Tuesday, December 23
How often does something have to happen for it to be termed a tradition? Who knows. At any rate, last year I posted the lyrics to the finest Christmas song ever made. But then nobody outside Suffolk had heard of The Darkness. This year they are rightly all over the radio with a song that will be playing in apartment stores for years to come, long after Mad World has been consigned to the ashheap of history. So, on that bombshell, have yourselves a merry little eco-friendly, compassionate, caring, lesbian-sensitive, socially inclusive, multicultural, sexually-diverse Christmas. See you soon.
Feigning joy and surprise at the gifts we despise over mulled wine with you
On the 25th day of the 12th month
The sleigh bells are in time ringing true
How we cling each day long to that snowflakes and hope in hell
that it won’t end
Don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, just let them ring in peace.
Well the weather is cruel,
and the season of Yule warms the heart, but it still hurts.
You’ve got your career, spent the best part of last year apart and it still hurts
So that’s why I pray each and every Christmas day that it won’t end
Don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, just let them ring in peace.
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Dust underneath the mistletoe leaves when you’re not here,
You went away upon boxing day,
Now how the hell am I gonna make it into the New Year.
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, just let them ring in peace.
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Feigning joy and surprise at the gifts we despise over mulled wine with you
On the 25th day of the 12th month
The sleigh bells are in time ringing true
How we cling each day long to that snowflakes and hope in hell
that it won’t end
Don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, just let them ring in peace.
Well the weather is cruel,
and the season of Yule warms the heart, but it still hurts.
You’ve got your career, spent the best part of last year apart and it still hurts
So that’s why I pray each and every Christmas day that it won’t end
Don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, just let them ring in peace.
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Dust underneath the mistletoe leaves when you’re not here,
You went away upon boxing day,
Now how the hell am I gonna make it into the New Year.
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, just let them ring in peace.
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Christmas time, don’t let the bells end
Monday, December 22
It ain't over till the fat lady sings. And boy, did she sing! A worthy winner indeed. Still, there are some travesties of justice out there - who the hell honestly prefers that hideous dirge to the latest tune by retro-rockers the Darkness? - but tales like these put it all in perspective. Yet the Guardian is still in a hateful mood. First up, Max Hastings:
"it is hard not to hate George Bush. His ignorance and conceit, his professed special relationship with God, invite revulsion".
announces the cigaristical sage.
"The president's personal odyssey touched a new low this week, when he asserted publicly that Saddam Hussein should die".
After due process, admittedly. Mad Max, however, far from being repulsed by capital punishment, thinks that the controversial dictator should have fried already:
"We can agree, perhaps, that Saddam Hussein does not deserve to live. It is a pity that he made no show of resistance when American soldiers found him, to justify tossing a grenade into his spider hole".
Make your mind up, Max. And Roy Hattersley claims solidarity with socialist firebrand Red Ken:
"I am, in a manner of speaking, a Livingstonian. I share his contempt for George Bush". etc. etc.
Need I say more? Still, it is the Guardian. You wouldn't expect anything, and between you and me, you wouldn't really want it either. There's something terribly reassuring about its year in year out peevishness, isn't there?
"it is hard not to hate George Bush. His ignorance and conceit, his professed special relationship with God, invite revulsion".
announces the cigaristical sage.
"The president's personal odyssey touched a new low this week, when he asserted publicly that Saddam Hussein should die".
After due process, admittedly. Mad Max, however, far from being repulsed by capital punishment, thinks that the controversial dictator should have fried already:
"We can agree, perhaps, that Saddam Hussein does not deserve to live. It is a pity that he made no show of resistance when American soldiers found him, to justify tossing a grenade into his spider hole".
Make your mind up, Max. And Roy Hattersley claims solidarity with socialist firebrand Red Ken:
"I am, in a manner of speaking, a Livingstonian. I share his contempt for George Bush". etc. etc.
Need I say more? Still, it is the Guardian. You wouldn't expect anything, and between you and me, you wouldn't really want it either. There's something terribly reassuring about its year in year out peevishness, isn't there?
She wouldn't let it lie! It's the Yazzmonster, returning to an issue you might have thought she'd have wanted to be left dead and buried:
"If there were any justice in this world, Benjamin Zephaniah would be honoured in the new year for blasting open the doors that guard the secrets of our archaic and dubious honours system and for making many of us think again about the perils and delusions that come into play when we accept medals from, and collude with, the British state".
Like anyone cares any more. I mean, this is all so 2003. And talking of Yazza, you may ( or may not ) be relieved to know that my bid for Yasmin's favours has failed. £1100 for the old girl to cook me a curry? No way, Jose. That's way out of my 2 quid fifty ceiling. What do you think I am, made of money? And I had a sneaking suspicion I might end up like this poor sap.
"If there were any justice in this world, Benjamin Zephaniah would be honoured in the new year for blasting open the doors that guard the secrets of our archaic and dubious honours system and for making many of us think again about the perils and delusions that come into play when we accept medals from, and collude with, the British state".
Like anyone cares any more. I mean, this is all so 2003. And talking of Yazza, you may ( or may not ) be relieved to know that my bid for Yasmin's favours has failed. £1100 for the old girl to cook me a curry? No way, Jose. That's way out of my 2 quid fifty ceiling. What do you think I am, made of money? And I had a sneaking suspicion I might end up like this poor sap.
A while back there was a raging debate in the comments section about the gender of noted Scots satirist AL Kennedy. I went for the male option, whereas other, wiser heads reckoned she was a chick. Well, Tim Blair has gone undercover and found out the truth. She's not just a chick, but a scrawny one. She also writes very hyped-up prose. I can't imagine what her novels are like. Could anyone keep that up for 70 000 words? Tim notes that she's 'vegan-looking'. A throwaway line that explains quite a lot I think. I mean, she's fallen for the plastic turkey routine. Maybe it's because she's never eaten a real one. Perhaps she couldn't tell the difference.
Wednesday, December 17
So there it is. Two evildoers nailed in the space of four days. Three if you count Ms Carr. Must be Christmas time. I'm off to celebrate. Back on Monday. Tootlepip.
"In the revolting world of spam, among the penis enlargements and worse, are the money laundering frauds so palpably absurd you might think only idiots would fall for them".
Which for the cynical among us, must surely be true. Yet the Guardian today has a touching confessional from a vulnerable, big-hearted lady from Clapham whose non-idiocy has never been in question. This lady - let's call her Polly, to protect her identity - was taken in.
"How could anyone be so stupid? Easily.
With embarrassment, feeling a fool, I admit I was a victim of a Nigerian fraud. Looking back now, I can't think why I was so easily taken in"-
and neither can we.
-"but I did make a reasonable check. A hand-written letter arrived from a Nigerian 14-year-old called Sandra".
Sandra, clearly, had not been through the government's SureStart programme.
"It was nicely written on a religious school's headed paper, though not too perfect, telling me her sad story. Both her parents had died and she had to complete her last two years of school. Her results were good, and it would only cost £100 a year for the last two years to cover the cost. I wrote back and I also wrote to her headmaster, whose name appeared on the school letterhead, at a PO box. He wrote back in more adult handwriting to say Sandra was indeed a needy and promising student, and he enclosed her last term's report. It was an impressive document, each subject carefully filled in by a teacher with different writing, giving an excellent but not over-the-top report, with some subjects subtly lagging a bit behind. So I sent a cheque for £200 and received another of Sandra's letters, a bit too full of God's mercy and Jesus's blessings for my taste".
They should have done their homework and said they were great fans of Richard Dawkins. Then they could have creamed off a little bit more, I fancy.
"I had an idea I might keep in touch with her to see what became of her. If I had any doubts, £200 was a modest sum for all the effort a fraudster took to create these letters.
But it wasn't about the £200. Not long afterwards my bank received a letter with a perfect copy of my signature, giving my bank account numbers, asking for £1,000 to be transferred at once to a bank in Osaka, Japan. Luckily, the bank thought to ring me up and query it".
Those caring capitalists, eh?
"It turned out that a host of recent scams had asked for money to be transferred to Japan and the police had alerted all banks. It took me a little while to work out how they got my signature and my bank details, but then it clicked. Sure enough, when I reported it to the police, they laughed".
Bastards.
"They knew the Sandra letters very well and the real purpose was to sting the victim's bank account. It happened again last week when my bank got another request for a £1,000 transfer to Japan and I do feel a fool. Looking back at the letters now, I can see it all. For heaven's sake, she even said both her parents had died of the ebola flesh-eating virus".
Yes, it's a tragic tale. But let's cut to the chase. Who's to blame for all this nefariousness?
"The US is about to hold another election that will be largely bought and sold by business and oil interests. Think of the corruption that US and UK conservatives carelessly unleashed upon the former Soviet Union in the name of extreme free market ideology.
The image of capitalism now being spread about the world is cowboy stuff: little gleaned from America extols the virtue of regulation, restraint and control. We reap from the third world what we sow: if some Nigerians learned lessons in capitalism from global oil companies that helped corrupt and despoil that land, it is hardly surpising they absorbed some of the Texan oil values that now rule the White House. Alas, the querulous, navel-gazing and increasingly non-internationalist EU seems in no mood at present to offer a different and better face of capitalism to the world".
It could never happen in Norway, you know.
Which for the cynical among us, must surely be true. Yet the Guardian today has a touching confessional from a vulnerable, big-hearted lady from Clapham whose non-idiocy has never been in question. This lady - let's call her Polly, to protect her identity - was taken in.
"How could anyone be so stupid? Easily.
With embarrassment, feeling a fool, I admit I was a victim of a Nigerian fraud. Looking back now, I can't think why I was so easily taken in"-
and neither can we.
-"but I did make a reasonable check. A hand-written letter arrived from a Nigerian 14-year-old called Sandra".
Sandra, clearly, had not been through the government's SureStart programme.
"It was nicely written on a religious school's headed paper, though not too perfect, telling me her sad story. Both her parents had died and she had to complete her last two years of school. Her results were good, and it would only cost £100 a year for the last two years to cover the cost. I wrote back and I also wrote to her headmaster, whose name appeared on the school letterhead, at a PO box. He wrote back in more adult handwriting to say Sandra was indeed a needy and promising student, and he enclosed her last term's report. It was an impressive document, each subject carefully filled in by a teacher with different writing, giving an excellent but not over-the-top report, with some subjects subtly lagging a bit behind. So I sent a cheque for £200 and received another of Sandra's letters, a bit too full of God's mercy and Jesus's blessings for my taste".
They should have done their homework and said they were great fans of Richard Dawkins. Then they could have creamed off a little bit more, I fancy.
"I had an idea I might keep in touch with her to see what became of her. If I had any doubts, £200 was a modest sum for all the effort a fraudster took to create these letters.
But it wasn't about the £200. Not long afterwards my bank received a letter with a perfect copy of my signature, giving my bank account numbers, asking for £1,000 to be transferred at once to a bank in Osaka, Japan. Luckily, the bank thought to ring me up and query it".
Those caring capitalists, eh?
"It turned out that a host of recent scams had asked for money to be transferred to Japan and the police had alerted all banks. It took me a little while to work out how they got my signature and my bank details, but then it clicked. Sure enough, when I reported it to the police, they laughed".
Bastards.
"They knew the Sandra letters very well and the real purpose was to sting the victim's bank account. It happened again last week when my bank got another request for a £1,000 transfer to Japan and I do feel a fool. Looking back at the letters now, I can see it all. For heaven's sake, she even said both her parents had died of the ebola flesh-eating virus".
Yes, it's a tragic tale. But let's cut to the chase. Who's to blame for all this nefariousness?
"The US is about to hold another election that will be largely bought and sold by business and oil interests. Think of the corruption that US and UK conservatives carelessly unleashed upon the former Soviet Union in the name of extreme free market ideology.
The image of capitalism now being spread about the world is cowboy stuff: little gleaned from America extols the virtue of regulation, restraint and control. We reap from the third world what we sow: if some Nigerians learned lessons in capitalism from global oil companies that helped corrupt and despoil that land, it is hardly surpising they absorbed some of the Texan oil values that now rule the White House. Alas, the querulous, navel-gazing and increasingly non-internationalist EU seems in no mood at present to offer a different and better face of capitalism to the world".
It could never happen in Norway, you know.
Tuesday, December 16
Who says that every penny spent by the government isn't money well spent? Here's a Department of Health carol to warm the cockles of your hearts.
( Link found via the combined might of Richard Littlejohn and Google. )
( Link found via the combined might of Richard Littlejohn and Google. )
Like most normal people, I too have had my suspicions of airline pilots. All that "If you care to look out of your window now, you will see on the left, the lost city of Atlantis", and "We hope you have enjoyed flying with Coconut Airways, and will fly with us again soon" stuff. I mean, how tricky can it be? After all they do have autopilots, don't they? Actually I reckon it's all done on tape, and they just sit in the cockpit sipping pina coladas while getting the stewards and stewardesses to take turns giving them blow-jobs. However, I'm not sure I'd go quite so far as the Moonbat on this one. Tomorrow, you see, is the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight, and the fabled eco-warrior is extremely concerned:
"At Kitty Hawk, George Bush will deliver a eulogy to aviation, while a number of men with more money than sense will seek to recreate the Wrights' first flight. Well, they can keep their anniversary. Tomorrow should be a day of international mourning. December 17 2003 is the centenary of the world's most effective killing machine".
Think of that, next time you gallivant off to Tuscany, you Guardian-reading scum, you.
"Those with access to the aeroplane control the world".
Pilots of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your aeroplanes.
"Flying is our most effective means of wrecking the planet: every passenger on a return journey from Britain to Florida produces more carbon dioxide than the average motorist does in a year. Every time we fly, we help to kill someone".
We are all guilty.
"Just as Alexander the Great worshipped his horse, George Bush, the new conqueror of Persia, will tomorrow worship the aeroplane. Our societies are built upon these technologies of war: the current world order fell from the hatches of the aeroplane. At 10.35am, North Carolina time, George Bush and the other enthusiasts for domination will bow down before it. The rest of us should observe 12 seconds of silence, in commemoration of the deeds wrought by those magnificent men in their killing machines".
Yes. Well it's all very well for the Moonbat. He just has to spread his wings and take to the skies. But not all of us ordinary mortals have sonar. How the hell are we supposed to get around? Rickshaws?
"At Kitty Hawk, George Bush will deliver a eulogy to aviation, while a number of men with more money than sense will seek to recreate the Wrights' first flight. Well, they can keep their anniversary. Tomorrow should be a day of international mourning. December 17 2003 is the centenary of the world's most effective killing machine".
Think of that, next time you gallivant off to Tuscany, you Guardian-reading scum, you.
"Those with access to the aeroplane control the world".
Pilots of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your aeroplanes.
"Flying is our most effective means of wrecking the planet: every passenger on a return journey from Britain to Florida produces more carbon dioxide than the average motorist does in a year. Every time we fly, we help to kill someone".
We are all guilty.
"Just as Alexander the Great worshipped his horse, George Bush, the new conqueror of Persia, will tomorrow worship the aeroplane. Our societies are built upon these technologies of war: the current world order fell from the hatches of the aeroplane. At 10.35am, North Carolina time, George Bush and the other enthusiasts for domination will bow down before it. The rest of us should observe 12 seconds of silence, in commemoration of the deeds wrought by those magnificent men in their killing machines".
Yes. Well it's all very well for the Moonbat. He just has to spread his wings and take to the skies. But not all of us ordinary mortals have sonar. How the hell are we supposed to get around? Rickshaws?
Monday, December 15
Sometimes I just take my hat off to the Guardian. I mean, I did wonder how they'd spin it. First the uncontentious celebrating. Then the subtle and highly-contentious baloney. And then the gratuitous sneering. That much was predictable. But even I was unprepared for this one:
"In the end, they found him in a hole in the ground. The man who ruled millions by fear, who built palaces, myths and monuments to rival his Babylonian forebears, who aspired to lead and dominate all Arab nations, looked old, tired and scruffy, more like a tramp than a world-renowned tyrant".
Okay so far, I suppose. But you know there's going to be some thorns among the roses coming up.
"Eight months on the run had left him with nowhere to hide. Saddam Hussein, the wily fox, the perennial survivor of 30 years of Middle East power politics, had been literally run to earth. But it was not US or British military force that ultimately proved to be his undoing. It was old-fashioned intelligence work on the ground, among bodyguards, clan and family members, sweetened by the incentive of a $25m reward, that made the difference".
Well, up to a point. I'm sure all those military types made a little bit of a difference. I mean, if they hadn't had guns, maybe Saddam wouldn't have come quietly.
"Like his sons, Iraq's deposed dictator appears to have been betrayed by an informer or informers. But unlike Uday and Qusay, who resisted to the death, perishing in a murderous blizzard of bullets, there was no fight left in Saddam".
Murderous? Saddam's little munchkins were murdered? Please explain.
"Saddam went quietly, with not a shot fired. Perhaps, at the age of 66, he no longer had the stomach for it. Perhaps he was simply caught napping".
I know. Just a shadow of his former self. Tragic, really. Surely the US ought to have fired a warning shot. And picking on an oldster... I mean, it's just not cricket.
"Saddam may continue to live, in perpetual custody; once what will be a very lengthy interrogation is completed, he may eventually face some form of trial, which must be in public and preferably under international, UN-authorised auspices".
Preferably? Why?
"For Mr Blair, as the Hutton inquiry report looms close, and after all the political damage Iraq has caused him, Saddam's capture is both a relief and (to some eyes at least) a vindication. For George Bush, too, it is as if Christmas has come early and this time, the turkey is real".
Turkeygate, eh? Now that takes genius.
"In the end, they found him in a hole in the ground. The man who ruled millions by fear, who built palaces, myths and monuments to rival his Babylonian forebears, who aspired to lead and dominate all Arab nations, looked old, tired and scruffy, more like a tramp than a world-renowned tyrant".
Okay so far, I suppose. But you know there's going to be some thorns among the roses coming up.
"Eight months on the run had left him with nowhere to hide. Saddam Hussein, the wily fox, the perennial survivor of 30 years of Middle East power politics, had been literally run to earth. But it was not US or British military force that ultimately proved to be his undoing. It was old-fashioned intelligence work on the ground, among bodyguards, clan and family members, sweetened by the incentive of a $25m reward, that made the difference".
Well, up to a point. I'm sure all those military types made a little bit of a difference. I mean, if they hadn't had guns, maybe Saddam wouldn't have come quietly.
"Like his sons, Iraq's deposed dictator appears to have been betrayed by an informer or informers. But unlike Uday and Qusay, who resisted to the death, perishing in a murderous blizzard of bullets, there was no fight left in Saddam".
Murderous? Saddam's little munchkins were murdered? Please explain.
"Saddam went quietly, with not a shot fired. Perhaps, at the age of 66, he no longer had the stomach for it. Perhaps he was simply caught napping".
I know. Just a shadow of his former self. Tragic, really. Surely the US ought to have fired a warning shot. And picking on an oldster... I mean, it's just not cricket.
"Saddam may continue to live, in perpetual custody; once what will be a very lengthy interrogation is completed, he may eventually face some form of trial, which must be in public and preferably under international, UN-authorised auspices".
Preferably? Why?
"For Mr Blair, as the Hutton inquiry report looms close, and after all the political damage Iraq has caused him, Saddam's capture is both a relief and (to some eyes at least) a vindication. For George Bush, too, it is as if Christmas has come early and this time, the turkey is real".
Turkeygate, eh? Now that takes genius.
Sunday, December 14
"THEY'RE out there".
Which rules out Saddam.
"They look like me and you, they're intelligent, they are in control of their faculties".
Which also rules out Monbiot.
"They live in England. They live in France. They live near the Spanish beaches where you take your children on holiday. And they're at work in Venice and Florence when you're on that romantic break".
Who are they? Communists? Socialists? Liberals?
"The internet provides a way for people with specific and troublesome sexual or emotional problems to band together into online communities which make them feel "normal".
Oh My God. Must be bloggers.
"For thousands of years mankind has controlled its baser urges through society. If the internet creates opportunity for micro-societies to grow with no reference to the wider moral code, what future lies ahead of us?"
Indeed.
"It is not an urge that will vanish with the passing years".
Oh well. Still, the News of the World knows what to do.
Which rules out Saddam.
"They look like me and you, they're intelligent, they are in control of their faculties".
Which also rules out Monbiot.
"They live in England. They live in France. They live near the Spanish beaches where you take your children on holiday. And they're at work in Venice and Florence when you're on that romantic break".
Who are they? Communists? Socialists? Liberals?
"The internet provides a way for people with specific and troublesome sexual or emotional problems to band together into online communities which make them feel "normal".
Oh My God. Must be bloggers.
"For thousands of years mankind has controlled its baser urges through society. If the internet creates opportunity for micro-societies to grow with no reference to the wider moral code, what future lies ahead of us?"
Indeed.
"It is not an urge that will vanish with the passing years".
Oh well. Still, the News of the World knows what to do.
Thursday, December 11
Mr. Cinders alerts me to this excellent article from Liberation about the parlous state of English journalism. If you know your French you won't have to deal with this slightly offbeat translation, coming to you courtesy of google:
"The British press? Nearly 8 million people read each day a newspaper of the press known as "of the gutter" (Sun, Daily Mail...). The newspaper more read kingdom is News of the World, which appears Sunday and which the decency prohibits to me to compare with an unspecified French publication. In these newspapers, subject + verb + complement seems to be the only allowed grammatical form. Difficult in this case to make pass from the complex ideas, it is necessary to go to essence, in other words with the populism. Yes, but it is a British specificity good known and that nobody really takes with the serious one, will answer you, it is press of quality about which it is necessary to speak. Maybe, I will speak about it, however not before to have indicated that it is disconcerting to compare the cuffs of the tabloïds on the applicants of asylum with the speech of the PEN on immigration. And I pass on the sempiternal broadsides anti-anti-allemandes which, when they reach unacceptable proportions, make assemble the German ambassadors to the crenel to try to explain why the Second World war is finished. Paul Webster speaks about search for ground in the case of the tabloïds, I answer him prejudged, suspicions, parties taken, quite simply because a many these newspapers do not have, in fact, the means of their claims, price war obliges! Quid then of the broadsheets, these newspapers known as of quality whose size is inversely proportional to the length of the articles (it is necessary well to make place with the photographs which attract the eye of the barge). Only one answer: the imitation is more and more seizing. The situation is thus much more perilous. To start, but all the remainder results from this, the level of general culture of the basic journalist is weak there. Some would have great need to learn how to analyze and discuss. Only the presence of the old guard Polly Toynbee, Hugo Young or Will Hutton returns the reading of these newspapers still intellectually gratifiante and challenging. Think how the journalists of Daily Telegraph still could claironner, practically the day before the launching of the euro, that that would never be done! Think how the historian Lord Dacre, who has just died, had his reputation sullied forever by the eagerness with Rupert Murdoch to publish the scoop false notebooks of Hitler! Professionalism or sensationnalism? The judgement on the quality of the British press of today holds in fact in only one word: spin. Ironically, it is this same press which is responsible for the metaphorical use of a term of cricket which means, approximately, to give effect (with the ball). Employed by the British journalists to qualify the new practices of communication of their politicians, the spin more or less returns to the declarations provocantes or contradictory impetuses by the politicians with an only one aim: that they are relayed by the press in order to test the state of the opinion on such or such subject. While looking at there more closely, one realizes that the spin is a kind of antidote which the politicians found to counter a form of journalism of ground which is satisfied to tighten a microphone and to push the person interviewed with the fault. By managing the potential fault, one manages the interviewor. Though there is much more interesting: the use of the term itself is a consent of mediocrity because, without intellectual kindness (or this rather of ignorance is not?), there is no possible spin. They is ashamed of being a piss-copy!"
To think these people are less than thirty miles away.
"The British press? Nearly 8 million people read each day a newspaper of the press known as "of the gutter" (Sun, Daily Mail...). The newspaper more read kingdom is News of the World, which appears Sunday and which the decency prohibits to me to compare with an unspecified French publication. In these newspapers, subject + verb + complement seems to be the only allowed grammatical form. Difficult in this case to make pass from the complex ideas, it is necessary to go to essence, in other words with the populism. Yes, but it is a British specificity good known and that nobody really takes with the serious one, will answer you, it is press of quality about which it is necessary to speak. Maybe, I will speak about it, however not before to have indicated that it is disconcerting to compare the cuffs of the tabloïds on the applicants of asylum with the speech of the PEN on immigration. And I pass on the sempiternal broadsides anti-anti-allemandes which, when they reach unacceptable proportions, make assemble the German ambassadors to the crenel to try to explain why the Second World war is finished. Paul Webster speaks about search for ground in the case of the tabloïds, I answer him prejudged, suspicions, parties taken, quite simply because a many these newspapers do not have, in fact, the means of their claims, price war obliges! Quid then of the broadsheets, these newspapers known as of quality whose size is inversely proportional to the length of the articles (it is necessary well to make place with the photographs which attract the eye of the barge). Only one answer: the imitation is more and more seizing. The situation is thus much more perilous. To start, but all the remainder results from this, the level of general culture of the basic journalist is weak there. Some would have great need to learn how to analyze and discuss. Only the presence of the old guard Polly Toynbee, Hugo Young or Will Hutton returns the reading of these newspapers still intellectually gratifiante and challenging. Think how the journalists of Daily Telegraph still could claironner, practically the day before the launching of the euro, that that would never be done! Think how the historian Lord Dacre, who has just died, had his reputation sullied forever by the eagerness with Rupert Murdoch to publish the scoop false notebooks of Hitler! Professionalism or sensationnalism? The judgement on the quality of the British press of today holds in fact in only one word: spin. Ironically, it is this same press which is responsible for the metaphorical use of a term of cricket which means, approximately, to give effect (with the ball). Employed by the British journalists to qualify the new practices of communication of their politicians, the spin more or less returns to the declarations provocantes or contradictory impetuses by the politicians with an only one aim: that they are relayed by the press in order to test the state of the opinion on such or such subject. While looking at there more closely, one realizes that the spin is a kind of antidote which the politicians found to counter a form of journalism of ground which is satisfied to tighten a microphone and to push the person interviewed with the fault. By managing the potential fault, one manages the interviewor. Though there is much more interesting: the use of the term itself is a consent of mediocrity because, without intellectual kindness (or this rather of ignorance is not?), there is no possible spin. They is ashamed of being a piss-copy!"
To think these people are less than thirty miles away.
Two world exclusives on one page for the Sun today. 1. Blair may hold the Euro referendum on the same day as the next election. and 2. Germany is threatening to invade Poland again. I imagine both will fail.
It's that time of year again. Here's your chance to vote for the best article which appeared in the Guardian in 2003. Spoiled for choice, eh? Just to remind you, here's last year's. Among those worthy winners were Polly's rip-roaring "this is the best government Britain has ever had", and Moonbat's "I'd rather live in Ethiopia". This year? Well I suppose Polly's "Let's nationalise the kiddiwinks" must be a strong favourite.
