Diana Watch

I don’t want to know that the Tories are back in power, yes it is good for comedy, art and music (especially punk and folk) but for the rest of us, who don’t earn several million pounds a year, it is really bad news. In order to counter act this slight set back in my life I will be approaching the following few years thus,

The only harm will be a slightly soar back and some sand in the ears, although I might get shafted and not know who it was, at least you lot will see them coming.

23% of the vote and 8% of the seats, tell me how this is fair?

I’m not going to moan on and on about the election and the inherent unfairness of the First Past The Post electoral system but it is bloody tempting, mostly because that is all that our newspapers and websites have been full of all week. It’s been hard to find anything else to bring you. Although, maybe just one little mention of a “politician”,

The Award for Most Shameless Publicity Stunt on Election Day,

Can this go to anyone else but Nigel Farage?

He managed to get a pilot to crash a light aircraft containing the hypocritical xenophobe that was pulling a “Vote UKIP” banner in order to draw attention to his cause of trying to beat John Bercow. That is dedication an ideal. Would you get that from Gordon Brown or David Cameron? I think not and I know you definitely wouldn’t get it from Nick Clegg.

The Award for Most Predicable Story/Group of Offended People of the Week,

The new Chris Morris film “4 Lions” has come out this week to pretty good reviews from the critics and howls of protest from people just looking to be offended.

I have written before about how great I think Chris Morris is and what better way to remove the basic threat of Terrorists (whose purpose is to terrorise) than to laugh at them, you can read it here (although it does seem to be in an odd font).

I wrote it because the Daily Mail was already offended by the trailer but now to be added to the group of people offended by a film about stupid attempted terrorists are a group claiming to represent survives of the London 7th of July bomb attacks (with a little help from the Daily Mail and currently pathetic BBC who gave them time on News 24).

They would like the film banned. I have 2 questions here, 1, does this group represent all of those who survived or lost loved ones? And 2, have they even seen the film?

Their basic problem seems to be that the 4 main characters of the film are from Yorkshire (as were the 7/7 bombers) and they travel to London to blow something up, one of their suggested targets is “The Internet” but instead end up dressed as giant furry animals in order to attack the Marathon. Where else would they go in England to make a blowy up splash? “Today a bomb went of in Merthyr Tydfil and caused £8.42 worth of damage”.

Really, is that it? Because the bombers are from Yorkshire? Bloody hell, it’s easy to piss you off isn’t it.

And whilst I'm at it, what right do you have to ask for things to be banned because you don't like it? I don't like most films or Television programs and find an awful lot of them offensive, mostly for their poor writing or general rubbishness, but that doesn't mean that I have the right to try and get them banned you self-important fool.

The Award for Best Bit of Direct Action of the Week,

I like this story for 2 reasons, 1, It is simple and effective action and 2, it is happening right here, right now in Dorset.

The village of Chideock is on the A35 and it's a bloody awful road. It is narrow and it is windy and it is the main road between us and Devon. The very high levels of traffic that this entails renders this, rather pretty, village less than pleasant to live in, especially during the summer. Step up to the plate Tony Fuller, a man with a very simple plan.

The villagers would like some sort of bypass but their pleas are being ignored so they needed some sort of attention grabbing but legal stunt with which to register their miffedness. Mr Fuller came up with a plan that utilises their pre-existing infrastructure or the village Pelican Crossing, as some may call it.

He, and other residents, spend an hour using the crossing constantly. He said “If they all turn up and they each press that button once, one after the other, that's 50 times that traffic will be stopped and it will cause chaos. Because they've only gone across once each, they can't be prosecuted for using the crossing that was put there for their benefit.” They caused a 4 mile tailback in no time. Genius.

The Award For Taking the Term “Animal Husbandry” To Literally,

A Germany man has, sort of, married his cat (damn that was a pretty tortured and poor set up for a joke.)

There really is no point for this story. A German man, whose cat is dying, paid an actress to carry out the service.

He loves his cat, I get that, and she’s not well, again I understand, but why “marry” it? How will that help?

The Award For Actually Making A Reasonable Point But Managing To Loose It In A Massive Cloud Of Rhetorically Bullshit,

Now, I'm no fan of Iran or its slightly “zany” leader but it seems that it President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have had a point when he addressed a UN meeting to review the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. He said “The sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to annihilate all living beings and to destroy the environment. The nuclear bomb is a fire against humanity rather than a weapon for defense. . . . The possession of nuclear bombs is not a source of pride; their possession is disgusting and harmful.” I can't argue with that.

Obviously he went on to complain about pretty much everything else and called for the US to be removed from the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency for "threatening non-nuclear states", this, in turn, caused a rather childish response for the American, French and British, who walked out. I assume that they were heading for the high moral ground.

He says that Iran is developing nuclear power stations and we say that he is trying to build bombs. We don’t believe him but I feel that if he told the US that the sky was blue some on the Right would accuse him of lying.

Again we have this problem, we tell the rest of the world that they can’t have Nuclear Weapons whilst our politicians (except the LibDems) want to replace Trident and Western countries all ignore Israel’s weapons (and for balance those of Pakistan, India and North Korea). I do find this level of hypocrisy staggering.

See, virtually no politics and only awards because I think we all need a little cheering up after the disappointment of Thursday/Friday.

65% of those eligible to vote did so on Thursday and only 35% of those people voted Tory, so only 22.75% of those that could, voted for the party that is in charge (probably). Not really a ringing endorsement. 77.25% of the electorate either don’t vote for or voted against them.

Hope you all have a lovely week. I’m not sure if I will be able to do this next week as we are off to visit Significant Other’s Grandma and Sister as it is both of their birthdays.

Gordon is a Duffus

Oh dear, poor Gordon Brown. I know that me feeling sorry for him is probably not what he wants but that’s how it is.
He did something stupid but we have all done it. We have all met someone, whether in a pub or at work, who, shortly after they’ve gone, we’ve turned to a friend and said “What a twat!”
The difference here is that he had a live microphone on his lapel; still it could have been worse,



All I would say to any other politician that tries to get any mileage out of this, there by the grace of Twosh goes you.
Be very careful all politicians and perspective politicians who are being interviewed, every Radio and TV producer in the land will be living those mics live for as long as is feasibly possible.

Diana Watch

There really is only one story that I want to talk about this week. It is one of the most talked about and life changing events of the week (well in our house anyway). It could alter the way we live our lives for years to come. If we do not act now, history will judge us to have failed.

 As of July a Scrabble rule change will mean that you are allowed to use proper nouns! You will be able to put company names and the names of celebrities.

 A company spokesman said "This is one of a number of twists and challenges included that we believe existing fans will enjoy and will also enable younger fans and families to get involved." I'm sorry? What?

 Why do you think that young people need to be patronised by making the game easier? It is fun because it is hard, that is the point. Do we encourage children to play football by making the goals bigger? Do we get children to play “Battleships” by making the board smaller? Do we make teenagers seem more clever by making GCSEs easier? Ok, bad example (and I’m not sure if that is actually true) but my point still stands; making things easier does not make them more appealing. It does, however, make them less valuable. Have you ever been allowed to win by someone else, at anything, not just games? It is a totally empty feeling, even children understand this and they are stupid.

 JFK said “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” He could have been talking about playing Scrabble.

 They also said that the changes will “introduce an element of popular culture into the game". Why is that a good thing?! I don’t want to have my scrabble board looking like a copy of Heat magazine. I want it to look like a scrabble board.

  Significant Other and I have discussed it and this is a rule change that we will not be implementing in the Norris household.

Ok, I suppose there was something else of some importance that happened this week. Gordon Brown has been to see the Queen and asked her if he can have an election and she said Yes (Do you think that she has an option? Could she say “No, cos I think that you will loose and I don’t want that twat Cameron in charge”? It seems unlikely).

 A clear Tory policy has emerged of not telling the truth about Nation Insurance. “We will not implement this 1% NI rise because it is a tax on jobs.” No, you will only raise it by 0.5% won’t you and “a tax on jobs”? Now this is a revelling line.

 What they mean by this is that it is a tax on businesses (rich people who fund the Tory party) but they have no problem with a rise in Income tax because that only affects workers.

 James Caan (out of off of Dragons Den) pointed out on Newsnight that the 1% rise will cost about £15 a month per employee. Will that stop a business employing a person? He said not. If they want a person they will employ them. He also pointed out that the NI rise only comes in when the employee earns about £20,000, how many shop workers earn that much? The job that I applied for at Millets (and didn’t get) paid £6 per hour, I don't think that I would have earn that much. So is the Tory plan nonsense and are their business friends only trying to preserve their profits? Yes, yes they are.

 The business men who queued up to side with their puppet, did I say puppet I meant Party, and say that Gordon Brown was wrong didn’t really fool anyone, despite David Cameron referring constantly to them.

 One of the people supporting the Tories was Sir Stuart Rose of Marks and Spencer whose company, this week, posted a health profit for last quarter of the year and estimates that it’s full year profit will be between £620m-£630m. Not really struggling then in the recession. They probably can afford an extra 1% on employees earning over £20,000 and not really notice it.

 Combine this with their calls for a reduction in Health and Safety legislation to make it easier for companies to kill you, their lack serious plans for increased regulation of the City and plans to reduce Inheritance Tax and you have to ask yourself, whose side are they on? I don’t think that it is yours.

 They are also a little hypocritical (I know this will come as no surprise) over income tax. On Tuesday the new top rate of income tax came in to force going up to 50% for those earning over £150,000. The Conservatives criticised this ferociously and, with various business groups, said that high earners would leave the country. Well they had one years notice and it seems that they haven’t.

 Despite this friend-protecting rhetoric they have no plans to reduce it.

 Whilst we are talking about tax and benefit changes can I bring your attention to these?

 Mothers will now be able to donate all or part of their maternity leave to their husband/partners. At the moment mother can take up to 52 weeks of fathers get 2 weeks but now the mother will be able to take 6 months and then go back to work and the father/partner can take the next 6 months.

ISA limits have been raised to £10,500 per year (so good for small savers then).

Sick notes have now been replaced with Fit notes. Instead of just being signed off sick your GP will be able to suggest what work you are fit for. Whilst there are a few problems with this, GP are not Occupational Health specialists for instance, overall this is great. Research seems to suggest that the sooner people get back to work the quicker they get better.

Now, as I have said before, I am no fan of Labour. I have watched my civil liberties disappear faster then the Twin Towers came down since 2001, they have taken us into 2 wars, 1 of which may be illegal and the Digital Economy bill is a disgrace but all of the above ARE great things and they should be applauded for these things.

And while I’m talking about Government achievement, the economy may do much better than predicted. 

According to the OECD the UK economy may grow at an annualised rate of 3.1% for the second quarter of 2010 which is much better than most other countries in the G7.

 Let me continue, if I may, with more slightly dull economic numbers.

 Many analysts say that The Markets are “jittery” about the possibility of a hung Parliament or the Countries credit rating being downgraded over the size of the deficit (this is so unlikely as to not be worth talking about). If this is true then The Markets are reacting in a very strange way. They are going up. The FTSE closed on Friday at 5770.98, up 58.28 points on the day. For the year they are up from their lowest point of 3968.40 points, that is a rise of 68%! Does that sound like a market that is concerned about how Labour are running the economy to you because it certainly doesn’t to me.

 Sorry, that was a bit dull but the points had to be made.

The scary thing about the pre-election is the blood lust that the 2 main parties have got up for cutting things.

Alistair “those aren't his real eyebrows” Darling said that they would have to cut harder and deeper (he was also writing porn dialogue at the same time) then anything done by Margaret Thatcher. Really? Fuck off. You are a Labour chancellor. What are you doing trying to keep up with the Osborne’s?

 And then they all try to hide other cuts in euphemism, “We will make efficiency savings”. So you are absolutely sure that these are not cuts then because when big companies merge they make “efficiency savings”. Shortly afterwards an awful lot of people loose their jobs and those that remain have their terms and conditions shredded. So I ask you once again, are you absolutely, completely and utterly sure that these “efficiency savings” are definitely, definitely not cuts?

The Award for Using Words in an Article That Only Newspapers Use,

There are some words that don’t get used enough in modern day English, such as bobbins and poppycock (which is my favourite word in all of the language), and there are some words that are only used by tabloid newspapers. The word “romp” for instance is only used by red top newspapers when they are referring to sex, i.e. “The footballer romped with the model”

 The mighty Daily Mail has decided to bring back a word that hasn’t been used in its correct context since Queen Victoria sat upon the throne. They claimed in an article about the New Dr Who assistant Amy Pond “that viewers were left scandalised” by her short skirt. Scandalised? Really? By some legs?

 Now I would link to the original article but I’m not clever enough and the Daily Mail on-line is like the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, it is constantly changing things that have been printed to closer reflect the views of it’s witless commentators (and the Google Cached thing doesn’t seem to work for that paper). The article no longer includes that word because they probably realised that it has been used since the “Lady Chatterley” trial.

 I would just like to say to people who were upset, or indeed scandalised, by the sight of Karen Gillan’s (not even bare legs, although that might be the issue, oh I don’t know) legs that they should avoid nearly all female professional sport and it is probably best if you stay indoors for the summer (especially around May the 6^th sort of time).

The Award for Trying to Get Something Really Rather Wrong on to a Plane,

Two women have been caught trying to smuggle a dead bloke in a wheel chair on to a plane at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport. It really is as simple as that.

 They claimed that he was asleep and put sunglasses on him and then attempted to board a plane.

They also travelled to the airport in a Taxi. That is how observant taxi drivers are people, you can pop a dead bloke in one and they won’t notice.

The Award Sticking Your Head In the Sand and Placing Your Fingers in Your Ears,

 For the third week in a row I am forced, mostly by their own stupidity and trying to make out that problems don't exist, to mention the Catholic Church.

 Now I am not a religious man, well actually I am an atheist, and the activities of the worlds various religions are not of a great deal of interest to me except if they are justifying flying planes into buildings or telling AIDS ravaged countries that condoms actually make the problems worse or….., oh ok, I do take a bit of any interest but the Catholic Church is really trying to push the boat out at the moment.

 The Associated Press is reporting that it has a letter that is signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI, in which he resists the defrocking of a convicted sex offender.  Cardinal Ratzinger said the "good of the universal Church" should be considered in such cases.

 Rev Stephen Kiesle was convicted in 1978 for lewd conduct with two young boys in San Francisco and was sentenced to 3 years probation. His diocese, Oakland, had recommended Kiesle's removal in 1981 but it didn't happen until 1987.  Cardinal Ratzinger took over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department that deals that sort of thing, in 1981 and this letter was written in 1985.

 So here is another bit of evidence that shows that Cardinal Ratzinger was aware of the abuse and attempted to cover it up and what did his spokesman, Rev Federico Lombardi, say? Why he tried to play it down of course, saying “The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations."

Let’s end with a song to lift your spirits as I have gone on a bit this week.

I know that everyone else of a skeptical bent has linked to this or embedded it and that I am a little behind the curve here (as I am with so many things, I hear those Beatles are pretty good, you should check them out) but here is The Daily Mail Song by Dan and Dan,

Have a good week. The sun is out and the sky is blue, enjoy yourselves whilst you can as soon we may have a Tory Government.

Why the Papers Say

I would like to look at 2 stories from recent weeks to illustrate, to a certain degree, how our press works. 1 of them is how a good PR person can guide a story and the other is a back-firing political story.
Let’s start with the political storm in a political tea cup first. A couple of week ago the press, particularly the anti-Labour side, were filled with stories about Gordon Brown being a bully. The accusations all stemmed from a book that was being promoted at the time by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley and were leapt upon by the right wing press. We had several days of headlines about people being pushed and shouted at and then a bullying hotline got involved. Television news also ran the stories and before long the modern political catch phrase of “We need a public enquiry” rang out for the Tories. Downing Street denied the stories.
Then something very strange happened. Before the mass reporting Labour, and particularly Mr Brown had been languishing in the Polls but in a survey conducted just after “Bully-gate” both Labour and Gordon’s ratings had risen significantly. It seemed that the voters really like, what they perceive as, a strong leader.
The story immediately stopped being reported. The right-wing press dropped it because they had a made a massive editorial and political misjudgement and it had actually had the opposite effect than planned. The Labour supporting press didn’t need to keep defending their party so they dropped it too and Television news only seems to be reading out what the papers have written anyway, so they stopped talking about it too.
It has been suggested, slightly sarcastically, by Simon Schama on his Point of View on Radio4 that it was all in the Labour plan, I’m not sure about that but it does show that newspapers only report stories that reinforce their ideological position and not the actual news. If this story was of importance then it should have continued to have been written about but it wasn’t. It was designed, be the time it reached the papers, to damage a political party but it didn’t work so was dropped.

The second story is about Take That’s Mark Owen. Now Mark Owen has had some affairs with quite a few ladies but has been treated very differently then, say, Ashley Cole. Why is that you may ask? You may not to honest because it’s not that interesting but worth a bit of a look I think.
There are 2 ways in which these stories come out. The famous person, usually, gets a call from the paper that has the story about them and they offer them the confession type of story that we have seen with Mark Owen. This is the more sensible approach because the famous person, or at least their PR advisor, can control the story. Mark Owen, for instance, has been on the front pages for 3 or 4 days now with a bit more to add to the story each day. Day One, “I have had some affairs”, day two, “I have a problem with alcohol”, Day three and four, “I need treatment, I’m going into Rehab”. Now I have no proof that the drinking problem bit of this story is true or not but it is a recurring theme in these PR stories.
What we have here is a well controlled story in which our sympathies are supposed to be with famous person.
Now, there is another approach. The famous person may choose not to talk to the paper in question. This is nearly always a bad idea. What then happens is that the paper will run a series of blow by blow (if you forgive the pun) account of the affair(s) with pictures of the lady(ies) in underwear probably insulting the size of the famous persons penis. There is another, much smaller, subset of these stories where the famous person sort of collaborates with the paper but not enough to give a tell-all interview. These stories can be spotted because when the woman in the underwear describes the sex she will be very positive about it. That is the famous person’s pay off for being a bit helpful.
I mentioned Ashley Cole at the beginning of this section so now back to him. He has been given a hard time by the press because he cheated on someone who is more popular than he is. He has fucked with an inexplicable nation treasure. He was always going to lose that battle in the press.
In this section on affairs I have concentrated on the man for one very good reason, men who have affairs are treated differently to woman. Any famous woman who has an affair will come off badly. There will be no sympathetic angle. You are a woman who dared to have some sex and therefore you are a slut. This will be reinforced by printing the story next to some pictures of you taken not wearing very much.

Diana Watch

He was 10 when it happened! Did we ever ask why it happened or did we just charge a 10 year old with murder and then, when encouraged by the media to light the torches and dust off our pitch forks, forget how old he was? Yes, he is now 27 but this is not the same person that killed a child 17 years ago. Are you, screaming idiots, the same person that you were when you were 10? I’m not, well I still like Dr who and nature documentaries, but apart from that I’ve changed quite a bit and I assume you have too.
If anything we should be ashamed that we have failed the child formally know as John Venables by not helping him enough to recover from a childhood that turned him into that 10 year old killer of a child. I do feel that I need to mention that I am not taking away from the enormity of this crime but adding so context.
A report out this week showed that re-offending on release from prison costs the country £10bn per year. Proof, I think you will agree, that the present penal system of lock them up and forget about that, as favoured by right wing politicians (and the Labour Party so that they could get elected) who see feeding prisoners as “too good for them” does not work. It does not help to deter people from a life of crime; if anything it reinforces their behaviour patterns. It shows them that they are outsiders and no one cares. What’s the point in worrying about others when they don’t care about you?
I know I won’t convince conservative types that helping prisoners off of drugs and to get an education is the right thing to do on moral grounds but can I appeal to them on budgetary grounds? Spend a bit more on rehabilitation of these people and save massive amounts of money for the whole country.


I bloody love twitter. There are so many helpful people on there. A few weeks ago I mentioned that we are going to go to Canadia next February and a woman, who is a Travel Agent, offered help in finding flights. I got asked on to the Radio 4 program “You and Yours” because I complained about their interview with halfwit herb peddler Michael McIntyre (not the overrated joke teller) and within half an hour a person who specialises in PR offered to help prepare me. I'm still not sure if I'll go on because I don't think that I am clever enough (or calm enough, I don’t think that Radio 4 would be overly impressed if I called him some terrible unpleasant name) to debate someone on national radio.
Then this week I mentioned a band that I really, really love and encouraged them to play in my general area and I got a direct message from a friend saying that she knew the lead singer and he was a friend. Oh yes Ladies and Gentlemen. Twitter is bloody brilliant.


The BNP have tried really hard to change their constitution so that they could remain racist but also within the law. It seems that they have failed.
A few weeks ago the BNP voted to get rid of its “Whites Only” membership policy after a threat of comedy legal action from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But a judge at the Central London County Court rejected their new attempt which asked members to sign up to the BNP's “principles”, including a duty to oppose the promotion of any form of "integration or assimilation" that impacted on the "indigenous British”, again I think we have to ask noted twat Nick Griffin what exactly they mean by “Indigenous British”, and a requirement to support the "maintenance and existence of the unity and integrity of the indigenous British". Again with that term.
They really do seem to think that when we were invaded by Northern Europeans and the French and the Romans and anyone else who came to this grey little corner of Europe, that they didn’t have any sex with anyone who lived here. I happen to know, for a fact, that at least one person who came to Britain in the Middle Ages was black,



They seem to suffer under this delusion that we are genetically pure. And if man spread out from Africa, which he did, the “indigenous British” would have got here from, ummm, SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Nick Griffin said after the judgement “"I think it's appalling. The court have opened a huge can of worms here, they have given a government funded, a taxpayer-funded body the right to interfere with the aims and objectives of political parties. That’s not just an attack on us. It's an attack potentially on any political party. It's a bad day for democracy from that point of view." It’s an attack on any political party THAT BREAKS THE LAW.
Sorry, too many capital letters there but the BNP piss me off.


Japanese Knot weed can grow 3ft in 3 weeks and can regenerate from a bit of root the size of thumb nail. It is remarkable stuff but it is also a massive pain in the arse. It can destroy the foundations of buildings and flood defences and it costs millions of pounds to keep under control.
What shall we do? So how will we control it? We must find something before are entire country is engulfed by a foreign invader? Coming over here, stealing our nutrients, out competing our native species. Scuttle forward a tiny Japanese insect called Psyllid. It sucks the sap out of it and slowly kills it.
Now, knotweed was introduced into the country as an ornamental plant by the Victorians but it soon escaped and started causing problems. Now we want to introduce another non-native species to control a non-native species, what could possibly go wrong? Environmental policy based on the nursery rhyme “There Was An Old Woman”.

“There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,
I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.”


And so to the Awards,

Special mention for the board of Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi who have decided to cancel the School Prom rather than let one of the female pupils bring her girlfriend.
This is why the rest of the world mocks you America. Please don’t act surprised, you bring it on yourself.


The Award for Desperately Trying To Shift The Blame,

This has to go to Father Gabriele Amorth. He is the Vatican's Chief Exorcist (because they have more than one) who claims to have dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession. Really? Any proof of that sir?
Anyway, He has claimed that recent, umm, unpleasantnesses within the Catholic Church were because “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”. Some of the things that are “proof” of the Devil's influence are power struggles at the Vatican and also "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon". Oh and all of those scandals involving Priests raping children. Good news, it wasn't their fault, it was the Devil. Well that’s ok then, we should just let them off (like the Church does) because they were possessed. Just a quick question, if a parishioner came to confession and confessed to raping a child how many Priests would say “that's ok, you are probably possessed by the Devil”? I would imagine it would be none.
He also was one of the Priests who said that JK Rowling’s books made a “false distinction between black and white magic", forgetting that it's CHILDREN’S FICTION! Although, to be fair, he seems to think that the Bible is the literal truth, so he does have a problem distinguishing between truth and fiction. He also seems to think that The Exorcist is some sort of documentary. He described it as “exaggerated" but offered a "substantially exact" picture of possession. OK, back slowly away from him people, make for the door but do it quietly, they are more dangerous when they are startled.

The Award For I’m Sorry, You Did What?

David Cameron really does have a very poor grasp of history. During Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday he said that the Tories cut defence spending because THEY WON THE COLD WAR. He was under pressure from Gordon Brown who had pointed out that the last time the defence budget was cut was in the 90's by the Tories. David Cameron retorted “That's because we won the Cold War under the Conservatives," We? We won the cold war? If anyone won the cold war it was the Americans but let's be honest, the Russians lost, no one won.
Just for the sake of balance Gordon was a little misleading in his use of numbers because, yes the Government have increased the amount of money that they give the Armed Forces each year, when you include inflation there has been the odd “real terms” cut.

The Award For It’s About Time Too,

Following on from her win at the Baftas Katherine Bigelow has won the Oscar for best director and, again, like the Baftas she is the first woman ever to win this prize. More importantly though Avatar didn't win very much. Which is nice.
What was much more surprising was Sandra Bullock winning the best actress Award for the Blind Side. Ok so no one over here has seen Blind Side but it is a Sandra Bullock film so expectations aren’t high.
One of the reasons that people like Ms Bullock is that she does seem to have a sense of humour about herself. The night before the Oscars she also won a Razzie for the worst actress for her performance in “All About Steve”. She turned up to except her award. You have to admire that sort of self-effacing behaviour but that doesn’t mean that she can carry on making bad films.


Things that almost made it,

Top 100 websites, the only porn site is at number 84. Clearly this is bobbins.

England Davis Cup team are rubbish after losing to the Ukraine. A team made up of teenagers beat us. The problem seems to be the Lawn Tennis Association. Let us, quickly, review “British” Male tennis players of the last few years. Andy Murray hasn't come through the LTA's system, his mum took him out of the system and he has also decided that he won't play Davis Cup matches any more. Greg Rusedski is from Canadia so wasn't trained by the LTA. And that leaves Tim Henmen. He was trained by David Lloyd, the brother of the Davis Cup captain John. So again, not trained within the LTA system.


The Daily Mail lies several times in several weeks, here and here

Have a fantastic week.

Diana Watch

I'm sorry, have I fallen asleep and woken up in the 1980's? (Although Homeopaths think it’s the 1880’s and Prince Charles, the 1780’s). Am I in Life on Mars? (or whatever the 80’s sequel was called)

 Monday night/Tuesday morning a car bomb exploded in Newry, Northern Ireland. Fortunately no one was hurt despite the fact that it went off whilst the area was being cleared.

 There has been a recent upsurge in terrorist attacks in that country with the murder of soldiers and several bombings.

 Will we now be having a War on Terror in Northern Ireland? Will those with a slight Irish accent face a tougher time going through Airport security? Will we have unofficial racial profiling? Will our right wing press slowly turn against a once valued section of society?

 Argentina is getting stroppy about us having sovereignty of the Falkland Islands again. Why could this possibly be? I mean, nothing against our only remaining colony but it mostly rock with some sheep and penguins on, that is about 2 mile from the coast of South America. Really, we have no good reason to be there. A regional conference has supported Argentina claim to the Islands. Let’s not make too much of a fuss over this pointless little place any longer.

 What’s that? There’s some oil there? It ours! All ours! Keep your hands of it! Send a task force I say! Gordon, there’s an election coming, this is something for the country to rally behind! (PS It worked for Thatcher)

Whilst we are talking about Mr Brown, “Is Gordon a bully?” seems to be the question of the week. This is based on a single source allegation from Andrew Rawnsley’s (officially the world’s most Tory looking Man) new book.

 Then some woman from an almost non-existent charity weighed in by suggesting that some employees of No10 had phone her helpline and was interviewed on Channel 4 news (I think the news programme won)

 To be honest I don’t know whether or not he is a bully and nor do you. We will probably never know and I don’t think that it was anymore more than a distraction.

 Is someone who has a tough job (Prime Minister is quite hard I’m lead to believe) not allowed to get a bit stressed sometimes because that is what is going to happen? And surely there is some context missing here. If your boss shouts out you at your advertising agency then that might be bullying but if your boss is trying to single-handedly save your countries banking system and you ask him if he wants a biscuit with his tea and he snaps at you? Maybe less so.

 One of the many quotes floating around the internet was “If someone thinks they are being bulled then they are being bullied”, ummm, well sort of, ummm, well actually, no, not all the time. Someone I know complained that she was being bullied because when she went into one of the offices that she didn’t normally go into they stopped talking. She felt that they were blocking her out of their conversation. They weren’t. As she only went in there to ask for things they stopped talking to allow her to talk, not bullying even though she felt she was being bullied.

 I have mentioned before that news coverage, whether in papers or on television, has decided to remove context from its reporting so that we can all be more shocked/scared/offended by a story because we don’t know what has gone on before.

  A fine example of this happened on BBC Breakfast this week. “British Gas made profits of 58% whilst millions face high winter fuel bills”. Well sort of. British Gas is the only provider currently cutting its prices. The price of gas in Britain is 33% lower than the European average and electricity prices are 13% lower than the average but this was ignored on BBC Breakfast. Also, the average use of gas is down 7%, but the major fact that is being ignored is that the Gas Providers agreed a price for the gas you are using today 2 years ago so that is the price you are paying and not the current wholesale price. I'm not defending the pricing system or the profits; I'm just adding the missing context.

 We have some very, very stupid people in this country, I give you herb peddler Michael McIntyre who was on the Radio4 programme “You on Yours” on Tuesday afternoon, but these people really are not trying hard enough. America has, perhaps, the most stupid people in the world. This is not some silly generalisation about that country but I come to you with some proper examples.

 Example 1,

 State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas. This week he has said this, “The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,"

 That’s right; he is saying that having a disabled child is a punishment form God for having an abortion. Nice bloke.

 He was amongst a very small group of people who were handing a petition to stop state money going to help pay for terminations. One of the other signatories on this attempt at limiting the freedoms of the women of Virginia was one Pat Robertson. You remember him, “Haiti made a pact with the Devil, true story” bloke. What a great bunch of people they are. Really loving Christian types. “He is a God of love and forgiveness. Oh, except for you. Oh and you and you and you and you and you and you. Basically he’s my God and if you don’t do exactly what I tell you he will punish you.”

 Example 2,

 Ladies and Gentlemen I give you……… The Entire state of Utah! Well it’s State legislator anyway. Hey have managed to pass a bill that makes miscarriage illegal. In fact (not Martyn’s law there) they have defined it as "criminal homicide." No really, they have. I know I’ve linked to a blog but I’ve checked all the links and it’s true. Fuck people, what is wrong with you?

 They’ve not made abortion illegal (defined as “carried out by a physician or through a substance used under the direction of a physician.") but miscarrying if "intentional, knowing or reckless act of the woman". So if you have a drink whilst pregnant and then later miscarry, possible criminal homicide charges. I believe Utah is thinking of bring back witch trials.

The Award for Completely Wasting Your Life (The Carbon In You Could Have Made Something Useful Like Oil or a Pencil.)

This goes to Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP and an MEP. He gets this award not just because of the pointlessness of his Political Party but also for his piss-poor insult of new President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy.

 He described Mr van Rompuy as having "the charisma of a damp rag". Hello kettle, this is pot, you’re black. He also called Belgium as a "non-country".

 The man (van Rompuy) has been elected for months, he has had loads of time to prepare, and this was the best insult that he could come up with.

Mr Farage, a renowned twat, then confirmed his own ignorance by uttering what he, no doubt, thought was a very clever line "Who are you? I'd never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you," Again pot, kettle, black.

 Some Belgians are not that impressed with Mr Farage and have made him a little poster. It contains a rude word and, more offensive than that, a picture of the twat in question, so click here if you want to see.

 If you ever think poorly of the EU think on this, we send them UKIP and BNP members and they send us lovely food and wine. If I was organising a party I would not invite England. We are the national equivalent of someone who comes to the party, eats all the food, drinks all the drink, insults your house and then leaves, and no one is really sure who invited them.

The Award For Really? Has A Woman Not Won That Yet? Are You Sure?

 Congratulations to Kathryn Bigalow who has won the Best Director Bafta for the Hurt Locker. It's 2010 and she is the first woman to win this ward. The event has been taking place since its birth in 1947. Has a woman not made a decent film in all that time? I find that very hard to believe.

 No woman has won a best Director Oscar either. Are we making any progress here?

The Award For Even A Stopped Clock Is Right Twice A Day,

The Daily Express is right about so very little that it is worth pointing out when they have reported something correctly,

If they are talking about Express readers then yes, they may have a point.

Laughing at another’s misfortune is bad. That is unless that person is Bono. Here is a video of Bono falling of stage.

 Oh come on that’s funny.

Haiku time,

Gordon may bully,

So we are all shocked and,

Ramsey gets a show.

Stories that haven’t made it,

The Daily Mail describes a picture that Peaches Geldof posts of herself on Twitter as “indecent” and then prints the picture. So is that the Daily Mail printing an indecent picture then?

Most expensive comic ever. A copy of a 1938 Action One comic has sold for a Dr Evil pleasing $1 million. The comic is significant (if a comic can be) because it is the first outing for someone called Superman.

Ed Balls is a pussy and has backed down over reforms to the sex education that young people get in faith schools. They were to be told to all teach the same as non-faith schools, i.e. how to use contraception etc, but he changed his mind and has said that they can teach within in the tenets of their faith. So, for instance, Catholic schools can say, “this is a condom but it is evil and you will go to hell if you use it.” Helpful.

 He did smackdown the BBC Breakfast presenters though over the bullying thing though and that was funny.

Hope your week is successful and fruitful.

Re-engaging with Politics

If you were watching the Television on Saturday night and managed to drag yourself away from “So You Think You Can Dance” or “Take Me Out” you might have been watching BBC2. If you were you would have seen a program about the election campaign of who is now President but was then Senator Obama. It’s called “By The People” and it may still be on the Iplayer.

The thing that struck me most during this excellent documentary was the vast number of the activists who seemed to be under 30, possibly even under 25. Yes, there were middle aged men in suits on the campaign but those out on the streets and making the phone calls were young, really young. Can you imagine that happening here? It wasn't wall to wall inspiration though. There were a few annoying characters. I don't think, for instance, that you would catch many English people doing a motivational dance based on a scene from “The Fresh Prince of Bell Air”.
How did they do this? OK, so Senator Obama was different to just about every other Presidential candidate ever. He was a young and black but it simply can't be that. He also wasn't President Bush which seemed to be to his advantage but then, neither was John McCain. But there seemed to be something else. There was something that got people excited about him before he started going on about “Hope”, a lot, or quoting Bob the Builder. As I'm on the wrong side of the pond it is hard to say but might it be the he spoke to people as if they were adults. As if they are clever enough to understand the problems and that sometimes there aren't simple solutions and that some things take time.
Whilst the 24hr news channels on both sides of the ideological isle were screeching and squawking about anything and everything and delivering every story as if it was the end of the world, Senator Obama was calm and made his point in a way that tried to avoid hyperbole or as he put it “Never to high or to low”. Ok, his big set piece speeches were filled with the sort of “Eagle soaring over the Great Plains” imagery so beloved by the US political speech writer, (although his main speech writer Jon Favreau is only 29) most of the time he was relatively sensible. He managed to get his sensible tone across despite the media.

And there lies our problem. How can we engage our youth? (That sentence makes me sound so old but, hey, I am). Again I think that, whilst politicians have to shoulder some of the blame for the public disconnect with the body politic, the media, both print and broadcast, have done an amazing job in turning us off for politics. It has got to the point that a politician has to point out that they think that people are grown ups and can cope with nuanced argument rather then being able to go on the radio and assume that the Today program is listened to by adults. The British press has reached a place were the subtlety of argument is almost impossible. They just want to deal in black and white, well some newspapers it is only the white. They want fear and emotion. The want to describe all politicians as on the make or croaked in some way, when, in fact, most members of parliament are there because they want to help people and they believe in what their party stands for. They encourage cynicism about politics and politicians and then act surprised when we have a low turn out on Election Day.
TV news is no better. Despite the fact that it is on for 24hrs a day they still seem to be in a hurry. All news readers have now taken the Paxman approach to interviewing which is less about extracting useful information and having a debate and more about showing that they have a lack of deference and showing how big you balls are, and this includes the woman. This is the reason that our leaders (and those that wish to lead us) go on the soft programs like GMTV or end up chatting on Mumsnet, they are able to get a word in edgeways, although this doesn't save them from being misreported, I give the Gordon Brown biscuit incident as evidence for this. It was reported in our papers that he is such a ditherer that he could even answer a question on which was his favourite biscuit. What a fool. The thing is, this isn't what happened. According to the founder of Mumsnet the question was asked but due to a technical error the Prime Minister didn't see the question hence no answer. However, despite the fact that it is untrue, I saw this being used this week in a newspaper as a fact.
The problems of reductionism are not just the fault of the press; Politicians must share the blame too. Take the problem that we have with drinking. The cost to the NHS and to the police. According to the papers it's binge drinking that's the problem. Extended licensing hours, yes, that's to blame. And it's all young people. As I record this the Tories are blaming the Term units of alcohol and want to bring in Centilitres of alcohol like they have in Europe, I don't think they've run this idea past the whole party, “like they have in Europe, I think not, on principle”. The Government are also looking at labelling but also at a mandatory minimum price per unit for alcohol. So the same people are being punished by both sides here with simple easy to understand and totally useless plans. No one talking about the at home drinkers who drink every night and in large quantities doing serious long term damage to themselves and much more importantly then all of those things, no one is asking why people drink so much. And why aren't they asking? Because it is a hard question to answer. There are no simple solutions and it won't fit easily into a press release.
Our press would have you believe that people care not for politics because, after the expenses scandle, we have found out that our politicians are corrupt. Personally I would say human, taking advantage of a lax system is human but they would say corrupt. But if this is the reason then why do Americans get so excited about their politics? Whether they admit it or not (and I don't think they will) their system is incredibly corrupt and their press is considerably more divisive then ours. Elections there are all about who can raise the most money and voting in the house and the senate is influenced (to a greater or lesser extent) by which lobby group has paid the money to the representative's election war chest.

So, again, we are left with the question, why where so many people excited by Barack Obama? Did they think that he was, like episode 4, a new hope? Coming to sweep away all that has gone before because that seems unlikely, people have noticed how slowly politics changes. Or maybe they just mistook it for a giant reality show in which they could get involved. That would explain the vast number of young people involved. Perhaps they were interested more in his “journey” than in his policies. Is this a bad thing? Maybe not. If they were interested enough to make phone calls and delivery leaflets maybe they might have read them and become a little more informed.

We are forever hearing ways that might encourage people to vote. We could do it at Supermarkets or by text or by post or by pressing the red button (oh no, that was Dr Who extra, but my point stands). Armando Iannucci described this in his book, The Audacity of Hype, as process replacing content. Giving people more ways to vote isn't really the answer to their lack of enthusiasm; you need to give them more reasons to vote.
But maybe way can see a way ahead because we are going to have pre-election debates. Finally all 3 main parties have agreed to have a US style debate and this can only be a good thing. The 3 leaders will have time to discuss their visions for the country on Prime time television, 3 times. I would imagine that Nick Clegg leapt at this opportunity and grabbed it with both hands, as he should. Whilst there will be questions from the moderator they will get time to make their point, without being interrupted by an imbecile, well David Cameron might say something. It will be 3 men standing up and discussing their point of view in the middle of the evening, hopefully with a minimum of fussing and extraneous nonsense, although I can't image that Sky will be able to do it without covering the screen the screen with a news crawler and up to the second live Polls and weather up dates. This is why we all need bigger televisions, it's so we can see the little tiny picture in the middle of the screen a little better. But back to some sort of point, is this the sort of thing that will help people start to re-engage with the political system? A couple of hours of, hopefully, decent debate not viewed through the cynical prism of the British Press, let's hope so. The reason that parties like the BNP did well in the local and European elections is 2 fold. Firstly people are disconnected from the main parties because they are not dealing directly with their hopes and fears (mostly fears that are prayed upon and exaggerated by the opportunistic hate mongers) and secondly their voters are highly motivated and go out and vote. European and local elections use proportional representation which leads to minority parties doing better over all. Whilst the General election will continue to use the first past the post system, which will make it much harder for smaller parties to have anything the impact they did before, if you do not vote then you have no one else to blame but yourself if the wrong person becomes your MP.

In short, I have no answers. We are in this state because we have allowed ourselves to get here. We have bought nasty, cynical newspapers and we have not complained when our Television news is uninformative and treats us like idiots.
Let us hope that we find a way to re-engage the populaces because if we don't only about 40% of those entitled to vote, if we are lucky, will vote in the next general election. This means that if the winning party gets, say 45%, only 18% of the people who could have voted voted for the party of Government. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Election Suicide Pact

Well, it’s been a great week for Gordon Brown and Labour so far. He had a great PMQ’s and David Cameron seemed not to know or understand what his party’s policy was what they wanted the tax situation of Married people to be or if it was indeed a policy or an aspiration. A good week, indeed. All was well and good and nothing bad happened at all. Nothing happened at all. Yes, yes I do have sand in my ears, why do you ask? What’s that you say, pretty much the least popular Health Minister of all time Patricia Hewitt has done something monumentally stupid with some bloke called Hoon (not that sort of thing, oh god! Whose suggestion was that? Come on admit, you’ve poisoned all of our minds and should be ashamed), who I’m told used to be in the government as well.
“We should have a secret ballot to decide if Gordon Brown should still be our leader.” Hyu7 h7,90 tyiv …jicv hng. That was my head battering against the keyboard because I couldn’t find a wall quickly enough. The election campaign has started you complete idiot! “well, we could get it done by next Monday”, I’m sure you probably could but it seems unlikely given the complicated Labour Party rules for everything and even if you did it would certainly not stop the back biting and general sniping that seems to go on and on and on and on within the organisation. (I use that word thoroughly incorrectly there. They are about as organised as a man with poorly co-ordinated limbs trying to herd cats whilst simultaneously trying to juggle soot.) If anything it will get worse, there will be a complete lack of trust within the party as they build up to trying to defeat the big, giant head that is know called Cameron.

It’s everywhere, here



and here,



and here,



Does it remind you of anything?



Just saying.

And have you noticed the incredible amounts of touching up on his hair?



Photoshopped within and inch of his dye job. Not as bad as this,



but you get my point.

Labour, never knowingly not shooting it’s self in the foot whilst cutting of it’s nose to spite it’s face.

Diana Watch

I love this weather. Seas are rough and trees are blown on to railway lines meaning that I can't get to work for a shift that is not during my usual contracted hours but felt pressured into changing because some else, who my work clearly think is more important than me, if they didn't they wouldn't have asked me to change my contracted shift, for someone who is not contracted, could work. I'm not even sure that makes sense. Ah well.

The beginning of this week was taken up by one story. Gordon Brown's handwriting.
The poor man can't win really can he? He writes a letter to everyone who has lost a loved one in war. That seems to me to be quite a nice gesture (and it is no more that (a gesture I mean) because really there is no more he can do. Well, maybe make sure that the relative is financial secure but you get my point) at this difficult time. A hand written letter from the leader of our country expressing his sorrow at your lose and his thanks for the sacrifice made by the member of you family. It's a good thing.
One woman complains about the letter she received following the death of her son to the Sun newspaper (I use that term loosely) because his hand writing is scruffy. It also looks like he as spelt the name of her son incorrectly and that there are some spelling mistakes in the letter. The paper decides to run with this story as its front page. What their point is no one is really sure but that doesn't stop them.
Gordon Brown then apologises profusely and is said to be mortified. He also phones the lady concerned to apologise for any inadvertent offence caused and she records the conversation and releases it to the Sun again (anyone else think they may have approached her rather than she, them) and continues to complain. He says sorry 14/16 times on the tape and she claims that he didn't apologise.
I did not know, before this story broke, that Gordon Brown wrote to the families of soldiers that have died. This makes him out to be a reasonable bloke in my eyes.
If he did nothing he would be uncaring, just sending “our boys” off to die. If the letters were typed the response would be, “well, this is just the same letter he sends to everyone, he doesn't mean it, he just signs it.” He could never get that right.
No, he takes the time to write each one out in his own, admittedly scruffy, hand. Can I just point out that he does only have one eye and the working one isn't that good. So poor in fact that he has to use a thick tipped pen in order to see it.
The poor woman had recently been bereaved so Gordon was never going to win. It just had to sit and take it. You can't criticise or argue with those who have recently lost someone, it's just not done.
What was the Sun trying to say? Were they saying that Gordon Brown shouldn't be Prime Minister because his hand writing is bad? It seems likely that it wasn't that poorly spelt but, because of poor penmanship, letters were not correctly formed. If that is what they were trying to say then that is a little harsh being as it is his eye sight that is the problem. They seem to be saying that visually impaired people have no place in government. Nice people at the Sun.
You know that your hectoring and bully has gone to fair when even the Daily Mail doesn't agree with what you are doing.
Oh and as a fantastic postscript to the story the Sun spelt the lady's name wrong on their website and had to issue an apology.

One of the things I don't like about my local pub is the fact that they have 2 televisions on all the time. No sound and only some times do we have the joy of live subtitles, which are always funny. They seem to have Sky News on most of the time and so on a Monday, when we go to the quiz, we get to see, but not hear, a lot of this awful channel (for balance News 24 is pretty poor).
This Monday they were covering the commemoration of the Berlin Wall falling. It's been 20 years you know; ha, now you feel old.
Centre piece of this celebration (is that the right word, I think so) was a line of 1000 massive dominoes that had been decorated by artists across the country, falling like, well umm, dominoes. Half an hour of a couple of World Leaders and ex-World Leaders wondering round in the rain, under umbrellas was entertaining according the director of Sky News but when they finally got round to the dominoes, do you know how long they stayed on it? The main point of the day? After all that hanging around? 30 seconds. They showed 30 seconds of the dominoes falling. They didn't even wait until they had all fallen. Nope. It seems that their idea was “we have told you that this thing would happen and there it is, starting to happen. Right, back to the studio.” Very strange indeed.
But for your entertainment here it is (with non-English voice-over.)



Steven Tyler may or may not have left Aerosmith. This isn't the most important story in the world but the reaction of Joe Perry was quite interesting. He said that they were would be looking for a new singer. I'm sorry? You want to replace Steven Tyler? Now, I'm not the world’s biggest Aerosmith fan but even I understand that Tyler is an iconic front man. And this got me thinking, what does it mean to be a band any more.
Aerosmith are the Toxic Twins, I mean, can anyone, apart from hardcore fans, name the other 3 middle aged blokes that stand behind them?
Have you not made enough money Joe Perry? Do you really want to whore out the good name of your band to make a few extra dollars? I mean, Brian May and Roger Taylor wouldn't do that with Queen would they? Oh wait, that is exactly what they did. First of all they played on the awful cover of “We Will Rock You” by 5ive, then there was the musical and then, worst of all, they got a new singer. Paul Rodgers, who used to be in Free, stepped up to the plate and pissed all over the grave of Freddie Mercury. Full respect to John Deacon who wanted nothing to do with it and still doesn’t.
I understand that musicians want to continue playing together but I point you to the Joy Division/New Order model. Singer dies tragically young; you want to continue playing together, so you form a new band. You do not do a reality series on MTV to replace the only member of your band that anyone, including a lot of the fans, has every heard of, like INXS did. I think the Doors did something similar but they are rubbish so I don't care. I assume the remaining band mates do it because they want to show that the band was more then just the ridiculously attractive, charismatic singer. Yes, ok you wrote the songs but they brought them to life. You can replace a bass player (Arctic Monkeys) or a drummer (Guns N Roses) but not the singer. Although Axl Rose has tried the reverse of this by replacing the entire band and leaving just the original singer. That went well then.
You also get the ridiculous situation that the Sugababes find themselves in, the band name is no more than a brand and it doesn't seem to matter who is in the band, or if any of them were in the original line up. The Sugababes aren't the only band to have done this but they are the most recent. I think that the version of the Temptations that is touring at the moment has no original members in it.
A band is more then some musicians and the songs that they used to sing. If three girls get up and singer covers of the Supremes, are they the Supremes? Of course they aren't. They are just three girls singing some songs; see the Sugababes for an example. A band is the collective experience of a group of people. It is the chemistry between people who understand each other.

So what happens if the press constantly vilifies a whole profession over one, very unfortunate, case? Well it seems that the people who do it leave and not many people want to train to do it.
60% of British Councils are reporting problems in retaining staff. That is a 50% rise on the year before.
Following the death of baby P, or to give him his real name as our press refuse to, Peter Connolly, the British press worked itself into a rabid frenzy. They blamed everyone but they mostly went for Social Workers. “Why don't these uncaring Social Workers take more children into care rather than leaving them with their awful, awful parents?” seemed to be the thrust of many of the articles. Well the answer to that is because policy seems to be based, yet again (see education policy and drugs policy), on headlines and not on evidence or best practice.
Many years ago there was an outcry about the number of children being taken into care. It was pretty much the same outcry as we had this time, except it was the other way round. They were doing too much interfering. So the policy changed. They tried to keep more children in their homes with their families.
This went on for a while until, in one household, it all went very horribly wrong. So again we have a press outcry over the very policy that they wanted in the first place. This brings us round to where we are now, with stories about a massive rise in the number of children getting taking into care.


The Award for Most Surprising Headline of the Week,

I'm just going to give you the headline, if you want to read the story then click the link. The headline, form the BBC website, is “New warning on 'perfect vaginas'”. I don't know about you but I missed the old warning. Was there a meeting or an E-mail?
It sounds like the sort of headline you would get on newspaper in a 50's B-Movie about a perfect, yet deadly, fanny. If, of course, they would have used the word vagina and not some sort of amusing euphemism. Go on, send in your favourite lady part euphemism. A long time ago a patient referred to her front bottom as her “Mary”. This amused me an awful lot but I'm not going to tell you why and I'm pretty sure only one reader will know why. Enigmatic hey? Hello Kate xx (I mean no disrespect by that story by the way)

The Award for Most Fantastic Thing I've Seen in Ages,

Yes, it's a pop up book but look at the beauty,



The Award for the Funniest Thing I saw on Friday Evening,

This is a video of some dolphins. Not that funny you might think, but wait. Suddenly they swim slowly past some jellyfish and then hilarity ensues.





Every time I walk past my sleeping cat I have to stop and check that she is still breathing. Poorly sick cat is still holding on. Used to do the same with patients at work. The number of people who look dead when they are sleeping would surprise you.

Have a good week and I hope you survive the storm.

Diana Watch

Overheard from a Man exiting a clothes shop in Bournemouth, “Fucking Coldplay”. I don't think that that is too harsh.

For those of you who haven't been reading this blog for a long time you may not know the history. One of the first things I did on here was count (rather obsessively) the number of times the British newspapers had Princess Diana on their front page despite the fact that she had been dead for about 10 years at the time. This is how we arrive at the Sunday blog being called Diana Watch. Hope that makes sense.
And now, thanks to the Diana obsessed Daily Express, it is back to the future. This week they have had 2 Diana based front pages which, of course, means pictures of her looking suitably angelic. They have also managed 3 Madeleine McCann stories, which was also a particular favourite of theirs. So much so that they decided to start making things up and were sued, successfully, by the McCanns but it does seem that a leopard can’t change it spots, it just takes a break from showing you them for a while.

The Tory shadow for Culture, Media and Sport made an interesting suggestion this week. He is another one of these people that think that BBC news has a left wing slight (I really don't understand this at all. I think it may be confirmation bias, i.e. I am a left wing person and think that the BBC is a little right wing because I'm looking for it and the same is true of those of the right. They look for left wing bias and so they find it.) so in order to balance this imaginary bias, BBC news should employ more out Tories.
It's a slightly odd way of going about it but if that's what they want then it really should be rolled out through all BBC programs. This would mean more Atheists on Songs of Praise, more Environmentalists on Top Gear, more young people on Last of the Summer Wine (for young, you could read alive), much fewer twats on The Big Question, more old people on Blue Peter. Much fewer people texting or emailing their “views” to Breakfast. More Townies on Country File, more people on Antiques Roadshow who actually care about the history of the object that they have bought with them rather than just what it is worth.
That would all seem fair enough to me.

How arrogant are the British Media? The answer is a blindingly obvious, very. They are arrogant about their own importance but also about Britain's place in the world.
One of the big stories this week was that Gordon Brown, leader of a small nation with a not very big economy, was “snubbed” by Barack Obama, leader of the country with one of the largest economy which is still referred to as a “Super Power”.
What actually happened was that Downing Street wanted a 1 on 1 with President Obama but he was a little busy, what with trying to get Israel and Palestine to talk to each other, hosting the G20 meeting, being the first American President ever to chair a meeting at the UN, discovering (not by himself obviously, he's not that good, yet) that Iran had a secret Uranium enrichment plant and making up with Russia, so couldn't fit him in right now.
Oh, the outpouring of scorn on Gordon by all outlets of the British press. “Is this a new low in the Special Relationship?” was the question asked. No it's not, he was busy. “Was it the release of the Lockerbie bomber?” No, still busy.
He did get a chat in the end anyway. He got a 15 minutes walk and talk in the kitchens of the UN. Lots of people suggested this was an “only” a walk and talk but I think they missed the point. They spent 15 minutes walking in the kitchens? How big are these kitchens? One assumes that they were on the way somewhere and not just wondering round and round because that would just be weird. So, if you assume that the average walking speed of a human is 4 miles an hour and they walked for 15 minutes, that makes the kitchens 1 MILE LONG! That is a really big kitchen.
In the grand scheme of things we aren't that important. I know that we think we are but we're not.
Later on in the week the right wing press had a number of editorials about the American Press ignoring the visit of our Prime Minister. Again, I think they may have other things on their minds. I mean, did you see Coronal Gaddafi speaking at the UN?
I know that they have their agenda and that they are going to use every available chance to bash him but inventing problems is just lazy.
I suppose that they can't really focus on what Labour have actually done because that would undermine their argument, massively increased spending on Schools and the NHS with much better results from both, so they have to focus on his lack of personality.
I know it's unpopular but I want very clever people running my country who have policies that, in the main, I agree with, not a person who is “good” on television.


The Award for Deliberately Finding Something That Applies to Everyone Offensive of the Week,

This goes to some stupid nurse who thinks that she is more important than everyone else that works for her Trust and her patients.
The woman in question is called Shirley Chaplin. She was asked to comply to the trust's uniform policy (as every front line member of staff is) by removing her necklace, and she refused because it had a cross on it. She was then told that she would not be allowed to work on the wards if she didn't take it off. Nothing wrong with that. But she again refused.
She is now claiming that she is being discriminated against because she is a Christian and it is a cross. Other faiths are allowed to wear other expressions of their faiths and that is her reasoning. But here she makes a basic mistake. Other religions are allow because they are tenants of their faith and there is no such thing in Christianity. Well there is a great long list of things in the Old Testament but for some reason these are ignored and not discussed.
Mrs Chaplin has sought advice from the Christian Legal Centre, which seeks to promote religious freedom and, particularly, to protect Christians and Christianity.
The person representing her said, “Unfortunately an aggressive, secularist, politically correct agenda is being driven in the NHS and other public sectors at present.” Secular? How can it be secular if it allows other religions express themselves? Learn what words mean before you use them.
It is an infection control issue and a health and safety one and nothing more. Stop trying to make so much out of it.

The Award for a Spectacular Lack of Forward Thinking if the Week,


This goes to the Renault Formula 1 team who have been found guilty of cheating this week.
In last years race in Singapore someone decided that it would be a good idea, in order to get a safety car out so that no one could over taken Alonso (who was leading), that Nelson Piquet Jr should crash his car into a wall at high speed.
You know that you are in the wrong job when your boss is asking you to crash into a wall at 150mph. It's not good for you. He did it though. The safety car came out and the race finished with everyone driving around behind it.
If someone cheats for you, you keep them close. They could ruin you. They know that you have cheated.
So what did Renault do to the man who knew that they had cheated? They fired him. D'oh. They pissed off someone who knew that they had asked him to endanger his life and the lives of others.
A tad short-sighted I think you will agree.

I think that that will do for this week. Nice and short.
I hope you all have a pleasant and productive week.