Diana Watch

Basically we should just write this week off. We were never going to win. Most of the papers care not for the crimes carried out by or covered up by the Catholic Church and neither do the television news programs. They have God on their side so that is such a massive positive that all other things are swept away. That is the right God by the way, not one of those funny foreign Gods.
Try this thought experiment; a Muslim leader wants to come to Britain for a bit a stroll around. He has been accused and has been shown to be, with documented evidence, to have known about and actively helped to cover up sexual crimes committed against children. Do you think that he would have got a visa? How much fuss would the Murdoch press and his TV news channel have made about that? You just have to look at the Fox news coverage of the not-a-mosque-that-isn’t-at-Ground-Zero story for a bit of a hint.
Do you think that the Mail and the Express would run glowing editorials about what we can learn from him and what an all round good egg he is? Do you think he would be allowed to compare a significant number of people in this country to Nazis because they think that his unpleasant views on homosexuality, abortion, woman, other religions, contraception, reporting crimes to the Police and how important people who believe in the same sky fairy (but only if they worship it in the correct way) are and should be listened to more than others, are wrong and harmful?
To be honest we are winning anyway, there are only about 5 million Catholics in the UK, which leaves about 60 million of us that aren’t. In a fight I think we will have them.
Their numbers are also declining (as are the circulations of the papers that support them credulously but so are ours) so if we wait around a while and let them continue to shoot themselves in, what seems like an extraordinary number of, feet then they will, hopefully, dwindle away to nothing and we can go about our lives, living them in an inclusive friendly way without these nasty little bigots having a say.


Again stolen from the BBC website.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not anti any religion, you/they have as much right to worship who or what you want as I do to not do it, but the double standards, hypocrisy and outright lies of the Pope, the Vatican and most of the British Press is becoming a little wearing.
Modern Religions have not given us our morals, these existed before these religions, the oldest of which is about 2000 years, and they merely wrapped their philosophies around them. The general principles of being nice to each and not killing others make basic evolutionary sense to preserve the group.
Whilst we are at it, lets have a look at those 10 Commandments shall we?

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's.'

The first 3 aren't even about morals, just God. No mention of marriage being about between a man and a woman, nothing about dodgy employment decisions against woman.
The continuing argument from the Churches, especially the Catholic one, is that Atheists have no morals and are bad people and, as I would imagine that most people who read this ARE Atheists, we know that this is just blatantly untrue.
During his sermon at Westminster Abbey, following being on the front of every paper all week, he said to an audience made up of the Prime Minister and various Ex-Prime Ministers, various leading politicians and other important types, that the Church was being side-lined. That after having private meetings with all 3 party leaders.



Sorry about the ranty style today, when the week started I really wasn't that fussed about Popey coming here. OK, I didn't think we should cough up the money for it but I wasn't to upset about it. Now however, you have no idea how filled with righteous anger I am now.

Let's do some awards to help dissipate my rage,

The Award for Making Sure Your Child Hates You and Will Definitely Get Bullied,

Congratulations to Jamie and Jools Oliver on the birth of their healthy new son.
Just one little thing, and I know that it is a little lazy to have a cheeky shot at celebrity baby name, but Buddy Bear? Really? That is what you want to call him? Sure?

The Award for Most Deserved Coming 14th in a Survey of 117 Towns of the Week,

The high street of Dorchester has been dubbed a “clone” after we came 14th in a survey of the country’s blandest high streets.
Obviously this has offended local shop keepers but the survey is quite right. Whilst there are a few independent shops, if you came here you wouldn't be enthralled by the dazzling range of artisan stores, unless you really like mobile phones.

I think that will do for today. Significant Other has written a review of our weekend at the End of the Road festival here. My podcast is here.
Have a lovely week, the Pope goes home today, I think, which will make it nicer for everyone.

Diana Watch

So when you are in the company of a group of woman and they ask, in general, why their lives are a little hard, the correct answer is not “because you tricked us into eating the apple, it's your own fault”. Just a little bit of social etiquette advice for you there.

Do you know how much water your jeans used in their production? No? Well let me tell you, it takes 10,850 litres per pair of jeans. This massive figure includes the water used to grow the cotton and what is used in the factory.

 Ok, how about a pint of beer? 1 pint of fluid, it can’t be that much can it? 150 litres apparently.

 The Engineering the Future alliance of professional engineering bodies has released a study (I know I said I wasn’t going to cover “Studies” but I don’t think that this is a PR puff piece) in order to show the hidden amounts of water being used (most of it aboard) to make our stuff.

 It is estimated that you (and I) use about 150 litres (about a bath full) of water everyday but that is only the water that we see, up to 10 times as much is “embedded” in the British made goods bought by consumers. This, however, only represents about one-third of the total water embedded in all the average consumer's food and goods, with the remainder coming from imports.

 Forecasts suggest that when the world's population soars beyond 8 billion in about 2030 the need for fresh water rising by 30%. Developing countries are already using large amounts of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West.

 This really can’t end well. If the Gulf war was fought over oil, as many claim, how long before we have wars over water?

Here we go again,

Gays, blamed

The Media, blamed

The Devil, blamed

and so, who or what else can they blame? Ah I know, how about you blame the Internet.

Another week, another Senior Catholic Priest not taking responsibility for the actions of their colleges and trying to shift the blame. It's not the fault of the person who did the child rapings, oh no. See how many external factors we can find. I will stop going on about this when they sort themselves out.

 Step up Bishop Felipe Arizmendi, it's your moment in the, being-mostly-ignored-by-the-mainstream-media, sun.

Oooh, just a brief aside before the main story. Whilst I am wondering why the press seems to be going a little easy on the Vatican, it seems that if you make films and are convicted of having sex with a 13 year old girl at the home of Jack Nicholson in 1977, this will be ignored as long as you make a good film whilst under house arrest.

 Why is Roman Polanski not vilified around the world? I truly do not understand.

 Anyway, back to the story. Speaking in Mexico City he said “With so much invasion of eroticism, sometimes it’s not easy to stay celibate or to respect children. If on television and on the Internet and in so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste.” So this is your excuse for attacking children? If you really can’t help yourself just have a wank, it's much better for all involved. I know your Church is against that too but surely it’s less of a sin than the thing that you were trying to excuse.

 He added “Obviously when there is generalized sexual freedom it’s more likely there could be cases of paedophilia.” Ummm, no. Can you show me some evidence for that please? An email will do, just a hyperlink to the study that you are referring to. I think you might just be making that up.

 He wasn't the only Priest talking utterly offensive bollocks this week as the Bishop of Tenerife, Bishop Bernando Álvarez, tried to blame the victims.

 Now I know this was always going to happen as it is a well known phenomenon but that doesn't detract from how utterly deplorable this is. He said “There are 13 year old ado­les­cents who are under age and who are per­fectly in agree­ment with, and what’s more want­ing it, and if you are care­less they will even pro­voke you.” I just want that to linger with you a while. “and what's more wanting it”. Ah yes, the Lolita defence.

 What an absolute bastard this man is. He didn't leave it there though; he tried to blame the Gays as well.

 Although I do have to be fair, whilst the Vatican could limit the damage by admitting responsibility and having a proper investigation, the English and Welsh bit of the Church is at least trying.

 Bishops have written a letter that will be circulated to all churches expressing a “heartfelt apology and [their] deep sorrow to those who have suffered abuse”. They also recognised that there were “no excuses” for what has happened and said that it was a “profound scandal.”

 Well that is a start, now how about getting the police involved. You have admitted that many crimes have taken place and there is only one thing that you can do in this situation.

It is not only the Catholic Church that has a monopoly on blaming the innocent, oh no. A senior Muslim Cleric in Iran has said that earthquakes in the geologically unstable city of Tehran are caused by woman! No wait, come back, his reasoning is fault (ha, do you see what I’ve done there?) less.

 During the Second World War we had a saying, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” but in Iran they have one all of there own, “Loose Chicks cause significant shifts in the Earth Crust.” Whilst I agree that this is not as catchy but it does seem to be the view of some in Irania. No, really!

  Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted in the Iranian media saying “Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes,”   

 The Muslim world helped shape science during our “Dark ages”, they translated the ignored Greek texts on Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, they were proper clever people, however it does seem that some of their religious leaders are a little shaky on the basics of plate tectonics. Now, to be fair to this man it may have been something to do with a mistranslation of the post-coital question, “did the earth move for you?”. Although it seems more likely that this bloke is just a bit of a misogynist, “the Christians have blamed them for the fall of man in the Garden of Eden; we need something to equal that. Ah!  I know, blame woman showing a little bit too much fringe for Earthquakes. That’ll wash.”

The good thing about our reliance on oil is that extracting it from under the ground is always safe and that there is no danger of any pollution. Oh now wait…..

 On Tuesday night an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and caught fire. 11 crew members are still missing. It has now sunk. A short pause to think of their families please.

 Local Coastguard believe that this could lead to the ex-oil rig leaking up to 8000 barrels of oil per day into the surrounding area.

 It is claimed that the safety of rig work has improved greatly recently but since 2001 there have been 858 fires and explosions in the Gulf, according to the federal Minerals Management Service. That still sounds pretty fucking unsafe if you ask me.

 I don’t want to make you feel guilty about all the oil we use (I was trying the with the water bit at the beginning) but here is a picture of what open cast mining for Tar Sands looks like,

It used to by Canadian woodland you know. I’m not lecturing you, I’m just pointing out the realities of how we all live our lives.

 All very serious and far too religious for my liking, lets do some awards,

The Award for Any Excuse to Show Very Cool Pictures,

The Hubble space telescope is 20 years old. Happy birthday Hubble.

 It has bought many exciting discoveries or confirmed existing theories. It helped age the Universe to 13.7 billion years old, it showed that the universe is still expanding and is accelerating as it does so and it showed that there are very large black holes at the centre of most Galaxies but what I think it will be most remembered for are the simply incredible pictures that it has been sending back. As good excuse as any to look at some of those pictures,

The Award for Breaking a Stereotype,

This goes to sprinter LaShawn Merritt, Olympic and world 400m champion, is facing a 2 year ban having tested positive for a banned substance.

 His lawyer has released a statement saying that his client admitted to taking “an over-the-counter male enhancement product”. Male enhancement product? Does he mean some of those tablets that you get spam email for offering you an extra inch or 2? Is there some thing you want to tell us Mr Merritt because I always thought, oh never mind.

Good luck to those running in the London Marathon today; I hope it does get too warm for you.

I’ll leave you alone know, have a lovely week. Honestly I tried to keep it short this week but hey, it’s Sunday and what else do you have to do? xx

Diana Watch

Dear Moany Football Managers,

                         Both teams have to play on the same surface, stop moaning. You lost because the other side scored more goals than you not because the grass hated you.

                                                Martyn Norris

Can you guess which paper has had Princess Diana on the front this week? Of course you can, now you have GCSE Media studies, it’s the Sunday Express,

 I'm not going to take up too much off your time this week because I have got some homework for you.

 Now I'm not saying that you have to read them all the way though because they are really, really dull but here are links to the main parties (and UKIP's) manifestos

Tory, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP, Plaid Cymru

The BNP

There doesn’t seem to be a manifesto for this election on their website but on past performances I think that we can safely assume that it would basically be “Go home Darkies” and would use the word Indigenous a lot without ever spelling out what that means.

The SNP

I can't find a manifesto on their website but they claim to have one. It may possibly be this though,

 Thank you to the BBC for providing this list of all the parties standing and links to information about them.

 OK, that is hard work I know so let's just get on with the awards,

The Award for the World's Most Self Destructive Snack,

 Are you scared of American Imperialism? Worried that the rise of the Religious Right in the US threatens rationalism in that country? Don't understand the appeal of Glee? If I was you I wouldn't worry too much because they will all be dead soon.

 Ladies and Gentleman I give you the KFC Double Down.

 The bread of this bacon and cheese sandwich has been replaced with deep-fried breaded/battered chicken burgery things. 

 If a heart attack could be represented as a food stuff, this is what it would look like.

 The Award Naked Opportunism of the Week,

 This goes to both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

 The Government sent out a leaflet saying that the excellent 2 week guarantee for woman with suspected breast cancer to see a specialist was under threat for Tory plans.

 These leaflets were delivered to thousands of homes and, naturally, some of the people who got one had had breast cancer or know someone who has (a bit like how cold reading works). Because people are stupid and self-centred they assumed that the leaflets were targeted at them and have complained about it.

 They were not targeted at anyone, it was just a statistical certainty that this would happen but that didn't stop both the parties weighing in.

 David Cameron called for an apology and called the tactic “sick” despite the fact that it wasn't a “tactic”. Even the mighty Vince Cable wasn't above lowering himself to getting involved and said there needed to be an investigation to see if there had been any abuse of data protection laws. No there doesn't.

The Award for Having a Dig at a Fellow Sportsman of the Week,

 Golfist Phil Mickelson won the US masters on Sunday. This competition was the much written about return of serial philanderer Tiger Woods to professional golf and the expectation was very high. It blanketed out pretty much everything else in the coverage but he did not win.

 On winning one of the worlds more pointless sports Mr Mickelson dedicated it to his wife.  

The Award for Self Important Self Appointed Busy Body of the Week,

Jim Gamble is the Director of Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop). He has decided, with the help of the Daily Mail, that Facebook is the devil.

 Despite the fact that there is no proof that his idea about having a “panic button” on the social networking site will make any difference to the safety of children using it, he still manages to get himself on the various news programmes and into newspapers to promote himself, sorry, his idea.

The Award for Having the Worst PR Department in all of the Known World,

More good work by the people who work for the Catholic Church this week (I'm getting a little bored of this now. 4^th week in a row that I have to mention child rapists and those that covered up for them).

 They have blamed the Devil, they have blamed the Press and now they blame..... The Gays. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's number 2, has said that Homosexuality was to blame for most of the “problems” that the Church has been having with continually employing child rapists and not the whole celibacy thing.

 Whilst in Chile he said “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia. That is true. That is the problem.” Oh FFS. What century are you living in? Oh yes, I remember, sometime in the 18^th.

 I understand why they are trying this Blame Others approach. They are attempting to show the faithful that it is the things that the Church preach against that are the problem in a kind of “See, we told you so” sort of way, but it will not wash with the rest of us.

 Don’t expect any change in their policy any time soon though as the Church has only just forgiven John Lennon for his “bigger than Jesus” thing in 1966.

Oh, I supposed I ought to mention a bit of news.

Did you watch the Election Debate? OK, it was a bit dull and they had all “met” far too many people (David Cameron also claimed to have met a black man but I think that that is unlikely) but it does seem to have gone really rather well for Nick Clegg.

 I’m not going to criticize their performances to much though because it was the first ever debate and no one really knew what they where doing. Clearly they had watched the U.S. debates and had noted the tendency to use a heart warming or point making anecdote. Unfortunately they all went over the top and answered almost ever question with a little folksy story. Now all they have to do is practise winking to camera and saying “Y’all”.

 The other problem was the moderator. Alistair Stewart was rubbish. He barely gave them time to answer or rebut and bellowed over the top of them. I’m not sure if Tory loving Adam Boulton on Sky News will be any better though.

Some planes are unable to fly because of a massive cloud of volcanic ash covering most of Northern Europe.

 Whilst most of the papers were concentrating on the effects on travellers and trade, both the Mail and Express decided that the cloud, which is mostly at 25,000ft, will kill you.

 So if you are stuck somewhere and can't get home I do feel a bit sorry for you but to all of those moaning and scare-mongering in the press about food shortages can fuck right off. So what we don't have any asparagus imported from Egypt or lettuce from somewhere in Africa? How about buying British and seasonal? You may remember what food is supposed to taste like and maybe those countries can grow some food for themselves.

 “But I’ve got a business meeting to go to!” yeah, will I have Skype and can talk to people all over the world, on video, for free. Give it a try, you might like it rather than selfishly flying round the world for no good reason.

Oh and I am loving the stories from people who live around airports and can't believe their luck with all the peace and quiet that they are having this weekend.

 Please stop moaning, no one has or will die.

Do you think that your job is dangerous?

 Have a good week and enjoy the sunny weather (as long as it carries on obviously, it's not like you can fly to somewhere sunnier.)

Diana Watch

There really is only one story that I want to talk about this week. It is one of the most talked about and life changing events of the week (well in our house anyway). It could alter the way we live our lives for years to come. If we do not act now, history will judge us to have failed.

 As of July a Scrabble rule change will mean that you are allowed to use proper nouns! You will be able to put company names and the names of celebrities.

 A company spokesman said "This is one of a number of twists and challenges included that we believe existing fans will enjoy and will also enable younger fans and families to get involved." I'm sorry? What?

 Why do you think that young people need to be patronised by making the game easier? It is fun because it is hard, that is the point. Do we encourage children to play football by making the goals bigger? Do we get children to play “Battleships” by making the board smaller? Do we make teenagers seem more clever by making GCSEs easier? Ok, bad example (and I’m not sure if that is actually true) but my point still stands; making things easier does not make them more appealing. It does, however, make them less valuable. Have you ever been allowed to win by someone else, at anything, not just games? It is a totally empty feeling, even children understand this and they are stupid.

 JFK said “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” He could have been talking about playing Scrabble.

 They also said that the changes will “introduce an element of popular culture into the game". Why is that a good thing?! I don’t want to have my scrabble board looking like a copy of Heat magazine. I want it to look like a scrabble board.

  Significant Other and I have discussed it and this is a rule change that we will not be implementing in the Norris household.

Ok, I suppose there was something else of some importance that happened this week. Gordon Brown has been to see the Queen and asked her if he can have an election and she said Yes (Do you think that she has an option? Could she say “No, cos I think that you will loose and I don’t want that twat Cameron in charge”? It seems unlikely).

 A clear Tory policy has emerged of not telling the truth about Nation Insurance. “We will not implement this 1% NI rise because it is a tax on jobs.” No, you will only raise it by 0.5% won’t you and “a tax on jobs”? Now this is a revelling line.

 What they mean by this is that it is a tax on businesses (rich people who fund the Tory party) but they have no problem with a rise in Income tax because that only affects workers.

 James Caan (out of off of Dragons Den) pointed out on Newsnight that the 1% rise will cost about £15 a month per employee. Will that stop a business employing a person? He said not. If they want a person they will employ them. He also pointed out that the NI rise only comes in when the employee earns about £20,000, how many shop workers earn that much? The job that I applied for at Millets (and didn’t get) paid £6 per hour, I don't think that I would have earn that much. So is the Tory plan nonsense and are their business friends only trying to preserve their profits? Yes, yes they are.

 The business men who queued up to side with their puppet, did I say puppet I meant Party, and say that Gordon Brown was wrong didn’t really fool anyone, despite David Cameron referring constantly to them.

 One of the people supporting the Tories was Sir Stuart Rose of Marks and Spencer whose company, this week, posted a health profit for last quarter of the year and estimates that it’s full year profit will be between £620m-£630m. Not really struggling then in the recession. They probably can afford an extra 1% on employees earning over £20,000 and not really notice it.

 Combine this with their calls for a reduction in Health and Safety legislation to make it easier for companies to kill you, their lack serious plans for increased regulation of the City and plans to reduce Inheritance Tax and you have to ask yourself, whose side are they on? I don’t think that it is yours.

 They are also a little hypocritical (I know this will come as no surprise) over income tax. On Tuesday the new top rate of income tax came in to force going up to 50% for those earning over £150,000. The Conservatives criticised this ferociously and, with various business groups, said that high earners would leave the country. Well they had one years notice and it seems that they haven’t.

 Despite this friend-protecting rhetoric they have no plans to reduce it.

 Whilst we are talking about tax and benefit changes can I bring your attention to these?

 Mothers will now be able to donate all or part of their maternity leave to their husband/partners. At the moment mother can take up to 52 weeks of fathers get 2 weeks but now the mother will be able to take 6 months and then go back to work and the father/partner can take the next 6 months.

ISA limits have been raised to £10,500 per year (so good for small savers then).

Sick notes have now been replaced with Fit notes. Instead of just being signed off sick your GP will be able to suggest what work you are fit for. Whilst there are a few problems with this, GP are not Occupational Health specialists for instance, overall this is great. Research seems to suggest that the sooner people get back to work the quicker they get better.

Now, as I have said before, I am no fan of Labour. I have watched my civil liberties disappear faster then the Twin Towers came down since 2001, they have taken us into 2 wars, 1 of which may be illegal and the Digital Economy bill is a disgrace but all of the above ARE great things and they should be applauded for these things.

And while I’m talking about Government achievement, the economy may do much better than predicted. 

According to the OECD the UK economy may grow at an annualised rate of 3.1% for the second quarter of 2010 which is much better than most other countries in the G7.

 Let me continue, if I may, with more slightly dull economic numbers.

 Many analysts say that The Markets are “jittery” about the possibility of a hung Parliament or the Countries credit rating being downgraded over the size of the deficit (this is so unlikely as to not be worth talking about). If this is true then The Markets are reacting in a very strange way. They are going up. The FTSE closed on Friday at 5770.98, up 58.28 points on the day. For the year they are up from their lowest point of 3968.40 points, that is a rise of 68%! Does that sound like a market that is concerned about how Labour are running the economy to you because it certainly doesn’t to me.

 Sorry, that was a bit dull but the points had to be made.

The scary thing about the pre-election is the blood lust that the 2 main parties have got up for cutting things.

Alistair “those aren't his real eyebrows” Darling said that they would have to cut harder and deeper (he was also writing porn dialogue at the same time) then anything done by Margaret Thatcher. Really? Fuck off. You are a Labour chancellor. What are you doing trying to keep up with the Osborne’s?

 And then they all try to hide other cuts in euphemism, “We will make efficiency savings”. So you are absolutely sure that these are not cuts then because when big companies merge they make “efficiency savings”. Shortly afterwards an awful lot of people loose their jobs and those that remain have their terms and conditions shredded. So I ask you once again, are you absolutely, completely and utterly sure that these “efficiency savings” are definitely, definitely not cuts?

The Award for Using Words in an Article That Only Newspapers Use,

There are some words that don’t get used enough in modern day English, such as bobbins and poppycock (which is my favourite word in all of the language), and there are some words that are only used by tabloid newspapers. The word “romp” for instance is only used by red top newspapers when they are referring to sex, i.e. “The footballer romped with the model”

 The mighty Daily Mail has decided to bring back a word that hasn’t been used in its correct context since Queen Victoria sat upon the throne. They claimed in an article about the New Dr Who assistant Amy Pond “that viewers were left scandalised” by her short skirt. Scandalised? Really? By some legs?

 Now I would link to the original article but I’m not clever enough and the Daily Mail on-line is like the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, it is constantly changing things that have been printed to closer reflect the views of it’s witless commentators (and the Google Cached thing doesn’t seem to work for that paper). The article no longer includes that word because they probably realised that it has been used since the “Lady Chatterley” trial.

 I would just like to say to people who were upset, or indeed scandalised, by the sight of Karen Gillan’s (not even bare legs, although that might be the issue, oh I don’t know) legs that they should avoid nearly all female professional sport and it is probably best if you stay indoors for the summer (especially around May the 6^th sort of time).

The Award for Trying to Get Something Really Rather Wrong on to a Plane,

Two women have been caught trying to smuggle a dead bloke in a wheel chair on to a plane at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport. It really is as simple as that.

 They claimed that he was asleep and put sunglasses on him and then attempted to board a plane.

They also travelled to the airport in a Taxi. That is how observant taxi drivers are people, you can pop a dead bloke in one and they won’t notice.

The Award Sticking Your Head In the Sand and Placing Your Fingers in Your Ears,

 For the third week in a row I am forced, mostly by their own stupidity and trying to make out that problems don't exist, to mention the Catholic Church.

 Now I am not a religious man, well actually I am an atheist, and the activities of the worlds various religions are not of a great deal of interest to me except if they are justifying flying planes into buildings or telling AIDS ravaged countries that condoms actually make the problems worse or….., oh ok, I do take a bit of any interest but the Catholic Church is really trying to push the boat out at the moment.

 The Associated Press is reporting that it has a letter that is signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI, in which he resists the defrocking of a convicted sex offender.  Cardinal Ratzinger said the "good of the universal Church" should be considered in such cases.

 Rev Stephen Kiesle was convicted in 1978 for lewd conduct with two young boys in San Francisco and was sentenced to 3 years probation. His diocese, Oakland, had recommended Kiesle's removal in 1981 but it didn't happen until 1987.  Cardinal Ratzinger took over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department that deals that sort of thing, in 1981 and this letter was written in 1985.

 So here is another bit of evidence that shows that Cardinal Ratzinger was aware of the abuse and attempted to cover it up and what did his spokesman, Rev Federico Lombardi, say? Why he tried to play it down of course, saying “The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations."

Let’s end with a song to lift your spirits as I have gone on a bit this week.

I know that everyone else of a skeptical bent has linked to this or embedded it and that I am a little behind the curve here (as I am with so many things, I hear those Beatles are pretty good, you should check them out) but here is The Daily Mail Song by Dan and Dan,

Have a good week. The sun is out and the sky is blue, enjoy yourselves whilst you can as soon we may have a Tory Government.

Diana Watch

If you want an insight into how a society can/will breakdown just turn the power off on a set of traffic lights at a particularly junction.

I think you can describe this as a perfect storm for a Daily Express front page, Princess Diana and weather.

 I don’t think we need to go into the story really do we? No of course we don’t. The Daily Express is rapidly becoming Britain’s answer to the National Enquirer.

Wednesday's Mail and Express both had the same story with the same basic premise, “It is political correctness gone mad!”

 The version that you got from the head and by-lines was that a person was fined £1000 for selling a goldfish. Well, how ridiculous and of course not entirely correct.

Great Grandmother (who is 66! A great grandmother at 66, usually the Mail would have been criticizing that, how young were these people having children?, but they have bigger fish to fry! Ha, see what I’ve done there!) Joan Higgins sold a goldfish to someone who was 14 and this is illegal under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, they have to be 16 or occupied by an adult.  Oh much later on in both versions of the article “a council officer in the shop at the time also noticed a cockatiel in a cage that appeared to be in a poor state of health. A vet found the bird had a broken leg and eye problems. It was later put down.” So more breaking of the law then.

This may come as a surprise to Mail and Express but cruelty to animals is against the law. The maximum penalty for this crime is £20,000 and a year in prison so she, with her only £1000 and 120 hrs of community service, got of quite lightly really.

 This obviously has annoyed these papers, especially the Mail. This paper seems to be pushing for a 2 tier legal system, one for us and, as they would see it, the scummy people and then their readers who they seem to think the law should not apply to. See their offence when “middle class” types are charged with crimes. 

  A second tier of law, ummm, can you imagine the outcry if someone suggested a second tier of law based on say….. Sharia law? Of course you can because someone nearly did and this happened, here, here and here.

 They don’t, however, make a fuss about Jewish or Beth Din courts which have been operating in our country for many, many years, how strange. Is it because they don't know about them? Perhaps someone should tell them. Can it be me? Please?

Science news now.

 The Large Hadron Collider’s power is being turned up (yes, possibly to 11 but is that joke funny any more?) and they have started smashing very, very small things into each other.

 The worlds most complicated ever machine is now setting records for the most powerful particle collisions created by man. They are running at seven-trillion-electronvolt (TeV) collisions (no, I don’t know what that means either) which have initiated 18-24 months of intensive investigations.

 This is a good thing. Some people see this sort of thing as a waste of money, science for science's sake, but they are wrong. Do we know where these ground breaking experiments will take us? No, of course we don't, if we did there would be no point in the experiment.

 Did NASA think “what we are looking at inventing is a fabric fastening material and a coating to stop our bacon sticking to the frying pan”? No they didn't. They wanted to put men in space and then on the moon and they found some other stuff along the way.

 “Climategate” was bobbins.

 The Commons Science and Technology Committee has critised the University of East Anglia’s Dept of Climatic Research Unit (which consists of about 3 people) for not dealing with endless Freedom of Information requests for AGW deniers (not overly comfortable with that word but sceptic is the wrong word. Sceptics consider all the evidence not ignore most of it) well enough and that was all.

 The E-mails of Professor Phil Jones of the CRU were hacked and posted on the internet. These were used by some people with dubious motives to try and claim that he had manipulated the data to make it look like Climate Change was happening when it really it wasn’t. The committee said much of the data that critics claimed Prof Jones had hidden, was in fact already publicly available.

 “We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and is induced by human activity”.

 Now I don’t know about you but I think that that is a pretty big smack down to the doubters but I don’t think that it will help to change their minds, after all they think that just because it is cold in England right now that this quite clearly proves that AGW is nonsense. That is an ok view for them to have in my opinion because it will be summer soon when it will be hot and by their logic this will prove that Climate Change is happening and then we will all laugh at them.

More architecture this week because London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced that they are going to build a fucking big statue/sculpture type of thing for the Olympic Games.

Now don’t worry if you don’t like it because you aren’t going to pay for most of it. The ArcelorMittal Orbit (odd name) is designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor and £16million of the total £19.1million will come from steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who owns the company ArcelorMittal, oh that will be where the name of the thing comes from. The other £3.1million will come from the London Development Agency.

Priests raping children update now,

 The Vatican has decided that the best form of defence is attack this week with the Pope describing the news coverage of the church’s of the cover up of decades of sexual abuse as “petty gossip”. In his address on Palm Sunday he said that faith in God leads “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion”. He didn't refer directly to the scandal but the implication was pretty clear. He managed to ignore it or cover it up when he was a Cardinal and now he intends on dismissing it while he is Pope.

 If they wanted to mount a proper defence they have 2 options open to them; they can either attack the victims by trying to make them seem unreliable which may yet happen or you can attack those printing the allegations about you, which is what the Vatican has decided to do. First there was the “petty gossip” thing and now we have accusing the New York Times of going into “attack mode” for printing a series of articles about what the Pope may or may not have known. Cardinal William Levada, who is doing the Pope's old job (no, honestly, the man defending the Pope is the man whose job it is to cover things up, just like the Pope did) said that the paper should “give the world a more balanced view of a leader it can and should count on". No it shouldn't. It should be reporting the news not doing your advertising for you. If your Employees have broken the law, which it seems they have, then that should be reported.

 I thought about making some sort of joke about it's only a matter of time before someone tried to make out that it was “an anti-Catholic” conspiracy but thankfully someone has gone one better. Someone has stepped up and compared asking some questions and trying to get justice for the victims and with....., no wait for this, this is good...........  Anti-Semitism! No really!

 I give you the Rev Raniero Cantalamessa, Pope Benedict's personal preacher, raised this brilliantly distracting but ultimately spectacularly offensive idea during Good Friday prayers in St Peter's Basilica. And there we have it, now we have playing the victim.

 Strangely enough this has not gone too well with those of non-pork eating, foreskin removing persuasion.  Stephan Kramer, general-secretary of Germany's Central Council of Jews, described the remarks as offensive and repulsive. "So far I haven't seen St Peter's burning, nor were there outbursts of violence against Catholic priests."

  It's not wall to wall criticism though; some members of the Church are taking the issue seriously. Archbishops in Austria and Switzerland are appealing to parishioners to come forward with their allegations, and admitting to past mistakes when dealing with claims. They also asked for forgiveness as they tried to repair the damage caused by the sex abuse scandal currently not being cover or investigated as it should.

 Well it's a start, perhaps they could Email (or Tweet) the Holy See to try and encourage him to do the right thing. I know that after all this time he’s unlikely to change his mind but that would be the decent thing to do.

The links that I have used for this story all come form the BBC and the Guardian, there is a good reason for that. It does seem that a lot of news outlets in the UK are a little quiet on this story, you can click here for a made up Deity's view on this.

The Award for Panic of the Week,

 Why on earth are we banning Methedrone? I assume it is because it has crap nicknames like “meow meow” or “M Cat”.

 The tabloids got really upset about it, wrongly I might add (these 2 boys took Methadone (the heroin replacement, prescription only drug), and alcohol as well as Methedrone) and then the Government asked the , really understaffed, Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to consider what to do with it.

 When I say “consider what to do with it” I don't mean how to take it, I mean ban it. And then it was so. There was very little discussion amongst the council according to latest resignee Eric Carlin. In his letter to Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, he said,

    “Re-Mephedrone; we had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people’s behaviour. Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure. The report was tabled to the whole Council for the first time on Monday; the Chair came to brief you before the whole Council had even discussed all of the report. In fact, I still haven’t seen the final version.”

 So if you want something banned get some newspapers to make a fuss about it. The Home Secretary will push it through and you will get your way, which is good news for all of us, if we are a right wing newspaper.

I know that it is childish but I want to go and see “Kick Ass” just because it has pissed of the Daily Mail so much. I want it to do well so that they are even for annoyed.

 They seem not to like the film because a child uses a bad word and there is some violence, ah well. They describe it as “Evil” and if that doesn't make me want to go and see the film then I don't know what will. Oh and Mark Kermode gave it a good review too.

I will leave you with this happy little thought, British Chiropractic Association happily promotes bogus treatments even though there is not a jot of evidence.

Diana Watch

He was 10 when it happened! Did we ever ask why it happened or did we just charge a 10 year old with murder and then, when encouraged by the media to light the torches and dust off our pitch forks, forget how old he was? Yes, he is now 27 but this is not the same person that killed a child 17 years ago. Are you, screaming idiots, the same person that you were when you were 10? I’m not, well I still like Dr who and nature documentaries, but apart from that I’ve changed quite a bit and I assume you have too.
If anything we should be ashamed that we have failed the child formally know as John Venables by not helping him enough to recover from a childhood that turned him into that 10 year old killer of a child. I do feel that I need to mention that I am not taking away from the enormity of this crime but adding so context.
A report out this week showed that re-offending on release from prison costs the country £10bn per year. Proof, I think you will agree, that the present penal system of lock them up and forget about that, as favoured by right wing politicians (and the Labour Party so that they could get elected) who see feeding prisoners as “too good for them” does not work. It does not help to deter people from a life of crime; if anything it reinforces their behaviour patterns. It shows them that they are outsiders and no one cares. What’s the point in worrying about others when they don’t care about you?
I know I won’t convince conservative types that helping prisoners off of drugs and to get an education is the right thing to do on moral grounds but can I appeal to them on budgetary grounds? Spend a bit more on rehabilitation of these people and save massive amounts of money for the whole country.


I bloody love twitter. There are so many helpful people on there. A few weeks ago I mentioned that we are going to go to Canadia next February and a woman, who is a Travel Agent, offered help in finding flights. I got asked on to the Radio 4 program “You and Yours” because I complained about their interview with halfwit herb peddler Michael McIntyre (not the overrated joke teller) and within half an hour a person who specialises in PR offered to help prepare me. I'm still not sure if I'll go on because I don't think that I am clever enough (or calm enough, I don’t think that Radio 4 would be overly impressed if I called him some terrible unpleasant name) to debate someone on national radio.
Then this week I mentioned a band that I really, really love and encouraged them to play in my general area and I got a direct message from a friend saying that she knew the lead singer and he was a friend. Oh yes Ladies and Gentlemen. Twitter is bloody brilliant.


The BNP have tried really hard to change their constitution so that they could remain racist but also within the law. It seems that they have failed.
A few weeks ago the BNP voted to get rid of its “Whites Only” membership policy after a threat of comedy legal action from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But a judge at the Central London County Court rejected their new attempt which asked members to sign up to the BNP's “principles”, including a duty to oppose the promotion of any form of "integration or assimilation" that impacted on the "indigenous British”, again I think we have to ask noted twat Nick Griffin what exactly they mean by “Indigenous British”, and a requirement to support the "maintenance and existence of the unity and integrity of the indigenous British". Again with that term.
They really do seem to think that when we were invaded by Northern Europeans and the French and the Romans and anyone else who came to this grey little corner of Europe, that they didn’t have any sex with anyone who lived here. I happen to know, for a fact, that at least one person who came to Britain in the Middle Ages was black,



They seem to suffer under this delusion that we are genetically pure. And if man spread out from Africa, which he did, the “indigenous British” would have got here from, ummm, SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Nick Griffin said after the judgement “"I think it's appalling. The court have opened a huge can of worms here, they have given a government funded, a taxpayer-funded body the right to interfere with the aims and objectives of political parties. That’s not just an attack on us. It's an attack potentially on any political party. It's a bad day for democracy from that point of view." It’s an attack on any political party THAT BREAKS THE LAW.
Sorry, too many capital letters there but the BNP piss me off.


Japanese Knot weed can grow 3ft in 3 weeks and can regenerate from a bit of root the size of thumb nail. It is remarkable stuff but it is also a massive pain in the arse. It can destroy the foundations of buildings and flood defences and it costs millions of pounds to keep under control.
What shall we do? So how will we control it? We must find something before are entire country is engulfed by a foreign invader? Coming over here, stealing our nutrients, out competing our native species. Scuttle forward a tiny Japanese insect called Psyllid. It sucks the sap out of it and slowly kills it.
Now, knotweed was introduced into the country as an ornamental plant by the Victorians but it soon escaped and started causing problems. Now we want to introduce another non-native species to control a non-native species, what could possibly go wrong? Environmental policy based on the nursery rhyme “There Was An Old Woman”.

“There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,
I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.”


And so to the Awards,

Special mention for the board of Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi who have decided to cancel the School Prom rather than let one of the female pupils bring her girlfriend.
This is why the rest of the world mocks you America. Please don’t act surprised, you bring it on yourself.


The Award for Desperately Trying To Shift The Blame,

This has to go to Father Gabriele Amorth. He is the Vatican's Chief Exorcist (because they have more than one) who claims to have dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession. Really? Any proof of that sir?
Anyway, He has claimed that recent, umm, unpleasantnesses within the Catholic Church were because “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”. Some of the things that are “proof” of the Devil's influence are power struggles at the Vatican and also "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon". Oh and all of those scandals involving Priests raping children. Good news, it wasn't their fault, it was the Devil. Well that’s ok then, we should just let them off (like the Church does) because they were possessed. Just a quick question, if a parishioner came to confession and confessed to raping a child how many Priests would say “that's ok, you are probably possessed by the Devil”? I would imagine it would be none.
He also was one of the Priests who said that JK Rowling’s books made a “false distinction between black and white magic", forgetting that it's CHILDREN’S FICTION! Although, to be fair, he seems to think that the Bible is the literal truth, so he does have a problem distinguishing between truth and fiction. He also seems to think that The Exorcist is some sort of documentary. He described it as “exaggerated" but offered a "substantially exact" picture of possession. OK, back slowly away from him people, make for the door but do it quietly, they are more dangerous when they are startled.

The Award For I’m Sorry, You Did What?

David Cameron really does have a very poor grasp of history. During Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday he said that the Tories cut defence spending because THEY WON THE COLD WAR. He was under pressure from Gordon Brown who had pointed out that the last time the defence budget was cut was in the 90's by the Tories. David Cameron retorted “That's because we won the Cold War under the Conservatives," We? We won the cold war? If anyone won the cold war it was the Americans but let's be honest, the Russians lost, no one won.
Just for the sake of balance Gordon was a little misleading in his use of numbers because, yes the Government have increased the amount of money that they give the Armed Forces each year, when you include inflation there has been the odd “real terms” cut.

The Award For It’s About Time Too,

Following on from her win at the Baftas Katherine Bigelow has won the Oscar for best director and, again, like the Baftas she is the first woman ever to win this prize. More importantly though Avatar didn't win very much. Which is nice.
What was much more surprising was Sandra Bullock winning the best actress Award for the Blind Side. Ok so no one over here has seen Blind Side but it is a Sandra Bullock film so expectations aren’t high.
One of the reasons that people like Ms Bullock is that she does seem to have a sense of humour about herself. The night before the Oscars she also won a Razzie for the worst actress for her performance in “All About Steve”. She turned up to except her award. You have to admire that sort of self-effacing behaviour but that doesn’t mean that she can carry on making bad films.


Things that almost made it,

Top 100 websites, the only porn site is at number 84. Clearly this is bobbins.

England Davis Cup team are rubbish after losing to the Ukraine. A team made up of teenagers beat us. The problem seems to be the Lawn Tennis Association. Let us, quickly, review “British” Male tennis players of the last few years. Andy Murray hasn't come through the LTA's system, his mum took him out of the system and he has also decided that he won't play Davis Cup matches any more. Greg Rusedski is from Canadia so wasn't trained by the LTA. And that leaves Tim Henmen. He was trained by David Lloyd, the brother of the Davis Cup captain John. So again, not trained within the LTA system.


The Daily Mail lies several times in several weeks, here and here

Have a fantastic week.