Diana Watch

“Well, there used to be a bloke called Peg who had a wooden leg. He used to set himself on fire and then jump into the Lido to put it out”

“What would Health and Safety think of that?”

“They don’t let you do anything these days.”

It was announced at the beginning of the week that Catherine Walker had died. She was a very successful fashion designer but differed from many others in her field by shunning the limelight and not doing runway shows.

 She was, however, famous for one thing that interested a certain section of our press. She provided frocks for Princess Diana.

 How did they mark the passing of this talented designer, successful business woman and founder of a Cancer Charity?

 Well, to be honest, most of them were pretty good about it. A short story on an inside page that played up the Diana connection. The Times had it on the front page with an accompanying photograph of Diana that at least Catherine Walker was in,

Not so the Express.

Really that is just a little bit rude. Covering the death of someone on the front page and then having a picture of someone else.

Friday the 1st of October saw the introduction of the much hated (by the Mail, Express and Church Groups, people who really know about bigotry) Equality Act.

 The act aims to provide protection for workers by banning discrimination by employers and covering areas such as age, disability and pay. It brings together 9 different bits of legislation into one easy to follow act.

 Ah, Britain moves, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. No one can be discriminated against in the workplace on ground of Race, religion, sexual orientation, age and a big long list of other things I haven’t thought of but nasty bigoty types have. A utopia has been reached, we are all equal. No man or woman is above any other. It is Brave New World (but without the drugging) and not 1984. Who could not be happy at such an event?

 Well, entertainingly, both ends of the spectrum.

  British companies don't like the Act. "Businesses are really concerned," said Abigail Morris from the British Chambers of Commerce.

"The government's own impact assessment shows that this is going to cost £190m just for businesses to understand the legislation, and this at a time when we really need them to be concentrating on creating private sector jobs and driving economic recovery."

What she seems to be saying is, “we want to carry on exploiting people, discriminating against older people and paying women less because it increases our profits. Equality=Cost and we don't want that.”

 Well at least we now all know that I suppose. Business cares not for the workers. Is it any wonder that the Unions are getting twitchy?

 I know that some see it as too easy to mock the Daily Mail but some times they make it too easy.

 On Friday they published, on their front page, an article that complained that this was the “Death of the Office Joke”. Now, if you tell a racist, sexist, misogynist or anti-religious joke, you could fall foul of this legislation.

 What's wrong with that? I don't know about the place where you work but we don't tell that sort of joke, it's not very nice.

 They also have a problem with what is called Third Party harassment. According to the paper  “It creates the controversial legal concept of ‘third party harassment’, under which workers will be able to sue over jokes and banter they find offensive – even if the comments are aimed at someone else and they weren’t there at the time the comments were made.” Yep, nothing wrong with that either.

 There is some argument however for a freedom of speech infringement here; do you have the right to offend? Is this legislation attacking your right to be a twat and it is possible that the answer to that question is yes. It is a defence that the paper often uses to defend it's self and did when Jan Moir wrote her awful article about the death of Stephen Gately, but for some reason they decided not to go with that, curious.

 Maybe it is because the nasty Moir woman attacked “Modern” comedy earlier in the week. “This cruel, witless modern comedy is beyond a joke” she said. Her argument seems to be that we are no longer picking on the correct groups of people such as Gays, blacks and non-Christian religions.

 So in Mail-land you should have the freedom of speech to attack anyone you like no matter how offensive you are, unless the Mail thinks you shouldn't. It's no wonder their readers are so filled with impotent rage, they have no idea what they can and can't do because their paper keeps confusing them.

 But how about those that campaign for equality, what do they think of the act? As it is supposed to be anti-discriminatory surely they are as happy as a pig in the sort of thing that pigs are supposed to be happy in. What do, for instance, the British Humanist Association think about it? Well they are not happy either. They say that it gives “excessive privileges to religious organisations”. Oh dear, just when we thought we were getting somewhere.

 I thought, given the coverage in the right wing press, that everyone had to be treated equally in the workplace but it seems not. According to Naomi Phillips, BHA Head of Public Affairs, ‘Through wide exceptions that exempt religious organisations from significant parts of the law, the Equality Act gives excessive privileges specifically to religious groups, permitting them to discriminate against not only gay and lesbian people but against the non-religious and those of other religions.” Bugger. Oh well, it seems that we still have to carry on campaigning for equal rights for EVERYONE. Everyone, religious people, atheists, woman, gays, whoever, treated the same. No one group will be better than another. Please can we make that happen?

I've rambled on again haven't I? Sorry. Let's do some awards then,

The Award for Helping to Make Scientology Look Even Sillier of the Week,

Usually this award would go straight to Tom Cruise he seems to be on a mission (and not an impossible one, sorry, that was awful) to bring Scientology down from the inside by making himself and therefore, by association, his “religion” look ridiculous. This week, however, he has had some help.

 Firstly there was a Panorama programme on BBC1 that had a bit a, admittedly flawed, look at what some may describe as the cult.

 Then Councillor John Dixon, who was suspended from his job after the “Church” complained about him tweeting “I didn't know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off”, was cleared of any wrong doing and that he had not breached the councillors' code of conduct.

 The final blow in a bad week came when the Charity Commission announced that it would recognise Druidism as a religion for Tax purposes. This is funny because they have refused to grant the same status to Scientology thereby making sure that it is not considered religion in this Country, well done us.

 Ha, where is your Xenu now hey? Trapped in a volcano or something I think, to be honest I can't be bothered to wonder waist high through the levels of bullshit necessary to find out.

 

The Award for Bad Planning at a Sporting Event of the Week,

Maybe this should go to the organisers of the Commonwealth Games who have had one or two problems in getting ready for the event that starts today in Delhi but that would be too easy and I think that some people have been a little mean to them in recent weeks. No, no, the winner must be the person who thought that it would be a good idea to hold the Ryder Cup in Wales. In October.

 What did they think would happen? Wales is not exactly renowned for its tropical weather and October isn't one of the UK's sunniest months. Surprisingly enough it rained on Friday and play was abandoned. Oh and then it rained yesterday afternoon and play was abandoned. And it’s rained again this morning and play is yet to start (at the time of writing)

 I also heard, through the medium of Twitter so I don't know how accurate the story is, that the US team didn't bring any wet weather gear with them and had to buy some when they got here. Great research there. Planned about as well as the invasion of Iraq. It seems that the motto of America is “I'm sure it will be fine”. This is what happens if you watch too many Hollywood movies.

OK, enough moaning from me, I'm sure you have things to do. Have a lovely week and do try the Dorchester Online Radio Company podcast you might enjoy it, although you may not, it's the risk we take. Have a lovely week.

Diana Watch

It was my birthday yesterday. I'm not the biggest fan of birthdays but this one was a bit worse than usual. I was 35. That is half of my 3 score and 10 which is my biblically mandated limit and as we know, the bible is fact and isn't made up in anyway.
If that wasn't depressing enough, the annual review of my life was actually worse than the year before. I think this may be the first year that this has happened. Last year, Married, House, Full-time employment. This year, Married, House, Barely what you'd call a job. Bugger. Really do need to sort that out.
I did, however, have quite a nice birthday. I had to work in the morning which may be the first time I have ever worked on my birthday but in the evening we did go to a Modern Dance thing. Now, as you know, I am not the biggest fan of modern dance but Significant Other wanted to go and I'm a reasonably nice bloke so off we went. The premise wasn't too good either. A dance version of One Flew Other The Cuckoos Nest.
It was with a certain degree of trepidation that I took my seat for the performance but it didn’t last long. The opening number was fantastic. The dancers had masks on the front and back of their heads and the lighting was such that it was hard to tell which way their bodies were facing. The effect was slightly unsettling as the shapes that they were making looked distinctly odd and inhuman.
There was some slightly dodgy acting near the beginning of the piece but luckily they dropped that and concentrated on the Street Dance. It was fantastic. It was by a dance company called Bounce.



Oh god, please make it go away. The expenses “Scandal” was really, really dull but “Scandal 2, The Revenge” (which is sort of a prequel.) is really, really, really, really dull. The amount of money is so small and it's all a bit pathetic.
I know that no one really feels sorry for our MP's but it does seem a little unfair of Sir Thomas Legg to change the rules retrospectively and to try and enforce a number that is completely arbitrary. How would you like it if the tax man wrote to you and told you that they had thrown a dart at a board and that was new amount that you had to pay. For the last 5 years.
And I say again. This is being used by the right-wing press to deflect us from the story that they have trouble covering. The Banks. OK, they are covering the bonus bits but they are ignoring the bailout.
The amount of money spent to support the banks last year would pay the MP's expenses for 4000 years. Yes that's right. 4000 years (no hyperlink for this, sorry. It was on the Radio4 program the Now Show. Yes, it's a comedy program but I think this fact is true.) Puts a little bit of perspective on it, doesn't it?

So are recessions all bad? Well that depends on whether you've lost your job or not I suppose.
There are one or two things that are better though.
The World's carbon emissions might fall by up to 3% due to reduced travel (cars and planes) and reduced production of the general crap that we buy.
There is also a study that shows that life expectancy actually rises during a downturn. Several reasons have been put forward for this including when the economy is expanding we get more stressed and we drink and smoke to excess. We know what this does for us.
There is something that may damage your health though. Army recruitment is up. The army think that one of the reasons is a “surge in Patriotism”. It's more likely to be their other reason though. Lots of people don't have jobs and the army will give them one.

Have you ever thought that newspapers might be a little less than truthful? That, maybe, they just don't check their facts quite as often as they should? That sometimes they just make stuff up, especially about celebrities because they can't be bothered to sue? Well this week there have been two stories that would confirm your suspicion.
Lily Allen won an undisclosed amount of money from The Sun this week after she sued them for Liable. They ran a story with the headline “Ranting Lily” in which, they said, she made unpleasant statements about Cheryl and Ashley Cole and the Beckhams. They said that she had made these statements in an interview with a French magazine called “So Foot”. Their problem stems from the fact that she has never been interview by this or for this football magazine so she didn't say those things. Oh well. It's not like she's going to bother to sue...... Oh she is, bugger.
A documentary film maker has been sending various made up celebrity stories to see if they will publish them without checking to see if they are true, and guess what? It turns out that they will. Which is nice of them.
My favourite story that they planted was about Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud. They claimed to be the wife of someone who was moving house for Sarah and said that she had books on quantum physics and a telescope. The Sun ran a story headlined “Sarah's a real boffin”. They claimed that she was “a secret stargazer” who had “mind boggling books about astronomy and quantum physics.” The article also had a quote in it that the film maker denies came from them.

It has been a good week for Twitter.
On Friday there was a really nasty article written by Jan Moir in the Daily Mail about Steven Gately. I'm not going to discuss that here because I think all that needs to be said has been said but if you haven't read it click here and to read Charlie Brooker's brilliant response, click here.
Some on Twitter said that this was a freedom of speech issue and it showed that there are limits to this. This is, of course, absolute rubbish. She has the right to say whatever nastiness she wants, maybe after his funeral would have been a little nicer, but I also have the right to criticise her. That is the way it works.
The unpleasant and homophobic nature of the article caused outrage across the internet and especially on Twitter because of the speed at which messages and links can be posted. None of this taking hours to write a blog rubbish, just a quick “have you seen this?” and a link and outrage is your uncle. That and links to the quite rubbish Press Complaints Committee pointing out which parts of their code that she broke. The problem is that the Editor of the Mail, Paul Dacre, is on the PCC Committee that decides on what their code is and the editor of the Mail on Sunday, Peter Wright, is also on the PCC. Conflict of interest anyone?

At the beginning of the week we had a very strange and complicated story that I think I will cover very badly but it's important so let's give it a go.
The Guardian reported that it had been blocked by an injunction from reporting something. They gave enough clues that some clever people were able to look back through Hansard to work out who had asked the question and what the question was. Links to the Guardian articles started to appear on Twitter, shortly followed by links to blogs that were publishing the full text of the question, these included Wikileaks and JackofKent.
So by lunch time of that day we all knew, despite the legal injunction, what the question was and what and whom it was about. It was asked by Labour MP Paul Farrelly and was about a report into the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast by an oil company called Trafigura.
By 2pm the legal company Carter-Ruck had dropped its injunction when it became clear that it wasn't working but they were still suppressing the report its self. Or so they thought. It was already on Wikileaks and the BBC had seen the report a while ago and where being sued by Trafigura following a Newsnight article.
Carter-Ruck were using something called a super-injunction which prevents media reporting something and even stops them reporting that they aren't allowed to report something. They have grown up from injunctions that stop people reporting on Family Court activities.
There point is very simple according to Mark Stephens, a partner at law firm Finer Stephens Innocent. "As the libel and privacy capital of the world, people are coming here [to London] to bully the media and NGOs into not reporting on their nefarious activities," he said.
The UK Parliament is protected by something called Parliamentary Privilege which means an MP can't be sued for saying things or asking things in the chamber and you can also report them freely without fear of legal action. So they should be able to ask what they want.
The action has, of course, back-fired on the oil company Trafigura because in their clumsy attempt to hide something that was already on public record, they have shone a really rather bright light on it instead. This has brought them all sorts of attention that they weren't getting before despite being responsible for the dumping of toxic waste in a poor country that didn't have the means to deal with the waste safely. And why? Because it was cheap. Endangering the lives of poor brown people is ok because it won't cost that much. In fact in an out of court settlement it will cost you about £1000 per person. All for cheap oil.
The free speech of our press (that the right wing press are super keen on that by the way so that they can print nasty things, see Jan Moir) can be suppressed by one Oil company and its legal monkey can stop us hearing about what's being asked in Parliament. Oh, I think we need to sort that out.

Some awards for the week,

The Award for Best Birthday Presents of the Week,

This has to go to Significant Other who got me a couple of Charlie Parr CDs and a lovely little Ukulele, which it turns out, is quite hard to play.

The Award for the Most Incredible Sporting Achievement of the Week,

Chrissie Wellington, whose British, well from Norfolk I think, has won the World Iron Man Championship for the third time.
I wasn't sure what the “Ironman” involved so I looked it up. I believe the expression that left my lips was “fuck me!”. An Ironman event consists of a 2.4 mile swim, then they do a 112 mile bike ride and then they top it of nicely with a quick marathon. See, my swearing is a little more exceptable now, isn't it.
Jenson I know how to loose a championship Button also competed in this Ironman. He described her time of 8hrs and 54 minutes as “a little bit scary”. She beat her nearest competitor by 20 minutes.

The Award for Most Unfortunate Goal to have Scored Against You of the Week,

It is very simple. This is from yesterdays Liverpool vs Sunderland game.



See the ball hit the balloon and fly past the goalkeeper. That has got to hurt.

Have a lovely week all. A bit of work this week but hoping to get to see “Up” at some point.