No doubt every housewives' book club has read One Day, not to mention every couple on a Mark Warner holiday this summer and most Daily Mail readers will see the film. Save yourselves the trouble. Watch Same Time Next Year from 1978 starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn (who doesn't have to do a fake Yorkshire accent either.)
It's not totally dissimilar and, I suspect, much better.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The death of Horatio Chapple at the paws and jaws of a polar bear was a tragic event. Of course it was a gift for newspapers in the silly season, coming so soon after the mass murder of teenagers on a Scandinavian island. You wait for years for a decent story from Norway and then two come at once.
But it also highlights a very British trait, brought to life by young Horatio's funeral which was attended by his brothers Magnus and Titus.
And that is the way middle class parents with dull names give their kids stupid monikers in the hope it will make them posher when they grow up.
Needless to say the father is called David. They are not the only ones. I used to know a girl called Tiggy which, it turned out, was short for Antigone. And she had a brother called Ptolemy (with a silent pee). I believe their dad was called John. Obviously he wanted to see his kids grow up having the crap kicked out of them. Likewise the poor little brat I saw the other day called Caspian. His dad was wearing thin leg jeans and brown, pointed shoes. What hope is there?
This is different to kids called Ikea or D-Ream where you just know the mum's on benefits or Cheyenne and Moonbeam where it's the old hippy in them coming through.
This is the curse of the aspirant middle classes who have money but find it can't buy them culture so they hope to foist culture into their lives, vicarariously, by giving their child a name from literature or history.
I'm waiting for my first Voldemort but it can only be a matter of time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took the kids to the Notting Hill Carnival today, which is the first time I've been for around 20 years. I was there for the 1989 riots and a couple of other times. I remember watching the London news broadcast during one carnival in the 1980s and they showed footage of a girl getting a gold chain snatched from round her neck. I recognised the victim as my ex-girlfriend Sue who is now my wife.
So today Sue and I took the youngest two for a bit of multicultural awareness while trying to explain the difference between roots, dub and dancehall and making sure they didn't take their mobiles with them.
My kids have been to Portobello Road market but we had to show them that this isn't the Notting Hill of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Only Richard Curtis could make a film about Notting Hill without a single black man.
Some things haven't changed - there's a lot of flesh around (I believe they call it booty now). There are still people trying to sell Red Stripe for exorbitant prices though the sensible ones can buy four cans for five pounds at the Better Buy near the station.
It's still impossibly crowded, and they say this year has seen a decline in numbers because of the fears of rioting. The music is loud and the women are gorgeous and there are a lot of people having fun.
The smell of marijuana was nowhere near as prevalent as it used to be but in a reassuring nod to the past, lines of police were stopping people who just all happened to be black apart from two young white women but they were wearing black Adidas tracksuit tops with three gold stripes on the sleeve so they deserved it.
Goat curry is still there. Along with jerk chicken. And there's still little for vegetarians though someone mentioned vegetarian goat curry on the basis all goats are vegetarian.
But some things have changed in the last 20 years as they are bound to. For a start, you don't hear as many Caribbean accents.
I guess it's a generation removed but it would have put David Starkey into a tailspin. Most black people have London accents. In London. Fancy that. It seems that only those over a certain age retain the rich West Indian accents I remember hearing a lot more often when younger. There was little sign of the rap culture lingo that is supposed to be bringing this country to its knees. This is not a celebration of black culture but West Indian and Caribbean roots in this part of the world.
The Rastafarians have been replaced by Trustafarians. The area has a combination of council flats and glorious stucco mansions, most of which have been divided into high ceilinged apartments.
They appear to be occupied by the Ruperts and Cassies of this world (certainly not the Caspians and Hermiones). On the high back walls of these mansions, young well-bred and expensively educated blonde girls danced to roots reggae (or was it dub?) while quaffing cans of Red Stripe overlooking Westbourne Grove.
Two young Henrys were even selling cans from the front garden of one of these properties.
I felt there were a lot more white people around than I could remember from previous carnivals and many more of them were middle class and higher - though many were tourists too.
It's like Notting Hill is now part of the summer circuit. Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley, Notting Hill and perhaps we can take in some of the scenes of the recent riots too.
Of course there were the usual kooky white folk trying to be black - middle aged women from the shires who have a tie-dye shawl and a t-shirt of Haile Selassie and speckly white men with ginger dreadlocks dancing badly.
The fears of a violent sub-culture were never too far away. There were gangs of youths coming into the area as we were leaving who didn't seem to be there to marvel at the community spirit shown by Tottenham's Northumberland Park Community School choir for instance.
A lot of the shops were boarded up in preparation but a lot were not. Whether or not anything happens, we'll see. From what I remember, 1989 seemed a lot more menacing before it all kicked off.
Good night. Irie?....Solly
Monday 29 August 2011
Thursday 25 August 2011
The Fenerbahce Sequence
Turkey's top club have been kicked out of European competition after a suspicious series of results that went 0-1, 1-2, 3-5. Apparently it was spotted by a mathematician who recognised it as The Fenerbahce Sequence.
----------------------------------------------------------
Journalists have an irresistible temptation to add a catch-all suffix to words to explain a situation, most notably gate. You know the score. There's a hacking scandal so it becomes hackgate. Shagging footballer who gets caught more than once? Rooneygate. I suppose if there was a scandal involving a little known Cornish village it would be Watergategate.
And now there is zilla. Dominating women going down the aisle are known as bridezillas. A giant stinging insect has been discovered in the jungle and it has been nicknamed Waspzilla by the Daily Mail. Watch out for this one, it will run and run. Soon we'll have codzilla for some great big fish and dogzilla (oversized Fido) and so it will go on.
It used to be athon. Anything that went on a bit became an athon. First it was a telethon. A politician banging on for too long was a boreathon and a karaoke competition was a singathon. Of course this died out when they renamed it Snickers.
I have even started to notice a return to orama. An apporama is multiple apps on a phone for instance. Nigerians are responsible for a scamorama when they practice multiple con tricks and a surfeit of US Presidents is a barackorama.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos to Sky News reporter Alex Crawford, the milf in a flak jacket, who led the journalistic charge into Tripoli while the BBC and the others were stuck in their hotel rooms rewriting Al Jazeera for broadcasts home. But I think we've really had enough hacks in flaks. The papers have been full of reporters in their heavy armour playing in Gaddafi's palace. Virginia Wheeler for The Sun and Martin Fricker for the Mirror - though most of the others stayed out of camera and focussed on rebels relaxing on the colonel's chez long.
There are, by the way, 112 different spellings of Gaddafi in the papers over the past two years. I like his first name, Manamama I think it is. I can't hear it without singing doo doo do do do like that sketch from The Muppets.
Strange but true: back at The Sun after the death of Robert Maxwell, we somehow got a copy of Bob's contacts book. It got copied over and over again until every reporter had a copy. It had home and 'car' phone numbers (mobiles were still new) for all kinds of political leaders.
And one that was simply titled 'Gaddafi's Tent'. It really was a phone number for the Libyan leader's tent in his compound. For a laugh, I rang it once while other reporters gathered round, late one evening on a night shift in Wapping.
Some bloke answered and started shouting at me in Arabic. I tried to claim I'd got an exclusive interview with the frizzy haired despot but it never made.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've just come back from Tottenham which was a waste of an evening. It was my first visit since the riots. There was broken glass and burnt out cars and gangs of hoodies with suspiciously new trainers. Pretty much the same as the start of every season then.
As for the match, apart from the living legend that is Dave Mackay coming on the pitch at half time, the rest I've already forgotten.
Sometimes it's not such a funny old game....Solly
----------------------------------------------------------
Journalists have an irresistible temptation to add a catch-all suffix to words to explain a situation, most notably gate. You know the score. There's a hacking scandal so it becomes hackgate. Shagging footballer who gets caught more than once? Rooneygate. I suppose if there was a scandal involving a little known Cornish village it would be Watergategate.
And now there is zilla. Dominating women going down the aisle are known as bridezillas. A giant stinging insect has been discovered in the jungle and it has been nicknamed Waspzilla by the Daily Mail. Watch out for this one, it will run and run. Soon we'll have codzilla for some great big fish and dogzilla (oversized Fido) and so it will go on.
It used to be athon. Anything that went on a bit became an athon. First it was a telethon. A politician banging on for too long was a boreathon and a karaoke competition was a singathon. Of course this died out when they renamed it Snickers.
I have even started to notice a return to orama. An apporama is multiple apps on a phone for instance. Nigerians are responsible for a scamorama when they practice multiple con tricks and a surfeit of US Presidents is a barackorama.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos to Sky News reporter Alex Crawford, the milf in a flak jacket, who led the journalistic charge into Tripoli while the BBC and the others were stuck in their hotel rooms rewriting Al Jazeera for broadcasts home. But I think we've really had enough hacks in flaks. The papers have been full of reporters in their heavy armour playing in Gaddafi's palace. Virginia Wheeler for The Sun and Martin Fricker for the Mirror - though most of the others stayed out of camera and focussed on rebels relaxing on the colonel's chez long.
There are, by the way, 112 different spellings of Gaddafi in the papers over the past two years. I like his first name, Manamama I think it is. I can't hear it without singing doo doo do do do like that sketch from The Muppets.
Strange but true: back at The Sun after the death of Robert Maxwell, we somehow got a copy of Bob's contacts book. It got copied over and over again until every reporter had a copy. It had home and 'car' phone numbers (mobiles were still new) for all kinds of political leaders.
And one that was simply titled 'Gaddafi's Tent'. It really was a phone number for the Libyan leader's tent in his compound. For a laugh, I rang it once while other reporters gathered round, late one evening on a night shift in Wapping.
Some bloke answered and started shouting at me in Arabic. I tried to claim I'd got an exclusive interview with the frizzy haired despot but it never made.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've just come back from Tottenham which was a waste of an evening. It was my first visit since the riots. There was broken glass and burnt out cars and gangs of hoodies with suspiciously new trainers. Pretty much the same as the start of every season then.
As for the match, apart from the living legend that is Dave Mackay coming on the pitch at half time, the rest I've already forgotten.
Sometimes it's not such a funny old game....Solly
Tuesday 23 August 2011
Solly As A Rock
Japanese bloke goes into the bank in New York and exchanges 1,000 yen for £70 dollars. The next day he goes in and exchanges 1,000 yen but only gets £60. 'Why I get less?' he asks. 'Fluctuations' says the teller. 'Well, fluc you Americans too,' he replies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos to Wills and Princess Lollipop for going to visit riot-strewn youngsters in Birmingham the other day, and well done Kate for not dressing down and continuing to wear her Alistair McQueen top and Prada shoes. It's what the locals would do in her situation. And I think it's commendable for these young people from broken marriages who have grown up in a society where they are supported by the taxpayer, get free housing and expect to have everything they want without having to work for it, to finally meet troubled kids in our second city.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I refuse to gloat over Richard Branson's bad news this week. He's made his own money his way and basically lived the kind of life many of us would have liked - let's face it, which man wouldn't want to be in a position where they have such influence over hundreds of beautiful women who would do anything to become a Virgin stewardess.
As for Kate Winslet, first the boat sinks and then the house burns down. It's surprising anyone would want to go on holiday with her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talking of posh people, it is said by many that a private school education gives kids confidence if nothing else. Funnily enough, I'd never met anyone who went to Eton until I worked for The Sun and suddenly I seemed to meet loads. A couple of colleagues at Wapping went there, including a very good friend and workmate called Paddy, my wife's boss at her ad agency, an Observer sports writer who also became a good mate, plus one or two others along the way.
I used to think they'd all be posh rugger buggers, full of bluster and bravado but a bit Tim Nice-But-Dim but they weren't. Some were, of course, but I can remember meeting some of Paddy's chums from his alma mater (who I used to think was a character in Coronation Street).
I'd heard him refer to pals called Quentin and Tarquin so I prepared for young Conservatives in pink corduroy trousers and Barbours. But far from being red faced buffoons they were quite shy, a little insecure and not unintelligent. Also, they were funny and self deprecating - not Paddy of course, he went on to become political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
Being slightly chippy I went up to one of his mates who I'd heard Paddy refer to as Torks and, jokingly, said: "Don't tell me, I bet your name is Tarquin or Quentin or something like that."
"Actually," he replied, "it's Torquil."
I can honestly say that I had never, ever, heard this word before and so, in my confused state, all I could think to say was "what? Like that big green duck?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The title of this blog is in memory of Nick Ashford who died this week, along with Jerry Leiber. Both are superb American songwriters who wrote for everyone from Elvis to Marvin Gaye.
Sometimes a bit of rock and roll or a bit of Motown is all you need...to get by....cheers, Solly
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos to Wills and Princess Lollipop for going to visit riot-strewn youngsters in Birmingham the other day, and well done Kate for not dressing down and continuing to wear her Alistair McQueen top and Prada shoes. It's what the locals would do in her situation. And I think it's commendable for these young people from broken marriages who have grown up in a society where they are supported by the taxpayer, get free housing and expect to have everything they want without having to work for it, to finally meet troubled kids in our second city.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I refuse to gloat over Richard Branson's bad news this week. He's made his own money his way and basically lived the kind of life many of us would have liked - let's face it, which man wouldn't want to be in a position where they have such influence over hundreds of beautiful women who would do anything to become a Virgin stewardess.
As for Kate Winslet, first the boat sinks and then the house burns down. It's surprising anyone would want to go on holiday with her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talking of posh people, it is said by many that a private school education gives kids confidence if nothing else. Funnily enough, I'd never met anyone who went to Eton until I worked for The Sun and suddenly I seemed to meet loads. A couple of colleagues at Wapping went there, including a very good friend and workmate called Paddy, my wife's boss at her ad agency, an Observer sports writer who also became a good mate, plus one or two others along the way.
I used to think they'd all be posh rugger buggers, full of bluster and bravado but a bit Tim Nice-But-Dim but they weren't. Some were, of course, but I can remember meeting some of Paddy's chums from his alma mater (who I used to think was a character in Coronation Street).
I'd heard him refer to pals called Quentin and Tarquin so I prepared for young Conservatives in pink corduroy trousers and Barbours. But far from being red faced buffoons they were quite shy, a little insecure and not unintelligent. Also, they were funny and self deprecating - not Paddy of course, he went on to become political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
Being slightly chippy I went up to one of his mates who I'd heard Paddy refer to as Torks and, jokingly, said: "Don't tell me, I bet your name is Tarquin or Quentin or something like that."
"Actually," he replied, "it's Torquil."
I can honestly say that I had never, ever, heard this word before and so, in my confused state, all I could think to say was "what? Like that big green duck?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The title of this blog is in memory of Nick Ashford who died this week, along with Jerry Leiber. Both are superb American songwriters who wrote for everyone from Elvis to Marvin Gaye.
Sometimes a bit of rock and roll or a bit of Motown is all you need...to get by....cheers, Solly
Thursday 18 August 2011
Tsar Quality
Dear Tsar Alexander III - a pox on your pogroms.
Kicking the Solomons family out of Russia turns out not to have been such a bad move after all. We haven't done too badly since the 1880s when we arrived in London, around the same time as the formation of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. A coincidence? I think not, my friends, I think not.
Of course, if we'd stayed who knows - I might now own Chelsea FC and the biggest, most opulent boat in the world. But hey, I'm not complaining. I never did like vulgarity. Or big boats.
Now, your Tsarness, we have the rare spectacle of a Solomons at university. Yes my eldest, the one who hates me blogging about her, did brilliantly in her A Levels.
I feel like putting on a video of Fiddler on the Roof and blubbing at the bit when they sing Sunrise Sunset.
Failing that I may get out her old baby photographs and coo over them.
The Daily Telegraph and David Starkey may like to note that she got top grades despite coming from what is called a broken home - though since her parents divorced she has grown up in a largely stable environment anyway. She lives 100 odd miles away so as hard as I try, I haven't been around as much as I would have liked though I don't think I've been an absent father either.
Also, Starkey, Melanie Phillips et al may like to note that she has gone through the state education system and been subject to that horrid nihilistic rap music that has turned the youth of this country into a mass of rioting troublemakers. I wonder what excuse David Starkey has for the rioters of 1981 incidentally - the incendiary lyrics of Ultravox, the rabble rousing call to arms of This Ole House by Shakin' Stevens (the dropping of the 'g' could be seen as an act of rebellion.) Mind you, if someone Facebooked Shuddup You Face during the riots they'd probably get four years.
Either way it's left me beaming with pride though I can't overdo the smug bit as I suspect that what she has done has little to do with genes and more to do with hard work, and that makes me even more proud.
Because that comes down to her and not us. And she has chosen her own path.
My daughter is about to embark on a physics course at Manchester, where Brian Cox teaches - so she will continue to be influenced by rubbish pop music in some form or other it seems (I mean Prof Cox rather than Manchester incidentally).
Physics, where the hell does that come from? Not from her parents. We're both journalists and think Higgs Boson sounds like a character from Star Trek. Again, hard work and an independent streak.
Besides, the way journalism is going, I'm rather relieved she hasn't chosen that particular long and winding road.
Her mum went to university but not her dad. Nor his dad. Nor his dad before him - the humble hosier Israel Solomons of Sidney Street, E1. And his dad before him was a Russian anarchist so I'm assuming he didn't either. Both my brothers left school at 16 though one did later discover university as an alternative to work so spent around 10 years doing a thesis on life after death.
But now my daughter is going and I feel fit to bust.
However, I must issue an apology. For the last 30 years since I got two Ds and a U (Unclassified) in my A Levels, I may have mistakenly given the impression that academic study is for nerds and A Levels are just pieces of paper which have become progressively easy to attain and are a poor substitute to the university of life, the school of hard knocks and, in the words of Blackadder, the kindergarten of getting the shit kicked out of you.
Some may also have assumed that comments like 'you only have to spell your name right to get a degree' suggested I somehow didn't value the important contribution that academic qualifications offered to making our younger generations more rounded human beings able to shape society in the future.
Though it stands to reason that the current generation of 18-year-olds - whether or not they are going to university - will one day rule the world and there is a good chance they will do a much better job of it than our lot.
A degree may still be four years away but as far as I'm concerned the honours already belong to her and every other teenager who managed to get into university today.
And that is despite all attempts by the current administration to make further education so elitist that thousands who have worked hard for seven years and passed their A Levels still don't have the same choices that were available just a year ago.
Anyway that's all academic now....cheers, Solly
Kicking the Solomons family out of Russia turns out not to have been such a bad move after all. We haven't done too badly since the 1880s when we arrived in London, around the same time as the formation of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. A coincidence? I think not, my friends, I think not.
Of course, if we'd stayed who knows - I might now own Chelsea FC and the biggest, most opulent boat in the world. But hey, I'm not complaining. I never did like vulgarity. Or big boats.
Now, your Tsarness, we have the rare spectacle of a Solomons at university. Yes my eldest, the one who hates me blogging about her, did brilliantly in her A Levels.
I feel like putting on a video of Fiddler on the Roof and blubbing at the bit when they sing Sunrise Sunset.
Failing that I may get out her old baby photographs and coo over them.
The Daily Telegraph and David Starkey may like to note that she got top grades despite coming from what is called a broken home - though since her parents divorced she has grown up in a largely stable environment anyway. She lives 100 odd miles away so as hard as I try, I haven't been around as much as I would have liked though I don't think I've been an absent father either.
Also, Starkey, Melanie Phillips et al may like to note that she has gone through the state education system and been subject to that horrid nihilistic rap music that has turned the youth of this country into a mass of rioting troublemakers. I wonder what excuse David Starkey has for the rioters of 1981 incidentally - the incendiary lyrics of Ultravox, the rabble rousing call to arms of This Ole House by Shakin' Stevens (the dropping of the 'g' could be seen as an act of rebellion.) Mind you, if someone Facebooked Shuddup You Face during the riots they'd probably get four years.
Either way it's left me beaming with pride though I can't overdo the smug bit as I suspect that what she has done has little to do with genes and more to do with hard work, and that makes me even more proud.
Because that comes down to her and not us. And she has chosen her own path.
My daughter is about to embark on a physics course at Manchester, where Brian Cox teaches - so she will continue to be influenced by rubbish pop music in some form or other it seems (I mean Prof Cox rather than Manchester incidentally).
Physics, where the hell does that come from? Not from her parents. We're both journalists and think Higgs Boson sounds like a character from Star Trek. Again, hard work and an independent streak.
Besides, the way journalism is going, I'm rather relieved she hasn't chosen that particular long and winding road.
Her mum went to university but not her dad. Nor his dad. Nor his dad before him - the humble hosier Israel Solomons of Sidney Street, E1. And his dad before him was a Russian anarchist so I'm assuming he didn't either. Both my brothers left school at 16 though one did later discover university as an alternative to work so spent around 10 years doing a thesis on life after death.
But now my daughter is going and I feel fit to bust.
However, I must issue an apology. For the last 30 years since I got two Ds and a U (Unclassified) in my A Levels, I may have mistakenly given the impression that academic study is for nerds and A Levels are just pieces of paper which have become progressively easy to attain and are a poor substitute to the university of life, the school of hard knocks and, in the words of Blackadder, the kindergarten of getting the shit kicked out of you.
Some may also have assumed that comments like 'you only have to spell your name right to get a degree' suggested I somehow didn't value the important contribution that academic qualifications offered to making our younger generations more rounded human beings able to shape society in the future.
Though it stands to reason that the current generation of 18-year-olds - whether or not they are going to university - will one day rule the world and there is a good chance they will do a much better job of it than our lot.
A degree may still be four years away but as far as I'm concerned the honours already belong to her and every other teenager who managed to get into university today.
And that is despite all attempts by the current administration to make further education so elitist that thousands who have worked hard for seven years and passed their A Levels still don't have the same choices that were available just a year ago.
Anyway that's all academic now....cheers, Solly
Wednesday 17 August 2011
Predict a riot? That's four years sunshine
Every cigarette shortens your life by 11 minutes, every alcoholic drink a little less and heaven knows what chocolate, beer, supporting Spurs, getting divorced, having three kids and an occasional mochaccino does to you. Now, every hour spent in front of the TV reduces your lifespan by 22 minutes they say.
If I've done the sums right, then I'll be dead by next Tuesday.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Great sub-editing dilemmas of our times. You have to caption a picture of one of Rod Stewart's wives or daughters in something a little revealing. So do you plump for the traditional headline 'Do You Think I'm Sexy?' (or 'do ya' as some insist on saying) or do you go for something only slightly more obscure with 'You Wear It Well Rachel.' Hats off to the Mail who went, yet again, for the latter.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Which reminds me of a sub-editor's favourite knock knock joke. Knock Knock. Who's there? To. To who? To WHOM!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Abercrombie & Fitch, the absurd fashion brand favoured by chavs and only seem to hire thin people in their shops, have offered to pay the cast of Jersey Shore, the absurd reality TV show inhabited by chavs, NOT to wear their clothes. It's clearly a publicity wheeze and a very good one at that. But it's akin to JD Sports paying looters not to wear their trainers.
---------------------------------------------------------------
So what makes a country 'civilised'? For me, it is down to plumbing and, in particular, whether or not you can find a clean and flushable loo in any geographical part of that country. Which makes Britain possibly the only truly civilised nation on earth. We don't have special areas by the side of motorways for travellers to do a poo like I saw in China. We don't need to provide bins for toilet paper because our pipes are crap (for which we have to thank the ancestor of the man who brought Big Brother to Britain). We don't tell people not to drink the water like most of Europe. We don't have open sewers or holes in the ground on which to go. Most of us have the capacity to get hot water when we want it. We don't have to book a two minute slot to use a shower. And we don't have poisonous spiders or snakes coming up the khazi to bite us on the bum.
But the other thing that makes us civilised is our justice system. Our crazy, hazy, mind boggling but ultimately democratic heirarchy of courts and legislature. We could be like Singapore and put people in jail for chewing gum but then they also put you in prison for criticising the government. We could be like America and execute everyone after keeping them on death row for years but if their sentencing was such a deterrent why is, approximately, one in every 130 of the population in prison.
We could be like China who charge families of murderers for the bullet used to execute them but who ban any dissent, don't have Facebook, don't allow any kind of protest - peaceful or otherwise - gag their cleverest citizens, not to mention having some of the worst toilet facilities in the world.
No, what I like about British justice is that whatever happens, loads of people think it is wrong. Take those two lads who each got four years for inciting a riot that never took place. Which is a bit like me getting four years for never doing what I would like to do to Beyonce, for instance.
Now, one of the lads wanted a riot so he posted a 'let's be having you' type message on Facebook to meet in Northwich town centre - most probably carrying pitchforks and burning lamps ready to storm Baron Frankenstein's Castle - and even turned up ready to lead the mob.
The other one got drunk and put up a joke message on Facebook to take Warrington by storm, fell asleep, woke up with a hangover and deleted the message.
Some of you will think four years is too harsh for trying to get people to do something that never happened. And some of you will think that four years is too lenient for a thug trying to start a riot while the rest of England's cities went up in flames.
My point is, that whether it is too harsh or too lenient, I'm not sure the same sentence was appropriate for both of them. In my mind, one was much more serious about 'intent' than the other. And as the guidelines seem to be that there are no guidelines, then they shouldn't have got the same punishment.
But this is what makes British justice so great and so bizarre and so crazy. First, we don't chop off their hands. Second, we have a system that allows our judges - who know the law better than our politicians - to judge each case on its merits or otherwise. Third, we sometimes make mistakes but we don't hang the wrong person or end up with one per cent of our country in prison. And fourth, we all have the right to moan about it one way or another.
Blog adjourned...Solly
If I've done the sums right, then I'll be dead by next Tuesday.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Great sub-editing dilemmas of our times. You have to caption a picture of one of Rod Stewart's wives or daughters in something a little revealing. So do you plump for the traditional headline 'Do You Think I'm Sexy?' (or 'do ya' as some insist on saying) or do you go for something only slightly more obscure with 'You Wear It Well Rachel.' Hats off to the Mail who went, yet again, for the latter.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Which reminds me of a sub-editor's favourite knock knock joke. Knock Knock. Who's there? To. To who? To WHOM!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Abercrombie & Fitch, the absurd fashion brand favoured by chavs and only seem to hire thin people in their shops, have offered to pay the cast of Jersey Shore, the absurd reality TV show inhabited by chavs, NOT to wear their clothes. It's clearly a publicity wheeze and a very good one at that. But it's akin to JD Sports paying looters not to wear their trainers.
---------------------------------------------------------------
So what makes a country 'civilised'? For me, it is down to plumbing and, in particular, whether or not you can find a clean and flushable loo in any geographical part of that country. Which makes Britain possibly the only truly civilised nation on earth. We don't have special areas by the side of motorways for travellers to do a poo like I saw in China. We don't need to provide bins for toilet paper because our pipes are crap (for which we have to thank the ancestor of the man who brought Big Brother to Britain). We don't tell people not to drink the water like most of Europe. We don't have open sewers or holes in the ground on which to go. Most of us have the capacity to get hot water when we want it. We don't have to book a two minute slot to use a shower. And we don't have poisonous spiders or snakes coming up the khazi to bite us on the bum.
But the other thing that makes us civilised is our justice system. Our crazy, hazy, mind boggling but ultimately democratic heirarchy of courts and legislature. We could be like Singapore and put people in jail for chewing gum but then they also put you in prison for criticising the government. We could be like America and execute everyone after keeping them on death row for years but if their sentencing was such a deterrent why is, approximately, one in every 130 of the population in prison.
We could be like China who charge families of murderers for the bullet used to execute them but who ban any dissent, don't have Facebook, don't allow any kind of protest - peaceful or otherwise - gag their cleverest citizens, not to mention having some of the worst toilet facilities in the world.
No, what I like about British justice is that whatever happens, loads of people think it is wrong. Take those two lads who each got four years for inciting a riot that never took place. Which is a bit like me getting four years for never doing what I would like to do to Beyonce, for instance.
Now, one of the lads wanted a riot so he posted a 'let's be having you' type message on Facebook to meet in Northwich town centre - most probably carrying pitchforks and burning lamps ready to storm Baron Frankenstein's Castle - and even turned up ready to lead the mob.
The other one got drunk and put up a joke message on Facebook to take Warrington by storm, fell asleep, woke up with a hangover and deleted the message.
Some of you will think four years is too harsh for trying to get people to do something that never happened. And some of you will think that four years is too lenient for a thug trying to start a riot while the rest of England's cities went up in flames.
My point is, that whether it is too harsh or too lenient, I'm not sure the same sentence was appropriate for both of them. In my mind, one was much more serious about 'intent' than the other. And as the guidelines seem to be that there are no guidelines, then they shouldn't have got the same punishment.
But this is what makes British justice so great and so bizarre and so crazy. First, we don't chop off their hands. Second, we have a system that allows our judges - who know the law better than our politicians - to judge each case on its merits or otherwise. Third, we sometimes make mistakes but we don't hang the wrong person or end up with one per cent of our country in prison. And fourth, we all have the right to moan about it one way or another.
Blog adjourned...Solly
Sunday 14 August 2011
Innit? D'oh!
I was always a Simon Schama man myself. But the point David Starkey misses is not that white kids are speaking like black kids or vice versa. They're just doing what kids have done for decades and that is they talk in their own language so that adults can't get it. And you know what? We don't get it.
However, Starkey has succeeded in bringing out the inner racist in millions. You know the sort. They start a sentence with 'I'm not racist but...' and usually tell you that while they don't agree with everything he said 'Enoch had a point.' And just to rub it in, somewhere along the way they will add 'I feel like a foreigner in my own country.'
Well, the simple response to those three sentences are 'yes you are', 'no he didn't' and 'no you don't, not really.'
----------------------------------------------------------
Seeing newlyweds coming out of the church, I couldn't help wondering whether it is nicer to tell them that it's all downhill from here - or that it's all uphill from here.
Really...which one is more positive?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you seen that advert with what are supposed to be two brothers with nothing in common, (he drinks latte and I drink a mean, skinny espresso) and, hilariously, it turns out they both drive a BMW? Oh, how I laughed at the irony.
Until I realised that they do, actually, have something very much in common. They're both clearly smug wankers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the deaths of yet another three journalists of my era this week, I have made a pact with my old mate and Sun reporter Jamie Pyatt that whichever of us goes first, the other has to say lots of nice things about him whether they mean it or not. I am happy to come to a similar arrangement with any other journalist aged 45 and over, just in case.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry, I just don't see Bert and Ernie as gay. It's Sesame Street and some things really don't deserve to be sexualised. The same goes for trying to out Bill and Ben, Sooty and Sweep and Cuthbert and Dibble.
But there's a movement for Bert and Ernie to have a gay marriage, just to make some point or other.
They're not gay. They're just friends who sleep in the same room, in single beds (not even a double like Morecambe and Wise).
Anyway, they've missed a trick. The real ones they should be targeting are Statler and Waldorf. I mean, two old queens who go to the theatre all the time (how gay is that?), are bitingly catty and bitchy about all the acts and they only go with each other to the performances, never with a woman you notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so, first games of the Premiership season kick off and yet I felt a strange sense of dislocation as my team were unable to honour their fixture thanks to some rubble in Tottenham High Road.
So, as everyone trudged their way to their grounds and bought a £3.50 programme and pint of lager in a plastic cup for £4.00, I was stuck watching men watching football matches that we couldn't see, on Sky TV.
And as my team weren't involved, I couldn't be bothered getting worked up by Joey Barton or laughing at QPR or tuning in to Robbie Savage just to confirm that, even though I am getting middle aged and mild mannered, there are still some people whose head I'd be more than happy to see on a spike.
I should have been taking my seat next to binman Bill and Groundskeeper Willie and Angry Dad and his long suffering wife and son and the other array of oddballs at White Hart Lane.
Instead I was at Canary Wharf watching a free jazz festival (and still paying £4 for a pint of lager in a plastic cup, mind) but with the family.
And as my team does not have another home match kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday until the middle of December, I fear they may be seeing a bit more of me than they expected.
It's a funny old game...Solly
However, Starkey has succeeded in bringing out the inner racist in millions. You know the sort. They start a sentence with 'I'm not racist but...' and usually tell you that while they don't agree with everything he said 'Enoch had a point.' And just to rub it in, somewhere along the way they will add 'I feel like a foreigner in my own country.'
Well, the simple response to those three sentences are 'yes you are', 'no he didn't' and 'no you don't, not really.'
----------------------------------------------------------
Seeing newlyweds coming out of the church, I couldn't help wondering whether it is nicer to tell them that it's all downhill from here - or that it's all uphill from here.
Really...which one is more positive?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you seen that advert with what are supposed to be two brothers with nothing in common, (he drinks latte and I drink a mean, skinny espresso) and, hilariously, it turns out they both drive a BMW? Oh, how I laughed at the irony.
Until I realised that they do, actually, have something very much in common. They're both clearly smug wankers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the deaths of yet another three journalists of my era this week, I have made a pact with my old mate and Sun reporter Jamie Pyatt that whichever of us goes first, the other has to say lots of nice things about him whether they mean it or not. I am happy to come to a similar arrangement with any other journalist aged 45 and over, just in case.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry, I just don't see Bert and Ernie as gay. It's Sesame Street and some things really don't deserve to be sexualised. The same goes for trying to out Bill and Ben, Sooty and Sweep and Cuthbert and Dibble.
But there's a movement for Bert and Ernie to have a gay marriage, just to make some point or other.
They're not gay. They're just friends who sleep in the same room, in single beds (not even a double like Morecambe and Wise).
Anyway, they've missed a trick. The real ones they should be targeting are Statler and Waldorf. I mean, two old queens who go to the theatre all the time (how gay is that?), are bitingly catty and bitchy about all the acts and they only go with each other to the performances, never with a woman you notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so, first games of the Premiership season kick off and yet I felt a strange sense of dislocation as my team were unable to honour their fixture thanks to some rubble in Tottenham High Road.
So, as everyone trudged their way to their grounds and bought a £3.50 programme and pint of lager in a plastic cup for £4.00, I was stuck watching men watching football matches that we couldn't see, on Sky TV.
And as my team weren't involved, I couldn't be bothered getting worked up by Joey Barton or laughing at QPR or tuning in to Robbie Savage just to confirm that, even though I am getting middle aged and mild mannered, there are still some people whose head I'd be more than happy to see on a spike.
I should have been taking my seat next to binman Bill and Groundskeeper Willie and Angry Dad and his long suffering wife and son and the other array of oddballs at White Hart Lane.
Instead I was at Canary Wharf watching a free jazz festival (and still paying £4 for a pint of lager in a plastic cup, mind) but with the family.
And as my team does not have another home match kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday until the middle of December, I fear they may be seeing a bit more of me than they expected.
It's a funny old game...Solly
Thursday 11 August 2011
It's All Woe-ver Now
So a few random thoughts on the story de nos jours:
- Someone tell the Channel 4 reporter that Wolverhampton is not pronounced Woe-verhampton. Unless she was being ironic.
- And this from a broadcaster who put out the Tweet 'David Cameron wanks more councils to evict tenants involved in riots' earlier today. You read it right.
- They aren't Feds, they are the police. This isn't The Wire it's N17.
- Did Levi's really think it was a good idea to try and sell jeans by using a man giving it Bertie Big Bollocks to a line of riot policemen in its latest ad? Now been pulled I see.
- A lot of posts seem to point out there's been no rioting in Scotland. Why? One word answer: rain.
- Anyone see that primary school worker come out of court and walk into a lamp-post? Comedy gold.
- Can we have a moratorium on 'experts' particularly journalists posing as experts.
Finally, I'm not surprised those people all got nicked looting Argos. They probably had to wait for ages for that bloke to get the stuff from out the back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
So let's see if I've got this right. The way to mend Broken Britain is to banish single mums, lock up all their children, halt all communications technology since the Telex machine, outlaw hoods, masks and hats (unless being worn by a policeman covering up his official recognition number during demonstrations) and more CCTV cameras because the current ones seem to have captured images of white people, accountants and public schoolgirls looting so obviously aren't doing the job they are supposed to.
And the best way to eliminate a social and criminal underclass is to stop their benefits, chuck them out of council houses and put them on a curfew?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I've just found out the first match of the season has been postponed and would like to say forget everything I said earlier and bring back the death penalty for looters.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Spurs goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes says he is scared to step foot outside his home because of the riots. Now he knows how Spurs fans feel when he steps outside his penalty area.
By the way, he lives in Chigwell. Unless anyone is looting for a new handmade blind for their kitchen or a heat exchanger for an outdoor swimming pool, then I think it may remain unaffected.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The BBC high definition channel has a choice of programmes it can show in HD so why, when there was a brilliant documentary on ants on BBC2 - and really, it was bloody brilliant, with cameras underground following this complex society through war, peace, birth and death - did they choose to put the some poxy Sarah Beeney 'let's do up a village' shite.
It's not about ratings, surely it's about what looks better in HD. And if you have sport or a nature documentary or a film, surely that would be better than some reality claptrap where a group of people have to get a couple of houses wallpapered before an imaginary clock runs out of time and they all turn back into the boring people they were before the cameras turned up.
Let's hope everything gets back to normal soon...cheers, Solly
- Someone tell the Channel 4 reporter that Wolverhampton is not pronounced Woe-verhampton. Unless she was being ironic.
- And this from a broadcaster who put out the Tweet 'David Cameron wanks more councils to evict tenants involved in riots' earlier today. You read it right.
- They aren't Feds, they are the police. This isn't The Wire it's N17.
- Did Levi's really think it was a good idea to try and sell jeans by using a man giving it Bertie Big Bollocks to a line of riot policemen in its latest ad? Now been pulled I see.
- A lot of posts seem to point out there's been no rioting in Scotland. Why? One word answer: rain.
- Anyone see that primary school worker come out of court and walk into a lamp-post? Comedy gold.
- Can we have a moratorium on 'experts' particularly journalists posing as experts.
Finally, I'm not surprised those people all got nicked looting Argos. They probably had to wait for ages for that bloke to get the stuff from out the back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
So let's see if I've got this right. The way to mend Broken Britain is to banish single mums, lock up all their children, halt all communications technology since the Telex machine, outlaw hoods, masks and hats (unless being worn by a policeman covering up his official recognition number during demonstrations) and more CCTV cameras because the current ones seem to have captured images of white people, accountants and public schoolgirls looting so obviously aren't doing the job they are supposed to.
And the best way to eliminate a social and criminal underclass is to stop their benefits, chuck them out of council houses and put them on a curfew?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I've just found out the first match of the season has been postponed and would like to say forget everything I said earlier and bring back the death penalty for looters.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Spurs goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes says he is scared to step foot outside his home because of the riots. Now he knows how Spurs fans feel when he steps outside his penalty area.
By the way, he lives in Chigwell. Unless anyone is looting for a new handmade blind for their kitchen or a heat exchanger for an outdoor swimming pool, then I think it may remain unaffected.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The BBC high definition channel has a choice of programmes it can show in HD so why, when there was a brilliant documentary on ants on BBC2 - and really, it was bloody brilliant, with cameras underground following this complex society through war, peace, birth and death - did they choose to put the some poxy Sarah Beeney 'let's do up a village' shite.
It's not about ratings, surely it's about what looks better in HD. And if you have sport or a nature documentary or a film, surely that would be better than some reality claptrap where a group of people have to get a couple of houses wallpapered before an imaginary clock runs out of time and they all turn back into the boring people they were before the cameras turned up.
Let's hope everything gets back to normal soon...cheers, Solly
Tuesday 9 August 2011
I Predict a Lot of Kaiser Chief Headlines
Riots latest: Surrey Police have put all 15 of the county's black residents under house arrest, as a precaution. Though it may affect Chelsea's starting XI for the start of the season of course.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the upstairs of my house, I can see - and smell - the smoke from the burning wreck of a million CDs and DVDs going up in flames at the Sony distribution centre a couple of miles away.
I'm not going to rant and rave about the riots. There's plenty of people doing that. But I have spent all but the first couple of months of my life either living or working in London so I consider it my town.
And I have been going to Tottenham every other week or so for 35 years so I feel a certain affinity to it. This is not surprising as it's the only geographical location that I regularly sing about.
However, I don't pretend to really know the area or the people. I tend to park my car in a local council estate where a nice bunch of young men look after it for a couple of hours in exchange for some money and I walk past the lamp-posts with bunches of flowers tied to them and go to the ground, avoiding eye contact with the locals.
But after the debacle of the Ikea Riot a few years ago - when thousands of local residents piled into the opening of a branch of the superstore in nearby Edmonton and actually started stabbing each other in order to get a cut price Billy or something - you always thought that beneath the surface, areas like this have a lot of people who would do anything for a bargain.
So the thought of free televisions and mobile phones wasn't going to stop them. Particularly as it all seems so easy.
This is how it works. Two rival gangs decide they can be of mutual benefit. Gang A starts a fire in one place while Gang B loots a shop in another. Then the roles are reversed. Look carefully at the riots and you'll see that where there's a fire in a particular area there's usually another one not far away.
Let's get a couple of things clear. The riots were not the fault of the social media. Twitter and BBM made it easier to keep in touch, but they would have found a way in any event.
The lack of an internet based system of communication never stopped East Enders gathering to defeat the blackshirts or stopped the riots of 1981 or any other major civil get together.
Social media may also work to bring some kind of positive salvation to this whole mess too. The clean up campaign was a simple but inspiring way to show rioters that there are more of us than them.
And so it will, hopefully, continue. Highlighting the knobheads who boasted of their exploits on Facebook suddenly doesn't feel like grassing, for instance. And the police do not seem like the bad guys in the current unrest in the way I seem to remember them being back in 1981.
Of course, there are downsides. The riots have brought out the usual rants by every modern Enoch Powell-style racist - never mind that everyone from Bulgarians to Bangladeshis have been targeted.
And it's led to the usual 'bring on the water cannon, send the army in, hang them all' brigade who never have any real answers to anything but exist on a diet of right wing rhetoric.
Yet behind it all, I think Londoners will begin to see the positives in their community. At least I hope so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
While most shops in places like Ilford and nearby were asked to close, not all did so. An Asian-owned 24-hour grocery stayed open. When the mob approached and smashed some melons at the front, the owner and around 20 of his relatives chased them off with baseball bats. Apparently the melons was the last straw.
And in Gants Hill they shut down the local Sainsburys and other stores but the Golan Kosher Bakery stayed open. As they say round there, geschaft ist geschaft.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The nearest we got to riots here in Loughton was a few broken windows on a number 20 bus and the odd shop. It was foiled by a phalanx of police horses and coppers who actually did their job.
In fact, the only thing the locals round here moaned about was the amount of horse poo in Sainsbury's car park. But it sparked a new line in 'manure gold' as a skin tone at the local tanning salon. And a couple of riot cops got their shields vajazzled.
Let's talk about nicer things next time, eh? - Solly
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the upstairs of my house, I can see - and smell - the smoke from the burning wreck of a million CDs and DVDs going up in flames at the Sony distribution centre a couple of miles away.
I'm not going to rant and rave about the riots. There's plenty of people doing that. But I have spent all but the first couple of months of my life either living or working in London so I consider it my town.
And I have been going to Tottenham every other week or so for 35 years so I feel a certain affinity to it. This is not surprising as it's the only geographical location that I regularly sing about.
However, I don't pretend to really know the area or the people. I tend to park my car in a local council estate where a nice bunch of young men look after it for a couple of hours in exchange for some money and I walk past the lamp-posts with bunches of flowers tied to them and go to the ground, avoiding eye contact with the locals.
But after the debacle of the Ikea Riot a few years ago - when thousands of local residents piled into the opening of a branch of the superstore in nearby Edmonton and actually started stabbing each other in order to get a cut price Billy or something - you always thought that beneath the surface, areas like this have a lot of people who would do anything for a bargain.
So the thought of free televisions and mobile phones wasn't going to stop them. Particularly as it all seems so easy.
This is how it works. Two rival gangs decide they can be of mutual benefit. Gang A starts a fire in one place while Gang B loots a shop in another. Then the roles are reversed. Look carefully at the riots and you'll see that where there's a fire in a particular area there's usually another one not far away.
Let's get a couple of things clear. The riots were not the fault of the social media. Twitter and BBM made it easier to keep in touch, but they would have found a way in any event.
The lack of an internet based system of communication never stopped East Enders gathering to defeat the blackshirts or stopped the riots of 1981 or any other major civil get together.
Social media may also work to bring some kind of positive salvation to this whole mess too. The clean up campaign was a simple but inspiring way to show rioters that there are more of us than them.
And so it will, hopefully, continue. Highlighting the knobheads who boasted of their exploits on Facebook suddenly doesn't feel like grassing, for instance. And the police do not seem like the bad guys in the current unrest in the way I seem to remember them being back in 1981.
Of course, there are downsides. The riots have brought out the usual rants by every modern Enoch Powell-style racist - never mind that everyone from Bulgarians to Bangladeshis have been targeted.
And it's led to the usual 'bring on the water cannon, send the army in, hang them all' brigade who never have any real answers to anything but exist on a diet of right wing rhetoric.
Yet behind it all, I think Londoners will begin to see the positives in their community. At least I hope so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
While most shops in places like Ilford and nearby were asked to close, not all did so. An Asian-owned 24-hour grocery stayed open. When the mob approached and smashed some melons at the front, the owner and around 20 of his relatives chased them off with baseball bats. Apparently the melons was the last straw.
And in Gants Hill they shut down the local Sainsburys and other stores but the Golan Kosher Bakery stayed open. As they say round there, geschaft ist geschaft.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The nearest we got to riots here in Loughton was a few broken windows on a number 20 bus and the odd shop. It was foiled by a phalanx of police horses and coppers who actually did their job.
In fact, the only thing the locals round here moaned about was the amount of horse poo in Sainsbury's car park. But it sparked a new line in 'manure gold' as a skin tone at the local tanning salon. And a couple of riot cops got their shields vajazzled.
Let's talk about nicer things next time, eh? - Solly
Friday 5 August 2011
Polarised Opinions
I think of myself as pretty up to speed on a lot of foreign affairs, or at least able to tap dance through any conversation that isn't too detailed.
But obviously not. My South African next door neighbour was waving goodbye to her friend, who I've met, and looked upset. 'What's up?' I asked, 'Oh she's got to go back to Sith Ifrikker and she's quite emotional. She's worried about Malema.' 'Poor thing,' I confided, 'Which one was he at the party the other week?'
'He's the South African politician who's trying to kick the whites out' she replied.
'I know, I was only joking' I lied.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think there is anyone I know who hasn't lost someone through cancer. It's common to talk about heroes and fighters but I always felt the bravery was in the spirit shown rather than the fight itself. My mum died of cancer after getting it twice, I lost a friend called Kevin earlier this year and, like you, there have been others both close and not so close who have either succumbed or beaten it.
But I think the most prosaic and wisest description that I've ever heard about having cancer comes from Danny Baker - admittedly a hero of mine - who has gotten over his first dice with the disease.
He made the point that he was merely a battleground, a Normandy beach on which the war was fought but not by him, by science and medicine and doctors. He simply staged the battle and let others fight it on his behalf. Pleasingly he didn't mention God, another reason why I like him.
It was an argument he made again on Desert Island Discs last week, among a myriad other quotable lines which he comes out with, without fuss, without fanfare and with a great deal of candour and honesty.
Welcome back to the wireless Candyman.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Terribly sad to hear a polar bear had killed a British tourist.
But the obvious tragedy isn't enough to stop the blame game in that new courtroom of public opinion - the reader's comments in online newspapers.
The Daily Mail is the world leader for this kind of thing and, of course, it was quick to point the finger at environmentalists, those bleeding heart do gooders who want to protect polar bears by falsely claiming that the ice caps are melting. Ha! That'll teach 'em. Jeremy Clarkson was right, kill the white fluffy bastards. If the tree huggers weren't lying about global warming, this would never have happened.
The Sun was a bit confused. There was some concern at to what happened to the bear, another claiming people aren't scared of them because they're white (no, I wasn't sure about that one either) and that if you go watching polar bears, don't be surprised if they kill you. Which is the old 'if you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas' argument.
The Telegraph tended to be more on the lines of what one should do if attacked by a polar bear, based on advice dating back to Victorian explorers, some of whom still read the paper. My advice is, make sure you are a faster runner than at least one other person in your group which is why I always go on holiday with someone with a broken leg.
Didn't bother looking at The Times as it's behind a paywall and isn't worth the money, the Mirror didn't seem to invite reader comments, nor The Guardian while, by 1pm, there was no sign of the story on the Express website.
No doubt the Star is claiming that the bear will feature on the new series of Big Brother along with Pamela Anderson, the blonde bombshell wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Bill Haley and his Comets, the Dalai Lama and anyone else you've ever heard of, alive or dead.
---------------------------------------------------
It's clearly the new Essex chav's uniform - very narrow leg trousers, pointed shoes and a white or light blue shirt. Now being worn by defendants at Redbridge Magistrates Court and coming soon to a judicial centre near you.
Police attempts to clear the streets of male cast members from The Only Way Is Essex by locking them all up is clearly failing judging by the recent case involving Mark Wright, Jack Tweed and his brother whose name is unimportant but has that greased down side parting haircut that sets him apart from normally intelligent men of his age.
However all is not lost. Apparently Mark and Amy and others in TOWIE are threatening to quit the series and, as we all know, it will be completely rubbish without them in it!
Blog adjourned....Solly
But obviously not. My South African next door neighbour was waving goodbye to her friend, who I've met, and looked upset. 'What's up?' I asked, 'Oh she's got to go back to Sith Ifrikker and she's quite emotional. She's worried about Malema.' 'Poor thing,' I confided, 'Which one was he at the party the other week?'
'He's the South African politician who's trying to kick the whites out' she replied.
'I know, I was only joking' I lied.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think there is anyone I know who hasn't lost someone through cancer. It's common to talk about heroes and fighters but I always felt the bravery was in the spirit shown rather than the fight itself. My mum died of cancer after getting it twice, I lost a friend called Kevin earlier this year and, like you, there have been others both close and not so close who have either succumbed or beaten it.
But I think the most prosaic and wisest description that I've ever heard about having cancer comes from Danny Baker - admittedly a hero of mine - who has gotten over his first dice with the disease.
He made the point that he was merely a battleground, a Normandy beach on which the war was fought but not by him, by science and medicine and doctors. He simply staged the battle and let others fight it on his behalf. Pleasingly he didn't mention God, another reason why I like him.
It was an argument he made again on Desert Island Discs last week, among a myriad other quotable lines which he comes out with, without fuss, without fanfare and with a great deal of candour and honesty.
Welcome back to the wireless Candyman.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Terribly sad to hear a polar bear had killed a British tourist.
But the obvious tragedy isn't enough to stop the blame game in that new courtroom of public opinion - the reader's comments in online newspapers.
The Daily Mail is the world leader for this kind of thing and, of course, it was quick to point the finger at environmentalists, those bleeding heart do gooders who want to protect polar bears by falsely claiming that the ice caps are melting. Ha! That'll teach 'em. Jeremy Clarkson was right, kill the white fluffy bastards. If the tree huggers weren't lying about global warming, this would never have happened.
The Sun was a bit confused. There was some concern at to what happened to the bear, another claiming people aren't scared of them because they're white (no, I wasn't sure about that one either) and that if you go watching polar bears, don't be surprised if they kill you. Which is the old 'if you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas' argument.
The Telegraph tended to be more on the lines of what one should do if attacked by a polar bear, based on advice dating back to Victorian explorers, some of whom still read the paper. My advice is, make sure you are a faster runner than at least one other person in your group which is why I always go on holiday with someone with a broken leg.
Didn't bother looking at The Times as it's behind a paywall and isn't worth the money, the Mirror didn't seem to invite reader comments, nor The Guardian while, by 1pm, there was no sign of the story on the Express website.
No doubt the Star is claiming that the bear will feature on the new series of Big Brother along with Pamela Anderson, the blonde bombshell wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Bill Haley and his Comets, the Dalai Lama and anyone else you've ever heard of, alive or dead.
---------------------------------------------------
It's clearly the new Essex chav's uniform - very narrow leg trousers, pointed shoes and a white or light blue shirt. Now being worn by defendants at Redbridge Magistrates Court and coming soon to a judicial centre near you.
Police attempts to clear the streets of male cast members from The Only Way Is Essex by locking them all up is clearly failing judging by the recent case involving Mark Wright, Jack Tweed and his brother whose name is unimportant but has that greased down side parting haircut that sets him apart from normally intelligent men of his age.
However all is not lost. Apparently Mark and Amy and others in TOWIE are threatening to quit the series and, as we all know, it will be completely rubbish without them in it!
Blog adjourned....Solly
Thursday 4 August 2011
The Other Jones Girl
Jennifer Aniston says 'my kind of films are often overlooked for major prizes.' Substitute the word 'shit' for 'my kind of' and you'll have some idea why that is.
----------------------------------------------------
Interesting additional information on the Liz Jones saga. Quick recap: The Mail on Sunday has sent self-obsessed facelifted dimwit Liz Jones to cover the famine in Somalia and has been widely castigated for it.
One of the criticisms has been along the lines of 'why didn't they send a proper reporter?'
Well, they did! I am reliably informed (and believe me this is as reliable a source as it's possible to get) that Barbara Jones from the paper was sent to Somalia two weeks ago. She wrote a superb piece, interviewed leading figures, travelled the country and even exposed a black market racket among some established refugees selling biscuits to newly arrived starving masses.
But just as the double page spread was being laid out, some Masonic nutter in Norway decided to shoot loads of people and foreign news coverage was diverted to that. Plus Amy Winehouse died, so no space.
Barbara Jones then had to go an interview some Libyan rebel leader or something and the tale was lost.
Barbara Jones is what we, in the profession, call 'a proper reporter'. In other words, she's brilliant. She files reports while bullets whizz past her ear and gets the kind of access to despots and dictators that even their mothers don't. Well, she works for Dacre so I suppose she's had some practice at that.
Liz Jones, meanwhile, considers it a crisis when she can't decide which shoes to wear when taking delivery of her latest handmade bespoke bat hotel.
I have suggested to my very good MoS contact that what they should do is run, side by side, 'Somalia by The Jones Girls' and carry Barbara's piece juxtaposed with Liz's one.
Actually I didn't use the word juxtaposed. I'd already had a couple of drinks by then.
It's unlikely to happen. People read Liz Jones either to laugh at her or get annoyed. It's classic 'trolling'. Pointing out her obvious inadequacies by lining up her copy alongside Barbara's could rebound on the MoS.
And of course, none of this explains why they sent Liz out there at all but apparently it was the decision of You Magazine which is completely unaware of how ridiculous she is, they just count the readers letters when she writes a column, ignoring the fact many of them are in green ink.
----------------------------------------------------
Left-handed Dragon (I notice these kind of things) Duncan Disorderly offered £25,000 for the arrest of someone trying to blackmail him, double if they broke the bloke's arms.
He later changed this, offering £20,000 for ten per cent of the arm breaking as long as Theo would put up another £20,000 for a broken leg.
----------------------------------------------------
Talking of broken legs, all these allegations from Heather Mills against Piers Morgan. Personally I don't think she's got a...oh, hang on.
----------------------------------------------------
Oh dear, we're going to go through the whole 'bring back the death penalty' argument again. And it won't get through. And I'm pleased about that, though I know there is a lot of public opinion that disagrees with me. Probably a lot of you reading this too. I make no apologies. I don't want either judges or juries to decide whether on not someone lives or dies. I don't like murderers making that decision either, of course. But the death penalty is state sanctioned murder.
The one argument that always does it for me is that America has the death penalty and has the highest crime rate in the world. Not much of a deterrent is it?
Anyway....break a leg, Solly
----------------------------------------------------
Interesting additional information on the Liz Jones saga. Quick recap: The Mail on Sunday has sent self-obsessed facelifted dimwit Liz Jones to cover the famine in Somalia and has been widely castigated for it.
One of the criticisms has been along the lines of 'why didn't they send a proper reporter?'
Well, they did! I am reliably informed (and believe me this is as reliable a source as it's possible to get) that Barbara Jones from the paper was sent to Somalia two weeks ago. She wrote a superb piece, interviewed leading figures, travelled the country and even exposed a black market racket among some established refugees selling biscuits to newly arrived starving masses.
But just as the double page spread was being laid out, some Masonic nutter in Norway decided to shoot loads of people and foreign news coverage was diverted to that. Plus Amy Winehouse died, so no space.
Barbara Jones then had to go an interview some Libyan rebel leader or something and the tale was lost.
Barbara Jones is what we, in the profession, call 'a proper reporter'. In other words, she's brilliant. She files reports while bullets whizz past her ear and gets the kind of access to despots and dictators that even their mothers don't. Well, she works for Dacre so I suppose she's had some practice at that.
Liz Jones, meanwhile, considers it a crisis when she can't decide which shoes to wear when taking delivery of her latest handmade bespoke bat hotel.
I have suggested to my very good MoS contact that what they should do is run, side by side, 'Somalia by The Jones Girls' and carry Barbara's piece juxtaposed with Liz's one.
Actually I didn't use the word juxtaposed. I'd already had a couple of drinks by then.
It's unlikely to happen. People read Liz Jones either to laugh at her or get annoyed. It's classic 'trolling'. Pointing out her obvious inadequacies by lining up her copy alongside Barbara's could rebound on the MoS.
And of course, none of this explains why they sent Liz out there at all but apparently it was the decision of You Magazine which is completely unaware of how ridiculous she is, they just count the readers letters when she writes a column, ignoring the fact many of them are in green ink.
----------------------------------------------------
Left-handed Dragon (I notice these kind of things) Duncan Disorderly offered £25,000 for the arrest of someone trying to blackmail him, double if they broke the bloke's arms.
He later changed this, offering £20,000 for ten per cent of the arm breaking as long as Theo would put up another £20,000 for a broken leg.
----------------------------------------------------
Talking of broken legs, all these allegations from Heather Mills against Piers Morgan. Personally I don't think she's got a...oh, hang on.
----------------------------------------------------
Oh dear, we're going to go through the whole 'bring back the death penalty' argument again. And it won't get through. And I'm pleased about that, though I know there is a lot of public opinion that disagrees with me. Probably a lot of you reading this too. I make no apologies. I don't want either judges or juries to decide whether on not someone lives or dies. I don't like murderers making that decision either, of course. But the death penalty is state sanctioned murder.
The one argument that always does it for me is that America has the death penalty and has the highest crime rate in the world. Not much of a deterrent is it?
Anyway....break a leg, Solly
Monday 1 August 2011
Smurfing USA
Every so often the US stock exchange invites a celebrity to ring the bell to signal the start of trading.
At the moment the US economy is in such a mess than unless the Republicans and Democrats work out a compromise, the government will be broke.
So, which important figure did they get to open the stock exchange on Friday? Yes, that's right, the Smurfs.
And not even real Smurfs but people dressed up as Smurfs.
Apparently there's a movie out - I believe it features Katy 'look at me, I'm so wacky, no really much wackier than Lady Gaga, so wacky that I married Russell Brand, please look at me, pleeeeeze' Perry.
Nice to know that even though America faces its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, thanks to a ridiculous two party governmental system that means no one ever has any power to do anything, as long as they can still give a rubbish film a bit of a leg up, then why should any of us worry.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not just phone hacking that brings journalism into disrepute. Sometimes it's journalism itself and I give you no finer example of the kind of guff that masquerades as personality than Liz Jones in the Mail over the last couple of days, berating the NHS because her local GP's receptionist refused to let her jump a queue of genuinely ill people (and perhaps, just perhaps, some malingerers) in order for her to get an innoculation that her private doctor wasn't able to give her.
Never mind that she was not registered at this particular practice, nor that she did the whole 'don't you know who I am' schtick, it was the fact that she was on her way to Somalia to visit dying children on behalf of Her Majesty's Daily Mail that made her think she was entitled to special treatment from an NHS she had ignored since birth.
Needless to say she was refused, as the surgery did not have any record of her and do not simply give people injections just because they say they need them. And needless to say this mad harpie who has chronicled various embarrassing facets of her life without a shred of shame, wrote a long and self serving column about it. It makes me ashamed that she pretends to belong to the same profession as me.
There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with a columnist when they make their own points and have their own beliefs that are different to mine. I can happily read and disagree with Clarkson and Littlejohn and even Melanie Phillips - who thinks that just because a Nazi nutter shoots 70 kids because he hates multi-culturalism, doesn't mean it was her fault (the Norwegian Nazi Nutter quoted Melanie Phillips in his rambling manifesto). So not everyone who hates immigrants is a mass murderer. Shame she never made the point that not every Muslim on the Tube with a backpack is a bomber.
But back to barking Miss Jones.
The very fact she is going to report back from Somalia is cause for concern in itself, from someone so detached from reality that she thinks being a non-smoking vegetarian with private healthcare means she should jump to the front of the NHS queue.
Let's guess now what she'll write from Somalia. Here's a few suggestions: business class travel to Africa is outrageously expensive; famine and a lack of a cohesive government is terrible for house prices; Civil War gives you cancer; Bob Geldof raised all that money and yet this still happens; the way the women admired my Mulberry handbag tells me that amid the food shortages and rape of children, there is still hope for this war-torn nation; they may be poor, they may be starving, but at least they're not claiming benefits - How Starving Somalians Put Britain's Welfare State to Shame.
For a more detailed, bit-by-bit demolition of everything Liz Jones said in her disgraceful article, read this blog by a doctor (ie: someone who knows what he's talking about and not a journalist!)
http://www.briankellett.net/brian-kellett-dot-net/2011/8/1/raised-expectations.html?SSLoginOk=true
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Body fascism. It's everywhere. The sooner anyone puts on a bit of weight then the aesthetic army jumps on them, though not literally of course. Going on holiday? Then don't dare carry any spare ounces on the beach otherwise some skinny cyclist will castigate you for daring to go out in public without having a six pack.
And yet have you noticed how health freaks who run marathons in their spare time or cycle 1,000 miles a week, look nice and thin but at least 10 years older than they really are?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone see Dragons Den? The new series features some woman who hasn't realised that shoulder pads went out 30 years ago, looks like a hunchback with half a ton of Blue Circle's finest slapped on her face and looks and sounds like a female Les Dawson after 100 Woodbines a day.
If I didn't know better I could have sworn I'd seen her driving a juggernaut down the M1, window wound down, an Anchor tattoo on her bicep and sucking on a Yorkie.
I'm out...Solly
At the moment the US economy is in such a mess than unless the Republicans and Democrats work out a compromise, the government will be broke.
So, which important figure did they get to open the stock exchange on Friday? Yes, that's right, the Smurfs.
And not even real Smurfs but people dressed up as Smurfs.
Apparently there's a movie out - I believe it features Katy 'look at me, I'm so wacky, no really much wackier than Lady Gaga, so wacky that I married Russell Brand, please look at me, pleeeeeze' Perry.
Nice to know that even though America faces its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, thanks to a ridiculous two party governmental system that means no one ever has any power to do anything, as long as they can still give a rubbish film a bit of a leg up, then why should any of us worry.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not just phone hacking that brings journalism into disrepute. Sometimes it's journalism itself and I give you no finer example of the kind of guff that masquerades as personality than Liz Jones in the Mail over the last couple of days, berating the NHS because her local GP's receptionist refused to let her jump a queue of genuinely ill people (and perhaps, just perhaps, some malingerers) in order for her to get an innoculation that her private doctor wasn't able to give her.
Never mind that she was not registered at this particular practice, nor that she did the whole 'don't you know who I am' schtick, it was the fact that she was on her way to Somalia to visit dying children on behalf of Her Majesty's Daily Mail that made her think she was entitled to special treatment from an NHS she had ignored since birth.
Needless to say she was refused, as the surgery did not have any record of her and do not simply give people injections just because they say they need them. And needless to say this mad harpie who has chronicled various embarrassing facets of her life without a shred of shame, wrote a long and self serving column about it. It makes me ashamed that she pretends to belong to the same profession as me.
There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with a columnist when they make their own points and have their own beliefs that are different to mine. I can happily read and disagree with Clarkson and Littlejohn and even Melanie Phillips - who thinks that just because a Nazi nutter shoots 70 kids because he hates multi-culturalism, doesn't mean it was her fault (the Norwegian Nazi Nutter quoted Melanie Phillips in his rambling manifesto). So not everyone who hates immigrants is a mass murderer. Shame she never made the point that not every Muslim on the Tube with a backpack is a bomber.
But back to barking Miss Jones.
The very fact she is going to report back from Somalia is cause for concern in itself, from someone so detached from reality that she thinks being a non-smoking vegetarian with private healthcare means she should jump to the front of the NHS queue.
Let's guess now what she'll write from Somalia. Here's a few suggestions: business class travel to Africa is outrageously expensive; famine and a lack of a cohesive government is terrible for house prices; Civil War gives you cancer; Bob Geldof raised all that money and yet this still happens; the way the women admired my Mulberry handbag tells me that amid the food shortages and rape of children, there is still hope for this war-torn nation; they may be poor, they may be starving, but at least they're not claiming benefits - How Starving Somalians Put Britain's Welfare State to Shame.
For a more detailed, bit-by-bit demolition of everything Liz Jones said in her disgraceful article, read this blog by a doctor (ie: someone who knows what he's talking about and not a journalist!)
http://www.briankellett.net/brian-kellett-dot-net/2011/8/1/raised-expectations.html?SSLoginOk=true
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Body fascism. It's everywhere. The sooner anyone puts on a bit of weight then the aesthetic army jumps on them, though not literally of course. Going on holiday? Then don't dare carry any spare ounces on the beach otherwise some skinny cyclist will castigate you for daring to go out in public without having a six pack.
And yet have you noticed how health freaks who run marathons in their spare time or cycle 1,000 miles a week, look nice and thin but at least 10 years older than they really are?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone see Dragons Den? The new series features some woman who hasn't realised that shoulder pads went out 30 years ago, looks like a hunchback with half a ton of Blue Circle's finest slapped on her face and looks and sounds like a female Les Dawson after 100 Woodbines a day.
If I didn't know better I could have sworn I'd seen her driving a juggernaut down the M1, window wound down, an Anchor tattoo on her bicep and sucking on a Yorkie.
I'm out...Solly
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