Gordon is a Duffus

Oh dear, poor Gordon Brown. I know that me feeling sorry for him is probably not what he wants but that’s how it is.
He did something stupid but we have all done it. We have all met someone, whether in a pub or at work, who, shortly after they’ve gone, we’ve turned to a friend and said “What a twat!”
The difference here is that he had a live microphone on his lapel; still it could have been worse,



All I would say to any other politician that tries to get any mileage out of this, there by the grace of Twosh goes you.
Be very careful all politicians and perspective politicians who are being interviewed, every Radio and TV producer in the land will be living those mics live for as long as is feasibly possible.

Diana Watch

“Yeah, Significant Other was admitted on Friday evening, yeah, had emergency surgery on Saturday” “Oh really? Yeah I didn’t fell too well on Saturday either”

This is going to be another short one this week as things really haven't improved that much, oh and work was a bit busy yesterday morning when I usually do the shaping of this so I couldn't get much done. Damn sick people with their health needs.

I don't really want to go on about strikes, click here and here for details, because quite a lot of people seem not to agree with me but I would like to say support the workers because one day it might be you that needs their support. When your employer tries to fuck you over and you cry for help, who will listen to you and support you. We must stick together.

If you were going to choose some really powerful Ex-ministers you really wouldn’t go for Hoon, Hewitt and Byers would you? I mean, they were all pretty useless, I looking specifically at you Patricia Hewitt, as Ministers.

 It seems they have claimed that they can manipulate Government policy in return for money. There seems to be little doubt that they said it but these lobbyists clearly don't know that much about British politics if they think that these 3 have any real influence. To be honest I didn't know that they were still MPs so quiet have they been. Oh but there was that short lived plot thing that they tried earlier in the year.

 Why are we so surprised that they have turned out to be self-serving, money grabbing tossers? They had already tried to shaft the Party early this year, they aren't good Party people.

 What I like about this story is the fact that people are getting so worked up about this, it's sweet. It's nice that we still get so worked up about minor political scandals. In the US, for instance, this is how their law making actually works. My point being that our politics is actually relatively clean, but we must carry on being vigilant and getting stroppy about it so that it doesn't get any worse.

Dorset really doesn't get into the news that so it's nice when it does, although when it does can you please print a picture of the right place please (no, that is Gold's Hill in Shaftsbury not Maiden Castle) or the locals are behaving like, well, locals or extras from Brasseye.

 This week Dorset County Museum in Dorchester has won its battle to save a collection of play scripts and stage set models by Thomas Hardy. They were collected by one of the original Hardy Players between 1908 and 1924 and the Museum has been trying to raise about £60,000 in order to buy them and stop them being taken out of the Country. They should stay here, Dorchester is the home of Hardy, or least that’s what we tell the American Tourists.

If I ever start another “bit” on here with the phrase “A survey says”, or similar, you have the right to poke me in the eye because this will make me as lazy as the journalist that copy and pasted it from the press release in the first place.

 I know that those who write for our papers are over worked, I have heard that they have to write 4 times as much stuff, I believe the correct term is copy, as they had to 20 years ago, but, never the less, printing everything that PR companies E-mail you is just lazy.

 Take this “study” from the Daily Mail a few weeks ago. It is about eggs. It is claiming that the humble egg is a “superfood” (there is a term I could do with never hearing again) but do you know who it is sponsored by? Look there, right down at the bottom. Yes, there it is, the money has come from the totally dispassionate and completely neutral British Egg Industry Council. No, I didn’t know that they eggisted either. Ah hahaha, egg pun! It’s not a “study”, it’s an advert.

 And then we had the Sun giving us a sex survery on Friday. Have a look at the slide show on the webite here and see if you can work out who it is advertising, I mean sponsored by. Now there are plenty of problems with it as a survery but basically, it's an advert.

 The essential problem with this sort of “story” is that some people don't read down to the end of paragraph 4 or 5 to see who has paid for the article and they take it as at face value and as a proper survey, resulting in them being massively ill-informed.

 Whilst this isn't too much of a problem because most of these “surveys” are about pointless things there is a drip, drip effect. One day they are telling you that coffee is good for you and the next that it is bad. This ends up with people not taking any notice of proper dietry or medical advice because they think that “scientists” are always changing their minds, that they don't know what they are on about. No they are not. PR companies are trying to sell you stuff and newspapers are making it easy for them.

Let's have some awards of the week because I've got things to do,

The Award for Looking Fantastic of the Week,

 It's time for another one of those staggering admissions that I make from time to time. I think that Lady Gaga is fantastic. There, I've said. I don't care for her music, although Bad Romance was alright, no, what I like is the fact that when a stylist says to her “I've got this idea, do you want to give it a go?”, she says “Yes, yes I will”. She will wear absolutely anything and take it very seriously. This I like. See, for instance (as long as you are over 16, it's a little saucy and they do kill quite a lot of people), the video for her new single “Telephone” in which she wears, at one point, an outfit made out of “Police, do not cross” tape and in another scene has Coke cans as rollers in her hair. If you can't get on to YouTube because you have an old browser that won't automatically update and you are using Linux and are not sure how to do it manually (only me then?) then you can always look at the Daily Mail website (although I wouldn't recommend it, it will just annoy you.) which seems to be on a commission from Gaga's PR company as they seem to print at least one picture of her every day.

 It seems that I am not alone in my enjoyment of her style as Lady Gaga has now had over a billion hits on You Tube. Now that is quite a lot. I was really happy when my posting about “You and Yours” in the week was linked to by Ben Goldacre and I got an awful lot more hits than usual, can you imagine how happy I'd be if I got a billion hits?

The Award for Some Pretty Top Architecture,

 Ladies and Gentleman I give you Le Centre Pompidou-Metz. It has been built in Metz in France and will be opened on the 10^th of May. It's propose is mostly as an exhibition space but I don't really care about that, see what it looks like,

Now that is what a modern building should look like.

 Now I'm not saying that all the Tea Baggers, sorry, Partiers are tiny minded, racist fuckwits, that would be unfair and I don't want to tar all those nice people with the same brush, but if you don't condemn it then you condone it. Is that what they want?

You may remember that last week I tried to start my own religion (sort of) in order so that we could claim that absolutely anything could be claimed to be a tenet of the religion. Well now we have progress. We had a bit on the Pod Delusion podcast (which is embedded just on the left there, I am right at the end, after the credits), we have a website and shop, a facebook group and a Facebook fan thing. Go on, go and see them all.

I hope you all have a lovely week.

Diana Watch

Can I apologise for this week’s entry. If it seems a little hurried and cobbled together but there is a very good reason for that, it is. The end of the week has been a little poor for significant other so not had much time to do this but, he says with the utmost irony, the show must go on. I’m doing “jazz hands” now if you are interested.

 Thank you the Daily Express! Your ability to entertain has not been diminished. Thank you. We have a Princess Diana headline from the lovely people at the Express this week and so I thank them. I would also like to thank them because it is one of the stories that the Express reading loons have been allowed to comment on. The Express website is like a London Plague searcher “Bring out you wackos, bring out your conspiracy freaks!” For instance, I give you, oh and I haven't changed the spelling or grammar,

  “I agree that diana should be allowed to rest in peace of course i do. But not when this stuff is still uncovered they cover up everything! and i dont believe diana can rest in peace because she would be up there knowing she was assasinated full stop. I do feel for her boys its not like they would really say what they really think they are memebers of the royal family. I  think we the british public should never let her memory die! and show future queen camilla the DOOR along with charlie boy.”

  I assume that the sentence construction is poor because she was typing though a veil of tears. And from someone else,

“It is apparent to everyone that when any material is repressed in any enquiry there are bound to be suspicions, founded or otherwise. There were a lot more questions after the investigations and reports than before, with good reason. Read more history etc and watch Spooks (Secret Service) etc.,for some ideas of how things work in high places!- to which the nation's peasants are not privy!”

This person recommends watching Spooks, the BBC1 fictional Spy drama, as good evidence as to what goes on. There are so many more,

“Princess Diana WAS murdered so charles could 'marry' his old ugly mistress. Henri Paul was the driver with the intent to kill the Princess, but he was setup to die too.
Yes the Princess should be able to rest in peace, but until her murderers are brought o justice she won't.”

Why is marry in inverted commas? He did marry her, legally and everything, it was on the news, oh wait, I see now, even the news is in on it. This conspiracy goes all the way to the top people! Who is that smoking man hiding in the shadows? Are they adding drugs to my water? How long has that pizza delivery van been parked outside my house? They are coming for me!

Sorry about that, it seems that loony may be catching.

Please go and read the article but, more importantly, the comments. They will be the most fun you have ever had.

 The US has birthers and we have these nutters. I blame the interweb. There are some people who will believe anything they see written down no matter how poorly it is spelt or the argument constructed, how else do you explain the inexplicable, but declining, popularity on the Daily Mail?

For reasons that I still find totally baffling, adverts for sanity products are completely filled with euphemism.  Even the “liquid” referred to is a euphemistic colour, I’m pretty sure that blood is red (except in lobsters or is that an urban myth.) From watching adverts for these products I would have absolutely no idea what they did are where they were, ummmm, placed.

  I know what they are for and you know what they are for but it seems that American TV networks don't (or at least they don’t like the words involved.) An advert for tampons, that mocks other adverts for similar products, has been banned by 2 US television networks for using the word “Vagina”. Yes that’s right, “Vagina”. It didn’t say “take this and shove it up your fanny” (although fanny seems to refer to bottom in the US so that is a very different thing), but it is the correct medical term for the area. How sensitive do you have to be to find that offensive? Although I can’t mock those funny Americans to much because I doubt that the advert would be shown over here.

 Now I know that some of you will be shocked by that word and have probably stopped reading. If you have that means I can insult you without you knowing, you are cunts! Ha, see what I did there? Now some of you are proper offended aren’t you? Sorry.

 Both the Express and the Mail were suitable outraged about Polish Women “coming over here” so that they can have abortions. It is almost a perfect storm for them. Non-English people, the NHS and woman choosing what to do with their bodies. Oh and just a brief aside, if you ever start a headline with the word “Now” you are not a proper newspaper, I.E. “ NOW POLES GET FREE ABORTIONS ON NHS”

 Of course they were both woefully wrong as this commentator said,

        “ Okay - I'm Polish and if you look into the background of this poster and the context, it is NOT suggesting that Polish women milk the British system. It is intended to highlight that women in Poland are denied the right to safe abortions. And the price for even an underground abortion is exuburant. This isn't about "go to the UK and get a termination". It is intended to demonstrate how draconian Polish laws are towards women and how much the Catholic church dictates Polish law. Relax everyone. This won't cause an influx of Poles taking up valuable spaces in the NHS abortion queue. Geesh.”

 It seems that someone, somewhere, who reads the Daily Mail website, is quite sensible. I know that it is hard to believe but it seems it is true.

 So the question has to be, did these papers misrepresent this poster on purpose or by accident? I mean, I can’t imagine that the Daily Mail would just make things up or ignore FACTS. Oh now wait, I think I may have mentioned this briefly last week, click here and here for details.

Well, how where they to know, it was written in foreign and they don’t speak foreign.

 To be honest I would be happy if the story was true. If the country in which I live is helping woman from overseas with making an incredible hard decision and helping them though in a safe, supportive, non-judgemental way, it would make me sort of proud.

Now for the awards of the week,

The Award for Brilliant Mocking of Stupid Laws,

If you didn’t know, you can become a Jedi. Well you can join the International Church of Jediism anyway, your Midiclurian count will probably quite low so don’t expect to able to use the force.

 Anyway Chris Jarvis did join he church so when he asked by Job Centre staff to remove his hood he claimed religious discrimination. He has now received an apology. He’s a Jedi! It’s made up! It’s from a film! It’s not a proper religion; it’s made up…… oh now, wait…

 This rather brilliantly makes a mockery of religious discrimination laws. We all know that these laws are unfair and silly, “I believe in a magic man in the sky so I have to have special legal protection”, but this helps in our battle to get them repealed. They are clearly unworkable and don’t even do what they implemented for, although that isn’t really a bad thing.

 I am now thinking for starting my own religion though so that I can have special treatment for believing in nonsense.  Bow down before the God that is Webble Twosh! Oh hail great Webble Twosh. You can’t mock me. It’s a religion and should be respected, oh and us Twoshists don’t have to apologise for the systematic raping of children and for wilfully covering up those crimes.

The Award For Ignoring a Story Because it Doesn’t Fit in Pre-Existing Narrative,

MRSA rates cut in Southampton hospital by 73% over 2 years by screening patients on admission. That’s 73% which is a massive amount in anyone’s books. If that was my hospital I would want this story covering the local press and TV news programs.

 I heard the story in passing on a very early morning edition of my local news program but it has not been referred to since. It is not on the BBC website (or at least I can’t find it) and a Google web search only brings up the hospitals own website. A news search brings up all sorts of stories about people catching MRSA in Southampton Hospital but not this positive story.

 Now, this is interesting because nurses have been blamed for spreading the “super bug” and nothing else has been mentioned but this shows that ¾ of infections may have come from outside. The patients come in with it. So where is the story?

Hope you all have a good week (I’m hoping for a better one, Significant Other is hoping harder mind you) and that the weather is as lovely as it is today all week. I will try and do better for next week.