Wednesday 22 December 2010

Will Fevre, Rick Rees, Miss Carr, Di Wright

A topical Viz Top Tip: Convince your friends you've booked Christmas in Barbados by spending the night on the floor of Terminal Five.
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Serious debate on climate change is always welcome but when you start basing scientific arguments on something Jeremy Clarkson once said, then there really is no point in going on with the discussion.
Take, for example, that old chestnut about the Toyota Prius causing more damage to the environment than other cars because of the nickel in the battery coming from a factory that is destroying the landscape somewhere in Canada.
Now it's true that the factory is not the best gatekeeper for the environment and it does need to clean up and anyone who has a go at it has a fair point, in my opinion.
However, Toyota's order for nickel accounts for less than one per cent of its output. Pretty much every other carmaker has stainless steel which includes nickel bought from the same plant, though. And the bigger the car the more stainless steel it uses.
Not only that, the factory has been going for over 100 years and supplied nickel which went towards building the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Cathedral, so perhaps we should pull those down.
If anything, the fuss over the Prius has highlighted the way the plant disposes of chemicals and has helped it clean up its act a bit.
That isn't to say it's right but just that it's best not to base environmental opinions on Clarkson.
Mind you, if Southend ends up underwater because of global warming, is it such a bad thing? (Eh, Andy?)
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It's funny to read comments blaming Gordon Brown for everything from the snow to Heathrow being owned by a bunch of Spanish builders. I'm no fan of Brown's but it's worth noting that it wasn't the last government that sold Heathrow and other airports to the dodgy Senors but BAA's own shareholders.
And the reason BAA has its own shareholders is because it was privatised under Thatcher.
But I haven't got a reason not to blame Gordon for the weather turning a bit parky.
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The following contains adult language but no nudity or sexual content (a muted woohoo then).
Whenever a bunch of journalists get together the conversation eventually centres on a number of topics - who do we know who's just died, every new generation of hacks is not a patch on us gnarled, cynical, bitter and twisted veterans and anecdotes about who is the most famous person to have ever told us to fuck off.
I have been told this by John Prescott but that wins no prizes because in a room of 20 journalists, each with more than five years experience, at least 15 will have had the same. Particularly if they ever worked for News International, the Telegraph group, the BBC, Associated, Express Group or the Exchange and Mart.
I have also been told to fuck off by Jimmy Tarbuck. No biggie.
I also once invited Terry Venables to do the same but he was an absolute gentleman. I nabbed him outside Spurs' old training ground in Cheshunt and asked him to confirm that he was leaving his wife for a French girlfriend (which he was, incidentally.) He put his arm round me, smiled, and said he wouldn't comment. I told him I was a Spurs fan. He said he still wouldn't comment but hoped I was enjoying the season so far. I replied that I thought he was going to tell me to fuck off but he said he would never be so rude and that I was only doing my job and so on. Then we went on to win the cup so I have no complaints.
I have another story about the time David Norris, the simply wonderful former industrial editor of the Daily Mail, got so drunk he didn't recognise Tony Blair in the pub and told him to fuck off but that's enough four lettered anecdotal nostalgia for one day.
See ya, wouldn't want to be ya...Solly

4 comments:

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