News Category
Spurs balls: OEDS recasts Gooners and all Jewish football fans as ‘Yids’
A ‘Yid’ is a “supporter or player for Tottenham Hotspur” says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). That’s tough luck on Jews who support other clubs or don’t support football at all. We’re all ‘Yids’ now.
Spurs fans can call themselves what they like. They can sing what they want to. But for the rest of us Jews, it’s a bit odd, especially for us nice yiddisher Gooners. “Fee, fi, fo fun,” oozed the Chelsea fans in my ear once upon a time, “I smell Yiddish scum.” Now I understand the OED afficianado thought I was a Spurs fan – yeah, at the Chelsea v Arsenal game. What are the odds?
The OED, says ‘Yid’ or ‘Yiddo’ can refer to “a supporter of or player for Tottenham Hotspur football club (traditionally associated with the Jewish community in north and east London).” The words are “originally and frequently derogatory and offensive, though also often as a self-designation.”
Spurs, aka ‘The Yids’, tell the Guardian: “As a club we have never accommodated the use of the Y-word on any club channels or in club stores and have always been clear that our fans (both Jewish and gentile) have never used the term with any intent to cause offence. We find the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of the word misleading given it fails to distinguish context, and welcome their clarification.”
Gooners regret the error. Non Spurs-supporting Jews await the hail, ‘Oi, Yid!’ – followed by the soon-be-routine explainer, ‘Sorry mate, thought you were a Spurs fan.”
Posted: 13th, February 2020 | In: Arsenal, Chelsea, News, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Prince Harry and Meghan: ghost voters and big banks
In January, Prince Harry (not HRH) sat down for talks with Saad-Eddine El Othmani, prime minister of Morocco, Peter Mutharika, president of Malawi and Filipe Nyusi, president of Mozambique at the UK-Africa investment conference. It was one of his last jobs as a working royal. The Mail says that after the formal chats: “The VIPs then rushed to a private room at the Intercontinental Hotel for an informal ‘catch-up’ chat – but unusually they insisted no No 10 or Palace aides were present to ensure the talks were kept private.”
What could they have to talk about they don’t want the commoners to know? Private Eye reports that Mr Nyusi might not be everyone’s cup of fair-trade, organic tea. His election last year was, we’re told, marred by “violence and a climate of fear”. Votes in Gaza province “exceeded the number of dual inhabitant by 300,000”.
Observers noted several incidents across the country where people were found trying to enter polling stations with extra ballots marked for Frelimo.
On Friday, the US embassy expressed “significant concerns regarding problems and irregularities” during the voting and counting which “raise questions about the integrity of these procedures and their vulnerability to possible fraudulent acts.”
The European Union’s election observation mission said “an unlevel playing field was evident throughout the campaign. The ruling party dominated the campaign in all provinces and benefitted from the advantages of incumbency.”
The Eye quips: “Just the sort of ‘progressive’ type a modern real wants to rub shoulders with.” But, of course, Harry did it out of duty. It was a State-run function.
Another Harry appointment, one attended in a private capacity with his wife Meghan, was hosted by JP Morgan in Miami. A “source” told the New York Post’s Page Six, the couple “headlined” the bank’s Alternative Investment Summit. “It was all very hush-hush, with a lot of security,” we’re told. The Mirror says Harry and Meghan could have been paid £400,000 for supporting the event.
JP Morgan:
In November 2013, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, agreed to pay a then-record $13 billion fine to federal and state authorities in order to settle claims that it had misled investors in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
Trying to earn enough money to maintain your lifestyle might not be all that easy for post-royal Harry and Meghan, a couple so ethically right that he says buying fruit in plastic is “a dirty habit”. Spin the wheel, and hold your nose. Or retain as nurses.
Posted: 12th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Money, News, Politicians, Royal Family | Comment
‘Tough Guys For Trump’ – Larry David’s epiphany
Larry David has yet to appear in a Bernie Sanders sketch. But he’s in one written for Twitter by Donald Trump.
In this skit, David is seen driving a small, foreign-made car. The liberal New Yorker, star of fly-on-the-wall documentary Curb your Enthusiasm, is wending his way along a sun-dappled road in California when his bad navigation skills and disregard for his fellow Americans causes him to drift and cut up a law-abiding biker.
The biker pulls up alongside.
David, sensing the error of his ways, is converted. In a moment of real epiphany he pulls on a ‘MAGA’ hat and vows to help the biker ‘Make American Great Again’. The buyer nods in brotherhood, politely advises David to “be more careful next time” and drives on.
Unless…
Posted: 12th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Pitch@Palace loses the palace: Prince Andrew moves out
You can still see traces of Prince Andrew on the website for Pitch@Palace, his beauty show for budding entrepreneurs. News is that Andrew’s company has moved from its Buckingham Palace base into new office space. The name continues, however, suggesting that a new palace needs to be found to keep the brand alive. There’s the Palace Gentlemen’s Club in New Jersey, the Tower of London or inside a used mackintosh?
PS – on his website, the Duke of York is said to be a full-time working member of the Royal Family. He stepped down from royal duties last November over his relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Posted: 10th, February 2020 | In: Money, News, Royal Family | Comment
Brave Phillip Schofield and celebrity cocks
Stephenie Lowe, wife of TV presenter and father of her two children Phillip Schofield – he just came out as gay – tells the Sun she loves him “as much today as I ever have”. One day earlier, Schofield had told the Sun: “I was confused by what it was. I thought maybe I was bisexual. But over time I realised and started coming to terms with it.” Stephanie had “known for a while” that he was gay.
And that’s pretty much it. It’s a private matter. Only a fool would wish either of them ill. And to be clear, consensual gay sex is love. It’s easy to grasp if you’re capable of acknowledging the stretches and reaches of human desire. We can empathise with the awkwardness of dawning self-realisation, the confusion of growing up gay in a world where we just want to fit in, just as we can comprehend the thrill of holding secret desires and the excitement deceivers find in illicit sex.
But that’s not to say some of the rush to praise a private matter in the public forum doesn’t warrant comment. Schofield’s been called “brave” by various celebs, one going as far as to say Schofield is possessed with the “the heart of a lion”. What kind of lion was left unspecified – the one on the road to Oz, the one in the C. S. Lewis wardrobe or how about the one on the telly ripping into a zebra below David Attenborough’s Voice of God?
And is anyone wondering what reaction would be like if Holly Willoughby (married to a man; mother-of-three), Schofield’s This Morning co-host, came out as gay? If she did, would the liberal, celebrity love for “brave” Phil be countered? TV Phil can continue to do the ice dancing show and the cake making but should we put Holly on DIY and politics? Which of them fronts The Morning’s parenting segment? The one question to take them this story and the ensuring narrative is: would you treat a gay TV presenter any differently than a heterosexual one?
Posted: 10th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Stuart Lubbock: Michael Barrymore gets monstered
Some matters never get closure. The story of Madeleine McCann is one. Another is the death of Stuart Lubbock, who died at just 31 on March 31 2001. His name hit the headlines because his body was found in the pool at TV entertainer Michael Barrymore’s Essex home. Lubbock had “suffered serious sexual injuries”, says the BBC. An inquest in 2002 delivered an open verdict. So much for the facts.
Police recently renewed this efforts at finding out what happened. Det Ch Insp Stephen Jennings says: “I believe that [Stuart] was raped and murdered that night. One or more of those party-goers are responsible for that serious sexual assault on Stuart Lubbock.”
What a police office believes is not worth much. Police officers are in the business of gathering evidence. And first time out the police believed Stuart Lubbock’s death had been an accident.
What’s changed?
The Sun says police “say they have new information in connection with his ‘rape and murder'”.
An Essex Police spokesman goes on the record: “Following our renewed appeal for information about the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock we have received a number of calls with information. We will follow up all lines of inquiry.”
So it was rape and murder? And the renewed hunt is a success?
The BBC adds: “In 2007 Barrymore was arrested in connection with the death but was later released without charge and his arrest found to be unlawful.”
The Sun notes:
The entertainer has continuously denied any wrongdoing but police insist Stuart was raped and murdered.
What an odd sentence, no? Barrymore is not being accused of wrongdoing. However, that “but” seems to make a link between Barrymore’s innocence and what they believe. Why is it all in one mushed into one sentence? Barrymore says he is “100% innocent”. He is. Facts are what are needed – not belief.
Posted: 9th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
Male daytime TV star shocks world: I’m not gay
Newspapers are full of news that daytime TV presenter Phillip Schofield is gay. “I’m gay, I’m proud, and I love my incredible wife” says the Sun, reflecting how Schofield broke the news to viewers of ITV’s This Morning, the show he presents. As the show broadcast other segments – Bear Can’t Find Toilet In Woods – Is Austerity to Blame?; Kate Price: Why I Sleep On My Back; When Will Ruby Union Come Out? – we read of other celebrities rooting for Schofield. Ant and Dec sent their “huge respect and admiration”. David Walliams dreams of living in a world where people can “just be who they are”. Dermot O’Leary says Schofield has “the heart of a lion”.
What of Mrs Schofield, you wonder, good old Phil’s wife of over 20 years? In the Telegraph, Sara Wilson notes: “It may be a weight off his shoulders but it will go straight on to the shoulders of his wife.” “You doubt everything you’ve ever believed in your life,” says one woman to the BBC. She found out her husband was gay six years ago.
Said no-one: Maybe one day other TV presenters will be brave enough to come out as straight.
Posted: 8th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, News, TV & Radio | Comment
Kirk Douglas: what I’ve learned in life and my one big regret
In 2001, Kirk Douglas (December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) told Esquire what he’d learned in life. The actor summed up: “In order to achieve anything, you must be brave enough to fail.”
I tell my sons they didn’t have my advantages growing up. I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.
Give your children lots of rope. Allow them to make their own mistakes. Don’t give them too much advice. Each child is different; you have to respect that. It’s a crapshoot: You roll the dice, and you see what happens.
Noting that “making movies is a form of narcissism” , he harks back to the movie that got away:
One big disappointment in my life was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I bought the rights to the book, but no one wanted to make it into a movie. So I paid to have it made into a Broadway play. There was one line in there that was so beautiful. McMurphy is trying to help all these people on the ward. There was a sink, and he tried to lift it out of the wall, but he couldn’t. He tried really hard, but it wouldn’t budge. As he was leaving the room, with all the guys watching, he turned around and said, “But I tried, goddammit, I tried!” Sometimes I think I should have that as my epitaph.
Lead image: 10th May 1969: Ken Kesey (1935 – 2001), American author of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ and ‘Sometime’s A Great Notion’ – Photo by Roy Jones
Posted: 8th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Film, News | Comment
Lie on your CV if you’re name ends with a vowel or you’re not called John
Funke Abimbola claims she was victim of “bias” when she tried to get into the legal profession. She tells the BBC: “I found a number of barriers to entering the profession because I had an African name and am a black woman, without any doubt. I had to make over 100 phone calls to get a foot in the door. I have experienced bias and situations where, being a black woman, I was judged more harshly over other colleagues. You are more likely to be noticed and are far more likely to have negative judgements made about you if you are part of an ethnic minority.”
Should you put a false name on your CV if it ends in a vowel or sounds ‘foreign’ to employers’ ears? My own family changed their name twice – once because the officials at the gates misspelt it and once from the Sephardic Benhamu to the more anglicised Benham.
Change your name or leave it off your CV? “Your name no longer matters on your CV,” the Daily Telegraph announced in 2015. CVs are going “name blind”. You can remove age, address, gender and educational background also. This will, at least, make the initial stage of the recruitment process more open, so the thinking goes. Until you get to the diversity box, that is, the one that asks applicants to declare their religion, ethnic roots, sexuality and disability status. Has this box-ticking helped job seekers from minority backgrounds? Has it helped end prejudice or discrimination aimed at someone on the basis of their race?
In 2017, the BBC told us:
A job seeker with an English-sounding name was offered three times the number of interviews than an applicant with a Muslim name, a BBC test found.
Inside Out London sent CVs from two candidates, “Adam” and “Mohamed”, who had identical skills and experience, in response to 100 job opportunities.
Adam was offered 12 interviews, while Mohamed was offered four.
Although the results were based on a small sample size, they tally with the findings of previous academic studies.
Meet ‘Honest John’:
Yogesh Khrishna Davé, 56, is the director for quality at a pharmaceutical company in Slough. It has taken him decades to reach this senior role.
During the journey up the ladder he suspected he was being consistently overlooked for jobs because of his name. So he secretly carried out his own experiment.
“I entered the job market in the 80s. I put my CV in and it was disappointing. I got rejection letters.
“Someone suggested: ‘Why don’t you put a very English name on your CV [as well as sending one in your own name]… and see who they might offer the job to?’ So I had my name, Yogesh, and John Smith. John Smith got the interview. I got rejected for the interview.”
None of this mans you’re going to ge the job, of course. The employer will still want to see you. The results of an independent review by Sir John Parker (that is his real name) into the ethnic diversity of UK boards is out. You can read it here.
Meet ‘Honest John II’ in the Times:
The Parker Review, which was launched in 2017, has found that 37 per cent of FTSE 100 boards still have all-white boards. Although the latest figures are an improvement on the 50 per cent that had no ethnic minority representation three years ago, its latest report said that progress had been slower than hoped.
Sir John Parker, who heads the review — and sits on an all-white board himself as chairman of Pennon Group, the water company — accused businesses of being complacent in their approach.
Look lively. It’s ‘Honest Jon III’:
Separate research by the Financial Reporting Council, the watchdog that sets the UK’s corporate governance code, found that most companies were failing to adequately report and set targets for ethnic diversity. More than half of FTSE 250 companies fail to mention ethnicity in the board diversity policy. Only 14 per cent of FTSE 100 companies and 2 per cent of FTSE 250 companies set measurable ethnicity targets.
Sir Jon Thompson, 55, chief executive of the regulator, said: “The UK’s record on boardroom ethnicity is poor. It is unacceptable that talented people are being excluded from succession and leadership simply because companies are failing to put in place appropriate policies on boardroom ethnicity.”
In conclusion: you can never have enough Johns in charge of fairness…
Posted: 5th, February 2020 | In: Key Posts, Money, News | Comment
City Trader accused of eating sandwiches
The BBC reports on a report in the Financial Times which alleges a City trader at Investment bank Citigroup was allegedly suspended for “stealing food from the staff canteen”. You will, of course have noticed the caveats in that opening line. The trader earns, reportedly, over £1m a year – more than enough to afford a pricey lawyer. Allegedly. It is alleged “he helped himself to sandwiches from the canteen at the bank’s London headquarters”.
Sandwiches.
Paris creates Rue David Bowie – and we’re not sure why
There’s to be a street in Paris named in honour of David Bowie. “There will soon be a Rue David Bowie in the 13th arrondissement of Paris,” says district Paris mayor Jerome Coumet. Although “the naming must be approved by the Paris council in February”.
We know Bowie, a Londoner, moved to Switzerland, West Berlin and New York City, but why Paris? He was familiar with Jacques Brel and Marcel Marceau, sure, and did smoke Gitanes for a while when living in LA, but for the major to say Bowie “had a strong link with the city of lights” is a bit of a push – like saying Lou Reed is synonymous with the London Underground, no?
Posted: 4th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Music, News | Comment
Marijuana: THCP is THC x 30
In Nature, researchers in Italy tell of a test of a form of cannabis that could be 30 times more potent than standard doses of THC. We read of the test on mice: “In the cannabinoid tetrad pharmacological test, 9-THCP induced hypomotility, analgesia, catalepsy and decreased rectal temperature indicating a THC-like cannabimimetic activity.”
The Metro blows some smoke up its own backside: “the stoned rodents also experienced a drop in the internal temperature of their bottom – which is not generally acknowledged to be the most popular effect of weed among the humans who choose to smoke it.” No doofus. Rectal temperature is used on mice because researchers are seeking evidence of changes in core body temperature, and whereas pulmonary artery temperature measurement is the gold standard for such measuring internal body heat, it’s easier and cheaper to insert a thermometer inside a mouse’s arse than to insert a pulmonary artery catheter. And mice aren’t simply stoned. They’re held captive and drugged.
So much for the reporting. What of the weed, named tetrahydrocannabiphorol (THCP)?
The authors assessed the ability of THCP to bind to human cannabinoid receptors found in the endocannabinoid system by sending the compound to a lab to be tested in a tube. The endocannabinoid system’s job is to keep our body in homeostasis, or equilibrium, and it regulates everything from sleep to appetite to inflammation to pain and more. When a person smokes marijuana, THC overwhelms the endocannabinoid system, latching on to cannabinoid receptors and interfering with their ability to communicate between neurons. THCP bound strongly to both receptors – 33 times more than THC does, and 63 times more than another compound called THCV. The finding led the authors to wonder if THCP might explain why some particularly potent cannabis varieties have a stronger effect than can be explained by the presence of THC alone.
The Italian researchers re interested in the drugs anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-epileptic activity, which are typical of CBD.
Spotter: CNN
Streatham Terror attack video: cafe owner asks police for 30 minutes so diners can finish eating
The terrorist shot man shot dead by police after he stabbed two people in Streatham, south London, was called Sudesh Amman. Police were quick to the scene of his heinous crime because they were watching him. Amman was released from prison in January after serving time for terror offences.
After he was shot dead, police attended a cafe:
American Dirt: when critics attack
Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt is the hottest book you haven’t read. Reportedly bought for a seven figure sum, the work hailed as the “Grapes of Wrath for our times” by someone in the know tells the story of a Mexican mother and her son who escape the drugs cartels. Sounds great. But not everyone’s a fan:
The publisher of the controversial novel American Dirt has canceled the remainder of the author’s book tour as critics and many in the Latinx community criticize the book for its portrayal of immigrants.
In a statement Wednesday, Flatiron Books president and publisher Bob Miller acknowledged the controversy surrounding the novel and its author, Jeanine Cummins, and said they decided to cancel the tour because of “specific threats,” including that of physical violence, that have been made against her.
Salman Rushdie is over here…
Posted: 30th, January 2020 | In: Books, News, The Consumer | Comment
Nigel Farage celebrates Brexit with a portrait called ‘Mr Brexit’ – and are those lip fillers?
Michael Deacon was there to see a painting unveiled: Nigel Farage has just unveiled a portrait of himself entitled ‘Mr Brexit’. Jim Davidson is now giving a speech to mark the occasion. Happy Brexit everyone.”
Want a close up. Be brave…
Can you be our own waxwork?
Posted: 30th, January 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment
Watch the live Coronavirus tracking map
You can keep track of the coranavirus with this tracking map run by America’s Johns Hopkins University.
In response to this ongoing public health emergency, we developed an online dashboard (static snapshot shown below) to visualize and track the reported cases on a daily timescale; the complete set of data is downloadable as a google sheet. The case data visualized is collected from various sources, including WHO, U.S. CDC, ECDC China CDC (CCDC), NHC and DXY. DXY is a Chinese website that aggregates NHC and local CCDC situation reports in near real-time, providing more current regional case estimates than the national level reporting organizations are capable of, and is thus used for all the mainland China cases reported in our dashboard (confirmed, suspected, recovered, deaths). U.S. cases (confirmed, suspected, recovered, deaths) are taken from the U.S. CDC, and all other country (suspected and confirmed) case data is taken from the corresponding regional health departments. The dashboard is intended to provide the public with an understanding of the outbreak situation as it unfolds, with transparent data sources.
See it here.
.
The Entartete Kunst – when Nazis banned ‘degenerate’ art and music
The Nazis were not ones for jazz and free expression. They damned all as entartete kunst (degenerate art). To let fellow Ubermensch know what wrong thinking looked like, the Nazis created a travelling exhibition called – predictably – Entartete Kunst. The show opened in Munich in 1937, displaying works deemed to be “an insult to German feeling”. How they flocked to be educated and disgusted by stuff purged from museums and stolen by the State for the common good. More than two million visitors attended the exhibition from July 19 to November 30, 1937, in Munich alone.
Part of the purge was listed in the 10 Rules for Combatting Jazz. The whole shebang of depravity formed a brochure, of which London’s V&A holds the only known copy of a complete inventory of Entartete Kunst.
The museum notes:
The list of more than 16,000 artworks was produced by the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) in 1942 or thereabouts. It seems that the inventory was compiled as a final record, after the sales and disposals of the confiscated art had been completed in the summer of 1941. The inventory’s two typescript volumes provide crucial information about the provenance, exhibition history and fate of each artwork.
The inventory consists of 482 pages (including blank pages and a missing page), split into two volumes. The entries are organised alphabetically by city, institution and artist’s name. Volume 1 covers the cities Aachen to Görlitz, while Volume 2 covers Göttingen to Zwickau.
It’s pretty much a guide to everything you should enjoy.
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 30th, January 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians, Strange But True | Comment
Sub-editor misses open goal in Chester city centre
As newspapers die is the art of sub-editing going with them?
The Chester preacher’s message is not thought to be for the sub-editor who missed the word “manic”.
Spotter: Chest Live
Prince Andrew and the WILL to do nothing
How’s things with Prince Andrew? The Daily Express has the grandiose Duke Of York telling us he “WILL” talk to the FBI about his dead peado pal Jeffrey Epstein. The word ‘WILL’ is in capitals and underlined. It’s a triple vow. And then in a trice it’s nothing. This is all news from “a source” reportedly “close to” Prince Andrew. “The duke is more than happy to talk to the FBI, but he hasn’t been approached yet,” says the source. The FBI says Andrew has offered precisely zero help in their investigation.
The Daily Telegraph says royal sources “believe” the FBI’s criticism was a “publicity stunt” designed to “pile on pressure” and force the duke’s hand. (So long as it is his hand – in his coach crash TV interview Prince Andrew said the picture of him with his hand around Virginia Roberts’ waist might not be real.)
Back to the Express’s front page, and the sleazy Prince is below a picture of the late TV and radio star Nicholas Parsons (10 October 1923 – 28 January 2020). The charming, erudite, gracious and lovely Parsons is dressed in a top hat, like a proper gent. But the boy from Grantham could only dream of such a rank. True-born gentlemen of honour, like Prince Andrew, get titles, palaces and billionaire pals. The rest of us can only pretend.
Posted: 29th, January 2020 | In: News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Let’s swap Prince Andrew and Anne Sacoolas
Prince Andrew is “too honourable”. We know this because he told us so during a televised interview with the BBC on his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein (now dead). Since that televised coach crash, Randy Andy might have imagined the story would go away, blown off the news cycle by bigger events: Brexit, Meghan Markle’s seaplane, a killer virus in China. But it didn’t. And now the ambulatory advert for a republic has been called out by lawyers in New York City as having provided “zero co-operation” to an inquiry into the rotting sex offender.
Epstein was not killed. As the BBC states: “Convicted US sex offender Epstein took his own life in a jail cell in August, aged 66, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.” Fact. A billionaire who abused underage girls and hung out with the super-entitled, super-rich suddenly ended it all alone in a jail cell. No guards saw it. No CCTV recorded it. It just happened. Barbara Sampson, New York’s chief medical examiner, says she stood “firmly behind our determination of the cause and manner of death for Mr Epstein”.
Kicking over the dead body, the piles of cash and the abused women is attorney Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He says the FBI and his office had requested to interview Andrew as part of their inquiry into Epstein’s crimes, but “to date, Prince Andrew has provided zero co-operation”. Maybe they’ll have more luck making Epstein talk?
Maybe the US can extradite Andrew? This country is interested in Anne Sacoolas, a suspect in the death of Harry Dunn. So far the US has refused to extradite her. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Home Secretary Priti Patel and PM Boris Johnson have all criticised the US decision to reject the request for Anne Sacoolas to return to the UK. Mr Johnson’s spokesman tells media: “We believe that this is a denial of justice and the individual concerned should return to the UK.”
So how about they get Andrew and we get Sacoolas – one national embarrassment for another? The Americans can turn it into a TV event. And we can sleep easy knowing America respects out laws, investigates the suspicious deaths of our citizens, whether it be by drone or car.
Aviva treats every customer just like ‘Michael’
Cheap words at insurer Aviva, which undid the pretence that letters are tailored to each individual customer by addressing thousands of missives to just one: ‘Michael’.
The boss doesn’t sit on a big chair dictating a new letter for each customer. Someone in marketing simply cooks one up and a machine guffs them out. Aviva tells us: “We sent out some emails to existing customers, which, as a result of a temporary technical error in our mailing template, mistakenly referred to customers as ‘Michael’.”
We tell them it’s time to bring back the typing pool.
Posted: 28th, January 2020 | In: Money, News, The Consumer | Comment
Black activist cropped from Greta Thunberg Davos photoshoot
If Greta Thunberg was black, would the world’s media prick up its ear when she spoke? It’s not what she says, but that the white, blonde from Sweden is saying it. Time to meet Vanessa Nakate, a 23-year-old climate activist from Uganda who like Greta has been at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
On Friday, Vanessa was at the Fridays for Future protest in the rarified Swiss town. Big media covered the event. And when the Associated Press portrait of the young activists hit the newswires, Vanessa was noticeable by her absence. The four white girls stayed in the picture, each looking a bit miserable and concerned. It might be modelling shoot for some mid-market brand. To the side, the smiling black girl, the young woman from lands the West presents as places to nurture, control and save, is gone.
Says Vanessa: “I cried because it was so sad not just that it was racist, I was sad because of the people from Africa. It showed how we are valued. It hurt me a lot. It is the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.”
She’s right, isn’t she. Climate change activism looks a lot like colonialism. We know best. We must save them. Their job is to provide the noble cause. And if they’re really lucky, maybe a TV celebrity will come and adopt them and fly them to a place where the knowing really understand what’s going on …
28 animals you can eat at China’s Wuhan Market
These are the 28 animals identified by the South China Morning Post for sale at the Huanan (Wuhan) market in China. Many animals do not feature. And the thinking is why not? If you can eat camel and donkey, why not llama or flamingo? And are Hoxton’s hipsters lagging, sticking to ostrich, emu and crocodile when those food-forward Chinese are dining on Asian badger, otter and scorpion? As the West weeps over footage of the burnt Australian wildlife, are Chinese sympathies fogged by the scent of roast koala?
Some science suggests the coronavirus spreading in China started in bats served at the aforementioned Wuhan market. Analysis shows the virus’s genetic makeup is 96% identical to that of a coronavirus found in bats. “I would be very surprised if this were a snake virus,” says Timothy Sheahan, a virologist at the University of North Carolina. Bats were also the ultimate source of SARS, scientists believe.
“evil! Chinese eat bat – movie exposure, ” says a headline to an Apple News story shared by the Daily Mail. The video features a woman eating bat soup. Why eating bat should be evil and, say, eating newborn lamb the stuff of daytime telly cooking shows and Easter treats is moot, moreover eating kangaroo testicles for slots of entertainment dished up between ads for insurance, holidays and mobile phones?
But war with the bats has begun. And you need to pick sides. (I’ll have a side of chicken wings and foie gras.)
Posted: 24th, January 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, The Consumer | Comment
Microblading gives woman felt tip-style eyebrows
To Kalamazoo, Michigan, where Shannon Bozell has paid $350 for an eyebrow ‘improvement’ process called microblading. She alleges Anne Hicks, salon owner and microblading artist, didn’t do such a great job. Hicks says she a professional and offered to do extra work on them.
“I went from having zero eyebrows to having these monster eyebrows, and it’s hard to swallow,” says Bozell. “They’re big caterpillar eyebrows that don’t fit my face.”
Which begs the questions: whose face would they fit? And can they be hired out?
Spotter: CBS Austin
Posted: 22nd, January 2020 | In: News, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Brenda from Waddington solves global warming
Brenda from Waddington, Lincolnshire is 89. She knows what caused global warming: space travel.
Spotter: @angrypiln
Posted: 19th, January 2020 | In: News, Strange But True | Comment
