Further Tales from Daily Mail Island 2

After writing the below post, I possibly have a new favourite.

Women have no place in the army. They should stick to sowing and cooking and stuff.
- dunitburger, Coventry UK, 22/11/2009 9:06

Further Tales from Daily Mail Island

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you a new national pastime, one that will delight you for a few hours at least.

Visit the Daily Mail website, and select a news story at random. At the bottom, will be a selection of reader comments. Ok, nothing new there. Then select 'worst rated'. This shows up the comments that have been flagged as being offensive and in poor taste. They also appear to be unmoderated.

Then have a look at 'best rated'.

Although, the best one I saw was sitting unfiltered at the top of a story about ten female soldiers being returned from Afghanistan because they had become pregnant.

Here it is:

It takes two to tango. However when you put both sexes together in battle conditions a bit of comfort after the fight is understandable. Women should NOT be on the front line, or on board ships
- Margaret, Suffolk, 22/11/2009 16:33

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229961/Ten-pregnant-Servicewomen-sent-home-Afghanistan-war.html#ixzz0XdQ1HTMw

Thank you, Margaret in Suffolk. Women shouldn't be allowed on ships. This is the voice of the people.

Good night, Great Britain.

Things You Find When Ill (1)

I was hovering around the internet, looking for tasty bits of distracting rubbish, when I came across this CNN story - linked here.

The gist is that there is a trend for souped up golf carts. Alright, I can see the logic in that - if you could afford the Ferrari of the Fairway, you'd choose that, over the G-Wizz of the Greens. (I like that line a lot. Read it again, please. Mmmm.)

The section that really caught my attention, was this one:

The most recent purchase was by pop star Cheryl Cole, who bought husband and Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole a "Mini-Hummer" buggy as a gift, spending $8,000 customizing the cart with gold-plated hub caps, Swarovski crystals and a trunk for his golf clubs.

Footballers often play golf, but I had previously assumed it wouldn't be one of Ashley's hobbies. I searched Google for references to Ashley Cole ever playing golf, and got nothing. Nowt.

So, is this the most ludicrous golf related purchase ever? Please get in touch if you have either one of the below;

1. More ludicrous wastes of money stories
2. Pictures of Ashley Cole playing 18 hole golf
3. Ideas for the most over-pimped 'thing' ever

Thank you.

iTunes vs. George Handel vs. T-Mobile

Hello,

It's been a while! Needless to say, the pace of modern living doesn't stretch to keeping various instant news and moods sites up to date.

Yes, this afternoon I decided to educate myself and bought Flight of the Conchords album. Lovely!

Then after that I listened to the Fighting Talk podcast, which features the "Hallelujah!" section from Handel's Messiah. So for a few quid, I bought the LSO performance. It has now been downloading for some four hours. Arses.

Four hours? For two CDs? This must be some kind of perverse joke.

Thanks to iTunes (relatively blameless), George Handel (entirely blameless), and T-Mobile (who annoy me more as each day passes).

Chat

Hello.

Judging by my last few posts, it looks like I have been spending a lot of time queueing in newsagents. This is true.

It is also how I discovered the tag line for Chat magazine:

Life! Death! Prizes!

Ugh.

Click here to see for yourself.

More News

I was wondering the other day, just at why whenever the temperature creeps above "Brrrr!" and the sun comes out from behind the rain clouds for more than seven minutes, scantily clad women appear to frolic in the surf in genteel Bournemouth. Why do photographers always have such good luck at finding members of the public who are dressed accordingly? And how do they always use the pictures as a quick guide to show just how warm it is? Why Bournemouth?

As soon as the thought took hold, I realised; women in bikinis sell papers, they are possibly models anyway, and the photographers are probably in the save van from London as the models. And pictures say more than a thousand words. Well, it covers as much space, anyway.

That thought resolved, I turned to that day's offering from The Sun. Bearing in mind the UK is in its coldest weather period for 18 years, the paper was full of snow and floods. And, on page 12, naked in the snow, save for wellingtons, Joceline Brooke-Hamilton and Sam Brooks, who refused to dress warm at a naturists' gathering in Bournemouth, Dorset.

The picture caption is "Girls...in Bournemouth". Is journalism that easy?

Bournemouth. Again.

Oh, The Horror!

Last night, I wanted to write about the trend of the current culture of outrage about anything mildly offensive. The reason was this newspaper headline:

Link to the web version here.

The story here is some students made some spoof advertisments in a student newspaper for commemorative 'Royal Doulton' style crockery. The subjects were well known murderers of the UK, and the theme was, apparently, "[celebrating] the plucky mischievous Brits who did gratuitous violence best".

The artwork and sentiment is good, highlighting the pithy nature of these advertisments in Sunday magazines, whilst cleverly transposing the tired images of Princess Diana or the Queen Mother with those of the The Wests or Peter Sutcliffe.

At the moment, more comedy theory than comedy gold. This is the thing that Viz (see links) have been doing, and doing it better, for as long as I can remember.

This is where the Birmingham Mail comes in.

Badged as an exclusive (how could simply reporting something that has already been printed in another publication possibly be an exclusive?), the story is the front page headline - "Fury at students' sick ad", with the sub headline of "China commemorates UK's violent child killers". More on that section later.

Using information garnered from the story itself, I can reduce this headline to virtually the word "Students'".

Within 61 words of the main text, the "ad" is revealled to be a spoof.

"Fury" seems to relate solely to the quotes from the un-named spokeswoman from the 'Support After Murder and Manslaughter' support group. She says, "It is incredibly offensive to bereaved families bereaved families and glorifies violence and killing". She ends with, "I will certainly be complaining to the university."

From this, I can confidently say that the spokeswoman was tipped off with information from the Birmingham Mail, and had no knowledge of this until contacted by them - the future tense of the complaint action is my clue here.

Support After Murder and Manslaughter are based in Finsbury Square, London, and more information on them can be obtained by clicking here.

The response from the university can hardly be called "fury". An un-named spokesman for the University of Birmingham will be censuring the un-endorsed newspaper by telling them to stop using their logo and to not distribute their magazine on campus. Damn! That's fury alright!

"Sick" is entirely subjective. Some people who have been affected by murder or manslaughter could find this offensive, but I feel that they are not responsible for raising this important issue to the attention of the Birmingham Mail - otherwise they would have been quoted. Or, at least referred to in some way.

The peice ends with "[editor of the magazine] Mr Bacon refused to apologise and said: "It is deeply regrettable that people waste their money on this kind of sentimental tat advertised in Sunday newspapers, which our 'advert' was clearly lampooning."

So, pretty much a non story.

So offensive were the images and their potential to "glorif[y] violence and killing", the responsible and considerate journalists print the pictures in colour over two pages.

Following on from recent high profile, agenda setting outrage news stories (i.e. Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand, Carol Thatcher), it appears that the Birmingham Mail has finally found something truly shocking and will not stop until it has hounded the protagonists into a Mail-engineered forced apology. 

The editorial piece on page 52 seems to confirm my view; "...the mock advertisments...are crude, silly and just plain wrong. [...] Those behind this muddle-headed escapade should grow up, get real and apologise immediately".

Erm, apologise to whom, exactly?

Friday the 13th saw the expected follow up piece, headlined by "Legal action by University of Birmingham over student newspaper". The legal action in question is referring to the unauthorised use of the university crest. (Link here.)

This misplaced crusade for justice I am sure will be quietly dropped as soon as some real news arrives. Like snow.

As someone who has taken risks with humour ever since taunting the school bully for comic effect, this is concerning to me. Misunderstandings often ending up causing the most offence, and, perversely, I am more offended by the Mail's cavalier approach to bargain bucket journalism than the original spoof commercials. Misunderstandings often arise by people who mean well, but take things too far.

Hopefully, the Chinese Embassy in London won't misunderstand my email, underlining the fact that the Birmingham newspaper with the circulation of 176,395 (Source: ABC) printed these very words on their front page: "China commemorates UK's violent child killers".

But sadly, my piece was delayed by some urgent Solitaire or something like that.

Today's Independent features a (much better than mine) article on outrage and tolerance, by Johann Hari. Last week, he printed an article on the same theme, questioning the thinking behind the UN's decision to take religion out of 'free speech' during discussions. For example, if there is a discussion about unsavoury practices of a hypothetical 'particularly religious nation', this can be struck down as it is an apparent 'attack on my religion'.

Anyhow, this open thought peice was reprinted in Calcutta, which caused rioting and call for not only the local publisher but Hari himself for arrest. (The editor and publisher were subsequently arrested.)

Please read this article, if you can find it online.

The most important thing for me in that article is this, "Putting up with offence is part of being a free adult".

Here endeth the sermon for today.

Esther Rantzen - Update

As if by magic itself, the current edition of Viz (see links) has a 'news article' about "Esther Rantzen To Have Sex With A Gorilla". Amazing.

Now, to bed.

Esther Rantzen / Daily Express

Esther Rantzen appeared on the front cover of Friday's Daily Express bemoaning the way that swearing has permeated through society, and how Britain has become a less courteous society.

Whilst I agree that Britain is less courteous than at any other point I can remember, I find it strange that I am being lectured by a woman who is mostly well known for bringing swearing dogs and suggestively shaped vegetables into living rooms across the nation.

Swearing has happened to a lesser or greater degree for as long as there have been expressions of despair and heavy things to drop on one's feet. Upon my tisket! There are some that overuse swearing - this is genuinely a lack of imagination and vocabulary. As David Baddiel's father said, "...If everybody says f*** all the time, it gets boring doesn't it?", Swearing, at the appropriate time, can either summarize an entire situation in one word, or finish a scene in a comedy to great effect.

So, it has got to the stage where a woman who has had a career furthered by mild vulgarity, is now railing against it.

Glorious!

I Am 30

What else to do but to share one of the finest bits of graffiti  in the city:

Hello

Some points, connected in no discernable order:

• All the great TV comedy situations have been created or exploited
  
• Radio is a lot harder than is seems to listen to
  
• Genius on iTunes keeps crashing when it delivers my results
  
• Mini Discs rock!
  
• Safari for Windows doesn't understand English English
  
• Neil from The Young One's character surname is Pye
  
• I can now speak visual basic...
  
• I am tired yet addicted to writing
  
• I think I may have overstretched myself a bit with charity work and real life, meant to go to the gym today but overslept by two hours, so won't get another chance to go until Friday (if I'm lucky)
  
• The second series of The Mighty Boosh was either too dark or the funny bits had been edited out
  
• Ironing is theraputic
  
• Why to people who do shoes also do keys?
  
• Why do people who do keys also do shoes?
  
• Newcastle United have made Manchester City look stable and calm in comparison
  
• Clearing your work desk out "just because people at other banks have had to put all of their stuff in boxes at short notice, and I think that would be a good idea here" as a reason doesn't go down well
  
• FC Porto have a Brazilian player called Hulk
  
• Fiesta has increased in price significantly over the last sixteen years or so
  
• I have just over a week of being a TwentySomething to go, meaning I move up an age bracket in surveys...
  

All this and more, in my head and now in yours!

Podcast?

Through the wonders of eBay, someone sold me a very cheap Mini Disc recorder. These things are fantastic for voice recording in the field (and not in fields, for that matter). I want to be able to develop my READING OUT LOUD FOR BROADCAST skills, and have been quietly muttering rubbish into it without doing anything vaguely constructive. So, I'm considering visiting exotic places and reading these witterings out and putting them up as a podcast for you to listen to at your leisure, anywhere in the world.

What do you think?

Secret Crush - Crushed

A few months ago, I mentioned a secret crush on this very page, of a newsreader.

A few weeks had passed without 'accidentally' catching her on any of the news programmes, and my mind wandered to what she could be doing. Me being me, at first I imagined she could be tidying hotel rooms, dressed as a French maid. However, this would be ridiculous - but the image lingered.

I checked in on one of this great land's numerous comments boards, entirely devoted to speculation and screengrabs of lovely news presenters. I have some sad news to report. According to the group, she has left the company and won't be coming back.

Naturally, the past few days have been spent with an electrical tape black armband in grateful memory of those happy summers days when she'd would sign off the programmes with a special goodbye, specifically to me (surely!), and to the seventeen wonderous gigs of screengrabs and video on my hard drive.

So thank you for your time. You know your name - just as long as no-one else finds out!

n.b. There aren't seventeen gigs. This was made up for comic effect.

Tennis

I picked up a following the exertions from the athletics the other week, I picked up a tennis racquet for the first time since leaving the warehouse. Now my bro and I have played two truncated sets over two weekends, and have completely wrecked ourselves. We have a lot of respect for tennis players who make it look easy and have more fitness than it first appears. My groin didn’t recover for days.

So extra kudos to Andy Murray in New York after beating the world number one Rafael Nadal to get to the final against...the best male tennis player in recent times, Roger Federer.

British people need to learn that there's more to tennis than two weeks at Wimbledon!

Woktastic

A few words of thanks for Woktastic who offered me some free sushi outside of their new restaurant in Paradise Forum (Birmingham’s Central Library). I have been keen to try some sushi and was excited to try some for free. Unfortunately, it was soaking in vinegar. I am grateful for the opportunity to try something new, so I’m more than happy to drop a free plug for their restaurant and website. Harigato!

The Nothing Too Pretentious Cookbook

Yes, apologies to the flood of people who have mailed in - 200°C is also 400°F and Gas Mark 6.

Thanks.

Maplins – Poorly Constructed Consumer Rant

I really dislike Maplins. As I have mentioned before, everything I have ever bought from there has been an absolute disappointment. Including the new satellite receiver I bought a few weeks ago. I returned it to them today, expecting a prompt refund.  This didn’t happen, and it may take fourteen days to get my money back, as the unit has to be sent for testing. Whilst there, I saw that they have raised the price by £10.

After this, I questioned the receipt; after all it said “return me within 14 days for a refund”. Ah, but the unit has to go back for testing before Maplins can me the money.

Maplins have taken my money hostage. I have nothing to show for my receipt in terms of goods. 

Arseholes.

I shall never set foot in that blasted shop again, unless it is either to continue to claim my money back, or to fart loudly.

Double arseholes.

Organised

Evening,

I am running the Fantasy League that will probably be worth three days of unpaid work, as well as being the most responsibility I have been given since starting work at a bank.

I have no fear; at the weekend I visited Muji on New Street, and was overcome with a Zen like calmness and desire for order. This exploded across my life over the past few days, and I have been de-cluttering and ordering everything within reach. Observe:

Nearby there is a sign announcing "Get Organised or Die Trying". I spent about £8 on a wonderous heavy plastic set of drawers that have sprinkled Japanese, efficient, elegant magic to my work desk at home. I also bought a spray bottle that not only sprays and does jets, it works, and works well and has a satisfying silence and grace. The Honda of spray bottles, if you will. My basil plant (Ocimum basilicum) will surely be watered to death over the coming days.

The crappy satellite dish is ready for return, my lunch for work tomorrow was prepared in stunning fashion at 7.21 this evening. How long will this last?

So I am largely organised. I didn't get an interview for the job I was after; never mind. The pile of post I was complaining about from my printer has gone; KABOOM! Actioned and filed. 

Two tasks down, several more to go.

Sarcastic Work Experience Report

Timekeeping: Not sure. Never seemed to be at her desk.

Learning Ability: Limited to stuff about texting

Appearance: Wretched, with special mentions to jeans and trainers

Motivation: Seemed to be money, violence and watching television

Relationship with other employees: Non-Existant

Relationship with manager: Possibly hostile

Ability to follow/seek guidance: Ha!

Ability to work in group/team: Never in a month of Sundays

General comments: Possibly the squadron leader for the next wave of inconsiderate mouth-breathers that will further tarnish the name of our once great nation. I weep for all of us, for in fifty years, thei children will care for us in our nursing homes, unless, I can finally get my hands on some automatic weapons.

Letters to The Editor

Morning,

Yesterday evening, with the more than able assistance of Mr. W, we created some reactionary and subversive letters to The Evening Mail, and The Sun. Here they are:

Knives:
My 14 year old loves Facebook and I was happy for him to use the internets to chat to his friends. After your front page, I grounded him and filled his computer with sand. Now he hates me, but this is a small price to pay for his safety. It wasn't like this in my day.

'Concerned'

Asylum Seekers/Illegals:
I am stunned to read of yet more mindless violence on our streets, caused by these so-called 'asylum seekers'. In my day these criminals would have been thrown out of the country, but now, because of the do-gooders, they are given a hotel room and free Sky TV. Disgraceful.

General:
I agree with S.T. Vaughan. I wouldn't trust most MPs as far as I could throw them!

"Youth of Today":
On a visit to my local shopping centre, I was shocked and disgusted to overhear a conversation between two youngsters at the bus stop. The language they were using I can only describe as unprintable! It's about time they brought back national service to instil some integrity, manners and respect in the youth of today.

Disgusted Citizen, Frankley

On The Buses:
As we hear so much in these pages attacking Birmingham's bus service, I feel it is only right that I put pen to paper to praise the driver of the number 63 bus who greeted me with a cheery smile today. Following an altercation with some youths, he proved himself to be the model of professionalism. Keep up the good work!

June Badcock, Rubery

"The Germans":
I was shocked and appalled to read that the Barber's children were not allowed to play on the swings - unlike the German children. How Mike Barber restrained himself is beyond me. Remind me, who won the war, anyway?

Anon

Yes, 'internets' is deliberate...