Diana Watch

At the beginning of this lovely week that has just gone to wherever it is that time disappears to, I was thinking of changing the name of my Sunday posts.
The “Diana Watch” thing stated out as a simple table on my Myspace page (remember them?) that logged the number of times that the “People’s Princess” mysteriously appeared on the front of British newspapers every week despite having died some 9 years before.
I only did this because I found it sort of odd that she (however nice she seemed to be) was still making the front pages. Although, to be fair, most of those front pages were on the Daily Express. And it sort of grew from there.
As I said I was thinking about changing the name because it was starting to look a bit silly. Then Prince William stepped in to the breach to save me from having to think about a new title, 3 cheers for the Prince, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, hip hip……why am I the only one doing this? Is it because about 2 minutes after the second inline to the throne announced his betrothal to Katherine (now referred to as Katherine when journalists ask her questions but Kate in print. It seems that she likes to be called Katherine and not Kate so could the massed ranks of the British media do that please, show some respect for the poor girl’s wishes, after all, you are going to ruin her life in all other ways) the coverage had become so all consuming that you were more then a little bored of it?
Now please do not get me wrong, I am happy that 2 young people want to get married, it’s nice (for them and their families), but the coverage has been so intense that it has almost made me wish for some sort of natural disaster or terrorist scare so that 24hr News can cover something else, even just for a second.
Anyway, it lead to a little flurry of Diana related front pages, it was the ring choice what done it.

The Star is not a paper that has bothered me before. I know that they like boobs and printing pictures of boobs and that they are owned by the same man that owns the Express, Richard Desmond, but apart from that, not much. Oh and they are really bad at fact checking and sometimes print stories from comedy news websites as real stories (see here for details, oh and the original story is still up on their website. Warning that link may contain boobs)
Most mornings I hit the Sky News website for one reason, they have a little section that has that mornings newspapers front pages on it, it’s very useful as you can Right-click and save them should you need them for some reason.
So there I was on Thursday morning when I was presented with this,



Now the basic parts of the story may be true, some boys threaten/bully another boy using the medium of Facebook. The reasons given for the bullying may also be true, although that doesn’t sound like the thought process of any 12 year old that I have ever met who has not been strongly influenced by a grown up or two. This story may be 100% accurate with no exaggeration, no bits made up, no facts given a prominence that they don't deserve but even if it is all true the headline is appalling,
Just read that again, Muslim Thugs Age Just 12 In Knife Attack On Brit Schoolboy. Now this happened at a school in Coventry and it seems that all the children involved in the incident were born in England and therefore English. The article gives us no reason to believe that they aren't.
So what it seems the Star is saying is if you are a Muslim you are not, and cannot be, British. I don't think I'm reading too much into it. Muslim thugs are a defined group and Brit School boy is a separate defined group.
This shocked me if I'm honest but they were kind enough to show me that it wasn't just a one off.



Just there in the top left hand corner, “Christmas “nicked” by Muslims”.



View the article on the papers breast filled website and it has the headline “CHRISTMAS IS HIJACKED BY MUSLIMS AND HINDUS”. These damn funny religions are just like the Grinch it seems. But is it true? Ummm, no.
To quote from the article “Councillors were so anxious not to offend other faiths that they decided to share the Christian display with lights to mark the other celebrations.” and that's it, that's the story. No mention of Muslims at all. Ok it's a bit of a weird decision by the council given as Eid ended on Friday (I think) and Diwali finished 2 weeks ago but that's not the point. There was no pressure from any religion or community group to do this, it was just a council decision and yet somehow this has become “Christmas nicked by Muslims”.
I believe that headline to be a lie. A deliberate attempt to stir up tension between communities. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Is this sort of thing worth a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission? Probably not. The PCC rejected a compliant about a similarly misleading story in the Mail this week; you can read about it here on Tabloid Watch.
So you can lie as much as you like in British journalism as long as it’s about the little people.

Some awards then I think,

The Award for Being Total Douche Bags of the Week,

Do you want to execute Gays for being gay? Well good news, the UN doesn’t mind. To quote from Autostraddle.com “A UN General Assembly Committee just voted to stop including sexual orientation on a list that protects people against discrimination-based arbitrary executions.”
Welcome to the 21st Century, it's OK it execute Gay people again, next up, burning witches at the stake and the return of the inquisition, all now expectable to the UN.

The Award for Unnecessary Intrusion of the Week,

Did you think I was going to leave the Express alone?
Most of the papers ran the same little intrusive article after David and Samantha Cameron visited the school that their son Ivan attended whilst he was alive (the Mail's is particularly voyeuristic). Strangely enough, as I believe it was the first time they had been to the school since he died, they were a little upset so pictures of them crying accompanied the story.
So far, so intrusive, however the Express went a little further, front page and refusing Samantha the dignity of even using her proper name. Mr Cameron gets called David but she, I assume because she is a woman and therefore not worthy of dignity or respect, is referred to be some silly media nickname.



I cannot express (see what I did there) to you how much I hate every single person who works, in anyway, for that nasty, unpleasant “newspaper”.

Lots of complaining and moaning this week, sorry. Will try and be a little more cheerful next time.

Ok, maybe just one funny thing. This has been doing the rounds on Twitter this week and it might make you laugh. It contains some strong language and things that you may find offensive but all the rude and nasty bits were written by people who profess to be Christians. Here is Richard Dawkins reading out some of the hate mail he has received over the years,



I hope you all have a good week.

Diana Watch

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

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


Some Awards now,

The Award for Tosser of the Week,

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

The Award for Not Really a Great Surprise,

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

The Award for Odd Media Obsession of the Week,

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

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

Is It Racist?

I have to start by removing the curse that I placed upon my Secret Santa on Sunday. It turns out that she was just off sick and had not forgotten to buy me anything so sorry about that Secret Santa.

So today’s discussion is about Racism. A co-worker is holding a themed fancy dress New Years Eve party. The theme is Hollywood Greats and Motown Stars. Hollywood Greats are no real problem because there are so many of them and most of them are white (have your own rasicm debate about that), no, the problems start when you try and dress as a Motown Star as nearly all of them are black, except for Kiki Dee (the first white woman to sign to Motown fact fans) and most of her friends aren’t. So are question was this, is it racist to “black up” in order to celebrate your hero’s work? If you are not racist but want to dress up as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & The Supremes (not all at the same time obviously) because you love them and want to pay tribute to them do you suddenly become racist as you apply a dark brown make-up to your face? I’m pretty sure that the answer is yes because most people will receive the gesture as racist. Discuss.

The score so far, Palestinian dead 380, Israeli dead 4.

The border is closed, by both Israel and Egypt, and so it has become like shooting fish in a barrel. It is a slaughter and only America can make it stop. Israel is not trying to stop the rocket attacks as it claims. A BBC reporter today saw 4 rockets fired from Gaza in about a 45 minute period and, despite troops just over the border and planes and helicopters patrolling the airspace above, it took 10 minutes for a retaliation rocket strike at just one of the sites and the other 3 were not hit in the following ½ an hour. Instead they bomb a University. One air strike killed two sisters, the eldest aged 11, riding in a donkey cart in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, Palestinian medical sources said. The UN has called for an investigation into the attacks, which are causing heavy civilian casualties. It says at least 62 of the Palestinians killed so far were women and children. Richard Falk - the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories - said the international community must put more pressure on Israel to end its assault. "Israel is committing a shocking series of atrocities by using modern weaponry against a defenceless population - attacking a population that has been enduring a severe blockade for many months," Mr Falk said in a BBC interview.

This last part was taken from the BBC website.