Church-side poster campaign advises "there's probably no bus, so enjoy your sledging and don't worry"

Insipid dance act Little Boots could become “at least as big as The Twang” after topping the BBC’s infallible “Sound of 2009” poll.

Industry insiders speculated that the teenage singer is now certain to follow in the footsteps of artists as globally huge as Sadie Ama, Marcos Hernandez, Ghosts, Tali, The Bravery and Plan B and become a seminal artist with a lengthy and successful career.

“We’re talking Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong huge” said industry insider Alfie Boots (no relation) who asked not to be named.

“By the end of 2009, we can expect to see people naming their children “Little Boots” and talking about her in a way they talk about Black Mountain now.”

“Year after year the BBC heroically sticks its neck out and predict that the artists the major record labels are going to be pushing the hardest this year may or may not become quite successful,” said Jeff Nicholas, BBC’s Head of Soothsaying.

“The simple truth is, we have never, ever, ever, ever get it drastically wrong and triumphantly announced that some two-bit here today gone today nonentity would be as big as Jesus before seeing them disappear of the radar forever before the end of January. Ever”.

Little Boots described herself as “aware” of topping the poll.

“It’s amazing to think that by the end of 2009 I will be as ubiquitous as Air Traffic and Tom Vek are now,” she said.

*Androzani notwithstanding.

As a PR practitioner (I thought it would be a glamorous and sexy way to pass the time while i finish my novel....) the words i have to say on this topic are, "DRUNK ON SCHADENFREUDE, THAT'S ME"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2008/oct/29/lilyallen-celebrity?commentpage=1

According to the Big British Castle - tag this "That's Life-esque grammatical errors" - they like to blood them very young indeed at Sheff Wed. Well, either that or they clone their centre forwards and grow genetically identical replacements in pods....

Sheffield Wednesday boss Brian Laws told BBC Radio Sheffield:

Do you feel comfortable enough with colleagues to casually chat to them during the day? Even about non-work-related topics like “X-Factor” and football and the Hadron Collider? Do you make the drudgery of the working day pass a little quicker with lightweight banter with your colleagues? Do you even count some of them as friends?”

STOP!
 

COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR FELLOW WORKER ANTS IS DESTROYING YOUR CAREER, OUR ECONOMY, AND IS MOST LIKELY CREATING A BLACK HOLE IN SWITZERLAND WHICH WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING!

 

That’s the advice of 'Careerbuilder.co.uk' anyway, who have discovered, probably all by themselves with no recourse to a right-wing Astroturf group or anything like that at all, that "office gossip and banter is costing the UK £43 billion a year".

 

It doesn’t actually specify how much money is lost by people writing blog entries at work, so presumably that’s ok…

 

What they mean is, apparently there is a colossal drain on productivity caused by basic human interaction. So stop it!

 

Actually, you can talk a little. But make you’re very careful about what you say, as “There is a limit… to the topics of conversation one should bring up in the office, especially when so many walls have ears.”

 

Walls have ears? Shudder! How long have we been living in an Orwellian nightmare? Did I miss a meeting?

 

So, how can you save your career? Here’s Careerbuilder’s advice!

 

1. Think your workmates want to see you happy? Think again! Are you happy? Stop!

 

“If Cupid has struck, fantastic. But don't bore everyone to death with details of your boyfriend's or girlfriend's cute dimple or favourite band. Nobody really cares and soon everyone will do their best to avoid you.”

 

2. There is no “I have leukemia” in team

“Illness and Maladies…can be a sensitive area...No one needs to be taken through specific details about your bunion.”

3. Don't keep going on about finding your wife's decapitated body when you got in last night, the trouble you're having with those balifs or your daughter's dialysis, you're making yourself look distracted!

“When you discuss problems like these (personal problems) openly, your boss will get to hear about them and may wonder if they are distracting you from doing your job”

 

4. Watch out! There’s a commie about!

 

“And finally, there will always be people in your job who seem to enjoy stirring things up, complaining about management and trying to draw others into it. If you can't tell people how you feel about discussing these subjects, walk away. Say you have to get back to work or pop out. If that isn't possible, don't pay any attention to what is being said. The best that you can do is to keep out of it.”

 

Arbeit macht frei kids, Arbeit macht frei!

 

As every blog in the universe is required by law to express their opinion on Sarah Palin, I’ve taken the liberty of packing my thoughts into convenient bite-size picnic-friendly nuggets.

 

#1This is someone who thinks you shouldn’t be able to get an abortion if you’ve been raped by your father.

 

#2 McCain has shown some spectacular political acumen in choosing to neutralise his own attacks on Obama’s inexperience by putting someone whose experience doesn’t stretch much further than being mayor of somewhere roughly 30 times smaller than Sunderland a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States of the America.

 

And let’s face it, with the best will in the world, McCain has about 45 heartbeats left at best.

 

I want this guy with his finger on the button!

 

#3 Palin's opposition to same-sex marriage is so rabid that she supports a constitutional amendment denying state health benefits to same-sex couples and in her Christian eyes (i.e. compassionate, loving, forgiving, etc) it debases the sanctity of marriage.

 

Coercing your teenage daughter into a shotgun wedding to save your professional blushes and appease your Christian conservative base on the other hand, is absolutely fine, and if anything enhancing the institution! Viva consistency!

 

Still, for someone in my line of work, Palin is something of a godsend.

 

As I’ve stated many times before, the Dutch have compulsory sex education from the age of five, and lo and behold, they have the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe.

 

We have no compulsory sex education at all (and where it exists it focuses largely on which bits go where and nothing to do with the wider emotional context) and we have the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe.

 

The debate basically ends there, as far as I’m concerned, but still, it’s nice to have some more ammunition.

 

Palin is an opponent of “explicit” sex education and believes only in abstinence only education.

 

She has a knocked-up 17-year-old at home.

 

The strategy clearly works a treat!

 

Having parents and professionals talk about sex with young people doesn’t encourage it, but failing to provide decent sex education leaves children more vulnerable to malign influences who are more than happy to.

 

Puberty sexualises you. Not education. You may as well say that road safety lessons encourage car crashes. State the common arguments against thorough SRE in terms of other valid academic subjects, and see how sensible they sound.

 

“There’s no evidence at all that teaching children Maths makes them any better at Maths, it just encourages them to be innumerate”.

 

Well exactly.

 

 

 

 

If I have a fault (ahem) it's that I'm too willing to see the best in people. Even when it isn't there.

No matter what the insult or slight some berk has perpetrated on me or a loved one, i'm always first in line with "well, try to see things from their side" like a feckless wimpish nitwit.

Because of that, I've always assumed that Daily Mail hacks aren't really evil, they're just ruthlessly focussed - unlike most media organisations, is has to be said - on serving up lashings and lashings of what their audience wants. 

In fact I'd always rather hoped that life at Mail HQ was a rather jolly experience where earthly liberal types who have to pay the bills like everyone else treat their ludiocrous job as a brilliant intellectual party game - you know like that thing Bob Monkhouse would do when he had to link "My wife makes a lovely Parsnip soup" to "I like to steal the shoes of bakers" to "The 1748 Treaty of Westphalia and it's implications" using three weak one-liners.

"Right I've got to get from "Cheryl Cole apparently has a new hat" to "THIS IS A PLOT BY HAGGIS MCROBBER TO STEAL YOUR ENDOWMENT POLICY AS PART OF THE NU-LIABOUR COMMUNIST JUNTA. I SAY PUT THEM IN THE ARMY, HANG THEM, THEN DEPORT THEM. AND GUESS WHOS PAYING" in 50 words.

So it's rather dispiriting when you actually get one of the bellends on the phone.

Fortunately, being a former hack myself means that using the power of shorthand i was able to record this enquiry for posterity. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Daily Mail journalist.

"There's this borough in London who have said they've got too many kids and now 90 of them haven't got school places, probably too many immigrants, you know"

Ho hum, another idealistic delusion crushed like a moth beneath a mammoth....

As we prepare for the curtain to rise on the Olympics this Friday, presumably with an opening ceremony where the Olympic flame is set alight with flaming Tibetan monks (by which i mean self-immolated, i haven't caught Australian) these are the philosopical musings of one co-worker.  

"I don't know why people keep going on about human rights abuses in China. Does anyone care? No country is whiter then white. I think we're going to do really well in the Rowing"

"Man critical after bus attack"

"Admittedly I shouldn't have said those things about his mother, but there was no need for the sodding mass transit system to swing for me...." 

We sort of have a policy in these parts of not basing postings on comments from the Daily Mail website. It's pointless manatee-in-a-bath-tub stuff and we're above it.

However, I thouhght this classic, taken from a story about women who are raped while on holiday, couldn't go unmentioned.


I feel sorry for the women concerned rape is very unpleasant even on holiday.
- Dee, Hampshire, England, 18/6/2008 0:15 

 

 

“Councils are using anti-terror laws to spy on you!”

 

Over the past few months, the above headline has become something of a classic – no newspaper or bulletin is complete without one. The news ain’t over until the unsubstantiated spying council scare story. It’s the apocryphal singing fat lady. It’s when they used to play the national anthem at the end of broadcasting on BBC1. It’s Don Henley closing with “American Pie”….

 

These “stories” all concern the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), constantly referred to as “anti-terror legislation”.

 

As the name suggests, it actually concerns the regulation of investigatory powers. The act regulates (i.e. limits) what and how authorities can and can’t investigate.

 

So really it would be more accurate to say “Councils are using investigatory powers to investigate stuff”

 

Hmm, that’s not such a great story though is it? Just imagine what the billboards would look like if the media had to be, you know, informed and accurate about this - like they’re supposed to.

 

“Extra! Extra! Councils use investigation to investigate what they’ve always investigated and are legally responsible for investigating!”

 

Ah, you can just hear the adorable flat-capped cockney urchin shouting it now!

 

So what are they investigating? Well, typically surveillance to combat and prevent the sale of alcohol, solvents, cigarettes and spray paints to children and young people, major environmental crimes, anti-social behaviour, fraud and rouge trading conmen.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “John, these are all big concerns for people, in fact we’re always reading that councils should be doing more to tackle these issues, so surely the fact that councils are taking their role of protecting children, stopping us being ripped off, and well, cutting crime very seriously is a very good thing. This is actually rather reassuring.”

 

And you’d be absolutely right.

 

Even this isn’t enough for some hacks though.

 

The Sunday Sun (described on it’s own web forum by it’s own readers as “tired and worn out”, “a complete shambles” “seem(s) to have run out of ideas”, “a shadow of what it once was” “absolute tripe” and “disgraceful” – check it out, http://forums.sundaysun.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=9724) went, so far as to say in a story written by Eleanor Gregson, and titled, guess what, “Spy powers abused by town hall”:

 

“NORTH councils are using anti-terrorism powers to spy on people suspected of minor offences such as fly tipping… (and other) petty matters, leading to them being compared to the Stasi . . . the notorious Eastern German secret police.”

(http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/news/north-east-news/2008/06/01/spy-powers-abused-by-town-hall-79310-21004800)

 

Let’s turn a blind eye to the risible crassness of Eleanor (oh, I’m sorry, her contributor from a pressure group/lone crank in a shed lower down in the piece) implying there is no distinction between one organisation responsible for torture and disappearances and another who empties your wheelie bin. Let’s be good enough to her to focus on the bigger picture.

 

The fact that fly-tipping, to Eleanor, is “petty” and “minor”.

 

The illegal dumping of tonnes and tonnes of potentially deadly industrial waste in public places - I know of one instance of it being next to a school – at the cost of thousands of pounds of public money. This is “minor” to you Eleanor?

 

Would you like me to come and dump some chemical waste in your front room? How about a load of knackered fridges? Would that be petty to you?

 

Well now factor in a possible public health threat to that pettiness.

 

Twit.

 

 

NB:

 

The same issue of this esteemed “newspaper” also carried a follow-up story on the recent fining of a 16-year-old boy for littering.

 

This was called, by the “Good Samaritan” who has stepped in to pay the fine, “political correctness gone mad”. 

 Aside from the much-needed confirmation that London is at least 53% unforgivably stupid and 5% racist, last week’s local elections raised more questions than they solved.

 

How could such a spectacularly popular government, riding high in the polls and headed a charismatic and nationally-adored leader, on the back of a number of popular (especially with their core support) new policies and aided by a buoyant economy, do quite so badly?

 

The answer, in Northumberland at least, is excessive vaginas.

 

David Montgomery, who, in a probably unrelated incident, lost his seat on Northumberland Council last week, explained his party’s poor showing thus: Too many female candidates. 

 

“We have lost very experienced councillors* for no good reason. The party embarked on positive action for women but it has been a total disaster for Northumberland,” he told The Journal.

 

He’s right of course. Genital shape has been widely recognised as a key factor in deciding elections. I remember Peter Snow vividly demonstrating this during election night coverage in 1992 by sitting astride a colossal animatronic phallus as it crashed repeatedly into a blue-screened-in map of Britain with the words “5% swing in the marginals needed for overall Labour majority”. Something to do with people not liking the idea of elected-officials menstruating while submitting notices of motion and having the ability to produce milk and sit on scrutiny committees at the same time!

 

In other news, there’s a certain amount of wishful thinking, or possibly psychotropic substance misuse, at the Telegraph, which today so far forgets itself to pose the question, “Has the time come when it’s cool to be posh?... Despite the best efforts of his rivals to lampoon him as an old Etonian buffoon, Boris Johnson’s election to mayor of London marks a cultural shift”.

 

Doesn’t it though? To think the day would come when a wealthy white man who went to Eton and Oxford achieved high office! And so soon!

 

Bliss it was to be alive this dawn.

 

 

 

*Who could he possibly mean?

 

 

From Children and Young People Now,

"Depression blamed for self-harm epidemic"


Really? I assumed it was a combination of optimism and youthful joie de vivre....

More North East teenagers than ever before are accessing sexual health services.

Sounds like good news doesn't it?

Yeah, well apparently it isn't. 

Actually, accorrding to the leading authority on youth social care the Sunday Sun could come up with - a mouth-foaming-dogma-spewing-cretin from the Institute of Shrieking Idiocy at Passers-by from a Street Corner While Remaining Cheerfully Oblivious to the fact their Quaint Supersitions are rather dependent on Teenage Pregnancy at Crucial points aren't they, aren't they, AREN'T THEY? - it means we're (gasp!) "sexualising children", who clearly knew absolutely nothing of sex until they gaily skipped into a family planning clinic when a game of hopscotch went badly wrong or something.

Mike Judge (for tis he) also points out that having these sorts of services is telling our young people that we "expect them to be sexually active while they are still at school".

"Most women who talk about their early sexual experiences have feelings of regret.” he concludes. 

Thinking back to my early experiences, he's probably right about that one, albeit it for the wrong reasons. Nonetheless, any lady readers who have been wanton enough as to have not waited until thier wedding night, feel free to post your expressions of regret, contrition and shame below.

Read more, should you be able to stomach this type of thing on a Monday - including Mr Judge's "thoughts" on how your choice of underpants makes you morally corrupt (John's spot analysis - when they're wearing crotchless panties to nursery, we have a problem, until then, go away) - here. 

http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/sundaysun/news/tm_headline=north-girls-leading-underage-sex-table%26method=full%26objectid=20057113%26siteid=50081-name_page.html

If i had the energy I'd also offer some brief criticism of the Sunday Sun's headline, "North Girls Leading Underage Sex Table", in particular posing the question, "who exactly are these underage girls having sex with?", following it up with "golly, don't you think your headline is terribly (and distastefully) sexist in light of this revelation".

But it's Monday and I don't.

 With a bunch of flat earth windowlickers with a perverse axe to grind attempting to force their superstitions on the rest of us like the sodding enlightenment never happened group of concerned citizens trying to instigate a mature public debate on scientific ethics in light of recent technological advances as new legislation makes it’s way through our bicameral parliamentary system (i.e. is it wrong to take the life of something it’s now possible to take a blurry photograph of?), it seems an excellent time to consider the abortion “debate” (for the want of a better word).

 
Entirely plausible

The mystery which has gripped the nation for it seems like a century has now been solved - By Central Station I Sat Down and Wept can reveal.   

Today's release (crucially not by the police) of an incredibly helpful cartoon sketch, apparently rendered in crayon, of "a new suspect"  in the Maddie McCann saga, designed to take the heat off  prove once and for all that it was that classic folk demon,  a nebulous swarthy foreigner, what done it, has allowed this very blog to solve the mystery once and for all. 

The Wire did it!



Let's get her!

Or possibly the scary family from the video to "If you tolerate this then your children will be next". 

I just couldn't find a screen capture of them. 

 John-Joe O’Toole is, in my opinion, the best named Watford player since Clint Easton (or indeed, Clint Easton? as he was generally referred to by tannoy announcers who, quite reasonably, couldn’t believe that someone was actually called that).

 

Today's Daily Mail, with it headline,

"It's not always rape if a woman is drunk, says judge"

makes it perfectly clear what we all knew all along. It's not rape if she's incapacitated. If anything, it's her fault. If i'd only known this sooner, i'd have saved myself a lot of time and aggravation hanging about in alleyways carrying a knife. You live, you learn.

But what do your fellow countrymen make of this news? Here are a handful of comments on the announcement on the Mail website, which i have chosen to post with no prejudicial comment from myself.

"Of course I don't condone rape but am pleased to see that women will now have to take some responsibility."

"Of course no self-respecting woman wants to be raped; but surely women who go out with the sole intention of getting drunk do not have much self-respect in the first place."

" I am sympathetic of course to any woman who suffers from any type of sexual assault, however people should drink responsibly"

"In my own youth, there was no such thing as 'date rape'. If you were a woman and you got drunk and had sex, then you had to take the responsibility and the consequences."

"Has anybody advised them not to get legless or is that their 'human right' ?"

"Once a 'Lady' has drunk more than lets say 2 bottles of wine she should lose the right to cry rape."