Diana Watch

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How lucky am I?

 As we all know there are some spectacularly entertaining world leaders, Colonel Gaddafi for instance. A man who has a protection squad made up of only Amazonian proportioned woman and, when making what was supposed to be a 15 minute speech to the UN, went on for so long that he went through 2 translators. 

 Then there is President Chevaz of Venezuela. He host a live program on the state owned Television company on which he holds forth on the subjects of the day and takes phone calls from the public. This show, called “Hello, President!”, can often last 5 hours. Then, of course, he said that he could still smell the sulphur when he took the podium so time after George W Bush, again at the UN. What is it with the UN and great comedy performances? See also Colin Powell in front of the Security Council trying to convince them that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, “See this document proves that Saddam tried to buy nuclear material from Africa.”

 “Then can you explain Mr Secretary why, in this document, that Saddam Hussein is President of Iran and “nuclear” is spelt incorrectly?”  

 But by far the most amusing is Silvio Belesconi. Late last year I felt a tremor in the comedy force. It was if a million people laughed out loud at once and were then silent. I had to find out what had caused this mass chuckle. To the News Channels! Economics, no, Sport, no that's' not it, what can it be? “And now the headlines. The curiously smooth fore headed Prime Minister of Italy has been struck in the face by a small, ceramic model of a cathedral” Oh that will be it then.

 I didn't think that this story could get any funnier but hurray for the Italian Judiciary. Italian Judges are not fans of the sex addicted convicted fraudster and have been accused of trying to bring down the President by prosecuting him for various things.

 At the moment they are deciding what to charge the man who lobbed the statuette in his general direction with and Italian Law is quite specific about this. If the injury deemed to need less than 40 days recovery then he will be charged with wounding. Any longer and the more serious charge of wounding with intent comes into play. Mr Berusconi seemed to get better in about 21 days despite his Doctor saying it would take 90 so the Prosecutor Armando Spataro ,who is investigating the case, has asked for two facial specialists doctors to examine Berlusconi next week and give a report. There is much talk that they think it was a stunt.

 Is that possible? Could he have colluded in this? How would this have been bought up at a meeting? “Umm, I was wondering,” (oh and please read this with a comedy Italian accent, whether out loud or in you head) “It seems the people are not so keen on you, our President.”

  “Well why not? I own half the press and control most of the news. Many of them only hear what I want them to hear.”

 “Well Sir, it may be your fraud conviction or that you are a bit of an international embarrassment, what with the divorce and the alleged sex addiction.”

 “Well obviously it isn't either those things but I will humour you. How would you make me more popular with the ungrateful Italian public?”

“Well Sir, first we need a small china church and someone with a great right arm.”

“Go on....”

This week I have complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about the Daily Express. It describes it's self as “The Worlds Greatest Newspaper”, it isn't. Unfortunately they rejected my complaint.  

And so to the much-more-glamorous-than-the-Golden-Globe Awards (You should see the frock I’m wearing),

The Award for Least Relevant Mention of a Favoured Subject,

Usually we don't have the same award 2 weeks in a row but I think we can cope. Not only is it the same award, it is the same paper and the same favoured subject.

 The deputy headmaster of a school in Kent has been arrested and charged with possessing child pornography. Can you guess who used to go to this school? Yes it was Princess Diana.

 To be honest it wasn't just the Daily Mail that run the story with this link (although they have since changed the article on their website and make no mention of Her but as you can see from the URL, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244122/Deputy-head-Princess-Dianas-school-charged-child-porn-offences.html, it used too  ) it seems that most of them did.

The Award for Thinking Someone is Much More Important Than They are,

The live subtitles on Sky News are always amusing, as I have said before, but on Monday evening they excelled themselves, “Boyzone to carry on For Peace”. Really? They think that they can bring about world peace? Umm, no. It was later changed to “Boyzone to carry on as a four piece”.

The Aware For Just Being A Little Bit Brilliant,

 The Dorchester restaurant Sienna has been awarded a Michelin Star. It is the first establishment in our town to have this honour bestowed upon them for 20 years. I can assure you that this isn’t an advert for them (although they can pay me with free meals if they want to, I want to be corrupted) but I had to best food I have ever tasted there. Has food ever bought a tear to your eye because it was so good?

The Award for Thinking That YOU Are More Important Than You Are,

This really has to go to the BNP just about ever week but this week they have, at least, put some effort in.

 They are attempting invoked the 1872 Ballot Act (well it proves that at least one of them can read I suppose). They are worried about vote rigging or ballot stuffing because they think everyone is against them (well they are) so, under a clause in this law they can have their own seal on the ballot box. They will also require a member of their party to be present at the opening of the box to check the seal.

 Well done the BBC for bringing this to my attention. If it hadn’t been for you reporting it and having their spokesman on a prime-time news program I would never have heard about it this self promoting stunt. Another attempt to cast themselves as victims. Well done and thank you.

Sadly the rugby commentator Bill Mclaren has died and just before the start of the new 6 Nations tournament. Nature can be so cruel. Anyway, just a brief Youtube “His best bits” thing (I feel like Davina but with out the shiny, flowing, chestnutty locks),

See how the new regime of a shorter, more concise Sunday blog has fallen down at the second hurdle, sorry about that. Although, in my defence, there was lots I wanted to mention like the crime rate was down 8% yet David Cameron gave a speech on Friday about how bad crime was in Britain. Good fact ignoring there. Oh and that unemployment down as well. Fingers crossed for a bit a Labour recovery. Please don’t vote Tory.

 No more from me, have a good week all.

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

So I have decided that I will do the Sunday blog today. As I explained last week we are going to be in the Lake District on Sunday and it is our first wedding anniversary. Probably won't be able to do next Sunday either, will Twitter though, as long as there's something funny to say.

This week 2 people have sadly died and it was covered endless and with some degree of rather sick relish by the 24 hour news channels.
In Scotland a lady who was suffering from Swine flu, on top of several other serious medical conditions, died. For the rest of the day, despite the fact that there was no new information and with no respect for the bereaved, they carried on shouting “woman dies of swine flu.” She had also given birth prematurely. It was great for them, Monday was a quiet news day.
Late on Monday evening the Sky News “Breaking News” crawler appeared on the screen. The baby had died. So not only had the family lost the mother, they had now lost a baby but was the families sadness mentioned or considered? No, of course it wasn't. News is entertainment. We get to reveal in other people's suffering with virtually no emotional attachment at all.

Following the European elections something rather interesting can be seen. Despite the world's economic problems being caused by greed and rampant capitalism, we seem to taken a leap to the right. The groups that did best in the elections were the right and centre right parties. This is a very odd thing indeed. There are a few exceptions though, the various Green Parties have done quite well but it was mostly right wing parties.
Incumbency doesn't seem to have been on issue either. Here, Labour (very slightly left of centre) did very badly but the Conservatives, UKIP and the BNP did well, but in countries that had right-wing governments, the incumbents did well. You have to ask yourself why this is and I have to admit that I don't really know. Their ideas caused the problems but instead of moving towards a more caring, sharing socialist future we have, instead, decided to blame people. Not the people that actually caused the problems, oh no. MPs expenses, White Men. World Economic Meltdown, mostly White Men again. And do they blame the White Men (you know, with them being white men and all), ummmmm, no. Brown people and the foreign. Genius.
It shows an inherent laziness amongst us. We decided against facing up to our own mistakes and failings. We avoid the complicated and nuanced arguments about politics, immigration, the best way to run our economy etc. and just go straight for the blaming of people how's fault it isn't. Hmm, lack of leadership? Economic disaster? Voters leaping to the right? Please let us have learnt from history.

Across the pond (it's not a good phrase is it) and President Obama, or Daniel Son as he may now by known (it a fly catching/karate kid reference), announces big new, bold plans to regulate banking in the US. Over here on the other hand Alistair “suspicious eyebrows” Darling delivers a Mansion House speech which basically said, “You have all been very bad, don't do it again. No, don't worry I won't be changing anything. Carry on as you were.” Obviously I'm para-phrasing but you get my point. He also seems to be going back on promises he made at the G20 summit on Hedge fund regulations. We had the opportunity to change things and make them a little better and what did we do? Absolutely nothing.

And the Telegraph carries on, and on and on and on.

Some awards I think,

The Award for Deeply Strange Priorities of the Week,

This goes to The Daily Mail, who, on Thursday had a headline about their new campaign about wheelie bins. This was, according to them, the most important thing that happened the day before. Protests in Iran. Another ministerial resignation. The Chancellor and the Bank of England disagree over the best way forward for banking reform and policing of their risk taking. None of these things is more important than wheelie bins.
Whilst we are on the subject of the Mail, today (Friday) they have a poll on their website which asks “should gypsies be allowed to jump the NHS queues?” This was described on Twitter as the worst Daily Mail poll ever and was linked to so that we could all join in. When I voted the poll stood at 92% saying Yes. I don't think that it was all Daily Mail readers that were voting.

The Award for Best MP Expense Claim of the Week,

Parliament has finally published it's version of MP's expenses this week and most of it seemed to look like this ,(blacked out section didn't work on here)

Because it was censored so that we won't find out where they live or something. It hasn't really added much to the debate but it has shown us one fun little fact. George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor, claimed £47 for DVDs. Of speeches that he gave. On the subject of “Value of Money for the Taxpayer”.

The Award for the Most Stupid Place to Fall Asleep of the Week,

This goes to this girl,

she is Belgian and she went to the tattooist to get 3 stars tattooed on her face. The first of many questions about this story is, why would you get tattoos on your face? She explained to the man about to scare her what she wanted but his French was so poor that he didn't understand how many she wanted. She than managed to FALL ASLEEP WHILST HE TATTOOED 56 STARS ON HER FACE? How is that possible? I have some trouble sleeping in my own bed, let alone with a man who doesn't speak good French TATTOOING MY FACE!


Hopefully I will get back to normal soon, well I'll try, because you all seem to read and, maybe enjoy, this nonsense each week and for that I thank you. Might make it past 6000 reads on myspace this week!
Oh well, off to the Lake District. In a tent.

We Are All Going To Die!

Dear Sky News,
Calm the hell down. Oh and that goes for BBC News 24 as well. Whilst sat in the pub last night for the quiz the televisions were, us usual, turned to Sky News, “All gloom, All the time”. Your even handed handling of the public health nightmare that might be swine-flu is admirable. Your subtle use of graphics indicating “Worst Case Scenario” and giving us the figure of 780,000 deaths was lovely and was unlikely to help cause a panic.
My sister-in-law, who works in a DIY shop by the way, has been approached today by someone wanting to buy a mask to protect them against swine-flu. That's a paint fumes mask against a virus that isn't in England yet. Do you not yet understand the power that you have? To be honest, I think that you fully understand it and you enjoy wielding it, driving the news agenda and forcing the hand of others such as the government.
Are you going to report every “suspected” case of flu as “breaking news!” when it turns out to be a bloke with nothing more serious than a case of media induced hypochondria and a cold?
Whilst this can be a serious illness and lead to death (150 so far in Mexico), it can also be no more serious than normal flu (which does actually kill quite a lot of people per year anyway. Earlier this year GP's where allowed to use Tamiflu as per the pandemic plan because the normal seasonal outbreak was so bad.) Of all the people who have contracted the illness outside of Mexico, none have died. In the U.S. only 2 of them were even hospitalised.
So let us remember SARS and bird flu when I ask you all to calm down and report it sensibly and reasonably,

Yours, without a cold but significant other does, OMG! Do you think it might be swine flu? The media is saying that we are all going to die,

Martyn xx