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.

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.