What Are They Trying To Do

I have a new pet theory and it may be pushing the realms of reality a little. It may also be rationalising the behaviour of one of our worst and most hateful newspapers.

Let's start with some history. Starting sometime in the 70's (I think) the Black community of America seemed to make a collective decision, well some didn't like it but they failed to shout as loudly as the others, and decided to try and take back a word from the white man. That word was the worst word that we had to describe them. That word was “Nigger”.

Not being an expert in the Civil rights movement or Afro-American history in general I may make the odd sweeping statement over the next few paragraphs, like the following.

It may have started with Black Comedians such as Richard Pryor (although after visiting Africa he stopped using the word according to his autobiography and later stand up) who used it to shock both Black and White audiences. Oh and to be really very funny,

Through out the 80's pretty much every rapper used the word to describe themselves or other black men (My personal favourite would be Public Enemy by the way) and then in the 90's it came back to comedy with the fantastic Chris Rock.

Now the original point of taking back the word was to disarm it, to remove it's sting and offence. If a black dude is calling another black dude “nigger” then it's ok, right? Well, no. Chris Rock managed to make it offensive again by using it to describe the sort of irresponsible man that he didn't like,

But that really isn't my point. It has slipped into the everyday vocabulary of young black men, see the fantastic Wire for details, and is seen by many as inoffensive unless I used it in their general direction, when it might regain some of it's power. Whether the plan worked or was a good idea in the first place is not for me to say.

My point is that several generations have been trying to rehabilitate a word. A word that has been used as a serious and powerful term of abuse over many, many years. This is what I think the Daily Mail are doing with their constant references to Nazis. (Admit it, that isn't where you thought that this was going did you?)

In Richard “Twat” Littlejohn's columns there are constant references to “Town hall Nazis” or “Speed Camera Nazis”, only today there was a headline in the paper that read “Cardboard gestapo: Grandmother threatened with £300 fine over box that was too big for recycling bin slot”.

Now I'm pretty sure that none of the people referred to in this incredible offensive manner is responsible for the death of 6 million Jews and countless Gypsies, homosexuals and disabled people, so why do it?

Because the Daily “Hurrah for the Black Shirts” Mail is trying to take back the words. They think that these words need rehabilitating after being used as a massive insult for so long.

It's the only reason that I can think of that doesn't include insulting the intelligence of the people who work for that paper or concluding that they are anti-Semitic and don't think that the Holocaust was that bad really.

Can I just say that if anyone thinks this racist in any way, I apologise. It really isn't. I love all people except those that choose to write for the Mail.

Diana Watch

Unbelievable, he stole my idea. Well there was a little passing credit to me but mostly, he stole idea!


This week I have invented (is that the right word?) a new law of Physics/journalism. We shall, from now on, refer it as Martyn's Law ( I thought about Norris' Law but there are too many S’s at the end.) The law states that, in right wing newspapers, the actual number of facts contained within a columnists polemic IS inversely proportioned to the number of times they use the phrase "in fact" or "the fact is" i.e. the more they use those phrases, the less facts are actually in their piece.


The great thing about the internet is if you think something might be so you can have a quick look at the odd website (always use more than one) and you'll find out if you are correct of not. I believe that it is called fact checking. If, for instance, I thought that Richard Littlejohn was a bit of a Xenophobic, slightly racist misogynist, who thinks that it’s ok to torture terrorism suspects then all I would have to do was to click on to the Daily Mail's website and have a look at his awful, awful column and there it would be in black and white. My facts would have been checked.

It does seem, however, that this is a little bit too much effort for Mr. Littlejohn (or which ever poor sap writes the column for him) and he does get rather a lot of things wrong.

For instance, he routinely calls the National Black Police Association a racist organization. When the BNP were told that they had to amend their constitution because it was illegal as it said no blacks, no dogs, no Irish, he retorted with “But the NBPA don't let in white people, it says Black in their title, they are as racist as the BNP”. Examples here and here. It is a repeated mantra of his awful diatribe but is it true? Has he bothered to check their website? Well if he has he has ignored what he found. On the front page it says this “The NBPA is open to all in policing on application and there is no bar to membership based on colour”. Well that’s sorted that out then.

What he is doing is lying to his readers because he knows that this is what they want to hear and none of them can be bothered to check out whether it is true or not.

He is not the only journalist to do this, Rod Liddle does it a lot and Jan Moir will write anything for money, as she did this week.

She wrote an article which went on about how much she hated “poncey food” but she was found out in the Guardian by Jay Rayner. You see, she used to work as the Restaurant critic for the Daily Telegraph (the first mention for them today) but left/was fired over the subject of pay. She hated poncey food so much that she set up her own website that continues, to this day, giving glowing reviews to places that serve poncey food.

She wrote what she was paid too, not what she really thinks.

My favorite bit from Mr Rayners article was this, "Moir's is the authentic voice of backward-looking, navel-gazing, circle-the-wagons, middle England. It is the worst kind of petty, snivelling, bloated, myopic rantery. She clearly understands her market perfectly." I my get that on a T-shirt or maybe a tattoo.


RIP Alexander McQueen.

How did the papers deal with his death? Did they treat it like they did Britney Murphy or Steven Gately? Did they speculate on to what might have killed him? Did they make stuff up? Did Sky News send it helicopter to film his body being taken from his home to the mortuary? The answers to those questions are a no, no and yes.

Most papers where reasonably respectful but couldn't help themselves in mentioning the fact that he was gay but they all managed to behave a little better than the Mail did following the death of heiress Casey Johnson, heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune. The headline was "Lesbian socialite Casey Johnson lay dead for three days in flat after taking suspected drug overdose" What has her sexuality got to do with anything? And, to be fair to Mail readers (not a phrase I use often) they asked that to in the comments section.

This article was genius Mail writing as it later said, "Friends believe Miss Johnson's death is similar to that of Hollywood star Brittany Murphy, who died shortly before Christmas at the age of 32.”

Oh nice work, link it to someone else’s death that you thought was suspicious.

They then continued “More than a dozen prescription drugs were found at the home the Clueless actress shared with her British screenwriter husband, Simon Monjack."

The article goes on and on about drug taking and prescription pills but then says "A Los Angeles police spokesman said there were no signs of foul play and that Miss Johnson had died of natural causes."

For the record , Britney Murphey died of Pneumonia and Casey Johnson from Diabetic ketoacidosis.

There seems to be a new, distasteful trend in British newspapers. It is the unpleasant and unnecessary article that criticizes the person who has just died. The Mail is usually the paper that gets in there first, I refer you to the stories mentioned above, but with the death of Alexender McQueen they backed off and it was left to the Telegraph (there’s your second mention) who got Toby Young to write an article questioning his genius.

I don't mind the article questioning this, although hipster jeans that were barely covering many ladies bottom a few years ago, that was McQueens idea (oh and he worked as an apprentice in Savile Row before going to St Martins, so he knew about tailoring. He knew about cutting fabric and sewing, he had talent), but Mr McQueen seems to have killed himself following the death of his mother. His death was announced on Thursday, her funeral was on Friday, the day that this tasteless piece of self-promotion was published.

I can not argue that McQueen was or wasn't a genius in the fashion world, I don't know enough about it, but those that do say he was and that is good enough for me. I wouldn't dream of having a go at someone from an area of culture that I don't understand in order to make myself look big and clever. Toby Young, however, is an arse. He has written a book about what an incredible arse he is, it's called "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People". He went to America, behaved like an arse and no one liked him. He then tried to make it into knowingly, self aware, ironic book about how funny it was that no one liked him. No. Knowingly being an arse makes you an even bigger arse. Oh and he likes Rod Liddle, known Racist and misogynist.


Winter Olympics are here!

Firstly, my condolences to the family and team mates of Nodar Kumaritashvili who was killed yesterday whilst training for the Luge.

I know that there are problems with the Olympic movement, it's more about money than sport etc, but I love the winter Olympics for a number of reasons. One of these is that Great Britain (with a few exceptions) is pretty poor at all of the sports and therefore I can just enjoy them as sports. No national pride is at stake. I also love to see (in a non-patronizing way) countries that have no snow taking part. Watching highlights of the opening ceremony bought a lump to my throat, although that might have been cancer, not to self, make Dr’s appointment for lump in throat.

I also like most sports carried out on ice and snow because it’s slippery and therefore hilarity is only seconds away. They could fall over at any moment!

I can’t ski or skate so I am impressed with anyone else who can. I have quite a poor sense of balance so, to be honest, walking is a little bit hard. I’m also not brave enough for many of the sports. A quick look at the schedule will show you good list of life-shortening activities. Ski jumping, planks strapped to the feet of Northern European men who ski off cliffs. Ice Hockey, men with no teeth and anger management issues (my personal favourite). Skeleton Bob, (team GB’s only medal last time out by the way) headfirst down a bobsleigh run on a tin tray. It’s very, very dangerous and, therefore, very entertaining.

I think I have said this before but this sort of multi-sport event makes me love digital television. Who doesn’t get excited by the phrase “press your red button for more snowboarding”?

The only thing I don’t like is the ice skating. It is clever and skillful but it is mind numbingly boring. The only thing that is funny about it is the stony faces of the scary look eastern European woman who have trained the skaters as they don’t get their marks that they quite obviously should do.

This does lead to a few issues in our house as it is Significant Others favourite event. I’m told that spandex clad, sequin enriched men skating around on one foot is much more exciting than Snowboard Cross or Bobsleigh Heats. It isn’t.


So, some awards then,

The Award for Being Pointlessly Offended by Something of No Consequence,

It’s another blow to Britain's beleaguered manufacturing industry as some badges that are going to be sold at the olympic games in London are going to be made in China.

Well, it’s really important if you work for the Daily Express. So important that it is worth putting on the front page.



Badges? Really? You have to be trying really hard to be offended if badges are the things that get you. And, like their story earlier in the week about Salt shortages (in the article it pointed out later that there was 6000 tonnes of salt in Kent, so not running out then), it was a bit of a misrepresentation of the situation.

The company who won the contract have set up a British arm of their company, so jobs there, and, as one of the commenters pointed out (and he should know as he runs one of the distribution company), there are jobs for people who work in importing and distribution. And really, how many jobs are there in a badge making factory? It's not like they are hand crafted by highly trained badge artisans working only by candle light, long into the night.

The Express wheeled out it’s usual suspects of people to be offended, a Tory MP and someone from The Tax Payers Alliance (one of their members got offended when I put on Twitter how much I hated them.) and tried to bury the statement from a spokesperson for London 2012 which included the line “In all 98 per cent of Olympic contracts, totaling around £5billion have gone to UK-based firms.” That’s quite a lot isn’t it?


The Award For I Didn’t Know That Someone Was Credited With Inventing It,


This goes to Walter Frederick Morrison who has died this week at the rather excellent age of 90. It seems that he invented (or is at least credited with inventing) the Frisbee.

I have discovered many interesting things reading the article on the BBC website such as, there is such a thing as a Frisbee historian (he’s called Phil Kennedy if you are interested) and there is an official Frisbee website. Oh and it used to be called the Pluto Platter before it was called the Frisbee.

Don’t say that you never learn anything reading this, if that comes up on your pub quiz how happy will you be that you lent me 5 minutes of your time.



After I complained that I rambled on a bit in this blog (today being noooo exception) Significant Other suggested that I try and do it in Haiku. I may try this one day but a quick Google search has shot down my idea of Haiku news, a blog with news stories all in that ancient Japanese poetry style. Several already exist. I will leave you with these (they nearly work),



Muslim Man treated badly,
Secret Service not involved, much,
Littlejohn says ok.


Toyota cars go,
Some too fast, most seem to stop,
But many others don’t.

I hope you have/had a nice Valentines Day unless you are single and then I agree with you, it's all just a cynical marketing tool. Have a good week.

Diana Watch

As you know I hate the Daily Mail but I have, sort of, left them alone for a week or two but not this week.
They have spent the week trying to tell us all how to live our lives and what we can and cannot look at, which is interesting from a paper that complains about the nanny state.
The week started with the unfortunate death of a young girl. She was 14 and had recently had the vaccine against HPV which can go on to course cervical cancer, you know the jab, the one that The Mail is against here but campaigns for in Ireland.
The paper decided, as did most others to be honest, that it was the vaccine that killed her. They had no evidence at all that this was true but that didn't stop them calling for the end of the vaccinations and running polls on the website.
On Tuesday they were still reporting it as if the vaccine had definitely killed her, still no post mortem. In fact on Google news there are 1,592 stories about her death.
On Wednesday the official post mortem was released and it was found that the death of the previously healthy girl had been caused by a massive tumour in her chest that could have killed her at any time. The recent vaccination was merely an unfortunate coincidence. The Mail's website barely mentioned it. 363 articles about the post mortem on Google news. They then published this article, which is a classic having your cake and eating it bit of writing.
“Natalie's death forced experts to stress that the cervical cancer jab is safe. The Mail supports that.” they say but they then go on, “But we also believe that the parents who claim it terribly damaged their daughters have a right to speak.” They then go on to make all sorts of accusations in a very carefully written article which makes it clear that it is not them saying these things but they are up holding the free speech rights of their readers. Isn't that good of them? They are fighting for our rights, well only the ones that they think are useful to them, not your right to protest or anything like that. They actually seem to be against that unless it is their readers protesting.
And just when we were all excepting that the jab was safe, 1.4 million doses delivered with not much to report, they publish this today. They have published no evidence at all; it is just scaremongering of the highest order.

Then they tried to tell me what I could see in an art museum.
A picture of Brooke Shields has been removed from an exhibition at the Tate Modern. In this picture she is naked and made up. She was 10 when the picture was taken with the permission of her mother.
The picture has been seen in many countries around the world with no problems at all. It has even been exhibited in America with few complaints but the Mail didn't like it. Oh no. A picture of a naked child is now always pornography to them. They were so upset by the image that they found it necessary to publish a picture of a topless 14 year old Brooke Shields that was ok for some reason.
Ok, so the picture might not have been your thing but that doesn't mean that you can tell me what I can see. I have to decide for myself what is and isn't offensive to me.
I also think that you project on to art what you want to see. I will see a 10 year old girl but it seems that those at the Mail see a sexual image, strange.

And then we have classic Daily Mail misogyny. The Mail's hatred of woman is sometimes hard to pin down but they made it very easy for me this week so I thank them.
Yet another study has shown that if you live a healthy and fit life you reduce you risk of getting cancer. Not really a new or radical finding but it is added to the pile on sensible advice for a long and healthy life. The paper in question specifically mentioned breast cancer as a disease that is most effected by lifestyle choices. They also defined within the study what they meant by moderate to vigorous exercise. They included things such as running, swimming and housework. Can you guess what the headline was in the working woman hating Mail? “Daily dose of housework could cut risk of breast cancer” Nice. Pick out only the bits that tell woman their place in the Mail-centric world.
Oh and while we are at it I give you “Can snuggling up to your pet give you MRSA?”

So let us now move to hypocrisy.
David Miliband made a speech at the Labour Party Conference in which he mentioned the new right wing voting grouping in the European Parliament (admit it, that is the sexiest sentence you have ever read.) and pointed out that some of the people that the Tories have aligned themselves with are less than pleasant when it comes to such issues as race and homosexuality. He then used a quote from Edmund Burke, “What do they say? All you need for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent”. It was said originally in reference to those who didn't speak out against the Nazis in the 30's. This was seized upon as comparing the Tories and their “friends” to the Nazis, which is kind of reasonable in a number of these cases, and many in the Tory party and at The Mail (they are very sensitive on matters of National Socialism, what with their support for the black shirts and everything) called for an apology and a retraction of the statement because they didn't like being compared to the murders of Gypsies, Gays, the disabled and Jews. However, in his article on Thursday it was perfectly OK for Richard Littlejohn to call North Wales Traffic Police “North Wales Traffic Taliban”. You know the Taliban, they're those nice blokes who stone woman to death and kill our soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Sun has switched its support from Labour to the Conservative party. Really? They were still supporting The Labour Party? Are you sure? Well now that the Conservatives look let they are going to win the next election (sigh) they have switched their support. Well, they have in England. It seems that in Scotland, were Labour are well ahead of the Tories, they are still undecided. Glad to see that their decision was based on firmly held political beliefs than.

Whilst we are talking about the Tories just one more thing. David “call me Dave” Cameron is going to announce plans to “Get Britain Working”. One of the things that he is going to say is that there should be a deregulation of business to encourage them to employ more people.
Whoa there Dave, wasn't it the lack of regulation in the banking sector that got us to this situation in the first place? And what sort of things are you going to deregulate? Health and safety? The minimum wage? We want specifics.

let's end this bit with some fun news. The BNP are nearly broke! Come on, that is the best news you've heard in a long time. As the not so real @RealnickGriffin said on Twitter a couple of days ago “The BNP freephone number is 08000086191. Every call costs us money so don't abuse it by, say, leaving it off the hook from a payphone.”

How about some awards?

The Award for Surprise Moan of the Week,

On the 30th of September those of us who have Freeview had to retune our boxes so that new channels could be added and the whole thing could be tidied up a bit.
Following the retune lots of people have complained that they have lost channel 5, ITV 3 and 4. I have seen all of these channels and you would have thought that people would be damn grateful not to able to see this repeat-laden crap.

The Award Least Interesting Survey of the Week,

As usual there are quite a number of candidates for this small but perfectly formed trophy but the winner is a survey into the swinging and who is most likely to do it.
It turns out that, rather than bear bellied blokes and bored housewives, it is mid 20's, well educated people. Upsettingly that is another demographic I fall outside of.
They have names as well. Paul and Catherine are the names of these people most likely to enjoy wife swapping. So if you have a dinner invite from your friends Catherine and Paul this evening I would recommend taking a small pack of condoms with you, you never know what might happen.

The Award for not getting an Award of the Week,

This goes to JK Rowling. According to Matt Latimer, a former Bush speech writer (that's President Bush, not the talking, burning one in Bible, she was up for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is given for “individuals who make an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavours” (how this includes writing some books about a boy wizard is beyond me but it's their medal), but someone within the Administration “objected” giving her the award because the books encourage Witchcraft.
Oh dear. Do we have to go through this again? IT'S FICTION! IT'S JUST A STORY!
There was also a list of the books on the Guardian website that have had the most attempts to get them banned.
The reasons are the usual sort of things, a bit gay, a bit anti-religious, that sort of thing. It's just pathetic really. You ban things and you make them more interesting. Children (and me) will want to read them more.
Just reading about something doesn't make me want to do it. I read books with religious characters and I don't, now, believe in God. I've read books with murders, gun-running and drug smuggling and I don't do any of those things Hell, I've even read the Daily Mail and it didn't turn me into an unpleasant twat.
What they seemed to scared of is that people (children) might read something and then think about it. Consider an opinion and then come to their own decision and we really can't have that can we?

I’m working quite a lot this week, which is nice. Hope you have a lovely week.

Diana Watch

11 year old to his dad, “I need a new sports bag.” “Why?” he asked “It's a perfectly good bag.” “Yes but it says Norwich Union on it and they are Aviva now.”

In my humble opinion the most important news story of the week was my cold. I felt terrible on Thursday, shivery and cold, blocked nose and aching limbs. Awful.
Then I woke up on Friday and felt fine. Can you imagine my disappointment on feeling well again and having to go to work? Possibly the worst day of my life.

James Martin is a cock (That's not actually what I wanted to call him but I've used the other C word rather a lot recently). It occurs to me that some of you might not know who he is so here is a picture,



as you can clearly see, he is a cock. He is also a chef and seems to work for the BBC a lot. He was on Ready, Steady, Cock back in the day but now is on Saturday Kitchen which is shown on, umm...... Saturday.
He also writes a car review, every so often, for the receptacle of all evil that is the Daily Mail. In one column he reviewed an electric car called the Tesla, which is really rather nice.
He doesn't like cyclist. Some people don't but usually it's within cities because cyclists, sometimes, do behave a little poorly. He hates cyclists in the countryside, mostly in the area around his house.
He has had a go at cyclists before but on Sunday he wrote that had sneaked up on a group of lycra clad hippies (for some reason he thinks all cyclists are hippies. Are all chefs cocks?), it's an electric car remember, used the horn and drove them off the road, “The look of sheer terror as they tottered into the hedge was the best thing I've ever seen in my rear-view mirror.”
Of course he apologised for writing the piece, as soon as someone complained, saying that it had been “misjudged” and had been intended to be “humorous”. I can not tell you how many times I've laughed as cars and buses have tried to knock me off of my bike, it's always so funny.
He also, rather inexplicably, said “It was never my intention to offend the many cyclists who share our roads across the country” Oh please, if you are going to write something at least believe in it. You called us names all the way through the article, you did mean to offend. That's what you do when you insult people. What a twat and, yes, it was my intention to offend him.

Barack Obama has dropped America's plans for the European missile defence system. Could this be his first truly great decision?
He is trying to sort some other things out like healthcare and Guantanamo Bay but this is the first thing he has really sorted out. No we will not put an unproven and remarkably expensive missile defence in countries whose people don’t want it and that will protect them from, ummm.... nothing.
Is this a gesture towards peace rather than war? If so I think that would make him the first American leader to make that sort of decision since..... well ever (my American history isn't that good). Actually I think he might be the only modern politician, in any country, to make a policy choice that doesn't use keeping us scared as it’s guiding principle, especially in National Defence.
Of course this has meant criticism from Republicans who have calling him soft on defence and giving in to Russia, although given what the US and the IMF did to the Russian economy in the 90's this muffin basket of a gesture should be the least that America could do. Giving in to Russia? THE COLD WAR IS OVER, YOU WON!
It also occurs to me that being as most of the Republican Congressmen (and I'm sure a lot of Democrats do as well) get shed loads of many from defence firms or work for them they were always likely to take it really personally.
Oh and they are all racists I'm told.
Who do they think is aiming a missile at them? Terrorist groups don't tend to have intercontinental ballistic missiles. Heck, even Iran doesn't. In fact if you look at this document (the bottom of page 11 and page 12 are most interesting) it seems that Iran is a long way from making a bomb and there is no published evidence from the US Intelligence community or anyone else that says that they have tried to develop, manufacture or test a device.
The document also points out that “Iran has acquired technologies not only from Pakistan but also from several European countries in contravention of export control regulations,”
Oh good. So it seems that far from there being a “War on Terror”, we are, in fact, exporting the things that we think that they shouldn’t have to them, probably gift wrapped with a nice bow, and then complaining about them having them.
International Politics is hard.
“Your starter for 10, who in that area does have nuclear weapons but isn't supposed to?” “Norris, employed some of the time!” “Umm, is it ....?” “Come on, I'll have to hurry you!” “Is it Israel?” “Yes, yes it is”.

I run a little bit so I found this incredibly impressive.
Slightly chubby man (at least he was when he started) Eddie Izzard has run 43 marathons in 52 days. He has covered 1,100 miles. He did it for a couple of reasons. One was to raise money for Sports Relief, which was good of him. The other reason was too celebrate the Olympics coming to London in 2012, in a sort of “if I, a slightly fat 40 something man can do this, imagine what you can do” way. This, I think is the more interesting of the two.
So many people have been, are being and will be cynical about London 2012 but it is going to happen. If everyone thinks it's going to be rubbish then it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Then the lazy thinkers, I'm looking at you Littlejohn and Clarkson, can all right columns saying “I told you so. It embarrassing. Why didn't anyone listen to me?” Because you are an arse, that's why. You are defeatist, short sighted and unhelpfully to the public life of this country. All you do is complain and moan. Not a positive phrase ever creeps out of you. You fear change like Luddites. You don't want Britain to be great; you want England to be as it was in the some misty eyed, mythical time that you have invented.
The Olympics will be fantastic. The cream of the Worlds sports men and women in one place and that place will be here.
Why can't we give the world a great show? Because some tubby middle aged men can't be bothered to get up off of their holier-than-though arses and do something to help because sneering is easier. Fuck them I say. Eddie Izzard is my new hero, a tubby middle aged man who did get off his arse and do something. Something great and inspiring. Bring on the Olympics, I, for one, will be loving it.
Oh dear, I seem to have ranted there a bit but it does seem that I hate lazy,cynical people who do nothing but talk our country down. And i was trying so hard to do nice.

Some awards to cheer myself up I think,

The Award for Incredible Over Reaction and Scaremongering of the Week,

This goes to Prof. Hugh Pennington who, is now, an arse.
Some children in England have picked up the E-coli bacteria after visiting a petting zoo or 2. This is a shame for them, don't misunderstand me, but his response was, “Children under 5 shouldn't touch the animals in case they get it.” Oh for goodness sake, just make sure they wash their hands afterwards.
Are you a grandfather sir? Have you ever tried to explain to a 4 and a half year old that they can't touch the animals (which is the point, after all, of a petting zoo) but their slightly older sibling can? Have you ever tried to stop a 3 year old doing pretty much whatever it wants?
There is already a strange disconnect between us and our food and now we are being told that they are dangerous to touch. It's like a fantasy Daily Mail headline, “If the paedophiles don't get your children the sheep and rabbits will”.

The Award for Is There Nothing Sacred Story of the Week,

Is no sport safe from cheating and match fixing? Rugby, cricket, football, formula 1 and now....... Crown Green bowling.
Oh yes. The Canadian team has claimed that the New Zealand team deliberately lost to Thailand at the Asia-Pacific Championships in Malaysia.
Because it is bowls the details are far to boring to go into but you can have a look at the link of you are interested.

The Award for Epic Lying About Your Age of the Week,

This week slightly right-wing and confirmed misogynist Keith Floyd died. Sad for his family. However, when it was announced on the news they claimed that he was only 65!

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There is no way on this earth that he was only 65. How badly do you have to treat your body to add at least 20 years to it? I know that you think being mean but I know that I'm not the only one to think it.


We have received and invitation to our friends’ son's “naming ceremony” and we are slightly curious as to what will happen. We have been to the odd christening but this is all new. Will someone say, “I name this child Jay-Z Jnr” and then smash a bottle of champagne over him? I don't know and it upsets me.

I hope you all have a good week.