Thursday 5 January 2012

Madsen, dogs and Englishmen

OK, I owe the Daily Star an apology. I may have given the impression that the only people to go on Channel Five's Celebrity Big Brother would be reality TV show rejects and footballers' wives whose French implants had yet to explode and possibly Diane Abbott hoping to find a place where she could be sure no one would be watching her.
It has been pointed out to me by Daily Star night news editor Pat Wooding via my Dr Finlay (Dr. Finlay's Casebook = Facebook, it's the latest in social media rhyming slang) that I cast some doubt, too, on Hollywood actor Michael Madsen appearing, as 'revealed' by the Star. Well, the Star was right and I was wrong.
The Reservoir Dogs actor is actually on the programme. So hat's off to the Daily Star. So too is some bloke who had a number one 11 years ago. And a woman famous for not being married to Ryan Giggs but having his surname.
I now look forward to guest appearances in the house by the likes of Jack Nicholson, former president Jimmy Carter, Dame Vera Lynn and Boutros Boutros Ghali.
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This week's conviction of Dobson and Norris - or Knobson and Doris as I suspect their prison mates may end up calling them - has reminded us of that famous Daily Mail front page with the massive headline 'Murderers'.
It is one of the most famous front pages of recent decades, I suspect. But while the headline is one of the best things to grace a front page, above it is a reminder of the dumber side of national newspapers....a massive banner across the top advertising the latest horoscopes by Jonathan Cainer.
This week has seen the Daily Mirror signing Russell Grant as if he was some kind of messiah and most of the other papers trumpeting how they will tell the fortunes of their readers for the next 12 months.
Back on my local paper, when our astrologer had contractual problems, it was left to us reporters to write the horoscope for a couple of weeks.
We worked it out ourselves. I am a Sagittarius and I had a party planned for that weekend so the horoscope for Sagittarius read 'you will find yourself at the centre of a social whirl this weekend' or something similar.
Another guy was playing football a few days later so sporting endeavour featured high on the agenda for Taureans and the girl going to see Elvis Costello made sure that all Virgos could see that they would  be lifted by music within the next few days.
Readers wrote in to say how accurate the new, anonymous astrologer was.
It is the 21st Century, we have advancements in science that can convict two murderers because of a tiny speck of blood that has been embedded on a jacket for 19 years.
We can send neutrinos racing round a Swiss Scalextric that could eventually tell us how the universe was created. We can overthrow dictatorships by sending messages via satellites in space through tiny little boxes we can fit in our pocket. We can do all these things and more thanks to the hard work, creativity, brains and dedication of fantastic people all over the world.
And yet the newspapers are still keen to propagate the medieval myth that our lives are governed by a load of mumbo jumbo. And that we should believe some fat tosser in a look-at-me waistcoat or daft old witch with a bad haircut who says that because Venus is up Uranus then the colour red will be significant next April.
Quite frankly the whole astrology scam has been going on too long and our newspapers shame themselves by pandering to it.
There are some people for whom their daily horoscope acts as a kind of crutch to help them through their sad and lonely days. Much the same as God does for others I guess.
Anyone who needs a crutch as badly as that is so lame that if they were a horse they'd be shot.
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Good little programme on grammar schools on BBC4 which made the point that the system was let down by a lack of dynamic young teachers.
I'll vouch for that. I can say it never did me any harm but I'd rather have come out remembering a lot of good teachers and one bad one, rather than one really good teacher and a bunch of misfits, incompetents, paedophiles and crusty old Mr Chips style bastards.
But hey, I'm not bitter....class dismissed. Solly

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