Save Our Hyphen

‘WE send out an S.O.S to English users everywhere. Grammar Vegans are endangering our language through their under-use of the hyphen.

‘I’d kill for a fag’

Just as animal rights enthusiasts are going to wipe out all mink, smoking rabbits and clever chimpanzees by taking away their only source of employment, Grammar Vegans are endangering the hyphen.

The Times says that, according to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, the hyphen is only used half as much as it was ten years ago.

But take care. Angus Stevenson, one of the editors, says that using hyphens in phrasal verbs – “this website was set-up by Vicky”; “now is the time to top-up your pension” – is not yet accepted in standard English.

But how different it was in years past when hyphens ran though pages with carefree abandon. Now the Sixties fish-shop and dog-bowl have been isolated or run together as in catflap and airfare.

Tim Austin, author of The Times Style and Usage Guide, echoes our thoughts when he says that it would be “great pity” if the hyphen were to disappear altogether.

So the advice is to get using it before it dies. Or else it’ll-be-so-much-the-worse-for-you.’

Posted: 21st, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)

The Only Show In Town

‘THE big show in town has all the people talking. “Angry,” says Ruth Hutchinson, who queued all night in London’s West End to see Hutton Inquiry: Attack Iraq.

Big draw

Daniel Franklin describes the production as “exciting” and Delphine Durrant says Alastair Campbell is “as sexy as it gets” – or maybe “as sexed-up as it gets”.

Those desperate to gain entry to the public and press galleries for the blockbuster at the Royal Courts Of Justice were prepared to wait far longer than the advertised 45 minutes.

“We have never seen anything like this before,” says David Turner, a security guard. Behind him a stall selling official Hutton merchandise – Saddam Hussein lunch boxes and David Kelly beard and glasses masks – was doing brisk trade.

By 8am more than 200 fans were in line. By 9:30am every seat as taken.

And for those of you not lucky enough to get inside here are a few excerpts of what you missed, courtesy of the Guardian.

Cue opening credits and a picture of brown children gambolling over Babylon’s new Axis of Evil Gardens & Adventure Playground.

“I had no input, output, influence upon it [the so-called dodgy dossier] whatever at any stage in the process,” says Alastair Campbell. “I said the drier the better. Cut the rhetoric.”

As it was, Campbell remained, in the words of the Times’ critic, “calm under fire” – like Rambo, but without the muscles and the weapons of mass destruction.

Stay tuned for more pre-emptive action tomorrow…’

Posted: 20th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Down The Tube

‘TOURISTS who have not already left for tomorrow’s instalment from the Hutton Inquiry series should not bother.

Going underground

The London Tube system is so bad that if you set out now you’ll be lucky to make Friday’s show.

But life on the Tube is all set to change and the Independent reports on the latest genius initiative to help the passengers, sorry, customers, who travel on it each day.

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, has sanctioned a move to raise the price of an Underground journey by 25%.

And don’t think about taking the bus, because prices in the capital’s outer districts that were 70p are to be £1, a rise of a whopping 43%.

Before you do as Ken does and hail a cab, remember that he is on your side. Really he is. The Indy hears Ken explain all.

“If I had complete freedom over my finances I would be looking at the sort of fares reduction of about a third on the Underground.

“But unless the Government gives me the money I cannot do it.”

Since the Government in question travel by a fleet of chauffeur-driven Jaguars, you’d imagine that they don’t give a monkey’s for what happens beneath the tarmac.

But the Tube does need added investment. After all, when the weather becomes unbearably hot and the Middle East exports its suicide bombers to Oxford Street, Londoners will have to live somewhere…’

Posted: 20th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Phone Home

‘THE country is falling to pieces. Just look at what’s happening in Scotland where, ever since asylum seekers snagged all the mansions and castles, Scots have been looking for alternative places to live.

‘I’m sure I saw a 5p in here somewhere’

The Independent watches 14 Scots cram inside a single phone box.

But save your pity because the ‘family’ have also managed to get into the Guinness Book Of Records, surpassing the record of 12 set in Germany six years ago.

“It wasn’t comfortable,” says Jimmy Robertson, 52, who had squeezed himself into one corner. “I just pushed myself in and went for it.”

A spokesman for the group is delighted. “It’s fantastic,” he says. “The thing I’m really pleased about is that members of the public wanted to get involved.”

Like the passing Dutch lorry driver who realised that he could have got an extra 76 Chinese students into his vehicle.

Not to worry, there’s always next time…’

Posted: 20th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Oppressed Gang

‘ALASTAIR Campbell appear before the Hutton Inquiry today and it is clear the papers can’t wait to see their tormentor-in-chief on the rack himself.

‘I did it all for Tony – and I’d do it again if he asked’

Like the downtrodden people of Iraq, political hacks have long waited for the day when their Saddam Hussein would be called to account.

Only then will they dare put finger to keyboard freely without fear of an angry tirade from the Government’s ferocious spinmeister.

But even before Campbell takes the stand, the papers are united in their view that yesterday was a bad day for the Prime Minister and No.10.

An e-mail sent by Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell to John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, complains that the original draft of the dossier did not talk up the threat from Saddam.

‘The document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam,” he says.

‘In other words it shows he has the means but it does not demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the West.’

It is now debatable whether Saddam had the means, but that is a moot point.

The Independent certainly sees this as evidence that No.10 ordered the document to be redrafted to justify war with Iraq, a claim that Campbell is expected to deny today.

And even the pro-war Times struggles to put a positive spin on the evidence, although it does suggest that the e-mails have only embarrassed ministers rather than undermined them.

“What cannot be extrapolated from the Powell e-mail,” it says, “is that Downing Street had inserted or would insert a blatant falsehood into the document as Andrew Gilligan alleged in his Today broadcast.”

The Guardian merely draws Campbell’s attention to an opinion poll that shows voters losing what little trust they had in politicians.

However, with Labour still enjoying a five-point lead in the country, today is unlikely to be the moment when the press can help pull down the statue of their very own Saddam.’

Posted: 19th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Cosmetic Surgery

‘THE British, as we know, love their animals. We love them so much, in fact, that we spend our weekends chasing them round the countryside.But other countries – shame on them! – do not share our love for our furry friends.

The Guardian reports this morning that our old friends, the French, are trying to block an EU law that would ban animals being used to test cosmetics.

(The Telegraph reports that the French are also trying to block Britain’s deal with Libya over the Lockerbie bombing, but that’s a story for another day.)

After 13 years of negotiation, the EU legislation would phase in a near total ban on cosmetic products that had been tested on animals from 2009 and ban animal testing altogether.

“It has,” says the Guardian, “been hailed as one of the most significant pieces of EU legislation on animal welfare.”

However, the French have lodged a court challenge, arguing that the ban should be quashed on legal and technical grounds and that they should be able to carry on dressing their dogs up in lipstick and eyeliner as they do now.

It is, of course, a remarkable coincidence that France is home to L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetic company.

“Because they’re not worth it,” as the company says about the 38,000 animals who die each year in the EU developing cosmetics.’

Posted: 19th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Testing Times

‘READERS of the Times will know that Libby Purves has long argued against examinations and footling tests. How? Because the woman herself tells us she has.“I have often tried your patience with rants against examinations, and mournings for a generation plied with footling tests,” she says.

However, this morning the great Ms Purves rushes to the defence of one examination, the much-derided GCSE, and one footling test, the proposed Oxbridge entrance exam.

But what of A-levels? For further discussion on that subject, we turn to the Independent, where a former chief schools inspector wants students to have to write a dissertation to help universities identify the brightest and the best.

Mike Tomlinson, who is currently conducting a review of secondary education for the Government, says he is considering ‘a challenging piece of work which would go across subject boundaries”.

‘It would be a single piece of work taken at the age students take A-levels,’ he said. ‘I would like the universities involved in setting some of the topics and marking them.”

So let’s get this straight – because pretty well everyone gets straight As in their A-levels these days, we need another exam to separate the intellectual wheat from the chaff (which was what the A-levels were originally supposed to do).

When everyone begins to get top marks for this dissertation, then perhaps we could introduce another exam to differentiate them…and so on and so on.

Then, in a few years time some bright spark (having just achieved 34 As in his A-levels) will pipe up as he prepares to sit his eleventh exam of that day.

“Sir, why didn’t they just make A-levels a bit harder?”’

Posted: 19th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Great Lake

‘RULING the world isn’t just a question of sticking a pin in the atlas and bombing the shit out of the place you’ve chosen. No, sometimes you have to be, like, cunning and clever too.

A weapon of mass destraction

Just ask the US military. As the Guardian points out, the Americans have attacked Saddam Hussein with weapons, offered rewards for his capture, and even released images of what he might look like with no hair.

Yet still the moustachioed (or possibly clean-shaven) tyrant is at liberty.

Cue plan B: A computer-generated picture of Saddam as Veronica Lake, complete with cascading blonde locks and plunging neck-line.

These pictures will be put up in public places around Tikrit as part of an extraordinarily cunning ruse. No matter that nobody in Iraq (or anywhere else) is likely to recognise the Veronica Lake reference – that’s not the point.

The point, to quote an old Hollywood catch-phrase, is to make ’em laugh. ”We’re going to do something devious with these,” explains Lt-Col Steve Russell, referring to the Lake picture and another showing Saddam as Billy Idol.

”Most of the locals will love ’em and they’ll be laughing. But the bad guys are going to be upset, which will just make it easier for us to know who they are.”

Brilliant. But how come no-one thought of that sooner?

‘

Posted: 18th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Uni Bombers

‘WOO-HOO! Al-raaaaaght!

Trinny and Charlotte knew their A-levels in Hugging And It’s Impact On 20th Century Media Studies would come in useful

Forgive our excited celebrations, it’s just that we here at Anorak have just received our A-level results. And, without wishing to sound conceited, we’re rather pleased with ourselves. Straight As all round, since you ask.

What’s that? You all got straight As too? What, even you with the runny nose and the funny trousers? Oh dear, that’s rather taken the shine off it.

But at least we’re going to Oxbridge and you’re not. What’s that? You’ve fulfilled the Oxbridge criteria too? This can’t be true – has the world gone mad? Can’t someone do something?

The Times reports that with A passes running at record levels,

the bigwigs from Oxford and Cambridge have decided to take decisive action.

Cambridge abandoned its entrance exam in 1987, and Oxford followed suit in 1995, but with A passes running at record levels, the colleges are finding it impossible to distinguish between the millions of applicants with perfect exam marks.

The Times reports that the Oxbridge bigwigs are now considering reintroducing their own exams in order to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys and the sheep from the goats.

We here at Anorak welcome such a move, although it is hardly necessary. A simpler test would suffice. Anyone using the word ”Uni” would be immediately disqualified. The rest would then be asked to spell ”university”.

If the number of successful candidates was then too small, the remaining places should be distributed among those from the top public schools. That would soon sort things out.

‘

Posted: 18th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Half Baked

‘FANCY coming to Pizza Hut? Don’t worry, this isn’t a trick question to find out whether you are eligible for Anorak College. It’s just one of our silly old sayings, like ”Is the Pope a Catholic?” or ”Is Tony Blair yummy-scrummy?”

How will you get rid of the taste now?

Of course you want to come to Pizza Hut! Everyone wants to come to Pizza Hut!! And that’s the problem. Pizza Hut, like Oxbridge, is so popular that it is becoming a problem.

Some of its prospective customers are frankly unattractive. Especially the smokers. So we are glad to read in today’s Telegraph that the renowned purveyors of authentic Neapolitan cuisine are to ban smoking in their restaurants.

The ban will of course operate in the kitchens too, although the special smoking huts, where the delicious smoky bacon is prepared, will be exempt.

It is a well-known fact that when people give up smoking, they appreciate taste more. Lucky them, as they tuck into Pizza Hut’s fantastic range of luxurious toppings.

But lucky non-smokers too, for they will, for the first time, enjoy the heavenly aroma of warm cheese, sweet onion, baked beans and salad cream in all its glory and as nature intended – unimpaired by the smell of burning tobacco and bitter ash.

Bliss it will be to be alive on that day! Now then, are you going to eat that cheese-filled crust?

‘

Posted: 18th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Comedy Security

‘IT is reassuring to know for us who live with the spectre of Islamist terrorism that even suicide bombers have to cope with the vagaries of the British transport system.

”Why Eddie, Canada has really changed you”

A gas attack on the London Underground, for instance, would be largely nullified by the fact that the station chosen was suddenly closed because of a defective escalator.

A bomb on a train would be a risky endeavour, most of the risk being whether the train would turn up in the first place.

And an al-Qaida operative sitting under the Heathrow flight path looking for a British Airways plane to shoot down would have a long wait as BA staff walked out in a dispute over swipe cards.

All of which is just as well in light of the report in this morning’s Times about how ”comedy terrorist” Aaron Barschak managed to gatecrash Prince William’s 21st birthday party dressed as Osama Bin Laden in drag.

According to the report, police ignored seven security alarms and five sightings on CCTV as Barshak climbed his way into Windsor Castle and into the room where the party was being held.

In that room were all the senior members of the Royal Family, except Prince Edward who was feeling his way round Canada at the time.

Had Barshak been carrying a bomb, we would all now be watching King Edward IX and Queen Sophie on the 24-hour Buckingham Palace webcam…

‘

Posted: 15th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Is For Aberystwyth

‘IT is now an immutable law of nature, on a par with Newton’s laws of gravity, that one year’s exam results must always be better than the previous year’s.

Birds of a feather swot together

We can no more change that than Vanessa Feltz can pass through the eye of a needle.

Stick a few thousand monkeys in an exam room, put a paper in front of them about Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and most of them will come out with A-grades.

And so it is inevitable that every year will see more and more stories of pupils who have been rejected by university despite getting all A-grades in their A-levels.

This year’s cause celebre is Candice Clarke, who applied to Trinity College, Cambridge, to study medicine but was turned down despite getting five As.

She may have been one of 19 students at Colchester county high school for girls to get five As and was by no means the only person with similar grades to be turned down.

But Candice lives on a council estate, both her parents are disabled and no-one in her family has been to university – making her prime material for the Guardian.

”I was angry,” she told the paper. ”I deserved to go there and worked really hard. Oxbridge should take more working class people from state schools. They should have a bigger range of people.”

But it wasn’t just Cambridge that turned down Candice – she was also rejected by Nottingham and Bristol before winning a place at Newcastle.

Trinity College also turned down David Lee Watkins, who had five A-grades at A-level and two extra at AS-level, and Esther Son, who had six A-grades to her name.

According to the Guardian, Tom Carver, of Colyton grammar school in Devon, did manage to get in, but had to get five A-grades and two B-grades to do it.

Next year, those grades will barely be enough to get him into his local technical college.

‘

Posted: 15th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Power Crazy

‘DARKNESS descended on New York and large parts of North America yesterday – and it wasn’t caused by the prospect of President Bush winning another term in office.

”Let’s bomb Canada!”

A massive power failure on the Niagara-Mohawk power grid cut off electricity to at least 10 million people in New York State and another 10 million in Canada.

The Canadians said a lightning strike on the US side of the border was probably to blame; the American said a transmission problem on the Canadian side was the likeliest cause.

Which only goes to show how easy it is to pass the buck between two countries who both use the dollar as currency.

The Telegraph says armies of long-suffering workers were forced to walk home from work in 90 degrees F temperatures, while thousands more were trapped on subway trains and in lifts.

If that seems only too familiar to commuters in this country, they should know that the Niagara grid was bought by the British company, National Grid, in September 2000.

Proving that there really is no need for terrorists to plant bombs to try to disrupt our normal lives when the British can easily do their job for them.

‘

Posted: 15th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Is For Everyone

‘IF average temperatures had risen every year for the past 21 years, would that not be a good indication of global warming?

”We can’t read what it says, but it looks like an A”

But when A-level results improve for the 21st consecutive year, this is not proof that the exams are getting easier, but that standards in our schools are improving.

Pass rates for A-levels, the results of which are out today, have risen to a record 95.4%, which any maths student (if there were any left) could tell you is a 1.1% increase on last year.

”I hope that nobody tries to run the argument that standards are falling because there is absolutely no evidence of it on the basis of this year’s results,” David Hart, of the National Association of Head Teachers, tells the Telegraph.

But not even all Mr Hart’s fellow headteachers are convinced, far less the newspapers.

In what he calls ”a hidden scandal”, John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, tells the Times that students are deliberately taking easier A-levels to help them win a place at university.

Entries for psychology and media studies are up by 20% for instance, while the numbers taking modern languages and science subjects all fell.

”Since most university courses don’t discriminate between grades in different subjects, head teachers are bound to advise students to take subjects in which they can achieve the best grades,” Mr Dunford says.

”Maths, sciences and foreign languages are subjects that the country needs and it is totally bizarre that they are the hardest A-levels.”

To be fair, the Government is addressing this issue. Within five years, it says, all students will be guaranteed an A-grade in whatever subject they decide to do.

Of course, part of the problem is that it is in almost everyone’s interests to talk up A-level results – the pupils, the teachers and the Government.

But employers are not so convinced, with the Institute of Directors complaining that what used to be the educational gold standard is ”becoming completely meaningless”.

The Telegraph compares the situation in England with that in Scotland, where the percentage of passes in Higher English has actually fallen by 5.5%.

This has itself provoked a debate about the standards of literacy north of the border.

”The examination system south of the border,” the paper says, ”seems more determined to guarantee universal success than to provide useful information about the true state of the nation’s education.”

After all, how can we expect our children even to know the alphabet when they’ve never seen any letter other than an ‘A’?

‘

Posted: 14th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Screen Testy

‘IF there were an A-level in righteous indignation, it is pretty clear that it would be the subject of choice for every aspiring university applicant.

Tigger suggests a game of Pooh Sticks

It is something we do remarkably well, as demonstrated by a story in today’s Guardian.

Parents in Birmingham, who had taken their children to Star City Warner Village to watch Piglet’s Big Movie, first noticed something was wrong during the trailers.

Instead of previews for the latest Disney film or Teletubbies: The Movie, the kids were treated to scenes from Jeepers Creepers 2 and slasher flick Freddie v Jason.

And before cinema bosses could intervene, the main attraction was on screen – and there was not a Winnie The Pooh to be seen.

Instead, the Guardian says, they were presented with the gruesome opening to The Wrong Turn, an 18-rated slasher flick in much the same vein as the trailers.

And that is enough to prompt Sally Nulty, who took her son Luke and his cousin Rebecca, both aged five, to see the film into a frenzy of righteous indignation.

”How can you make a mistake between the name Wrong Turn and Piglet’s Big Movie unless the person employed to switch on the movies can’t read?” she stormed.

”I’m really very angry that they were exposed to those images.”

Sally received an apology from Warner Village and complimentary tickets but, for Luke and Rebecca, a lifetime in therapy awaits.

As for the projectionist, he is no doubt this morning celebrating an A grade in his English A-level.

‘

Posted: 14th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Cell-By Date

‘IN Britain, we wait for months for a doctor, days for a policeman and hours for a train, but our prisons are open (or should that be closed?) 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The last word in luxury in Norway

Not so in Norway. The trains may run on time, crime rates may be low and the health service may be a beacon of excellence, but the poor old crooks have to queue up to get into chokey.

In fact, so overcrowded are prisons in Norway that criminals can face a wait of up to five years before a cell becomes available.

”The result,” says the Times, ”is that burglars, drug dealers, robbers, conmen and assorted other villains, although not murderers and rapists, remain at liberty despite being convicted and sentenced.”

There are now almost as many people waiting to do time as there are people in jail, although at 2,666 the prison population is one of the lowest per capita in Europe.

The wait is by no means all good news for the criminals, with regular reports of villains who, while waiting for a cell, get a job, meet and marry a girl and then suddenly have to explain that they will not be around for the next few years.

One such man was Vidar Sandli, who was sentenced to three years in 1998 for selling cannabis.

”I cleaned up my life in the meantime, met a girl and settled down,” he says. ”I just didn’t get round to telling her. She wasn’t best pleased.”

Funny that…

‘

Posted: 14th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Perfect Face For Radio

‘WHATEVER the rights and wrongs of the whole ‘dodgy dossier’ affair, there is one thing that is for sure – BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan has definitely not been sexed up.

Sexed down?

The Today reporter’s photograph assaults readers of both the Times and the Independent this morning and, if ever a man had a face for radio, it is he.

The Guardian takes pity on its readers and pictures Gilligan from behind and afar as the man believed to have inspired Mr Blobby entered the Royal Courts Of Justice.

As for the inquiry itself, for the second day running the papers cannot agree on who, if anyone, emerges with most credit.

The Independent says both Gilligan and BBC colleague Susan Watts agreed that Dr David Kelly had fingered Alastair Campbell as being central to inserting a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical weapons at 45 minutes’ notice in the dossier outlining the case for war with Iraq.

”The disclosure,” it says, ”which came at the end of the second day of the inquiry into the death of the scientist, immediately swung the advantage to the corporation in its ongoing confrontation with No.10.”

But the Times hears a completely different story, leading its coverage of the Hutton inquiry with the headline, ”BBC Admits Iraq Scoop Was Flawed”.

It quotes an e-mail sent by Kevin Marsh, editor of the Today programme, to Stephen Mitchell, head of BBC Radio News.

”I hope my worst fears based on what I heard from the spooks this afternoon are not realised,” he said.

”This story was a good piece of investigative journalism marred by flawed reporting. The biggest millstone has been the loose use of language and lack of judgement in some of the phraseology.”

The Times points out that Gilligan forgot to bring a notebook and pen, the tools of the journalist’s trade, to his meeting with Dr Kelly.

Indeed, the only contemporaneous document he could produce from the rendezvous at the Thistle Hotel in Charing Cross was a bar bill proving that they had bought a Coca-Cola and an Appletise.

With the bill for those two drinks coming to £4.15 (with service not included), the only thing we can safely say has been sexed up is the hotel’s bar prices.

‘

Posted: 13th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Bush Whacker

‘WHEN Tony Blair talked about the dark forces of conservatism in his party conference speech in 2000, little did we know that a couple of years later he would be palling up to one of the darkest of those forces.

A neo-con

A study, funded with $1.2m of US government money, has concluded that conservatism can be psychologically explained as a set of neuroses rooted in ”fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity”.

Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh all suffer from the same affliction, it says.

And according to the Guardian, President George W Bush is also a textbook example, the telltale signs being his moral certainty and dislike of nuance.

”This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes,” the authors argue.

President Bush said he hadn’t read the report, but was afraid the authors were pinkos and evil folks who should be wiped off the face of the world.

‘

Posted: 13th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

To Diet For

‘IF words were cream pies, enough has been written about the Atkins Diet in the past few weeks to create a world full of Andrew Gilligans and Vanessa Feltzes.

Three devotees of the high-protein, high-carbohydrate diet

Is it good for you? Is it bad for you? Can I have a fried egg on my 12oz steak? WHO BLOODY WELL CARES?

This morning, the Telegraph and the Times both waste enough acres of newsprint on the ”controversial” high-protein diet to wrap up Lisa Riley several times over.

The reason is a warning from leading nutritionist Dr Susan Jebb that faddy diets like the Atkins were unbalanced, untested and posed serious health problems.

The diet only worked because it reduced calorie intake, she said, while staying on it could be harmful in the long term.

Fellow nutritionist Dr Jane Ogden agrees, saying most of the benefits of the diet were in the mind.

”The reality of dieting is that you have to modify the behaviour that you have learned from being a baby,” she said, ”and that’s extremely difficult.”

As Andrew Gilligan would testify.’

Posted: 13th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Spin City

‘THE Hutton inquiry opened in earnest yesterday, but there was no let-up in the campaign of spin on both sides of the argument.

Spinning in his grave?

The main thing to emerge from the evidence was that two intelligence officers had formally complained about the wording of the dossier that formed the Government’s case for war with Iraq.

But that was countered by the fact that no-one suggested that the material evidence in the dossier was fabricated.

”The existing wording is not wrong,” one said, ”but it has a lot of spin.”

Even the pro-war papers like the Times and the Telegraph concede that yesterday was not a good day for the Government, but they question just how bad it actually was.

The Telegraph, for instance, points out that the man whose suicide gave rise to the whole inquiry, Dr David Kelly, does not emerge simply as the tragic victim.

”Dr Kelly has been portrayed as a whistle-blower tragically caught out by cynical forces that were too big for him,” it says.

”Yesterday’s written testimony suggests that the story may be more complex than the public has yet grasped. The stick that beat the Government looks this morning more like a thin reed.”

Nevertheless, a thin reed can cause some discomfort if wielded with sufficient enthusiasm – and the anti-war Indy is content to do just that.

It says the picture of Dr Kelly that emerged from the first day of the inquiry ”was entirely consonant with the impression of integrity” left by his appearance in front of a Commons select committee.

”He came across there as an honest man,” it says, ”slightly baffled perhaps, even resentful of the highly politicised hostility of the interrogation, but transparently honest.”

With two such divergent opinions after only a single day’s evidence, the Times is right to suggest that one of Lord Hutton’s hardest task will be to cut through the spin on both sides.

”He has to be aware,” it says, ”that various factions will try to establish their versions of what has emerged long before he produces his final verdict.”

And no-one more so than the various newspapers…

‘

Posted: 12th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Causing A Stink

‘INTELLIGENCE officials, journalists and members of the public kicking up a stink over the so-called dodgy dossier should heed the example of the common skunk.

”Well, one of us made the smell and I’ve had my anal glands removed…”

The North American mammal is of course renowned as the smelliest animal in the world, able to spray a revolting musk over several feet from glands in its bum.

But, according to the Guardian, the 100 or so Brits who keep skunks as pets have come up with an alternative to the old joke ‘How do you stop a skunk from smelling?’

Instead of holding its nose, they are asking vets to remove its anal scent glands – a process that is banned here.

Sharon Redrobe, head of veterinary services at Bristol Zoo, is also one who thinks it is unethical.

”Skunks are marvellous creatures for many reasons, one of which is their particular ability to express their anal glands and produce a characteristic odour,” she says.

”I am disappointed that members of the public would like to own such an animal, but first mutilate it to produce a more convenient pet.

”It has also come to my attention that some skunks have been presented for vaccination having already been ‘descented’ – in some cases without general anaesthesia.”

You have been warned.

‘

Posted: 12th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Band On The Run

‘NORMALLY when bands break up, they cite musical differences as the source of the problem.

”Hey, who’s missing?”

The future of the Libertines, described by the NME as ”the best new band in Britain”, is in doubt for a rather more bizarre reason.

The Times says the band’s career has met a curious impasse after the guitarist Peter Doherty pleaded guilty to burgling the home of Carl Barat, the band’s lead singer.

The paper says the pair, who had been compared with a young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, had an acrimonious falling out.

While Barat and the rest of the band were on tour in Japan, Doherty broke into the singer’s house and stole items including an antique guitar, video recorder, CD player and laptop.

Doherty has been warned that he could be sentenced to prison next month – and the future of the band, described as an explosive mixture of early Beatles and the Clash, is in the air.

Or halfway through a broken window…

‘

Posted: 12th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Lager Tops

‘ON Saturday, the headline in the Star warned that there was only enough lager left in Britain to last 10 days.

”Two bottles of Hooch, a spliff, a couple of Es, a shag and strawberry sauce please, mate”

After the hottest weekend in the country’s history, we can only assume that a crisis is still impending and the country’s pubs will run dry this time next week.

This will of course be a tragedy in its own right, but it could have one wholly unexpected side-effect – it could make us all poorer.

According to the Telegraph, a study by Stirling University has discovered a link between drinking and money, with moderate boozers earning on average 17% more than teetotallers.

Even heavy drinkers (men who drink more than 50 units a week and women who drink more than 35) earned about 5% more than abstainers.

”The survey shows that you don’t want to be a teetotaller if you want to get on in your job,” says survey author Professor David Bell.

”People who drink moderately seem to earn more.”

It is advice that teenagers should take heed of, with the Telegraph also reporting that the nation’s yoof are having trouble finding summer jobs.

They are apparently getting squeezed out of traditional jobs like fruit picking and mail sorting by impoverished students and cheap foreign labour.

Or at least that’s what they can tell their parents – as they ask for money to go down to the pub…

‘

Posted: 11th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Plane Crazy

‘THOSE of us who decided to follow the Prime Minister’s example and go somewhere cooler for our holidays have not had things all our own way.

After ten years with the airline Captain Biggs had yet to take off

Not only did the train to the airport take about three days to get there, but the chances are that your plane got lost as it tried to take off.

That at least is what’s happening at Heathrow at the moment, says the Guardian, because of ”a controversial reorganisation of the airfield’s labyrinthine layout”.

”Cockpit crew have reported a spate of incidents in which aircraft have gone the wrong way on Heathrow’s taxiways or taken the wrong turn-off for gates,” it says.

”This often means they block other flights and need to be rescued by a tug, which they say has added to problems during the already overstretched peak periods.”

All of which goes some way to explaining the unrest in Basra, where the Times reports a former Gurkha was killed on the second day of riots in the British-controlled city.

The residents of Iraq’s second city are apparently angry at the slow pace of reconstruction in the country.

What they don’t realise is what they call the slow pace of reconstruction is in fact the norm in a country suffering from lager shortages, lost airplanes and trains that go so slowly that they are frequently overtaken by the trackside trees.

‘

Posted: 11th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Finns Take The Mickey

‘WINSTON Churchill certainly knew what he was talking about when he described Finland as ”superb, nay sublime”.

Live traffic cam

Not only is the country host to such not-to-be-missed events as the Wife-Carrying World Championships and the Air Guitar World Championships, but it also gives its workers the most time off.

According to a poll, the Finns have 39 days off a year, compared with a European average of 34.

No prizes for guessing who has the fewest days off, the Brits and the Dutch sharing last place with a mere 28.

The Independent also reports that the long-suffering Brits also have the fewest public holidays in the EU with a mere eight a year.

”There have been efforts to change things,” the paper says.

”Earlier this year, a government think-tank suggested that Britain should establish regional bank holidays across the country.”

Or perhaps everyone should just move to Finland – if they can find a plane that knows its way there.

‘

Posted: 11th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment