The Ministry Of Truth

Despite the Minister’s often-less-than-sunny-disposition I refuse to go to bed tonight believing that, in many respects, 2008 can be much worse than 2007.

In fairness, I say that most New Year’s Eves and so far I’ve been consistently wrong, but the law of averages means that one year I’m bound to be right…

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbour.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.

- Mark Twain

Stay healthy; be happy.  And if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.

The Minister loves you: Happy New Year.

I wasn’t hugely familiar with Kevin Greening’s work, but I heard him a few times on various stations and thought he was a better than average broadcaster with a decent sense of humour and the much-needed ability to reign in Zoe Ball (and drive the desk) when she first landed the Radio 1 breakfast show gig.

As with the Motherwell FC captain Phil O’Donnell, it’s obviously tragic when anyone so young dies so suddenly.  Both deaths – one so horribly public, one absolutely private – remain unexplained, which inevitably piques journos’ prurient interest.

I hope I’m wrong and am unfairly slighting the Guardian, but it seems unnecessarily innuendous that the news of Greening’s death should be illustrated by that newspaper’s website with a years-old picture carrying the following caption:

DJ Kevin Greening enjoys a cocktail at the Detroit bar in London, as part of the Absolut Bar Stars event, organised by the Terrence Higgins Trust in 1999.

The BBC, the Independent and the Telegraph all managed to find photographs to illustrate their reports with photographs that do not carry with them a snide allusion to HIV/AIDS.

I like this.

Can’t Paxo do this with Posh Boy Dave?

A Sri Lankan government minister was taken hostage by a TV station after he complained it had failed to cover one of his speeches.

Mervyn Silva entered the offices of Rupavahini TV in Colombo after it failed to air his speech at a ceremony to reopen a bridge destroyed by the 2004 tsunami.

A three-hour stand-off ensued after one of the Labour minister’s aides dragged the station’s news director out of the newsroom and tore open his shirt, according to reports.

Staff at the state-owned broadcaster then hemmed the minister and his entourage into a room and would not let him leave, demanding an apology.

Silva was released after he apologised for the incident – but a crowd outside the broadcaster pelted him with stones and sprayed him with red paint and dirty water as he was escorted by police to his vehicle. Some witnesses said the water contained urine.

The drama was broadcast live on Rupavahini TV, which broadcast a statement interrupting its usual programming to say the minister was being held in an office by staff.

Commandos and police with tear gas were deployed around the station as the real-life drama played out.

Local television showed hundreds of people at the premises shouting and jeering at the minister, who has been involved in previous disagreements with the media.

Taken hopelessly out of context but very funny nonetheless:

…both Mr Thatcher and Mrs Thatcher had to be released from bondage on different occasions.

I presume this means that Brenda will be opening up her vast property portfolio to provide housing for the homeless and the Crown Estates to provide jobs for the disadvantaged.

The Christmas story also draws attention to all those people who are on the edge of society – people who feel cut off and disadvantaged; people who, for one reason or another, are not able to enjoy the full benefits of living in a civilised and law-abiding community.

For these people the modern world can seem a distant and hostile place.

It is all too easy to ‘turn a blind eye’, ‘to pass by on the other side’, and leave it to experts and professionals.

All the great religious teachings of the world press home the message that everyone has a responsibility to care for the vulnerable.

Or did I miss something?

So we’re up and running on our new servers (provided by AN Hosting, a Midphase company, now part of the UK2.net Group, so I haven’t got a clue who I pay the bills to now).  And I think I’ve managed to transfer everything properly.

And we have a new look.  Minitrue 3.0 went live this morning and will doubtless be the recipient of much griping as the Ministry now probably looks too little like a blog.  As Spurs fans know all too well, you can’t win ‘em all.

I must now go and collect the Minister’s Mother-in-Law for today’s board games, “This isn’t turkey” and To The Manor Born Redux debacles.

The Ministry wishes its seven regulars a very merry Christmas and hopes to see you again on new servers soon.

That’ll be those legendary BBC journalistic standards then…

Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp believes Capello should recall defender Glenn Campbell to the England squad. The former Chelsea man has not played for his country since August 2005. (Daily Star)

Ballerina who likes the BNP gets engaged to BNP councillor.

Ballerina has child of mixed race from previous relationship with Cuban man of Chinese descent.

BNP councillor previously said: “I’m not opposed to mixed marriages but children [of these relationships] are washing out the identity of this country’s indigenous people.”

BNP councillor now says: “It doesn’t bother me at all. I knew about Simone’s child before I met her.”

BNP councillor admits that some people “outside the party with connections to more right wing parties” might be troubled by this.

1. Referring to the five-year-old girl in such warm terms clearly means BNP councillor has seen the light and will be a loving role model for the ballerina’s daughter, raising her in the ways of multi-cultural tolerance and respect.
2. There are “more right wing parties” than the BNP…?

The Minister has issues with Caitlin Moran.

It’s complicated, so we won’t go there at the moment.

But once in a while she does squeeze out something genuinely entertaining that makes me laugh.

Today, The Times carries her theory that Amy Winehouse has become a heroin addict because she wants a holiday and Lily Allen is having a baby because, er, she wants a holiday.

A sausage in a Novotel is somehow involved, too.

Worth a read.