Thursday, August 20, 2015 

New victim of Labour purge identified.

There was consternation today after it emerged Ed Miliband's incipient beard has been denied a vote in the Labour leadership election.  The new facial appendage was informed via email, in what has been dubbed the "great Labour purge", that it does not support the "aims and values" of the party.

"It's an outrageous decision," said Keith Flett, chief executive of the Beard Liberation Front.  "The idea that beards are anything but rooted in Labour values is absurd.  From Marx and Engels to Keir Hardie, from Ramsay MacDonald to that apology for a moustache that once took up space below Ken Livingstone's nose, from Peter Mandelson to Robin Cook, facial hair and the Labour party have always gone together.  To deny this is to deny history.  The Milibeard must have its vote restored forthwith."

A spokesman for the Labour party, who refused to comment on whether he too had decided to forgo using a razor for a couple of weeks, denied that the decision had been made in error.  "We have reason to believe that the Milibeard is an unconscious attempt on the part of Ed to indicate support for Jeremy Corbyn.  As all former leaders are required to either keep shtum or endorse Yvette Cooper, we had no option but to remove his vote."

It as yet unclear whether Ed plans to add to his new hipster image by getting a sleeve tattoo and opening a breakfast cereal pop-up eatery in Shoreditch.

In other news:

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

8/20/2015 07:59:00 pm | |

Tuesday, August 19, 2014 

Those 10 funniest Edinburgh festival jokes in full.

1. "I ate some sausages laced with nitroglycerin other day. Boy did they go off with a bang!"

2. "I was going to put some jokes about badgers in my set. Then I remembered the Tories had them all shot!"

3. "Always leave them wanting more, my uncle used to say.  Which is why he loved working in the kitchens at Dachau."

4. "Scotland had oil, but it's running out because you're all such fat, greedy bastards!"

5. "I wanted to make the most obvious gags about being a feminist and married, and my husband couldn't persuade me not to."

6. "There was Ms Costello, Mr Brockett, Ms Wardman and Mr Johnson.  And that was just the teachers. Ahhh."

7. "Did you threaten to overrule him?"

8. "The yes campaign will make up the difference between now and September 18th."

(That's enough unfunny jokes about unfunny jokes. Ed.)

Labels: , ,

Share |

8/19/2014 08:15:00 pm | |

Thursday, August 14, 2014 

CLIFF RICHARD SENSATION.

POP SINGER'S HOME RAIDED AFTER POLICE RECEIVED TIP OFF OVER "CRYING, WALKING, SLEEPING, TALKING LIVING DOLL" LOCKED IN TRUNK.

RICHARD DENIES ALL KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS NOT TO BE WIRED FOR SOUND.

TOM WATSON OFFERS CONGRATULATIONS AND (CONT. p94)

In other news:

Sexist money-grubbing bully says good riddance to biting racist
Fighting in entire Middle East, north Africa, section of Eurasia continues
Egypt massacre worse than Tiananmen, Tony Blair still peace envoy

Labels: , ,

Share |

8/14/2014 05:54:00 pm | |

Wednesday, August 06, 2014 

Is 29 the perfect age?

No.

Labels: , ,

Share |

8/06/2014 06:47:00 pm | |

Thursday, July 31, 2014 

Those all important silly season stories in full.*

Death to racist feather headdress wearing festival fucks, says the Graun.

Commonwealth games awesome says athlete, Commonwealth games pointless and bit shit say public.

Ebola: we could die, say people in affected countries.  Ebola: we're all going to die, say Telegraph, Mail and government of hypochondriac dickheads.

Real-life Nathan Barley gets TV series on dedicated idiot channel in latest example of death of satire.

Person with breasts attacks other person with breasts.

People on Twitter do something in defiance of something someone somewhere said.

People use internet to advertise drugs, shock BBC investigation finds.

I've had just as much if not more casual sex than Byrony Gordon, pay me the same level of attention pleads Rhiannon Lucy Seagulling Cosslett.

Album format dead, say artists who've never managed to produce a single decent tune.

I can't make promises on tax, says Cameron. Cameron to cut tax, reports entire media.

ISIS releases video of murder of dozens of captives, Tony Blair still Middle East peace envoy, George W. Bush still incoherent inoffensive dauber, Israel still decimating Gaza to neutralise terror threat.

*In full meaning as many as I can stand without getting a hatchet and driving it with full force into my skull.

Labels: , , ,

Share |

7/31/2014 07:36:00 pm | |

Tuesday, July 29, 2014 

David Cameron will find you.

It's Tuesday, it's the dog days of July, so it must be time for a reprise of the who can be the most reprehensible cunt to immigrants act. You might recall last year around this time the Home Office sent round their "go home" vans, a move we're now informed wasn't the brainchild of Lynton Crosby, will wonders never cease. It wasn't a complete success, truth be told, but a majority didn't think it was racist and those that way inclined probably quite liked the message.

Facts you see don't enter this equation.  According to our fabulous prime minister Labour operated a "no questions asked" approach to benefits and this acted as a "magnetic pull" to migrants, or presumably at least those with an iron constitution.  This contradicts just about every piece of evidence we have about why those from the accession 8 countries came here, with the Migration Advisory Committee most recently finding little to support such claims, but no matter.

As well as announcing a further limitation on the time those from EU countries can claim Jobseeker's Allowance, a change it's estimated will affect around a whole 5,000 people, Cameron was also channelling his inner Liam Neeson.  Apparently if you're an illegal immigrant, he will find you and he will kill you.  To make clear just how serious he is, he went along on a raid, and was filmed by the BBC chillaxing in the victim's alleged criminal's kitchen with Theresa May.  It's probably worth noting as this point how Mark Harper, who had to resign as a minister earlier in the year after he was found to be employing an illegal immigrant as a cleaner, got a job back in the reshuffle, while Isabella Acevedo is waiting to be deported, separated from her teenage daughter.  Ah, justice.

It doesn't matter all this is self-defeating in the extreme.  Politicians simply aren't listened to on immigration any longer, and haven't been for quite some time now, the reason being they took their cue from the tabloids, made all these foolish promises about limiting it, and haven't done so because they can't.  Rather than start admitting they can't and return to making the argument immigration is positive overall, while the negatives can be tackled through careful targeting of the areas which have seen the most change, like reckless gamblers they keep doubling down.  Cameron is still, still, insisting his beyond idiotic target of bringing net migration down to the tens of thousands can be achieved, while Labour continues trying to one up the Tories.  Adding illegal immigration to the mix is just asking for it; the days of the Liberal Democrats calling for an amnesty, the only even remotely workable solution, and one which would bring the exchequer hundreds of millions (at least) in extra revenue, are long gone.  Instead they must all be found and sent home.  Just like Lucan, Shergar and Madeleine McCann will be (apologies).

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

7/29/2014 08:12:00 pm | |

 

Boy, 4, has the mark of Murdoch.

The parents of a boy, 4, were horrified when a "mark of Rupert Murdoch" appeared on his forehead.

Tracy Gardner and Nobby Torchwood spotted the dollar symbol as they got their son, Keith, out of bed one morning.

The sinister sign of the evil one is proving a devil to explain.  The imprint has baffled his parents, teachers and even the family's GP, all of whom are apparently as thick as pig shit.  Or we might be making this background detail up.

Shocked Tracy, born yesterday, of Salem, West Norwood Cassette Library, said: “It’s a nightmare. Some people have said it’s the symbol of Mammon — the sign of the worship of money above everything else — which has been very upsetting.

“Just looking at it made me shake thinking the soul of that terrible man had visited my boy.  Something or someone had made the sign on him but we just can't explain how, as neither Nobby or I have the power of independent thought, believing instead everything we see on Channel 5.”

Wondering if it might be a skin infection or rash, they took Keith to their GP, Dr. Nick Riveria.

"He too was baffled.  He recommended we take him for an MRI scan, privately, as the NHS is very pushed at the moment.  We didn't however have the £5,000 to spare."

Worried Tracy put a picture of Keith on Facebook, where it soon received 5 likes, and attracted a comment from among others, Tom Watson MP.  "Clearly this boy has been touched by a presence not unlike the one that made me start believing the claims of ludicrous Tory MPs of the 1980s.  We need a public inquiry into this right now."

Other MPs have also since raised their concerns, as parliament is in recess and they have to keep tweeting in order to give the impression they're doing something.  "What possible justification can there be for calling the Sun a newspaper," Abraham Shelley didn't ask, "when it publishes trash not even the cheaper knock-offs of Take a Break would touch with a ten foot pole?  That's the real issue, especially when the parents of the boy obviously sold the story and don't care about their or his privacy in the first place."

THE SUN SAYS

Our story is totally justified on two grounds.  First, it's the silly season, and the rest of the press are filling their pages with similar guff.  It's not as though there's civil war in Libya, massacre after massacre in Gaza or conflict in Ukraine we could be reporting on.  That costs money.

Second, every time there's OUTRAGE about something we just get more attention, clicks and subscribers.  Last time we checked Mail Online has 190m unique visitors a month, despite Twitter and the chattering classes hating the paper with a passion.  You're feeding us, you gullible, keyboard slamming morons.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

7/29/2014 05:52:00 pm | |

Thursday, October 31, 2013 

The immigration monster and the "go home" vans.

If anything, it's a bit of a surprise that as many as 11 people decided to "go home" rather than face the rather distant possibility of arrest after learning of the Home Office van campaign. This raises the obvious question of just how desperate a situation they must have been in to want to take their chances back in their home country, but such concerns are clearly irrelevant. These people shouldn't be here and they should go.

Only, as the reporting of Mark Harper's written answer makes clear, it costs more to enforce a deportation (£15,000) than the average illegal immigrant costs the taxpayer a year (just shy of £5,000). The latter figure seems difficult to believe, in any case: most illegal migrants won't/can't access public services, and so will use hardly any resources at all.  The motivation behind the campaign is then somewhat financially sound: paying for a flight for someone is hell of a lot cheaper than doling out money to our friends at G4S or Serco to "Mubenga" someone.

The problem was in the execution, but then that was clearly the point. This was a stunt straight out of the Lynton Crosby playbook. Wait until news was slow, then launch a campaign using a borderline racist slogan designed to attract both condemnation and attention in equal measure. If some people did take up the kind offer, all the better. The Tories could portray themselves as tough as well as practical, and Labour would be caught in the trap of either condemning sending illegal immigrants home, or condoning a 70s style National Front demand.  They didn't however factor in that this being the social networking age, a thousand people would prank the phone and text line, or indeed that even Nigel Farage would denounce the campaign as being too nasty, designed purely to win back some of those who had defected to his party.

Without figures for voluntary deportations for a similar period prior to "Operation Vaken", we clearly can't make a comparison as to how successful the whole charade really was.  It might well be that a similar number to the 125 total claimed to have been motivated by the operation would have submitted themselves anyway without prompting.  This is the thing: there is absolutely nothing wrong with ensuring those here illegally know they can return to their country of origin if they so wish, with the government picking up the tab.  It's how you go about doing so, and telling people to go home or face arrest is manifestly not the right way, not least when it's clearly a political campaign designed to look tough and win votes.  It probably does save money, although the idea the Vaken might have saved the taxpayer £830,000 is ridiculous.

Something that wouldn't just save money but actually benefit both the taxpayer and the economy would be an amnesty, bringing those working cash in hand out of the shadows and onto the path towards citizenship.  That however would go completely against the rhetoric and policies of the past few years, where politicians have followed public opinion rather than attempt to lead it.  Too bad that as Sunny wrote previously, it's now probably too late: the monster is loose.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

10/31/2013 09:40:00 pm | |

Monday, August 12, 2013 

August is hell.

Simon Jenkins is right: August politics is hell.  Anyone with even the slightest amount of sense (or a life) is paying even less attention than normal, which gives free rein to the worriers and the bitter to whine about how their party is doomed to defeat.  Earlier in the year it was the Tories that were staring into the abyss, riven by Europe, embattled by UKIP, staring a triple dip recession in the face.  Little more than 3 months later, and things are looking brighter for the party, although nowhere near as good as their chances of winning the next election are being portrayed in certain areas of the Tory press.

Naturally then, it's now Labour and their hangers-on that are having an attack of the jitters.  Quite why is difficult to ascertain: it's not as though things have changed dramatically.  The party still has a lead in the opinion polls, even if it has been somewhat reduced; the economic recovery, such as it is, is hardly secured, and for now is likely a mirage outside of the south east; and despite the best efforts of the Tories, no one out in the real world gave a toss about the supposed selection scandal involving Unite up in Falkirk.  The problem more than anything is that Labour has been relying on both the economy remaining stagnant, despite Ed Balls having accepted there would be growth by the time of the next election, and the Tories remaining about as popular as they are, difference being they're the ones in government.

True, there's more than something in the criticisms from the few backbenchers who say the party doesn't seem to know what it's for, isn't offering an alternative, or managing to make the agenda.  Nor though for the most part is the government doing the latter; when it does, such as with the "go home" campaign, it's also far from clear as to whether or not the effect has been positive.  Policy is stuck in a groove: the Tories characterise it as Labour opposing every cut, while in actuality it tends to be "we wouldn't be doing this if we were in government now but most likely won't alter it if we win the next election".  It's opposition in spirit only, while still taking a hit.

The odd thing is that on the whole, Ed Miliband has set out the general themes that the party needs to be focusing on.  The squeezed middle might be the least well defined social grouping in history, but living standards will undoubtedly dominate come 2015.  He set out a critique of predator capitalism, for which he was widely mocked by the media at the time, and yet tax avoidance by multinational corporations has become an issue as never before, while the spread of zero-hour contracts has exposed what a nonsense it is that employment law is in some way holding business back.  One Nation Labour has not been explained quite as well, but the potential is still there, especially as the Tories look set to go for a doctrinaire right-wing manifesto come 2015.  Should Scotland vote no next year, it certainly won't be due to gratitude for the coalition government.

Labour's problem isn't then just due to indecision within the party itself, it also reflects the sad state of politics more widely in the country.  We're told endlessly that politicians are all the same, yet present the electorate with an alternative and they don't want that either.  Up until very recently they thought cuts were unfair and harming the economy, but they didn't want to take the risk of loosening up, reflected through the lack of anything approaching street opposition as austerity as has been seen elsewhere in Europe.  The closest they've come to approving of an outsider is Nigel Farage for goodness sake, about as alternative as John Bishop is to Michael McIntyre.  This is where some of the criticism of Labour's current position gets silly: John Harris bemoans how Labour has missed the digital revolution, as though "a viral video" or a few more tweets from Balls and Miliband could make the difference.  You might have thought it would have been cleaved into a few skulls by now that only politics nerds and journalists are interested in passing Twitter frenzies, let alone such pointless campaigns as trying to ban page 3, but apparently not.

In effect, the main reason behind the whinges is that Labour isn't doing quite as well as it was.  It's not anything more deep seated than that.  How could it be?  Despite the despair of the likes of Dan Hodges or the equivalent from the opposite side by Owen Jones, the party remains where it is because it doesn't think the general public wants it any further left or right than where it currently is.  What's more, the opinion polls back them up.  Hardly any MPs voice outrage at what the coalition is doing to the welfare state, how Serco and G4S are not that far off from running the country or how the Tories seemed to have settled on creating growth through encouraging another housing bubble, for the precise reason that it's exactly what they would do if they were suddenly foisted into power.  Sure, they might do things ever so slightly differently, but not massively.  The most anger we've heard from a Labour MP recently has been Stella Creasy, and that was about fucking Twitter again.

More pertinently, why make the effort when the next election will be decided in such a small number of seats again?  For the Tories to win a majority they have to increase their share of the vote, something a party in government hasn't managed in a very long time.  They seem to think they can achieve this feat through repeating the same Lynton Crosby-honed themes over and over for the next two years: Labour is weak; Labour got us in this mess; Labour are the welfare party. Given a shorter timescale it might work, but keep it up for too long and it'll just become tiresome, even for those who don't pay attention.  The result we might have to face is another hung parliament, another five years of conglomeration and drift.  And the sad thing is, no one seems particularly upset by the prospect so long as they've got some hold on power.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

8/12/2013 09:31:00 pm | |

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 

Political dog-whistling: still not working in 2013.

It took a while, but by the end of last week the government's billboard campaign telling illegal immigrants to "go home or face arrest" had attracted the wider press attention it deserved from the outset.  One of the old chestnuts we often hear when it comes to debating immigration is that politicians of old shut down debate by calling people racist.  Accurate or not, we now have the opposite problem: politicians are afraid to say that some of those opposed to immigration are racist, as one thing racists don't like being told is that they are racist.  Hence despite criticism of the campaign coming from the Lib Dems, a few Labour MPs (although not the leadership, again presumably because they fear it being used as "evidence" of their weakness) and even Nigel Farage for goodness sake, who in the next breath scaremongers about a Romanian crime wave, none have called a spade a spade.

It's therefore only lunatics on the left and the "pro-immigration industry" that believe such a straightforward message is racist, says Mark Harper, the immigration minister described by Nick Clegg as "a very good guy", given space in the Mail. He doesn't expand on just which organisations make up the pro-immigration industry, but perhaps he means the Office for Budget Responsibility, set-up by the coalition, which only last week published research on the continuing benefits. Harper for his part doesn't even bother to engage with the argument as to why the billboards are racist, which is that they reprise the old NF slogan and play on the most obvious of racist sentiments, he instead uses attack as defence, saying that those critical are encouraging the breaking of the law. To call this a non sequitur doesn't quite cover it; a billboard threatening illegal immigrants with arrest if they don't leave voluntarily is hardly the most striking example of the law being enforced. Rather, it only underlines the reality: it's completely unfeasible to deport every person here illegally.  Continuing to claim it is only raises unrealistic expectations which then feed further discontent.

For such a short piece, Harper makes up for it by packing in as many distortions as he can. He conflates perfectly legal migration with the illegal by going into the standard riff on Labour's supposed "open borders" policy, says there is evidence that migration has pushed down wages when there's plenty (PDF) that contradicts the claim, that some areas have faced "intolerable" pressure due to migration, despite services continuing to function, then tops it off by saying the government is controlling immigration, if failing to meet their target of bringing net migration down to 100,000 by 53,000 can possibly be considered controlling.

He ends by saying that if the poster campaign helps tackle illegal immigration, who could oppose it? Considering a poll for the Sun suggests that there's almost an even split between those in favour of and those opposed, a remarkable result when there's such a prevailing sentiment against immigration, it suggests plenty don't like such "stupid and offensive" campaigns, even if they don't regard them as racist.  Seeing as Harper doesn't even repeat the actual wording used on the billboards, perhaps he secretly feels the same.  Either way, someone ought to explain to Lynton Crosby that if dog-whistling didn't work in 2005, it isn't going to now.

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

7/30/2013 08:32:00 pm | |

Wednesday, July 24, 2013 

Silly racism season.

The silly season is descending, although frankly it's getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between the dog days of late July and August, and well, almost any other time of year.  Apparently, "bitchy resting face ... makes Gangnam Style look like a slow burner", at least according to Hadley Freeman, and yet somehow I had avoided encountering this cultural phenomenon until she elected to write about it. Beards have also reached their fashionable peak, doncha know, and in what seems to be an extraordinarily late April 1st joke, Kerry Katona is to be Marilyn Monroe.  Presumably alongside Peter Andre as JFK.  Oh, and Guido Fawkes, he of repeatedly declaring he can't be sued fame, threatens to sue Claire Perry.  Perry we've already established is a dangerous nincompoop, while Paul Staines is just a hypocritical tool.

Is there anything even vaguely serious going on then?  Well, sort of.  Coming from the same great minds behind the idea of putting up "adverts" pointing out how shit Britain is in Bulgaria and Romania (while at the same time declaring how great we are everywhere else), one of those billboard vans is being sent round six London boroughs telling illegal immigrants to "go home or face arrest".  Why, we'll even be kind enough to help you with your travel documents, and we'll tell the immigration officers not to "Mubenga" you, as long as you come along quietly, of course.  Who wouldn't have their head turned by such a tempting offer?

Understandably, quite a few people are suggesting this is just a teensy bit racist.  On its own, it isn't.  There aren't that many pithy formulations you could put together that are simple to understand and carry the same message.  I mean, they could have gone with "In the UK illegally and want to leave?", but that doesn't carry the same element of menace all rhetoric on immigration must now have.  "Go home" though carries decades of baggage with it; it wasn't just a National Front slogan as Sunny says, go home (or words to the same effect)  is still one of the first resorts for racists, regardless of who it's used against.  "Go back to where you came from", even if you were born here and so were your parents; your skin colour doesn't fit.

When a government is reduced to such, err, dog-whistling, it ought to be apparent that it's in trouble.  One thing the Tories remain terrified by is the likely failure to keep their promise to get immigration down to the "tens of thousands" by the time of the next election.  Almost all the decline we've seen under the coalition has come as a result of the crackdown on overseas students, those grasping, scrounging bastards who come here, take almost nothing out and put hell of a lot in (is this right? Ed.).  Hence this year, as well as being partially in response to the rise of UKIP, we've seen further punitive policy proposals, including the ridiculous prospect of landlords being asked to do the job of the UK Border Force, as though making illegal immigrants homeless is something approaching a solution.  Sarah Teather made clear just how far the Tories would like to go when she revealed the "Inter Ministerial Group on Migrants' Access to Benefits and Public Services" was first known as the "Hostile Environment Working Group".

As pointed out before, this is a great example of how the new politics works.  Politicians say they're listening to concerns, they talk tough and tighten the rules ever further, and then act surprised and chastened when the mood against immigrants hardens as the numbers stubbornly refuse to fall precisely because freedom of movement is clearly here to stay.  Rather than confront voters with a few facts and ask them if they like being able to move freely around Europe even if they don't want to at this precise moment, we just get ever more discriminatory rhetoric.  Once, that the government was paying for adverts which contained allusions to the racist slogans of years gone by would have caused a storm.  That it hasn't shows both how the Tories have succeeded and why they will also end up being hoist by that petard.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

7/24/2013 08:12:00 pm | |

Wednesday, August 08, 2012 

All the news that's fit to bury part 3.

Labels: , , ,

Share |

8/08/2012 06:15:00 pm | |

Wednesday, August 01, 2012 

All the news that's fit to bury part 2.

Labels: , , ,

Share |

8/01/2012 06:06:00 pm | |

Monday, July 30, 2012 

All the news that's fit to bury.


And we're only three days into the Olympics...

Labels: , , ,

Share |

7/30/2012 02:39:00 pm | |

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 

100 days later.

Look past the 44% of those who think the coalition is doing a "good job in securing the economic recovery" over the 37% who believe the opposite in the latest ICM/Groan poll, and you'll find that despite this truly overwhelming "support for the cuts-based recovery strategy", as the paper puts it, Labour already finds itself at parity with the Conservatives, both earning 37% support, with the Lib Dems back on 18%.

This could be a rogue poll: it is August after all. Regardless though, as the Graun's archive of the polls going all the way back to 1984 shows, no winning party has so quickly lost its lead over the main opposition. It took 8 months after the 1987 election before Labour reached parity with Conservatives (although it then took another 7 before the party was to take the lead again), and even after Black Wednesday Labour only equalled the Tories' percentage score of voting intentions in the next poll, six months after the election. It would be 13 years before the Tories would come out on top again. This is, as yesterday's post set out, despite the fact that Labour is currently completely rudderless, without a leader let alone a direction, before the cuts have even begun to be properly outlined, let alone bite, and, it should be noted, with the press overwhelmingly supportive of both the coalition (or at least the Conservative part of it) and that aforementioned "cuts-based recovery strategy".

True, this is still all but meaningless for the moment, and it shows that support for the Liberal Democrats, despite ratings in other polls, is holding up well, even if down 6% on the election result. No one's going to be too worried about Labour drawing level in the middle of the silly season, even if it marks the coalition's 100th day. What's really going to be interesting to see is whether Labour starts to squeeze both the Lib Dem and Tory support; 37% in any case is hardly a bad place to be after 3 and a bit months.

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

8/17/2010 10:33:00 pm | |

Wednesday, August 04, 2010 

Dreadful writing corner.

No, not my own for a change. Here's how an album review in the current issue of Atmosphere (usually abbreviated to ATM, appropriately enough) magazine opens:

Getting a new DJ Fresh album in the post is like waking up with a beautiful woman fellating you; surprising, exciting and highly pleasurable.

Admittedly this is a genre magazine where every single review without fail is positive (I buy it for the cover CD and for an inkling of what's about to come out), yet this one is so completely sycophantic and over-the-top, going on to describe it as both "aurally satisfying" and as "aural sex, unsurprisingly", it makes you wonder whether it was either written by a slightly unhinged PR bod, or someone taking the piss by satirising the house style, succeeding so admirably that the editor failed to notice. The former it seems might be closer than the latter: a quick Google reveals that one of the reviewers, Jeryl Wilton, either works for or is aka Infectious PR, although the reviews themselves aren't by-lined so it's impossible to know whether (s)he was responsible for the DJ Fresh review.

Personally if I woke up with a beautiful woman fellating me, I'd be rather concerned with how she got in the house and worried about just how mentally deranged she would have to be to have made the conscious decision to perform a sexual act which gives her absolutely no pleasure in return to a complete stranger whose house she had broken into in the first place; then again, maybe I'm just thinking about this too much too deeply. Unlike the reviewer. Duh.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

8/04/2010 11:52:00 pm | |

 

Scum-watch: "Sick, thick and deluded".

Never one to beat a dead horse when you can instead eviscerate the damn thing, the Sun takes the trouble to conduct a full interview with the mother cited in yesterday's leader contrasting the funerals of Raoul Moat and Alex Higgins. It is the silly season, after all, and why miss a perfect opportunity to attack all those things that the paper professes to loathe? Teresa Bystram is not just "sick, thick and deluded"; according to the paper's editorial by her actions she also proves "herself to be an unfit mother", whose kids should be put "in care". It would of course be interesting to know whether Bystram was paid by the Sun for the interview she gave, especially when unless she really is as thick as the paper claims she must have realised just how they were going to use it, as that might put their rage about how she's using her benefits into some sort of perspective, but never mind.

Far more instructive is that currently the article has 32 comments, a rather poor showing for a piece clearly written with the intention of causing widespread anger at Bystram's fecklessness and indolence. By contrast, yesterday's article on the murder of Robert Coello in Grendon prison has 43, which even taking into consideration a couple of multiple responses is still far higher. Then again, you can't blame them: delighting in the violent death of a child rapist isn't even close to the sickness required to be able empathise with another murderer. That sort of thing demands a front page and a fulminating editorial in the country's biggest selling daily newspaper. Anything less would be a journalistic dereliction of duty.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

8/04/2010 10:14:00 pm | |

Wednesday, August 05, 2009 

Silly season moaning.

Every year it's the same. The newspapers moan about politicians while they're at Westminster, then they moan when they're not at Westminster. Gavel Basher in Private Eye today points out that those most fingered as being useless can't win: Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, pilloried for being out of his depth and described in the Sun's umpteenth leader on Our Brave Boys having to fight the government as much as they're fighting the Taliban as a "bungling Defence wallah", went for a few days break, just as the row about compensation broke out. He came back, as you would, and the same newspapers complain that he shouldn't have bothered.

The situation is almost exactly the same with whoever it is who deputises for the prime minister while he's away for a couple of weeks. John Prescott got it in the neck repeatedly simply because he wasn't Tony Blair and also from the usual suspects for being a working class idiot above his pay grade. This year it's Harriet Harman's turn, and it being the silly season and there being no real politics to write about, she's transformed by the Mail especially into a feminist harridan determined in just a week to strike a blow against the oppressive patriarchy. The evidence? She jokingly repeated her remarks that women would make better bankers than men (they couldn't be much worse), is daring to introduce lessons about relationships at the age of five which in the Mail becomes five-year-olds being indoctrinated in the ways of feminazism, and might have suggested that the proposals on reforms to the rape laws aren't tough enough. It's utter nonsense, but it fills the space and makes for a good front page splash.

The last person to deputise for the prime minister who was given anything even approaching respect was John Reid, who was praised for his handling of the "liquid bomb plot" raids while Blair was off sunning himself. Reid of course was the hard, unflappable and determined politician which the authoritarian tabloids especially love, at least until they decide that what was up must be brought back down to earth. As for Bob Ainsworth, attacked as much for his choice in facial hair as for his current performance as defence secretary, he's just the latest poor bastard to be cleaning up the mess which Reid himself left at defence, he being the one who told the world that he hoped the troops in Afghanistan would be able to return home from their mission without firing a single shot. We might get the politicians we deserve, but we get the media we deserve as well.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

8/05/2009 09:47:00 pm | |

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 

The summer holidays were here again...

The silly season, in case you haven't already noticed, has begun in earnest. Not that newspapers and news sites aren't normally stocked fully with churnalism, but it just becomes instantly more evident when there's next to no real news around.

In case then you wondering, the Wookey Hole witch is a publicity stunt. Even if they are paying the winner £50,000, that's nothing as to the free advertising they've received and will receive, especially when compared to how much it would cost to take out adverts on the same pages and same size as the stories themselves will appear. Likewise, the BBC story that "Swedes miss Capri after GPS gaffe" is almost certainly a similar piece of churnalism. It's plausible, as anyone could accidentally make a typo on their system and be guided to Carpi instead of Capri, but like the Wookey Hole story it makes for excellent publicity, even if it isn't as unbelievable as the benchmark, the "Cab, innit", girl. Not directly publicity seeking churnalism, but also designed to fill up the pages, is the Coca Cola carbonated milk launch, which is only happening in the US. Why then do we care over here? Because we haven't much choice.

Over in the Sun they don't need so much churnalism because they've bought Amy Winehouse's ex-husband's story, no doubt for a gigantic wad of cash. This is despite the fact that the newspaper on numerous occasions directly blamed Blake Fielder-Civil for Winehouse's descent into drug addiction, and which it is now handsomely profiting from, with such eye-opening exclusives as the fact that Fielder-Civil saved her from an overdose, and that she stole cocaine from Kate Moss's bag. Winehouse herself in fact claimed that Fielder-Civil saved her, as reported by the Sun at the time, except with the added aside by the paper that FC left her in hospital to go and collect another fix. Doubtless though, the Sun was merely misinformed, and reports headlined "Amy's lag hubby has no shame", "Amy and Blake back to worst", "for God's sake, get help Amy!", "Amy stop your brainrotting", and "You should be ashamed Blake" were mistakes, all now rectified thanks to a bulging cheque.

With all this in mind, the Daily Quail has set up a form where anyone can submit a post mocking a specific example of piss-poor journalism, which has this blog's full support.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

7/28/2009 08:51:00 pm | |

Monday, August 11, 2008 

Neverending Maddie-balls.

*No, of course it fucking isn't. Not even we're that stupid. The only reason we're printing this is that an otherwise completely ordinary little blonde girl, of which we all know there are only a handful out of 6 billion inhabitants of this planet, just happens to be walking along with a woman wearing a hijab, or a headscarf, meaning she must be a Muslim, meaning she can't possibly be white, meaning there just shouldn't be a little white blonde girl with her. It's the same reason why we printed those photographs of a little blonde girl in Morocco, because there just simply shouldn't be white blonde girls in Morocco, even though she didn't look anything like Madeleine when seen close up. We just never fucking learn, do we? Why are people still buying this crap? How did I end up working on the Scum when I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Bernstein and Woodward? Why don't I just shoot myself in the fucking head?

Away from the thoughts of the average Sun journalist, reaction to my rather poor satire on how tabloid coverage of Madeleine might look in 16 years' time has been predictably polarised:

You wrote the article because you fantasise about having sex with children, you need help quickly and lets hope it's not too late before you hurt some innocent little child

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

8/11/2008 10:45:00 pm | |

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates