcement that top bankers, a term that was not defined, whose bank had taken government bailout money would be limited to a salary of $500,000 per year, with a limit on bonuses. There has been some moaning about this from various banking groups but, as President Obama pointed out, the leader of the free world only gets paid $475,000, so do you think that you are worth more then him?
My favourite counter argument to this limit on pay was made by a very long faced banker who said “you need to pay these bonuses in order to attract the best people. If you don’t pay them the best people will go and work for other people.” I’m sorry? What now? The best people? The best people, as you call them, HAVE COMPLETELY FUCKED WORLD! Sorry about that but he annoyed me.

I’m breathing deeply now and counting to 10 and as I calm down, shall we do some awards?

The Award for Correct Use of Words, Of The Week,

This goes to the composer Howard Goodall who, whilst on radio 4’s The Today program discussing music teaching in Primary schools, used the word “children” all the time. It was so nice to hear the correct word being used and not the rather horrid “kids”, which I hate.

The Award for Thing That Annoyed Me in a Bookshop of the Week,

The book that the film Slumdog Squarepants was based on, which used to be called “question and answer” I think, is now called Slumdog Millionaire. I know it is only a little thing but the author is a bit of a sell-out.

The Award for Ill-Informed Pedant of the Week,

This goes to anyone who criticised Gordon Brown for accidentally using the term “Depression” instead of “Recession” during Prime Minister’s Questions this week. My problem with this, quick distract people from the fact that we have no ideas, fuss is the fact that neither of the words actually mean anything. A recession is defined as 2 successive quarters of negative growth but this definition was made up in about 5 minutes before a press conference some time in the 50’s or 60’s (can’t find out exactly when). It really has no meaning economics wise.

The Award for Most Incredible Thing I’ve Heard All Week,

A 56-year-old American athlete has become the first woman on record to swim the Atlantic. Yes, that’s right, she swam the Atlantic. It took Jennifer Figge 24 days to swim from the Cape Verde islands off Africa to Trinidad. Good lord. I have trouble doing a length of a swimming pool.

Shorter this week, which I think is a good thing, but still too much economics, sorry. Umm, I’ve bought so eco-pants and some bamboo socks this week. When they arrive I’ll review them for you. Significant other is reading the new novel “Wetlands” at the moment and I’m assured that it is filth and more then a little unpleasant. I’ll read it and tell you.
England’s rugby players were substandard, the cricket have just been bowled out for 51, their 3rd ever lowest score, so it all rest upon the football team, who play Italy on Wednesday, to restore national pride.
At the moment I can’t find Clarkson’s column on the Time website so I can’t tell you if my prediction about him using the snow to bash “Global Warming” was right or not. Will keep looking though. Hope you 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.

Diana Watch

Your wife’s brain is sort of umm……. Shrunken. Good day to you all, I say all, last week it was 20, so I could probably greet you all individually and still only take up 2 lines. Hope you have had a good week, if not here is a thought to lighten the load, as I type this there are only 9 days left. 9 sleeps until still President Bush is ex President Bush and a collective sigh of relief so large that it will alter the course of most shipping is let out by 4.6 billion people, oh the joy. And if that doesn’t help it’s the 50th anniversary of Motown and every other BBC program is dedicated to this and playing many fantastic tunes, listen to them and your life will be good. Quickly back to the subject of George W Bush leaving, or more importantly Barack Obama taking over, lets be honest, this is probably the worst job in the world right now. World wide economic meltdown, yet more war in the Middle East, some of which his country didn’t start, and expectation so high that if he isn’t the first President to actually fly like David Copperfield, or indeed actually fly (my lawyers would like me to point out that David Copperfield can actually fly and that joke had no basis in fact), then America is going to be one very disappointed country. The rest of us don’t really mind what he does too much because he isn’t called Bush. The President elect has this week been outlining his plans for stimulating the recession hit economy that he will inherit. His plan is his own version of FDR’s New Deal, a new New Deal if you like and it mostly comes down to this, what FDR’s New Deal built, we will repair as no one has paid the slightest bit of attention to it since, why do you think the levees broke so easily in New Orleans? As we have discussed before the New Deal didn’t really lift the American economy out of the depression, that was the beginning of the 2nd World War and the massive increase in arms spending by Britain, but it did give people jobs and, combined with a new, reassuring President, it created confidence. FDR’s decision to re-open the banks would have ruined the country if the people hadn’t had the confidence to take their money back to them and reinvest. In faltering economies confidence is the key and this is what Obama will bring most to the U.S., oh and a shit load of spending, really, really big spending, which will be nice.
Of course the change of President and, probably, foreign policy does limit the time that Israel has to continue systematically destroying Gaza and the people within. The UN Security Council voted this week to call upon Israel and Hamas to declare a ceasefire, the vote passed and the call was ignored by both sides, but what was interesting were the numbers. Of the 15 members of the council 14 of them voted for the ceasefire motion, only one of them abstained, can you guess which one it was? Yes, that’s right it was Israel’s great friend and weapons based shopping centre, America. So the slaughter of hundreds in a pointless war is not enough for you to consider it a waste of time and a bad idea then Mr Bush, oh now, wait, you have previous for this sort of thing. Lets us all hope that the Obama Administration are a little more pro peace and sorting things out in a civilized way and a little less turning a blind eye.
It has been another bad week to be in Gaza, although I can’t think of many good weeks to be in Gaza recently and by recently I mean since about 1967, but the lowlight, if you will, was when Israel bombed a school, a UN school, with many children sheltering inside. On the BBC’s Today program on Radio 4 the Israeli Ambassador to Britain said that they had Drone (an unmanned spy plane) footage of Hamas Militants firing rockets from the roof of the school only hours earlier. The BBC then phoned the Israeli Embassy for clarification on this and were told that he had got it wrong. The footage that he had referred too was in fact taken during 2007. Oh and it was of a different school. The UN has also called for an investigation into what it describes as a “War Crime” by Israel in its treatment of injured Palestinians. In international humanitarian law soldiers are supposed to help and treat the injured, no matter whose side they are on and the UN claims that it has proof that Israeli soldiers have not been doing this.
I do know that this does sound very one sided and anti-Israel so let me add that rockets have still been fired into Israel from Gaza but also from Lebanon which really, really doesn’t help, unless the point was to remind everyone that Israel has a history of invading other countries in order to stop militant groups firing rockets at it and failing to do so. If that was what they were trying to do then goal achieved and well done, if not then sit down and shut up at the back you are not helping. I do agree with every Israeli spokesman that appears on any media outlet or their Youtube channel, ah, footage of the death of innocent people and funny animal clips, that’s what the internet is there for, that their country has the right to live peacefully within it’s borders with it’s neighbours without the fear of rockets raining down on them but maybe they should listen to their own words.

I’m sure you are asking yourselves, “Why are so many big companies going bankrupt?” ok, so you might not be but I’m using this as a narrative device so that I can crowbar my point in. Well it has very little to do with consumer spending, which is in fact slightly up on this time last year according to the ONS, and far more to do with the business practices of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Stupid as it may seem to you and I, it was the business mantra of the time. Cash in the bank bad, debt on and off the books, very good indeed. Now to most normal people this seems like a very poor idea that is fraught with danger, “what if the banks stop lending to me to cover this debt, my business will go under” but to those that ran, see how I used the past tense there, large companies this was not seen as a problem. By investing in very complicated financial products, that they borrowed lots of money for in the hope that they would make more money to cover that debt, they could move those debts off of their books so it looked like their situation was much better than it was. So when the banks stopped lending to one another and then to businesses, such as Woolworths, and then wanted their money back (this is the credit crunch not a drop in retail spending as the TV news seem to think it is) the companies in question were sunk, landed with huge debts that they couldn’t pay. So please don’t believe the bleating of the shops, you are spending enough money. Hey, maybe you should consider saving a little or paying off some of your own debt and if you do have a little to spend, do so in a small local shop like “Down to Earth” in my road. With all the space appearing in the high street this could be the chance for the local shops to take back some ground.
We are living in a very odd and confusing time as those who we thought were arch capitalists, politicians and business leaders etc, now seem to be some sort of socialists, encouraging us to nationalise things. Well sort of. They want us to nationalise their debts but leave the profits for them. Given their old ways you would have thought that an empty shop unit was a wank fantasy for them as it should that the “Market” was working and the strongest were surveying and the weakest going under, but no, they want help all of a sudden. Years of taking our money in return for shoddy products and bad service and now they want our help. There are some who have a terrible dystopian nightmare were meglo-companies straddle borders, employing hundreds of thousands of people, making singular decisions that effect stock markets and making trillions of pounds in profits until they don’t. A couple of bad investments and those years of profit are wiped out. These companies are too big to fail. Just one of them going down could ruin a country so various Governments are asked to step in to save them. “We’re sorry. We’ve really messed up and all our investments are worthless” “What about all those Profits you made over the last 25 years?” “No, that wasn’t us, you must be thinking of some other Bank.” “Ok, here’s billions of pounds” “thank you xx” What’s to stop these companies from continually doing this? Holding whole countries to ransom, pay up or we ruin you. Gordon Brown hinted at this “moral hazard” problem at the beginning of the credit crunch but has done nothing to deal with the problem which has lead to money going into the banks but not coming out again.


Some Awards now,

The Award for Tosser of the Week,

This goes to Tory Party activist Matthew Lewis who went to a New Years Eve party dressed as Madeleine McCann. Now, the question here is not why would you do that, tasteless prank, lack of moral judgement, a Tory, who’d of thought, it is, how would you do that? Did he wear a small girl’s frock? Get himself a funny eye or his family a publicist? Was he poorly investigated by Portuguese Police or did he just mysteriously not turn up?

The Award for Not Really a Great Surprise,

This goes to Prince Harry for using a racist term. This is the man, let us not forget, who went to a fancy dress party in a Nazi Uniform. What is it with the over privileged and fancy dress parties?

The Award for Odd Media Obsession of the Week,

This does not go to the wind turbine somewhere up North that got damaged and a blade fell off. Oooh, there were strange lights in the sky, twas a UFO you know. Was it? Was it really? Oh no, a much stranger obsession crept in this week, it was light bulbs. I have heard an article on radio news, seen an article on BBC television news and it’s all over the papers. This is because the EU wants to stop the production of the old fashion, not overly efficient, 100 watt tungsten light bulbs. I’m told that there has been panic buying of them despite the fact that it’s not going to happen for at least 2 years and that our government announced it ages ago. BBC news had a little voxpox piece asking idiots why they were panic buying. Several answers were given, my favourite being, “I don’t like the light that they give off”. I’m sorry? What now? The light that they give off? IT’S LIGHT! THAT’S THE COLOUR AND SPEED THAT IT COMES IN! One of the other answers was that the price of energy efficient bulbs was too high so I went to my local bulb emporium and found that the energy saving bulbs with equivalent candle power output of the old 100 watt tungsten bulbs start from 75p. If people won’t spend 75p to save the planet then we are all doomed. Although I got some free from my electricity supplier and from Waitrose. Only after I’d already bought a load for my house, so if you want some I do have some spares. Then the Daily Mail decided that this was an “it was all better in my day” issue and couldn’t help themselves but join in and start giving away 100 watt light bulbs. Would they also be happier if we repealed the “clean air” act and London went back to having fogs that could kill? Who would have thought that the only sane voice in this madness would come from the Sun who decided to give away some Energy saving light bulbs? I can’t believe that I am actually going to type the next few words but, well done the Sun.

Have a nice week. Go on, spend 75p and start helping to change the world.

Hell In A Hand Cart

Dear The Daily Mail,
I would like to thank you for bringing this very serious matter to my attention. I can not believe that such serious things can happen is THIS country. It really is unacceptable that a man, or an actor at least, should get his penis out on a live broadcast at 10 past 8 in the evening on the BBC, for that is exactly what John Barrowman did on Sunday. Now whilst I except that this was on Radio 1 so no one could see but it was also streamed on the internet on a live webcam feed and, again, I except that no one saw anything so my anger is completely misplaced and just looks like a really bad excuse to be angry at the BBC but that does stop me form being appalled, opportunistically I grant you, but appalled neither the less. I have to agree with the your humourless readership who have posted insightful and well thought through comments on your website, people like Jennifer from Moreton, Wirral who said ”I used to like John Boarowman but he's going down rapidly in my estimation - not a good role model. All right he's gay, we all know that, but it doesn't entitle him to to do this sort of thing.”, a very good point I think you will agree because, gays are no more allowed to wave their willies around than you or me or Margaret Harrison- Marks of Gloucester who said “I wish the BBC would take that aweful loud-mouthed exhibitionist off our screens. I switch off whichever programme he appears on.”, I mean, yes, she can’t spell awful, but she makes I point I think we can all agree on. This one is so funny and erudite, David Bourke of Rochester, Kent writes “Barrowman is so full of himself that he'd have a Civil Partnership with himself if he could.” So very funny, you should give him a job, much funnier than that Littlejohn, the bitter, hate-filled, bigoted twat, sorry fell out of character for a moment there. Carol Vincent of Ventnor, England said “It makes you want to cry, will someone please realise where the world is heading, bring back the old values and save our children and their children, please!!!”, although it is possible she is not taking it as seriously as she should, she is almost quoting Rev. Lovejoy from the Simpsons wife (which I never watch because I might be offended) “won’t someone please think of the children”, hell in a hand cart people. I agree with all the people who say they will not be watching anything he is in ever again, but that is mostly because “TorchWood” is rubbish. Clearly the people who write on the comment sections of your website are very clever but can’t spell for toffee but that’s 1930’s education for you,

Yours filled with impotent rage, oh dear I’ve offended myself by using the word “impotent” before 9 o’clock, I’ll have to complain to myself,
Martyn

Ps, good work on the number of complaints your constantly going on about the Ross/Brand generated, about 40000 I believe, shame that 50000 people complained to Ofcom about the result of one of the X-Factor shows, maybe we will get a better response next time.