That’s it. I’m off. I’m emigrating.
This is just getting silly.
Chancer’s Paradise
Crash, bang, wallop
Today’s Caption Competition: what is Marti thinking?
How about: “I gave up smack for THIS?”
Where did it all go wrong?
June Sarpong has been awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting.
That’s JUNE SARPONG and SERVICES TO BROADCASTING in the same sentence.
Happy New Year.
Masochism
I respect Simon Jenkins a lot but his piece today seems a bit odd. He appears only recently to have twigged on to something that the rest of the world has known for 50 years:
Why is there no British Baker/Hamilton report? Why must Britain’s war in Iraq, now its most protracted, costly and savage war in half a century, dance attendance on events in Washington? While “stay the course” has been abandoned in America, even by George Bush, the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, indicated yesterday that it remained British policy. Tony Blair is now in Washington, apparently seeking permission to make a change. This is humiliating.
References to poodles aside, the UK aligned itself with the US in the 1940s and ever since has reaped what was then sown. With perhaps one exception – Suez (and didn’t that go well?) – the United Kingdom has not done anything of significance in terms of foreign policy that has not first been sanctioned (implicitly or explicitly, publicly or privately) by the then US President. And with perhaps one exception – Vietnam (and didn’t that go well?) – the UK has only once given America the bird when called upon to join in arms.
Prime Minister Bliar’s closeness to President Bush is the norm, not the exception, because Britain has been in the States’ financial and military pocket for over half a century: Harold Macmillan didn’t get along with Jack Kennedy just because he wanted some tips from the latter about how to succeed with the laydeez.
In fairness to the Churchill-Attlee generation of politicians, such alignment was the only way Britain could hope to retain a place at the high table of world affairs and, in that respect if no other, the special relationship has served us very well. (The crumbling of the Commonwealth meant that the only other option was to embrace European federalism alongside the same Germans whose bomb craters still dotted the land: hardly an idea that would have played well on the doorsteps in the 1950 General Election, I suspect.)
For me, the biggest humiliation in the whole of Bliar’s Middle Eastern antics is not our subservience to the USA but the current generation of politicians’ inability and/or refusal to learn from our historical mistakes. Anyone with half-an-inch of brain and a passing knowledge of modern history knows that Britain has been mired in unwinnable conflicts in or around Palestine, Afghanistan and Mesopotamia for 150 years. What arrogance makes Bliar think he can succeed where superpowers have consistently failed? What folly makes him believe that modern day Iraqis and Afghans would take any more kindly to foreign invaders than their ancestors did?
The humiliation is that, for all the billions of pounds pumped into the UK’s education system since 1945, so many people have had to die to enable Mr. Bliar and his friends to learn the lesson a half-decent history textbook could have taught them in one evening.
Grammy: winner
Now, this is tragic, sad and outrageous in equal measure, don’t get me wrong. But – and bear in mind I’ve had more than a couple of units as I type this – I can’t help but think of this:
You guys like going to the movies? You… you do? Three of you do? I love the fucking movies. Love ‘em. Now I’m watching ‘Terminator 2′, did ya’ll see that movie? Well, I’m watching, and I’m thinking to myself, You know what? There’s no way they’re ever gonna be able to top these stunts in a movie again, you cannot top this shit. Unless… They start using terminally ill people as stunt men in pictures. Well, hear me out. Because I know to some of you, this may sound a little cruel: “Aw, Bill. Terminally ill stunt people – that’s cruel.” You know what I think cruel is? Leaving your loved ones to die in some sterile hospital room surrounded by strangers. Fuck that! Put ‘em in the movies! What? You want your grandmother dying like a little bird in some hospital room, her translucent skin so thin you can see her last heartbeat work its way down her blue veins? Or do you want her to meet Chuck Norris? Hey, how come you dressed my grandmother up as a mugger? Shut up and get off the set. Action! Push her towards Chuck! (Karate noises) Wow, he kicked her head right off her body! Did you see that? Did you see my Grammy? She’s out of her misery, you’ve seen the greatest film of all time! I’m still feeling some resistance to this, man. What’s up? You and your fake fucking sympathy. Okay, how about these guys who’re being executed? Don’t do that. Poison, electrocute – how cruel! And unimaginative! Put ‘em in the movies! Jeffery Dahmer, for your crimes against humanity, of which you’ve been found guilty, I sentence you to Wes Craven’s next picture! Bwahahaha! Ahh! Ahh! Okay, not one of my more popular theories. But just do me a big favor – don’t ever say you love film as much as I do. I think we found your limit.
While the Ministry could never condone breach of copyright, read the full transcript of Bill Hicks’ Relentless show here. Better yet, buy the CD here.
…but I can’t trace time
Apparently it’s the first anniversary of Plastic Dave Cameron’s ascension to the Tory throne.
Apparently this means it’s time for State Of The Party pieces in the Sunday broadsheets.
Apparently the State Of The Party is confused.
In the Sunday Telegraph, a focus group thinks Plastic Dave is:
“[a] family man; posh; English; nice but dim; quasi cyclist; highly intelligent; cheerful; unknown quantity; slick; interesting; directionless; PR friendly”… Something stark is becoming apparent: Cameron is inspiring the most admiration among those who usually tend towards Labour, the Lib Dems or minority parties or who didn’t vote at the last election. He provokes the most critical comments from those who most frequently vote Tory.
Tory traditionalists are hostile towards Cameron for the same reason socialists (remember them?) were aghast at the rise of Mr. Tony Blair – because he’s full of shit as far as they’re concerned.
Consider that previous Conservative Secretaries of State for the Environment number the notorious greens Nicholas Ridley, Michael Heseltine and Peter Walker (who were, in fairness, complicit in the destruction of our coal industry, thereby significantly reducing the nation’s carbon emissions – if you don’t count the emissions involved in now shipping in all that cheap coal from Poland), Kenneth Baker and – oh, yes – Michael Fucking Howard: that line up shows you exactly how serious the last 30 years’ worth of Tory leaders took their responsibilities to the planet.
All of a sudden the annual conference finds itself addressed by a plastic man who rides a pedal cycle (as alien a concept to them as it was to Katharine Ross in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid) standing in front of a picture of a tree scrawled by a five-year-old with ADHD. When conference ends, the delegates drive home in their Jags and 4x4s and go back to work in businesses raping the planet with gay abandon. They don’t “get” it any more than Scargill and Benn “got” the blue-pencilling of Clause IV and the fellating of business tycoons.
And it would, of course, be more convincing to the rest of us if that pedal bike wasn’t being shadowed by a car carrying Plastic Dave’s change of clothes.
Almost everyone thinks he is caring and compassionate… Jane adds: “It seems to come naturally to him.” Even Colin agrees: “There is sincerity in him. You can’t fake that.”
You can’t?
Can’t you?
The Observer worries that Plastic Dave’s approach to politics might lead voters to see that the emperor is naked:
The greatest risk David Cameron takes is that being fashionable will go out of political fashion.
The newspaper’s Andrew Rawnsley also points out that eventually someone is going to ask Plastic Dave actually to say something meaningful instead of mouthing sanctimonious platitudes.
But then, what’s this in The Sunday Times?
David Cameron, the Conservative party leader, is facing an official investigation for hosting a series of fundraising events in the House of Commons. He and other senior Tories have hosted 32 fundraising lunches or dinners in private parliamentary rooms in the past two months. They are thought to have raised more than £100,000.
Last week, two backbench Labour MPs filed a formal complaint with Sir Philip Mawer, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
Parliamentary rules ban the use of Commons dining facilities for fundraising. They state: “The private dining rooms are not to be used for direct financial or material gain by a sponsor, political party or any other person or outside organisation.”
The sale of dinners in the Commons is the latest fundraising controversy to hit Cameron. Last week the Tories disclosed they had taken substantial loans running into millions of pounds from several offshore trusts and companies at rates below those offered by conventional banks.
Thank fuck for that: sleaze and money. After a year, at last I can identify with the Tory leader.
I wouldn’t say journalists are lazy, but…
…there’s a story in today’s Sunday Times written by David Cracknell.
And Sarah Baxter.
With additional reporting by Michael Smith.
The article is 300 words in length.
Mistletoe And Wine
Damn, but this is good.
Words might fail me, but for the inclusion in the English language of the wonderfully utilitarian word ‘twat’.
Why isn’t there writing this good in the newspapers?
Oh.
Hic, haec, hoc!
HAHAHA! And yes, the Minister does have a voucher…
Oh-oh, atomic
You know if nuclear power is so safe and our Government is so confident about building all these new nuclear power stations and nuclear powered and armed submarines?
Then why the Hell are they running around the country impounding planes and shutting down restaurants just because a bloke who died of nuclear poisoning flew on them or dined in them?
Just a thought.
Saw Jeremy Hardy tonight. A very funny man. He doesn’t like wasps either. His description of Scary Ruth Kelly as the Buggery Czar was a particular highlight.