Good grief, the great and the good are dropping like flies. Last week I heard that the cartoonist Ronald Searle had clocked out in December age 91. I can’t write obits for all these people but thankfully this is not necessary as The Economist published a fantastic one last week. The audio edition is even better.
men drinking at a bar in Berlin
Received this by Email today.
dictators
Mr. Coulden, may have been overheard in a pub talking about aliens
Unemployed taxi driver, Steve Coulden kept a “treasure trove” of information on a mobile phone which he alleges was targeted by a private investigator working for Rupert Murdoch’s News International, a court heard yesterday.
Lawyers for the former taxi driver said he thinks he can remember “possible anomalies” on his phone around 2005 or 2006 while Mr. Coulden was driving for Quick Cars of Camberly and this was the same time that a News Of The World reporter was hacking into mobile phones.
The 45-year-old driver is suing the Sunday newspaper and Mr Mulwaire – who he accuses of accessing the voicemails of friends of people who worked in a chip shop near the place where the radio controller of the taxi firm worked – for alleged breach of confidence and privacy by listening to messages left on his phone. Both the NOTW and Mr Mulwaire say there is no evidence that hacking of Coulden’s messages took place and nobody gives a shit about what he says anyway.
In a pre-trial hearing Jamie Reed, for Coulden, told the High Court in London that the science desk of the NOTW would have been “extremely interested” in matters related to Mr. Coulden’s theories on extra terrestrial visitations in south London and his plans for an engine which runs on washing powder.
Mr Reed said: “Mr Coulden’s position is that he can’t remember who called him and what they said but he thinks that the News Of The World knows something because of something he read in the pub one night that he can’t remember but it was something about aliens. He also explains that he rarely receives ‘real information’ in his voicemail messages and mostly it is a case of ‘Hi Steve, it’s Bob here, can you call me’ but he thinks that he did have a message from aliens about that time and anyway it’s the principle of the thing.
“He makes it quite clear that, though he doesn’t get a lot of calls, there is a treasure trove of sensitive information on his voicemail at any one time – or there used to be, not so much now that he is out of work”
The court also heard that Mr Coulden thinks that someone was listening to him when he was chatting to his friend Stan in the Three Greyhounds as the very next day The News Of The World ran an article about three legged Aliens which nobody had even talked about until Mr. Coulden had told his mate Stan that he’d seen one. However, Mr. Coulden, does admit that he may have called The News Of The World later that evening and left a message saying he’d seen three legged Aliens or something.
With perhaps dozens more similar cases now likely to be brought before the courts as a result of the announcement by Scotland Yard that it had discovered evidence of a new group of potential hacking victims, it seems unlikely that Mr Mulcaire will be allowed to fade from public view any time soon
So we’re off again. This time it’s Jeremy Paxman falling into the dreaded cunt trap when saying cuts, cuts, cuts on Newsnight.
While watching one of these stand up comedy programs a week or so ago it seemed to me that the comedians seemed desperate to prove their foul mouth credentials. In fact, they were not even that foul mouthed, but merely sprinkled their rhetoric with the word “fucking”. Don’t get me wrong I have no aversion to fucking swearing but I was reminded of a friend from my youth who used to use the word “fucking” prior to every noun. In his eyes many people were “fucking cunts” but one day he became so excited that he referred to someone as a FUCKING fucking cunt. I still find this amusing today because he’d merged the term fucking cunt into a single “ngram” so that the term still needed an additional adjective to kick it off.
Flicking through the Independent web site the other day I stumbled upon a Julie Burchill article entitled Say goodbye to the Enlightenment. We are living in the age of goatsuckers
I admit that I found the article virtually unreadably. It could have been that I was tired but I really could not be bothered to go back and reread it. I do recall the following phrase “….from teenage girls who are free to fuck when and who they want for the first time in history….”.
The word fuck drew my attention. I don’t think that it was because of any obscene connotations but because of the causal use of slang in a main stream newspaper. Not that I have anything to boast about in this regard.
Interestingly Google Ngram viewer shows that, as far as literature is concerned, the term cunt has been growing in popularity since the 1960s roughly following the popularity curve of tits and wanker. Bastard has long been popular and bum has been growing in popularity but the real star performer here is the word fuck. Fuck has shot up in popularity and is now more used even than bastard. This is comforting as it is in accord with my own experience of TV stand up comedy shows. Odd then that serious news presenters seemed to have become obsessed with cunts.
fuck cunt arse bastaard wanker tits bum
If she can clean, I have work for her
What is going on with British celebrities these days? It’s as if they know the gravy train is pulling into the station and are taking any old job to stay on our TV screens. David Walliams, for example, starred in Little Britain which has to be one of the most successful comedy series of all time. Yet this week he hosted a dire show on Channel 4 named Awfully Good showing crappy bits of TV from the past.
This follow Alexander Armstrong, of Armstrong and Miller, staring in Pimms adverts and a piffling quiz show named Pointless which has to rank lower than Jasper Carrott’s Golden Balls. Then there is Big Brother’s front woman Davina McCall pushing shampoo and fronting a forgettable rival to Who Wants to be a Millionaire named The Million Pound Drop.
I guess that, like the rest of us, with unemployment due to rise they think that they should just take whatever they can get. If their agents are listening then I need a cleaner for my flat and Ms. McCall may be suitable. As for the other two, if they are any good at plumbing then please Email their CVs to me care of Talking Bollocks.
As has become traditional I accompanied friends to see a Panto on Boxing Day. This time to the Cambridge Arts Theatre to see Aladdin starring Brad Fitt, Julie Buckfield, Matt Crosby and James Hirst.
All very well done and the kids loved it. The scene at Widow Twanky’s Washateria was my favourite though the magic carpet ride was also extremely effective.
BBC Radio 4′s Today program had James Naughtie using an unfortunate spoonerisms this morning when referring to the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. His slip up was followed by a noble, if halting, attempt to carry on. Well done Mr. Naughtie.
It is interesting that in the program which followed (Start The Week) Andrew Marr talked about Sigmund Freud and when referring to Mr. Naughtie’s embarrassment made the same slip himself.
The Guardian reports that they are both to make “personal apologies”. I can’t wait.
|
Photography
Is Brian True-May racist or is Lloyd Langford prejudice?
Tags: bigotry, Brian True-May, Caroline Graham, Lloyd Langford, midsomer murders, Midsummer Murders, prejudice, racism, The Now Show
What about the commuters?
This week we heard that TV producer Brian True-May has been suspended after being accused of racist comments relating to the ITV series Midsummer Murders. It seems that Brian True-May does not include racial minorities in this program as he does not think it would work. His supposed racism seems to boil down to the following comments:
Does this make him a racist?
One might also complain that the series includes no commuters, seems to over emphasise murder when this is a comparatively rare crime and that most of the programs take place in summer. I am no fan of Midsummer Murders, I find it boring and I don’t watch it. Though I can see the attraction of small English villages I am no special fan of them. I think that life in one might be rather dull. However, I recognise that some people, especially older people, find this program enjoyable.
Mutli-culturalism and tolerance are about acceptance of difference.
Yes, Midsummer Murders portrays a silly romanticised version of English village life. So what? It’s fiction! Do we really believe that East Enders is an honest portrayal of East London? Are we to ban Miss bloody Marple for being unrealistic? Do we really want a society where producers are forced to ensure that each program has a scientifically selected cross section of British society? Should the program also have quotas for the young, the old, the disabled? What about council flats and hoodies?
What sickens me with this sort of thing is the way the lame minded jump on the band wagon and repeat the accusation of racism like some McCarthyist witch hunt. Once someone is accused the pack falls on them and tears them to pieces. This evening a self riotous comedian named Lloyd Langford appeared on BBC Radio 4′s Now Show and joined in the abuse. It seems to be a trend with comedians that they resort to supposed-anti-racist hate speeches to get the audience on their side and of course the audience all laugh as nobody wants to appear racist. It seems to me that trampling a man’s reputation for laughs is a cheap and despicable tactic.
I have never heard of Brian True-May until this week and have no idea if he has racist tendencies or not. I do know that producing a fictional TV show based on a traditional and romanticised portrayal of an English village is not racist and that indulging in groundless accusations of racism is bigoted prejudice.
People used to say that nationalism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Now it seems that prejudice is the first fall back of comedians.
Listen to the interview