“uh one-two, one, two. Hello walmart shoppers…”

By bearded_baby in All posts 3 Comments Tags: , , , ,

The open carriage at the rear of the Blaeneau Ffestiniog railway is a beautiful place, and perhaps not the most obvious place to come up with a new political idea.  But that is how it happened for me.

It all started in the fresh air.  The guard locked us behind the gates, and myself and Mrs Baby settled down to enjoy the ride.  Then someone in an unmistakeably savvern accent started up as he tucked his Daily Mail away.  “Well I agree.  Sort all the louts out.  National Service.  They should bring it back”.  At that point I suddenly wondered if my fellow travellers in our carriage were to be treated to an hour and twenty minute no-holds-barred cage fight, but then it struck me.  Perhaps he was right.

 After all, we can’t deny that there are many people who are the scourge of society, people who do perhaps need a change of environment to adjust their attitudes.  Louts who are criminals.

 So this is my idea: national service for racists.

 Well I don’t actually mean National Service in the Army.  It seems like they’ve got enough problems with racists as it is.  But what if someone who was convicted of a racially aggravated offence was given the option of working for charities in Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, India etc as an alternative to prison.  It would be a lot cheaper (cost of a flight and some minimal living expenses), some good would be done, and who knows, they may come back with a different world view.  Maybe by seeing the situation at first hand, they might have greater empathy with people who have chosen to leave their home and come to the UK.

 Perhaps it could be spread to homophobic crime – convicts could perhaps work for gay charities in Muslim countries.  They could perhaps do work for AIDS charities in Africa, which might make them realise HIV/AIDS is not just a gay issue.

 So I throw the matter over to the floor.  What we need, if we are to change the politics of this country, is not refined ideas about supply-side economics, but to subvert right wing totems, converting them in to simple policies that even the Daily Mail (and  that git I was in the carriage with) would have difficulty opposing. 

“National service for racists” is my new policy.  What’s yours? (in four words or less).

The MacKnackered Lecture 2007

By BigBrother in All posts 6 Comments Tags: , , ,

I have had precious little to say of late because (a) I’ve been unwell and on some serious medication, (b) it’s been the silliest of silly seasons for some years, and (c) my laptop is at least as unwell as its master, if not more so.

My lovely 3½-year-old PowerBook G4 1.33GHz 12″ keeps crashing with messages such as:

Unresolved kernel trap(cpu 0): 0×300 – Data access DAR=0×0000000000000000 PC=0x000000000002C334″

so I’m sure you can appreciate the gravity of the situation.  (I am reliably informed by t’Internet, by the way, that this means the pooter’s memory is – in technical jargon – knackered.)

What I really want is a nice, new, shiny MacBook Pro 2.4GHz 15″ but the Minister’s Wife won’t wear it.  She feels – and can you believe this? – that replacing rotten window frames and sagging lounge furniture is more important, particularly when we have a “perfectly good” (sic) Hewlett-Packard laptop I could use instead.  (I could use it, if I wanted to wait half an hour for it to boot up; attract 20 viruses, Trojans and bits of malware an hour; and have it crash three times a day because Microsoft Is Shit.)

I have reluctantly compromised by ordering a new gigabyte of Mac memory and a tiny Phillips screwdriver, in the hope that I can hamfistedly break into my pride and joy and replace the faulty stick of memory without knackering the unit even further.

If that doesn’t work I shall, of course, drift further into a depression, particularly in light of the discovery yesterday that the current exchange rate means I could currently buy my inamorata for a 23% discount ($2,499 in the Yankee States of Doodle against £1,599 here) if I (a) cashed in my Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles, and (b) successfully smuggled the new unit through Customs on my return.  If you ask me, it’s absolutely worth the risk of a criminal record and the damage to the environment.

You can keep your overhyped and overrated iPhone and your equally-overhyped but less overrated (though nevertheless inadequately capacious) iPod Touch but, to paraphrase National Treasure Jarvis Cocker(TM), thinking about the MacBook Pro just makes me wanna come.

And mention of National Treasure Jarvis Cocker(TM) reminds me that I am considering introducing a new occasional publication by the Ministry (to fill the gap left by togger), to wit: The Finest Individual Moments In The History Of Popular Music.

The intention would not be to wax lyrical about particular songs or artistes (for it has already been established that I am actually really rather crap at writing about music), but to highlight those little moments within recordings that, as the C&C Music Factory would have it, make you go, “Hmmm.”

More in due course, if I can think of more than four or so such moments.

But enough about me.  How are you?

Secret Seven, Hamilton Academical Nil

By BigBrother in All posts 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

Joe Queenan is absolutely right to moan about the Apatowisation of Hollywood.

Joe Queenan is right that Knocked Up is an astonishingly mediocre movie, written and made by the biggest wish-fulfilment merchants since John Huston and Arthur Miller put together The Misfits.

But what else does Joe Queenan suggest the Minister and his wife should see when the remaining fare at the multiplex in their God-forsaken “Northern Home Counties” townlet last week was Harry Potter 28, Rush Hour 3, Bourne 3, Shrek 3, Hairspray (which we saw out of desperation a couple of weeks ago) and the Transfuckingformers movie?

I guess we could have sought out something more leftfield by travelling to London.  But it costs a minimum of £32 and takes at least 60 minutes each way to do that (plus Tube fares and journeys – assuming the Tube is running, natch), even before you buy the tickets, the gallon of watered down syrup and the box of three-day-old popcorn.

So, Joe, much as I’m with you every step of the way – any movie about unplanned pregnancy that cannot even bring itself to say the word ‘abortion’; the closest Knocked Up achieves is “it rhymes with ‘schmaschmortion’” – is bobbins of the highest order.

Knocked Up is this summer’s overlauded ‘surprise’ hit movie because (a) it’s the only movie of the summer that’s not a sequel, threequel or fourquel (to the list above you can add Spider-Man 3, Pirates 3, Ocean’s 3, Fantastic Four 2, Hostel 2, Die Hard 4, Evan Bloody Almighty, Rush Hour 3 and Fulham 3 Tottenham 3) and (b) the way films are distributed in the UK means that it’s the best of a bunch of psispoor options presented to those semi-intelligent, semi-literate thirtysomethings who still occasionally like to go to the movies but don’t live in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

And breathe…

P and R are the first two letters in ‘prick’

By BigBrother in All posts 1 Comment Tags: , , , ,

I have always considered the University of Westminster a venerable institution.

Spurs score a spectacular own goal

Steven Barnett
Monday September 3, 2007
Guardian

An open letter to Daniel Levy, chairman of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club:

Dear Mr Levy

So now you have banned the Evening Standard from home matches and press conferences because that horrid columnist Matthew Norman has been nasty to you. Congratulations on another spectacular PR blunder. This particular decision follows a fortnight during which the club has managed publicly to insult its fans, its players and its manager with a combination of half-truths, barely concealed threats and embarrassing climbdowns. Your string of public relations own-goals makes Paul Robinson’s England performances look like Gordon Banks in his prime.

I confess to both a personal and professional interest. I was eight years old when Spurs did the double and have followed them for the last 45 years. But – and this is the point that should worry you – I spent nothing on the team for 30 years until last season. Then, thanks to manager Martin Jol’s success and Spurs’ emergence as a team worth watching, I started to spend money again. I went to White Hart Lane for the Uefa cup quarter final, I became a member, I even bought a ticket for next month’s game against Aston Villa.

Well from now on, you can stuff it. I will be giving away the Villa ticket. I won’t be renewing my membership. I don’t even care – and this is the ultimate act of heresy – if you lose against Arsenal in two weeks’ time. For me and many like me, your grasping, disloyal, short-term, ungrateful cynicism is the Spurs Ratner moment. It is the fatal inability to understand that even the most loyal brand values have a threshhold, and once it is crossed you start to lose not just credibility but ultimately money.

You may think you are simply following a trend. After all, Sir Alex Ferguson is notorious for banishing journalists who have offended him, and will still have nothing to do with the BBC after its unflattering documentary on his son Jason, a former football agent. Sam Allardyce, now of Newcastle, also won’t touch the Beeb after accusations made in last September’s Panorama about soccer bungs. The legendary manager Tommy Docherty spoke for many of his peers when he said: “There’s a place for the press in football, but they haven’t dug it yet.”

The difference is that these are football managers, not owners, who are loved and respected by their fans. They may not have an undying respect for a free press, but they can be forgiven because they speak with the authority of their club’s fan-base. You do not. The closest analogy to your petty censorship is the decision by Alexandre Gaydamak, the owner of Portsmouth, to ban the local paper after it reflected local concerns about the building of a new £600m stadium. It’s called journalism.

I understand that you have a communications director who spends her time redlining Jol’s programme notes. Perhaps she should be spending a little more time understanding the importance of free speech, half-decent PR, and customer loyalty.

It might also be worth looking at some case studies of crisis management: the likes of Perrier, Coca-Cola and Cadbury can instantly recognise a public relations disaster and the real financial damage it can inflict. You don’t seem to have a clue. And if your primary concern is – as some are suggesting – fattening up the club to maximise the sale value, the fans know how to hit you where it hurts.

I will be doing my bit and voluntarily excluding myself from White Hart Lane. With any luck, there will be hundreds of other long-suffering fans who choose to do the same. In the meantime, if you would like some free advice on how to manage the club’s public face, I have several students who could help. You might start by being a touch less sensitive to public criticism: you deserve every word.

Yours,
Steven Barnett
Professor of Communications,
University of Westminster

Mind you, Matthew Norman is a dick…

Calling Jeremy Vine

By BigBrother in All posts 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

Before certain of my hypercritical friends tear it apart, I would just like to say that I am actually rather pleased with this, my first effort at digitally stitching together a series of photographs to create a panoramic scene:

This is the new Wembley Stadium, for the uninitiated.

The larger photograph can be found here.

1 2 3