Broadsheets Category
Top news from The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Indepedent and The Guardian newspapers
Credit Cruch: The Beginning Of The End At UBS
THE Credit Crunch. Says Tim: Yessssss! Result!
Seriously, this is excellent news:
The crisis in the troubled US sub-prime mortgage market has sent Swiss investment banking giant UBS tumbling to its first quarterly loss in almost a decade and prompted sweeping changes to senior management and significant job losses.
In a trading update, the Swiss lender said it will record a loss of up to SFr800m (£340m) for the third quarter thanks to “substantial losses” on investments relating to sub-prime mortgage assets.
It said that about 1500 employees will be made redundant by the end of the year.
No, I’m not exulting in fat cats getting the sack, hey, I’m not writing for The Guardian here. Rather, this is the beginning of the end for the credit crunch.
Remember back a few weeks when this all started? What everyone knew was that there were losses in those sub-prime loans. That wasn’t what caused the problems: what did was that no one knew where the losses were. The loans had been sliced and diced and then parked with investors all over the world and no one actually knew who was going to take a loss when John Doe was foreclosed upon. So no one would trade those loans nor would anyone lend using them as security. Thus the credit crunch.
Now we’re beginning to find out where those losses are. There’s been a couple of German regional banks going tits up and now we’re seeing the majors announcing their losses. Once we’ve got the whole reporting season over, we’ll know where the losses are, what the loans themselves are worth, and then, given that prices can be assigned to them, the loans will once again be traded and accepted as security.
Lots of people will have lost money, to be sure, but the credit crunch will be over.
Posted: 1st, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Money | Comment
Boris Johnson London Mayor Race: Bozza v Ken v Brian The Snail
“TORIES pick Boris to take on ‘King Newt’,” announces the Telegraph.
Well, less announces than whispers as the news that Boris Johnson has been chosen to take on Ken Livingstone for the job of London mayor appears in a side column on the paper’s page 4. Boris’s face is sandwiched between the news that the “BBC ‘to rely on more repeats’” and “City bonuses are driving up the price of farmland”.
The only paper to give Johnson any space is the Independent, which brings its readers “’Fogey’ Boris is chosen to take Livingstone”.
The paper produces wallet-size biogs of the leading contenders. Ken is 62, compared a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard and introduced the congestion charge. Alias: Red Ken.
Boris is Eton College educated, writes for the Telegraph and wants to scrap London’s bendy buses. Alias: Bozza. Alias: Boris – his real first name is Alexander.
So is it a Boris or is it a Ken?
Londoners would do well to conjure with those names. Boris – Becker, Pasternak, Yeltsin and Karloff. Ken – Barbie’s lover, Barlow, Rosewall and Dodd.
Exciting times there. And the polemic is only agitated by the Indy noticing that the contest includes a Brian.
He’s Brain Paddick, 51. He is the likely Liberal Democrat candidate. Brian is “soft on cannabis”, an ex-copper and “in favour of a non-strike agreement with tube unions”. Brian is the dreamer. Alias: The Pot Cop. (Although only the Indy’s offices have ever heard him called that.)
Tickle me pink, as Boris might say. Yeeeesss,” as Ken is wont to drone.
The race is on. Ken or Boris to win? Or Brian – the snail…?
Posted: 28th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (3)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: You Should See His Boyfriend
“IS American right to demonise President Ahmadinejad of Iran?”
This is the Independent’s “big question”.
Ahmadinejad is billed as “controversial leader”. He says things like “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.”
The easy response would be “Your boyfriend did”. But that would be childish, no better then calling him names, such as “Evil” and “Madman Iran” (New York tabloids).
So should Ahmadinejad be monstered? The Times doesn’t say, it’s too busy watching Foreign Secretary David Miliband at Labour party conference and employing the headline “Aaaargh! It’s Frankenstein’s minister…”
Do the Iranian newspapers speak of Ahmadinejad in the same open fashion? As the man told us, his is free society, the Iranian peoples “joyous”. He can take a joke.
But to the Indy’s question. Is the US right. It says it is mistaken in conferring upon Ahmadinejad a prominence that is not his due. He is not the top nutter in Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “calls the shots and dictates nuclear policy”. He’s the joyous one who told us: “The only way to confront the Zionist enemy is the continuation and fortification of resistance and Jihad.”
The Indy says the other mistake is that scaremongering enables Ahmadinejad to “portray nuclear power as a priority and a matter of national pride”.
What odds a nuclear mushroom cloud appearing on the Iranian flag, in similar fashion to how it’s allies at Hezbollah show a garish green Kalashnikov on theirs. (Flags, like weaponry, must move with the times.)
And, then, personal insults, as the Indy, says are never edifying. Ahmadinejad might be a jumped up, onanistic-eyed gibbon with chronic short-man syndrome but it would be beneath us to say so.
So he should not be demonised by the Americans. Ahmadinejad should be allowed to speak freely and openly. As his comments on homosexuality show, the more he speaks, the scarier he looks…
Pic: Cox & Forkum
Posted: 26th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (3)
Global Warming: Hilary Benn’s World Without China
GLOBAL warming. According to Hilary Benn, it’s the “greatest challenge we have ever faced as human beings”.
Benn, the Environment Secretary, is seen by the Times addressing a green summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The human beings he speaks of might be the ones flown in to sit around the big table and dispel hot air. But Benn is part of “humble” Gordon Brown’s Cabinet and though entitled to place himself at the centre of world events he needs to recognise humility.
So it’s not all about Benn. The human beings are us. This is the biggest challenge any of us have every faced. No small news to human beings who are fighting in Iraq, the human beings who fought dinosaurs (I’ve seen the footage) and the human beings who helped build the big boat to save all living things from drowning (New Labour: Noah Labour).
Says Benn: “That means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the United States, taking on binding reduction targets.”
The Times says Benn’s decision to “single out…will be regarded in Washington as particularly provocative”.
Not that George Bush is listening that closely. Readers learn says he missed most of the summit and has called his own meeting of 15 major economies in Washington later in the week.
Bush’s chief environmental adviser says: “It’s out philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be.”
Says Hilary Benn: “China in the end will have to decide what they are going to contribute.”
A truly global approach, then…
Posted: 25th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
The Andrew Pelling Challenge: Tory, Labour Or LibDem?
ANDREW Pelling, MP for Central Croydon, has been arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife.
There now follows a test of your political instinct. We will deliver the facts, as told by the Times, and ask you to guess which political party Mr Pelling represents.
He is 48. His wife is 26. She is seven weeks pregnant. She is called Lucy.
When Mr Pelling met Lucy he was married to Sanae Umeda Pelling. Lucy was in his employ. Mr Pelling is a former investment banker.
He ended his 14 year-marriage to the mother of his three children when she was visiting her dying father in Japan. Although in the Express this marriage lasted 18 years. Also the Pelling home worth £600,000 in the Mail rises to £700,000 in the Express. But that’s the housing market for you.
Sanae says: “He treated me like a doormat. As far as he was concerned I was there to raise his children and cook his food.”
As the Mirror reports, Sanae claims her former husband posted money through her letterbox to avoid seeing her. She once said: “Once my children ran out to catch him before he left but he drove away. They were in tears. They couldn’t understand how he could choose a woman half his age over them.”
Those are the facts, such as they are represented.
And you realise that Mr Pelling is a Labour politician. No, not really. He’s a Tory. But he could be from either party.
Although not from the LibDems, who are too old and, as the reaction to leader Menzies Campbell’s conference speech proved, too clapped out for such goings on…
Posted: 21st, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (6)
TMZ & OJ Simpson: Harvey Levin At Work
A NEW twist in the latest, already-bizarre OJ Simpson story is leading us to suspect that the new charges against Simpson will be dropped and that the entire incident was staged to drum up publicity for the Simpson book that’s just been released– and the new, flailing TV show based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site, TMZ.com, writes Tabloid Baby:
In 1994, local TV news reporter Harvey Levin almost caused murder charges against OJ Simpson to be tossed out when he presented a video on KCBS TV that allegedly showed prosecutor Marcia Clark searching Simpson’s home before a search warrant was issued. Within days, Harvey was forced to retract the story and apologize on air (see Tabloid Baby for the story behind that boner). This week, as Harvey and his boycrew hysterically overcover the latest OJ Simpson story on their corporate porn-pushing gossip site, the erstwhile attorney once again throws a case against Simpson into jeopardy, this time by buying up a crucial piece of evidence:
Associated Press: A profanity-filled audio recording, apparently of O. J. Simpson and others during the incident last week that led to his arrest, surfaced online today.
In the 38-second recording, the voice of a man identified as Mr. Simpson by TMZ.com, the Web site where it is posted, is heard repeatedly telling others not to let anyone out of the room and accusing those present of stealing his property and trying to sell it…
TMZ.Com, the web site that posted the audio recording today, said it was made by (Thomas) Riccio (A sports memorabiia dealer who accompanied OJ Simpson to the room). It did not say how it obtained the recording…
In a brief interview today Mr. Riccio said TMZ paid him for the recording, but he declined to divulge the price.
Whether the Riccio audio will be of use to prosecutors is an open question. Mr. Riccio withheld it from the police for three days before he sold it to TMZ.Com, a decision that may taint it, Lieutenant Nichols said.
“He did not turn that over to us immediately, so that evidentiary value may have been damaged,” Lieutenant Nichols said. “What could’ve been the proverbial nail in the coffin is now floating around on TMZ.com instead. I don’t think we can just download that and bring it into court, but that’s for the D.A. to decide.”
We haven’t been watching the TMZ TV show, but we suspect the audiotape was acted out with cheesy animated puppets.
On a more serious note, stay tuned for developments…
Posted: 18th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)
War On Terror: Briefs Defend Guantanomo Bay Speedos
THE Independent gets beneath the burka on the War on Terror.
And readers are introduced to “the case of the Guantanamo lawyer, the detainees and the illegal pair of paints”.
Lawyers, we learn, have been pressing the US Government for evidence against their clients. In response, commanders at Guantanamo Bay have written to the briefs.
The allegation is: inmates are accused of wearing contraband underpants and swimming trunks. And not just any swimming trunks but Speedos, the budgie smugglers adored by Olympic swimmers and men of a certain vintage in Italian beaches.
And the US wants to know who has supplied these pants. It is a matter of no little urgency.
Astonishingly, this makes news in the paper’s main section and not in a Sunday supplement, in which the Indy’s fashion editor looks at what the terror suspect is wearing under his orange overalls this year.
Beneath The Veiled Threats
But this is a criminal matter. And the US is pointing the finger at Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of human rights groups Reprieve (champions of feely moving boxer shorts), and one of his associates within the group.
Under US law it is a criminal offence to bring any “illicit item” into prison. Underwear is banned. Speedos may represent a breach of a prisoner’s human rights.
As the judge advocate notes in a missive to Mr Smith: “Your client Shaker Aamer… was recently discovered to be wearing Under Armor briefs and a Speedo bathing suit…We are investigating the matter to determine the origins of the above contraband and ensure that parties who have been involved understand the seriousness of the transgression.”
We can only say that Speedos are on open sale in many major department stores and via online operators. Under Armor briefs may well be part of a shadowy arms deal.
That the two should be worn together is a matter of some interest and suggests low self-esteem in the wearer.
Security Measures
Mr Stafford Smith is unimpressed. He calls it an “unfounded accusation”. He is doing “a job that involves legal briefs, not the other sort”.
He goes on: “I cannot imagine who would want to give my client Speedos or why. Mr Aamer is hardly in a position to go swimming, since the only available water is the toilet in his cell.”
We are no position to say whether Mr Aamer is wont to perch on the toilet bowl’s edge, pressing the flush and diving in to surf on the wave.
All we can say with any certainty is that anyone who wears Speedos in a non-competitive arena is most likely of dubious mind.
Indeed, had the suspects all warn Y-fronts with their vests tucked in, they would most likely be free and leading meaningful and decent lives…
Posted: 14th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (6)
Global Warming: Blackpool Zoo Primates Agonise Over Tory Policy
WHAT does the Labour Party do on the carpet? And bear in mind that John Prescott still serves as MP for Kingston upon Hull East.
It’s just that the Times reports that at this year’s Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, the red team will be “recycling the carpets”.
Are we to believe that this represents a departure from the norm and after each Labour conference all carpets trod by the great and good are ripped up and replaced?
What are they hiding?
Are there traces of illicit substances in the thread?
Are the carpets cut into squares and auctioned off, like Wembley turf? This is your chance to buy a square inch of ground touched by Hazel Blears? Capet your guest toilet with Ed Miliband.
The Times does not illuminate us. And we go on to learn that at its conference, the Conservatives will give waste paper to Blackpool zoo.
What price the view as the Pygmy Goats ruminate on the Tories’ economic policy and Pileated Gibbons are handed typewriters to see if they can produce a superior manifesto.
Pic: Poldraw
Posted: 13th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)
News Feed: Fat Americans Can Tighten Their Belts As Petrol Prices Bite
“RISING petrol prices could force obese American to hit the streets.”
So says the Independent, which omits to add that the rising cost of gasoline could force obese Americans to remain indoors eating home delivery, only leaving the place when the roof is removed and they are prized from their lounge by the Jaws of Life.
But the Indy has a point to make and it is that rising oil prices need not be all bad news.
The paper sees lardy Americans climbing into monster trucks to drive to town for a “super-sized plate full of fatty fast-food”.
They consume “mountains of chips, fried meat and baked goods all washed down with corn-sweetened soft drinks”.
And are they happy. No, they are not. For that they need pills. The Indy sees them drive to the book shops and consume a diet of diets and slimming advice.
But now Americans are being subjected to rising fuel costs. And that means they will have to walk or take the bus. It also means that many are tightening their belts and packing their own lunches.
At least this is what the report A Silver Lining? The Connection between Gas Princes and Obesity suggests.
“I was pumping gas one day, thinking with gas prices so high I may have to take the Metro,” says the reports author, Charles Courtemanche, of the University of Washington, St Louis (weight not supplied).
The author worked out that by walking to work he would get an extra 30 minutes a day exercise, although it does depend on how fast he walks. Given the picure of Americans painted by the Indy, we’d guess Mr America walks very slowly, covering no more than 100 yards or the length of an average mid-West buffet.
He then correlated rates of obesity and petrol prices in America.
The expert concluded that 13 per cent of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 could be attributed to the falling price of petrol. The other 87 per cent could be attributed to eating too much and walking too little.
Sadly, he fails to answer why with petrol prices far higher here than in the US, the British are getting fatter.
Perhaps the expert is saving that for another study…
Posted: 13th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)
It’s Been Emotional: Back To School For Hugs
IT’S back to school time. School children are dusting off iPods and polishing their trainers; teachers are dusting off the bongo drums and learning the value of hugs.
As the Telegraph says, happiness lessons are to be taught to all secondary school children, the Government is expected to announce today.
School days will be the happy days of a child’s life.
As readers learn (and do feel free to smile and even chuckle – it’s what Life Long Learning is all about): “Under the programme, following a concept known as the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (Seal), the children were encouraged to talk about their feelings in group assemblies or in one-to-one sessions with a teacher.”
As Mick Hume writes in the Times, “What does it matter if children cannot spell ‘emotional’, so long as they are in touch with their feelings?” Hold hands and discuss over a cup of warm milk.
A happy school force is a productive school force, goes the motto. And what they are producing in the learning factory is joy and goodwill.
Susan Hallam, who led the research for the Institute of Education, says: “Most of the effort in recent years has been on academic work. Seal gives teachers and pupils permission to think about things that are not academic.
It allows them to take time to consider how they think about themselves and others.”
Claps your hands. And honk your noses. Seal is a winner. And we are interested to see if seeking happiness from within will keep today’s children away from euphoria-inducing drugs and rave music. Look out for the school orchestra replacing the hate-filled recorder with yogic humming, lots of clapping and upper body swaying.
Posted: 5th, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment (1)
Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich Does Not See The Light
THEY say he sleeps upside down with his head in pot of molten gold.
They say his London home is powered by 2,000 eunuchs chewing on white tigers’ testicles.
They say Roman Abramovich did enter the Andrew Martin shop in Walton Street, South Kensington and try to buy a lamp.
He offered his polonium credit card. And it was declined. A witness, says the Times, saw all. They say Abramovich was “very polite about it”.
They say rivers started to run backwards and Britain’s richest man did walk on his hands in circles.
So they say…
Posted: 4th, September 2007 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets, Money | Comment (1)
Cops For Doughnuts And Catford Hasn’t A Prayer
THE Guardian brings news of a new collection of prayers by the Church of England.
These are designed to help in “banishing the Monday blues”, and include “the thoughts of a curate from Catford, east London, on the trials and tribulations of commuting by train”. (Trials and tribulations that will be made even more complicated if you think Catford is in east London – other papers prefer to situate it in its normal berth several miles south of the river.)
One group not catered for, however, is police firearms teams. Yet judging from the recent news, it would seem that they – and their potential victims – are in need of some help from on high.
Last week we reported how officers at Gatwick Airport were in the habit of leaving their weapons lying around.
We told how the problem was so routine that a series of penalties had been established. An officer leaving a handgun unattended would have to buy doughnuts for everyone, while the punishment for a sub-machine gun was a cake.
Now the Guardian tells how an officer managed to avoid leaving his gun unattended.
The bad news is that he then shot himself in the leg as he was getting into a police car in London on Saturday night.
No one else was hurt, but it probably means a lot of paperwork and general inconvenience.
Using the Gatwick yardstick, we reckon the officer in question has got to be looking at a couple of boxes of Krispy Kremes at the very least.
Posted: 3rd, September 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)
Ronnie: The Autobiography, The Life And Times Keith Richards’ Stoned Sidekick
ONE book that you could reasonably expect to find left unread in Keith Richards’ hotel room – apart from Give Up Smoking in Ten Days – is Ronnie: The Autobiography, the life and times of his Stoned sidekick Ronald Wood.
That’s assuming that there is a copy in Keef’s room in the first place – which is unlikely, unless Wood intends leaving a copy by every bed, next to the Gideon bible.
The Independent explains that Richards’ lack of enthusiasm for Wood’s project is because he is publishing it before Keef’s own effort, which is due in 2010, assuming he doesn’t fall headfirst out of any more trees in the meantime.
In the meantime, Wood says that the pair have ‘agreed to keep it at arm’s length from each other’.
This sounds like a good idea. In the past, the paper notes, the pair have put guns to each other’s heads, and Richards once put a knife to Wood’s throat. On another occasion he threw Ron’s canary out of a hotel window because it was disturbing his hangover and he thought it was an alarm clock.
The canary was presumably kept for the same reason that miners used to take them down pits: to warn of dangerous fumes.
Richards, as has been reported recently, is in the habit of ignoring anti-smoking regulations. He lights up at any opportunity, including on stage, and exhales a noxious blend of tobacco and Jack Daniel’s.
The Stones are now on tour once more, and given Wood’s close proximity to Richards, he should consider wearing some kind of breathing apparatus if he wishes to survive long enough to witness his own book’s launch in October.
Keith Richards Looks Like Cliff Richard Chewing A Fag
Posted: 29th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)
Enid Blyton’s Famous Five Return To The S.O.U.R.C.E
REMEMBER the Famous Five?
No, not the Fab Four… No, not Five Star…
What, none of you? Doesn’t anybody have any appreciation of our literary heritage?
The Famous Five were Dick (a “clever dick” in the days when that meant something completely innocent), Julian (the sensible leader), George (the sort of girl who would have been called a “tomboy”), Anne (the proper girl who did the washing-up) and Timmy the dog.
They spent their time having adventures which usually involved bringing surly criminals and suspicious foreigners to the attention of the police.
They were the creation of Enid Blyton, whose last Famous Five adventure appeared in 1963. That, as Philip Larkin pointed out, was the year that first Beatles LP was released, and sexual intercourse began.
In other words, the Five were doomed.
Or were they? “Five hit middle age and meet again on TV,” announces The Times. The gang, it transpires, are to return as middle aged incarnations of their former selves, with Timmy “represented by one of his descendents”. Or replaced, to be strictly accurate.
The Times has spoken to “a source”, who says that “it will be interesting to see whether the characters have grown up to be like they were as children.”
This is a rather odd thing to say, given that the Five are, as far as we were aware, a fictional creation. Surely the “source” must be intimately involved in shaping their destiny, and knows full well what lies in store for the middle-aged meddlers.
But wait. That name, “source”. S.O.U.R.C.E….
Of course! It’s a message in code from the Five…
Save… Our… Universe… Resources… Countryside and Environment…
By Jove!
Just as the BBC abdicates responsibility for saving the planet, the Five have come to the rescue.
Hurrah!
Posted: 28th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (5)
Blondes Pass A-Levels In Record Numbers: A-Grade Melanie Slade
THIS season’s A-level results are in and the papers can confirm that – yes! – blonde girls have passed the tests in record numbers.
The first blonde is Mel Slade, formerly known as Melanie Slade and still known as the lover to Arsenal’s wonderkid Theo Walcott.
Mel completed an A-level in “critical thinking” last year. She tells the Mirror: “I did find them really hard and I had a lot of distractions over the last two years so I’m really pleased.”
Mel has B grades in psychology and maths and a C in biology. Some figures, readers. Phwoar!
And Mel is not alone. The Mail shows two blonde pupils from Withington Girls School, Manchester, embracing as they realise school is over and they a can enter the real world of adult education and student debt. Hurrah!
Good news for gingers too, as the Mail says Princess Beatrice has achieved an A in drama and Bs in history and film studies.
But blondes lead the way.
And the Times features blonde twins on its front page. It’s not Samanda from Big Brother, but Jenny and Lisa Pickett.
The 18-year-old blonde twins took their A-levels and passed. Lisa, a pupil at Brighton College, scored two Bs and an A. Sadly, this in not enough for her to study English at Nottingham University.
Her twin sister Jenny (school unspecified), scored two As and a B, which was enough to secure her a place to study Spanish at the University of Exeter.
They are the Times’ front-page new – “The twins and the grade A problem.”
Lisa says she is “immensely disappointed… I don’t understand why my marks in English were low when all I have scored is A in English throughout the A-level course.”
Or course, Lisa should realise that an A-grade is now the least a student can expect.
And she should realise that there is more to life than study. There is fun. And blondes do have more fun. Stay blonde, Lisa. Stay blonde, Jenny.
The rest of us can only try our best…
Posted: 17th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (4)
Stoned Journalists Wanted For Channel 4 Documentary
“CHANNEL 4 has caused controversy after inviting journalists to take drugs and alcohol for a documentary.” (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
So says the Telegraph. And it’s no small shock to read that journalists need an invitation to imbibe spirits and the fumes from herbal cigarettes.
But the paper’s Nicole Martin knows her craft. And she says the results are to be part ofa study into whether cannabis and ecstasy are more harmful than alcohol.
TV company Ricochet is said to have written to prospective participants inviting them to spend a month in Holland where they would take drugs and drink alcohol “with no legal repercussions”.
“We are looking for journalists in their 20s or early 30s who are happy to admit to the occasional or more regular use of one of these substances and allow us to follow the effects that it has on their body over the period of a month,” says Hannah Lamb, an assistant producer, in an email.
“They would take the journalists to Holland where there would be no legal repercussions and where they have a great university who will be monitoring the effects.”
Why go to Holland? Why not just monitor some Dutch journalists? Or are they so very foreign?
And why only journalists? Why not Cabinet Ministers? Or TV executives?
Posted: 16th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (4)
Gap-Year Students Are No Good To Anyone
“GAP-year students told to forget aid projects,” say the Times’ front-page headline.
There’s a picture of Prince Harry, who took a gap from getting plastered in Boujis and playing soldiers, tending a garden in Lesotho.
Interesting to note that back home in Houses Clarence and Highgrove there is an Army of gardeners tending plants. In Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall estate, there are people expert in making organic jam and chutney.
Was there no room for Harry in the Windsors’ garden party? Better perhaps had the Palace sent one of these trained horticulturalists to Africa than an unskilled teenager, and taught the boy a trade back home.
The Voluntary Service Overseas is concerned that gap-year projects benefit no-one aside from the travel companies that organise them and the youths looking for an experience.
Do-gooding teens can feel superior to their peers backpacking working a bar in Faliraki and selling timeshare in Marbella by paying £2,400 to work on a South African horse safari and £1,895 “observing coral and marine life in Borneo”.
Readers learn of the volunteer to Mexico who paid to work on a conservation project and spent six months behind a desk inputting data. And there’s the volunteer teacher who discovered that her placement had led to the real teacher being made redundant.
Meanwhile, Harry is putting his gardening skills to good use by crawling in the undergrowth and showing a photographer his haymaker…
Posted: 14th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (5)
Sunday Newspapers With A Bible Supplement
FIGARO looks at the Sunday papers. And amid the section on property, cars, sport and nun fetishism sees something New:
Quote: “Do they object to getting a bag of Quaker oatmeal or Tide detergent or an AOL disc?” Paul Tolleson, official with the International Bible Society – Send the Light, in Time.
Figure of Speech: argumentum ad fortiori (for-tee-OR-ee), the argument from strength.
A Bible publisher wants to distribute New Testaments, specially printed to fit inside those annoying plastic bags that accompany newspapers. The idea has generated some criticism — much of it, to the group’s surprise, from Christians. Tolleson’s reply pleases Figaro mightily, for two reasons: it uses one of his favorite argument tactics, and it’s delightfully knuckleheaded.
The fortiori argument employs a comparison. If the weaker case succeeded, it stands to reason that the stronger case will. People don’t mind getting soap with their newspaper, so why should they object to the Bible?
Because, Christians answer, the Bible is not a brand (Word-o-God — Accept no substitutes!). Believers do not want their most sacred text tossed in the trash with supermarket fliers.
There’s a moral here, O faithful Figarists. Before you argue from strength, make sure you actually have an argument from strength.
Snappy Answer: “Does it come with sin redemption coupons?”
Posted: 8th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)
Adolf Hitler’s Greatest Hits
“HITLER’S greatest hits.”
So begins the Times. And there is the old pop picker Adolf Hitler himself stood among a record collection.
This is no flight of fancy. The Times is not walking down memory lane wondering what Hitler would be listening to if he were around today – lots of Erasure, Phil Collins (post Genesis) and Inspector Cyril “Blakey” Blake singing the theme song from On The Buses.
This is the real deal. Former Soviet intelligence officer Lew Besymenski is dead. But he has left behind the records he found in Hitler’s Chancellery in Berlin in May 1945.
Now Zat’s Vot I Call Musik 1945 features such boot stomping tunes as Mozart Piano Sonata No 8 in A minor with Arthur Schnable. That’s at No.5.
In at 4 is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, soloist Bronislaw Huberman.
Shock indeed, pop pickers. Schnable was a Jew. Not ‘arf. Huberman was also a Jew. The temptation is to think of Hitler pointing to flaws in the playing and finding reason to ensure such musical imprecision never occurs again by killing Huberman, Schable and all of their families.
“You see,” says Hitler. “They kill the music, the Jews. And if you don’t have music what is there but nothing? Nothing!”
But there is reason to believe Hitler’s music was not based on racial lines. In at Number 3 is Russian arias, including the death of Boris Godunov, by Mussorgsky, sung by the Russian bass Fyodor Shalyapin.
Those Russian Untermenschen may have irregular shaped heads but, boy, could they ever right a show tune.
Of course, there is music and there is the right music and while the Jew and the Russian toil the German wins.
“There was never a Jewish art,” says Hitler in Mein Kampf, “and there is none today.” “Critic. Schmitic,” says Schnable.
So what it Hitler’s top tune. It’s not trad jazz, that theme tune of lost causes.
At No. 2 is Wagner’s overture to The Flying Dutchman by the Bayreuth Orchestra, conducted by Heinz Tietjen.
And at No. 1 it’s Piano sonatas, Opus 78 and 90, by Beethoven.
But why say in words what we can be aid so much better in music?
Take it away, Mein Fuhrer: “Come on, come on, let’s stick together
You know we made a vow not to leave one another never…”
Posted: 7th, August 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (12)
London 2012 Olympic Logo Is One Step Beyond
HOW do you encapsulate the Olympics in one single image? How do you capture the unending quest for glory, the physical perfection, the humanity, the dreams, the, erm, cheating, corruption and wanton drug taking? (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
Well, design agency Wolff Olins thought long and hard about their brief for the London 2012 games.
Yet after all their hard work, culminating in the unveiling of their £500,000 creation at the Camden Roundhouse today, what do they get for their trouble? Answer: howls of derision. Well, that and a very large pay packet, of course.
The new logo, which features chunky and angular numbers, was apparently created for the “Google generation”, whoever they are.
At the launch, former Tory golden boy and all-round smug so-and-so Lord Sebastian Coe says: “London 2012 will be everyone’s Games. This is the vision at the very heart of our brand. It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold, and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world. It is an invitation to take part and be involved.”
However, within hours of the unveiling, an online petition had racked up almost 5,000 signatures with one angry petitioner calling the new logo “puerile rubbish” while another writes, “Any art teacher worth his crayons would have turned it down.”
London Assembly member for Brent and Harrow, Bob Blackman, adds to the voices of dissent, saying, “Lord Coe has described this logo as ‘ambitious, interactive and youth-friendly’. I would describe them as hideous.”
However, that world-renowned art and design critic, Jonathan Edwards, (who also did a bit of triple-jumping when he had the chance) responded to the negative views. Says he: “It’s funky and edgy and perhaps a bit graffiti like. It’s not a staid corporate logo like some in previous games. As soon as you do something different it’s bound to arouse a response.”
Expect Edwards to be judging the next Turner prize…
Update on this story
Posted: 4th, June 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (23)
Queen Elizabeth In America And A Vat Of Asses’ Milk
HER Majesty the Queen in making her tour of the old American colonies. And she’s making news.
Quote: “You do not want to see Her Majesty breakdancing or bathing in a vat of asses’ milk.” William Feaver, referring to a new photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, in Time.
Figure of Speech: ecphrasis (EC-phra-sis), the figure of special effects. From the Greek, meaning “speak out.”
Annie Leibovitz ‘s portrait of the Queen sitting primly in a drawing room, fully clothed, is a departure from the photographer’s creative and often unflattering work.
British writer William Feaver thinks a traditional approach is a good idea when the Queen is your subject; but he blithely violates his own rule with vivid pictures of royal randomness. He’s using an ecphrasis, a figure that compactly infuses an argument with enargeia, producing images before the audience’s very eyes. They stay in your head, however unwelcome, like an ad jingle.
The ecphrasis often refers to a famous quotation or image from history, by the way. Cleopatra was said to bathe in ass’s milk. It makes one’s skin smooth and creamy, and presumably makes it easier to tolerate the asses in one’s own royal family.
Snappy Answer: “Ick.”
Posted: 3rd, May 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
Virgina Tec’s Charles Steger’s Speechless Speech
CHARLES W. Steger, president of Virginia Tech on the senselessness of it all.
Quote: “I cannot begin to convey my own personal sense of loss over this senselessness of such an incomprehensible and heinous act.” Charles W. Steger, president of Virginia Tech, in Time.
Figure of Speech: adynaton (a-DIN-a-ton), the loss-for-words figure. Also spelled adynata. From the Greek, meaning “powerless.”
A senior on this quiet university campus killed at least 32 people with a pair of handguns, leaving the place — the whole nation — in shock. President Steger responds with an adynaton, a figure of thought that amplifies his language by proclaiming its inadequacy. His words express how poorly words express. (See another use for the adynaton here.)
You usually find the figure in demonstrative rhetoric, the speech of values.
That’s the rhetoric President Steger uses. But people are beginning to question how the university handled the crisis; that’s forensic rhetoric, the language of crime and punishment.
And soon, deliberative rhetoric will have its say — political speech that determines what’s best in the long run. If the student purchased those handguns legally, you’ll hear this rhetoric very soon.
Snappy Answer: None. We grieve with you.
Posted: 17th, April 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
Tom & Gerry
The War On Terror has a new face.
It’s got whiskers for a beard. It’s got a mouse’s head on a cat’s body. It’s Tom & Jerry. And it’s Prof. Hasan Bolkhari, a cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry.
As Poldraw notes, Daniel Finkelstein on Comment Central has found this gobsmackingly amusing yet ultimately terrifying film on YouTube (Or is that “terrifying yet ultimately gobsmackingly amusing?”)
When not sure whether to laugh or cry, maybe we should just do the former – and hope for the best.
What’s for certain though, is that it’s hard not to share Finkelstein’s concern.
And we note that Walt Disney has now been accused of being Jewish and an anti-semite. As some Islamic scholars are accused of embracing Nazi ideology. You can see that refuted here.
Enjoy the film – the subtitles are genuine. As is Iran’s desire for a nuclear bomb…
Posted: 19th, March 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (4)
British Blog Review
WELCOME to roundup #108, and as many of you will know, this week brought the sad news of the sudden death of Chris Lightfoot. Many, many words have been written about Chris this week, a rundown of which can be found here, however I’d like to draw your attention to those of Tom Steinberg of at mysociety.org and a little tale over at The Virtual Stoa.
Controversy was stirred by the publication of a book on BBC bias by ex-BBC man Robin Aitken, which apparently has been overlooked by the Beeb. Iain Dale had the man in to 18DS to discuss the implications, but Pete has an alternative view on the affair.
In the land of the Liberals, reflections from Niles and Stephen Tall on *that* Trident debate, the fall of Mark Littlewood and the ‘messianic cult’ of Ming; a phrase to strike fear into the heart of even the most hardened atheist. Still on the theist theme, Johnathan Calder ponders martyrdom and just who has the claim to St Wystan.
Jim Bliss at The Quiet Road continues the debate about 18DS’s vid A World without America and poses a few questions.
Inevitably the removal of Patrick Mercer MP from the Tory frontbench garnered some blog inches. Sunny at Pickled Politics has a take on it with links to many more views both for and against Mr Mercer.
And so to greener pastures, Mel over at Beansprouts has some handy hints on cutting down to amount of junk mail that falls through your letterbox. Whilst we’re being green, Paul Kingsnorth, tells the real story regarding Channel 4’s (edit: video link from Samizdata) latest contribution to the global warming debate and Green feminist Natalie Bennett ponders, um, sideboards and the new Musee du quai Branly.
Turning to law and order, Jim Jay isn’t feeling anxious, afraid or worried. Francis is feeling criminalised and ZinZin appears to be calling for a blanket ASBO for geriatrics.
On a personal note I’d like to send congratulations to Rachel on getting the book done and dusted and remind you all of this before moving to the ‘And Finally’ bit…
First off pandemian dons the latex knickers to draw attention to Troubled Diva’s contribution to the Comic Relief effort, whilst Tim Ireland awaits the thoughts of the Met with bated breath. Inky Circus uses tenuous means to post pictures of cute puddy tats and in the interest of balance – have some pictures of some of the hounds at this years Crufts.
Contributions please to britblog AT gmail DOT com.
Oh, and if you thought this week was tripe, then Mr Worstall appears to be suffering a little from withdrawal symptoms…
Posted: 12th, March 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)
Simon Cowell, Robbie Williams & Britney Spears Are Pop Idle & Liz Hurley’s Wedding
“IT’S very fashionable to be in rehab,” said Simon Cowell in the Mirror. “This whole thing is a total indulgence.”
Cowell, who bestrides the world of canned pop music like a Colossus in high-wasted trousers, was not supporting the therapy industries.
Rehab, said Cowell, is an indulgence the world can do without.
“Britney Spears and Robbie Williams need to get a grip,” he added.
Cowell said Spears should go back to live with her mum for six months. He recommended a short, sharp shock.
“I went to a deprived part of the world recently and I saw a set of conditions that people live in that are beyond belief,” said Cowell, pictured seated by the swimming pool at his eight-bedroom Beverly Hills office.
Cowell declined to name the location but it is known that he spends some of his time in the UK, and we understood what he meant.
And then we saw Prince Harry leaving for Iraq. Who says Cowell does not exert influence over the young, playing cover versions of the Pied Piper’s better tunes as he goes?
And while Harry made ready to leave and unleash his drinking prowess on Iraq’s insurgents and tea-totallers, we spotted someone who really knew what suffering was.
No rehab for Princess Diana. Just pain.
“SHOW US DIANA’S MURDER LETTERS,” ordered the Express. It had been to the pre-inquest hearing into Diana’s death. It had journeyed to the Royal Courts of Justice and witnessed all.
Michael Mansfield, Mohammed al Fayed’s lawyer, wanted answers. As the Express reported, letters have “sensationally” gone missing.
We heard Edmund Lawson, QC for the police reply: “Regarding the allegations covering letters from the Duke of Edinburgh despite the best efforts of the police to find any evidence or copies of them, none has been found.”
Mansfield wanted Philip and Prince Charles to take the stand. But since this is about as likely as Al Fayed letting the matter of his son Dodi’s death rest, we move on to another question: Liz Hurley –why?
The Sun, like so many of us, realised that Hurley is a woman less than the sum of her parts. So it focused on the parts – two of them.
“Lovely pair, Liz,” announced the Sun’s front page. And there, sure enough, was a picture of Lizzzz wearing a low-cut vest-style top. But the Sun was not referring to Hurley’s cleavage but to her earrings, both of them.
And having married her pretty-ish Leeds-born lover in a registry office in Cheltenham, Hurley was off to India for a traditional Indian ceremony.
And the locals love Liz. The Mirror heard the crowds cheer as Liz arrived in Mumbai. “Chai-chai,” Liz’s Indian fan club yelled. “New lamps for old,” they cried. “We hate you Jade Goody,” screamed others.
And we were there. We journeyed to what Hello! was calling “The wedding of the year” and, very possibly, the wedding of next year.
We caught up with Hurley and her lover at Sudely Castle. This was a “fairytale English style” do, and we expected lots of ugly sisters, wicked stepparents and dwarves.
Those within the chapel sighed as Liz “gazed lovingly into Arun’s eyes”. Those unable to be seated within the chapel looked on from the cheap seats as the event was relayed to TVs plugged in before them.
Tears welled in Liz’s eyes. The actress struggled with her lines. Finally, she managed to control herself and speak the vows. And then more tears “well up in her beautiful green-blue eyes and trickle down her face”. The designer Valentino said the tears are “like seeing an exquisite flower blossom”.
Hello! noted that many of the guests were also crying.
The wedding had reached the half-way mark. And the race was on – can Liz Hurley have her baby before her wedding ceremony ends?
Special it would be to see Hurley give birth before the wedding party arrives at the cake sometime in early October.
The Mail had a picture of Hurley wearing a dress. Nothing new is this, said you, Hurley is a dress wearer of no small repute. But attention was directed to the Hurley stomach.
We noted the bulge. Hurley, who once boasted at getting by on six raisins a day, appeared to be expanding.
Was this water retention? Should Hurley not have soaked the raisins and eaten them instead in their most shrivelled state?
Or was Hurley with child?
The Mail said the “slight tum” on view might be the result of so much wedding breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. But Hurley’s food intake is famously modest. So what was producing the bump? A money belt? A pair of Comfi-Knickers? A child?
Said Liz: “We would love to add to our family and (my son) Damien would love some siblings.”
And there was Arun, who does speak. Said he: “Of course we would love to have a baby. Elizabeth wants twin boys.” The Yorkshireman may well have added an “eee be gum” for dramatic effect.
We live in an age where babies can be delivered to order. If Hurley wants twin boys then twin boys she can have.
And if she wants a couple of identical raisins, she can have those too.
But if any one of them wants to go into rehab, they should best ask Simon Cowell first…
Posted: 11th, March 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)
