News Category
Nominative determinism: Mr Slaughter becomes new head of Western Australia’s largest beef processor
In Nominative Determinism News, Ted Slaughter has been appointed the new chief executive officer for Harvest Road Group – Western Australia’s largest beef processor.
Image: Interior of a cow for sale at flashbak prints.
Spotter: Farm Weekly
Posted: 19th, February 2021 | In: News, Strange But True | Comment
Hawaii tourists arrested for bribing officials to escape quarantine
Would you pay to bypass quarantine for Covic-19? Johntrell White, 29, and Nadia Bailey, 28, reportedly landed for a holiday in Honolulu without the necessary Covid-19 test forms they needed to avoid 10-days quarantine. White allegedly offered an official $2,000 to avoid quarantine. Bailey allegedly offered $1,000.
“Deputy sheriffs were notified and arrested the two visitors on suspicion of bribery. White and Bailey were later released and immediately flew back to the mainland. The investigation is ongoing.”
And how was your holiday? And does money make a difference, or are we all in this together?
If you could pay to bypass the rules, would you?
Daily Express leads with terrible Prince Philip photo; Diana might be dead
The Duke of Edinburgh has been resting in a London hospital. He’s 99. Prince Philip’s trips to hospital are not infrequent. But it’s easy news. It helps newspapers tread water whilst Philip’s obituary they’ve had primed and ready to go for decades gathers dust. But do they like Phil? Specifically, does the Daily Express likes him?
This is how the Telegraph, Mail and Sun lead with news of Phil’s latest trip to the doctors. He looks fresh-faced and spry.
And here’s Philip on the cover of the Daily Express. He looks decidedly ill. For added spite, the paper’s slapped him next to a picture of a smiling Princess Diana, her face radiant, and a picture of her sons, one of whom is actually pointing in his direction.
What can it all mean from the paper that brought you this news:
Posted: 18th, February 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Covid-19 : Armageddon did not begin in Bournemouth
When the fist lockdown was ended, we headed to beaches. But the ‘Covidiots’ never did spread Covid-19 on Bournemouth’s golden sands. SAGE epidemiologist Mark Woolhouse tells the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that crowded beaches did not lead to a single outbreak last summer.
“Over the summer we were treated to pictures of crowded beaches, and there was an outcry about this, but there were no outbreaks linked to crowded beaches… there has never been a Covid-19 outbreak linked to a beach ever anywhere in the world, to the best of my knowledge.”
What did the papers and say? The Indy and Telegraph were scathing:
One local MP was hot on Covid. Tobias Ellwood new the rules:
Later…
As you were.
Posted: 17th, February 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Daily Star mocks Meghan And Harry over second baby press release
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (who they?) are expecting a second child. It’s front-page news. Nearly all national UK papers lead with a photo the pair released to media on Valentine’s Day. For many readers, the Daily Star nails it.
In other news, Aussie mag New Idea (aka No Idea but so long as you read bilge about those two we’ll right it) says “it’s all over”.
Posted: 15th, February 2021 | In: News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Rose West, Gary Glitter head list of prisoners to be ‘executed by Covid’
There are around 79,000 people locked up in UK prisons. Of those 30% are inside for ‘violence against the person’ and 18% for sexual offences. The Sun is seeing which of them has received and injection for Covid-19. To date we’ve been told that depraved killer Rose West and paedophile Gary Glitter have received the jab.
A source tells the Sun: “Why can’t West wait until they’ve at least started vaccinating some over-65s who aren’t serving life for murdering ten people? She suffered quite a bad reaction. There were lots of flu-like symptoms and she took to her bed.”
The Mail adds “fat” the list of West’s offences. It also introduces a new way of measuring ingredients in “prison spoons”:
Killer West piled on the pounds over the years following a much publicised love of cakes and chocolate. In 2010, her cookbook for prisoners was revealed, including a recipe for Victoria Sponge. It included a full tub of margarine and eight prison spoons of flour.
As for Glitter, 76, aka Paul Gadd, in 2015, the pedophile and former pop star was sentenced to 16 years in prison for sexually abusing three young girls between 1975 and 19. He’s been jabbed.
A source adds in the Sun:
Many have been jailed in recent years for horrific crimes dating back decades. You have some prisons where there’s a significant group of elderly sex offenders all in their 70s and 80s. Because of their age, they will get the vaccine first. But if you’re a prison officer looking after Glitter and you haven’t had the jab, you’re not going to be happy.
A heated debate ensues. You can watch it on mid-morning telly.
This former prosecutor, who promotes his book on twitter, says execution is wrong.
It’s all good tabloid stuff. Find nasty human targets in a world in thrall to an agenda-setting virus and farm the opinions. Much easier to hit a human target than an invisible virus. And the better news is that with no end to the pandemic in sight, the Sun can keep dishing up people guilty of despicable crimes who might be receiving medical care. Wikipedia has a list of UK prisoners serving whole life tariffs, of which three are women. Double outage if you get one of them.
PR and privacy beats public interest: Duchess Meghan defeats the Mail
Duchess of Sussex, Meghan, struck a blow for the little people when she took on the Daily Mail on Sunday and won her high court privacy case. The aristocrat says “we have all won”.
She brought the claim against Associated Newspapers over its publication of extracts from her letter to her father. He had passed it to the paper. Judge Mr Justice Warby said Meghan had a “reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private”. The Mail countered that publishing the letter was in the public interest.
“One’s correspondence with others is presumptively private in nature,” said Warby. “…Taken as a whole the disclosures were manifestly excessive and hence unlawful. There is no prospect that a different judgment would be reached after a trial.” The Mail never got to test the matter in open court.
Warby ruled that the letter that appeared beneath the headline “Revealed: the letter showing true tragedy of Meghan’s rift with a father she says has ‘broken her heart into a million pieces” was “a long-form telling-off”, “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.”
The Sun calls the ruling “a blow against press freedom”. The Daily Mail says its publishers are considering an appeal. It would be useful to discover what it all means going forward.
Media lawyer Mark Stephens tells the BBC: “If you can’t effectively report on leaked letters then in those circumstances the media holding people to account is going to be hampered. Essentially this judgement in its widest context puts manacles on the media… This is a letter that could have easily been published in the United States and you are in a situation where going forward people will leak these letters to media in America.”
How did we all win, as Meghan put it? Isn’t this a win for the rich and powerful, those born to rule?
“Thomas Markle makes the allegation that she created an attack through PR and her friends,” says Stephens, now popping up in the Mail. “Thomas Markle makes the allegation that she created an attack through PR and her friends. If that’s right it means rich and powerful people who can afford PR and representation will be able to curate their reputations without the media being able to expose that.”
Joshua Rosenberg writes in the Telegraph:
Warby’s ruling reinforces the law without changing it. There will still be cases where a newspaper’s freedom of expression outweighs a letter-writer’s right to privacy – especially if the writer is a public figure. But this was not one of them.
The Duchess of Sussex has issued a statement – something we are allowed to report:
These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence.
For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep. The world needs reliable, fact-checked, high-quality news.
What The Mail on Sunday and its partner publications do is the opposite. We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth, when moral exploitation sells more than decency, and when companies create their business model to profit from people’s pain.
One item on the court’s agenda remains to be decided. The judge says publication of the letter infringed the duchess’s copyright. But he says the issue of whether Meghan was “the sole author” of the letter or Jason Knauf, former communications secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, was a “co-author” should be determined at a trial.
Will it be? If it is found that personal and private letters to her dad were authored for co-authored by her staff, you might wonder what the purpose of the letter really was? And the tabloids will have yet another Meghan and Harry news story to use when they press f9 on the keyboard and let us all know what two toffs living in LA are up to when the toffs are not telling us what they’re up. And on the game goes…
Posted: 12th, February 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
How to secure a 9 times salary mortgage – the Sun shares a secret
How did Gemma Bird get to live the dream? The Sun want to share her journey to wealth in “PENNY PINCHING – I paid off £225,000 mortgage on £25,000 wage… here’s how you can do it too.” Bird is not 105 years old. She’s 39. And her achievement is all the more impressive when you consider her tax bill – on £25,000 a year, take home pay is around £20,650.
You might be wondering how she got a £225,000 mortgage on that income. A mortgage lender will let you have about 3-5 times salary – not the nine times salary Bird seems to have secured. Maybe it’s down to her powers of persuasion, after all she is an Instagram “influencer” with a decent following. The Sun’s article name-checks her favourite supermarkets, and links to MoneyMumOfficial, the social media account where “she shares money-saving tips” – “the business is so successful that Adam has quit his role in sales to work for Gemma full time.”
Well done! Remind us how much that mortgage was.
Now read on and see if you can work out how hard-working Gemma did it. (A salary of £12,000 a year typically equates to take-home pay of around £975 a month.)
So how do you pay off a £225,000 / £375,000 / £800,000 mortgage on £25,000 a year?
Posted: 8th, February 2021 | In: Money, News, Tabloids | Comment
British politics at its best: Handforth Parish Council meeting goes viral
You are watching a meeting of Handforth Parish Council, in Wilmslow, Cheshire, on Zoom. Jackie Weaver is from the Cheshire Association of Local Councils. The Chairman is Brian Tolver, refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the meeting. He bills himself as the “clerk”.
Ms Weaver says: “The chairman simply declared himself clerk and notified everybody of the case. There is no way of stopping him from calling himself clerk. Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on.”
Mr Tolver is removed from the meeting and placed in a “virtual waiting room” to the virtual meeting after saying: “You have no authority here Jackie Weaver.”
Councillor Aled Brewerton adds: “Read the standing orders – read them and understand them!” He too is sent to the virtual waiting room.
Stay tuned…
Posted: 5th, February 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
UK bans China state broadcaster from British airwaves; Putin’s RT continues to troll West
UK state broadcast regulator Ofcom has banned China state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) because it is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and, thus, has no editorial control of its own – a legal requirement. Ofcome once blocked Iran-backed Press TV. So why does Russia Today (RT) continue to broadcast?
Julian Knight MP, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is chuffed:
“Today’s ruling is confirmation that the Chinese Communist Party is the ultimate controller of its broadcasts which is not permitted under UK law. CGTN had already breached broadcasting codes with a forced confession, and failure on impartiality over coverage of the Hong Kong protests. It should be seen as a strong warning that the power to broadcast carries with it responsibility and accountability. Failing this bar will not be tolerated.”
So you cannot watch Red TV but you can trade with China and not mention its abuse of Uighurs and other Muslims at camps in China’s Xinjiang region – no national newspaper has led with the story on its front page. The UK and China agree on one thing about that nastiness: there’s nothing to see here, move along…
Free hotels with full board for all British and Irish Covid-19 travellers
Jet off on your hols to one of 33 destinations on the “red list” and on your return British and Irish travellers get to stay free at an airport hotel for 10-days. The Government is block-booking rooms at hotels at airports a cost of around £85 a night – tea, coffee and three meals a day included. Hotels will be reserved exclusively for quarantining travellers.
If you want to go out, a security guard must accompany you. These pre-paid security guards will patrol inside and outside the hotel to “prevent unauthorised access”. Anyone wanting to smoke outside or get fresh air will also be escorted by security staff.
If you’re hard up and want a tip to Portugal or Dubai, two of the destinations on the “red list”, why not get a cheap flight there, stay in a cheap hotel for a few days and then on your return put your feet up in one of the Government’s new chain of free Covid-19 Hotels?
Offer begins February 15.
A pictogram illustrating the power of vaccinations
This pictogram illustrating the power of vaccines delivers a clear message: they work. But Varicella… People still die from chicken pox and shingles?
Spotter: @melizeche
Frozen 3 spoiler : Binman sacked for decapitating snowman
The binman who kicked the head off a snowman in Hereford has been sacked. Joseph Taylor, 3, was let in “floods of tears” after watching the man decapitate the snowman outside his home in Tupsley. The binman then repeatedly kicked the snowman’s torso until it to crashed to the ground. The action was recorded on the Taylor family’s CCTV camera.
“Yes the people who made it (kids) have young feelings,” says binman Callum Woodhouse on social media. “Let’s look at the bigger problem in this wold Covid-19 people have feelings about this. “People are dropping dead by a virus. Think of it like this, that snowman wouldn’t be there tomorrow, any feelings then?…no. I understand people made this snowman but it’s gonna melt anyhow. I don’t understand why this has came to this.”
Said no parent whose seen Frozen: we can only take so much.
Spotter: Hereford Times
Billionaire Leon Cooperman is here to save the world one hedge fund at a time
Leon Cooperman (net worth $3.2 billion) is upset about money and how it’s being used by the little people to make GameStop shares soar – and in so doing cost hedge funds that bet on the store’s share price tanking. He tells CNBC: “The reason the market is doing what it’s doing is people are sitting at home getting checks from the government. This fair share, is a bullshit concept. It’s just a way of attacking wealthy people and I think it inappropriate and we all gotta work together and pull together.”
Cooperman was always a plonker:
Marjorie Taylor Greene says open carry does not extend to Jews carrying laser beams
Bugger! They know about Operation Lox ‘n’ Loaded. Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has told everyone that a secret Jewish – sorry, Israeli – laser beam fired from space is causing fires in California. The far left and the far right agree: the Jews did it – whatever it is. Plus ca change.
Greene also says, according to NYMag: the QAnon conspiracy theory is “worth listening to”, 9/11 was an inside job, the mass murder at Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Las Vegas were staged and “Zionist supremacists” are promoting Muslim immigration to Europe in a scheme to outbreed white people.
Greene’s post on those laser beams, via NYMag and Media Matters:
Here’s more from the delightful Greene. She’s fearlessly confronting David Hogg, a survivor of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. She claims he is being paid by George Soros (not an Israeli but very possibly a Jew):
Editorialised by a partisan CNN:
Does open carry extend to Jews and their space lasers? And is Greene Jewish? Asking for a friend.
Posted: 29th, January 2021 | In: News, Politicians | Comment
Craven Joe Biden denies Harry Dunn justice – protects coward Anne Sacoolas
Joe Biden agrees with Trump. They are foreign birds of a feather for whom the “special relationship” is a one way street. Biden says Anne Sacoolas, the American wife of an American spook working on British soil, does not have to face British justice. She fled the UK after a car she was driving on the wrong side of the road near RAF Croughton, Northamptonshire, in 2019, collided with a blameless Harry Dunn, leaving him dead. He was 19.
The cowardly Sacoolas legged it, citing diplomatic immunity. Harry Dunn’s working-class parents sued for justice. They believed they’d get it.
“The United States government has declined the United Kingdom’s request for extradition of a US citizen involved in a tragic vehicle accident that occurred in the United Kingdom,” says State Department spokesman Ned Price.
“Our decision in that regard was final. At the time the accident occurred, and for the duration of her stay in the UK, the US citizen driver in this case had immunity from criminal jurisdiction.”
A young man is dead. Harry Dunn was neither rich nor powerful enough to matter to Joe Biden. Anne Sacoolas is being protected by America. But what’s to stop her boarding a flight and heading to the UK? What prevents this protected American from doing the right thing?
Cracking Typo: ‘Daft’ Germans lose plot over AstraZeneca vaccine in the Guardian
The “daft Germans” (source: Guardian – see above) say the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine they are desperate to get is pretty rubbish if you’re over-65. It feels like only yesterday (it was – ed) that the Germans and their equally slow EU peers who ordered the vaccine three months after the UK put its order in were demanding the UK supply doses from its stocks to make up any shortfall due to production issues.
Weird feeling for someone who voted to remain in the EU to watch it implode over UK’s ability to work faster and harder to get more vaccines. It is a brilliant advert for Brexit – and for the ancient principle of first come, first served— Grant Feller (@grantfeller) January 28, 2021
The EU’s health commissioner (can you name him / her?) claims AstraZeneca is wrong when it says it is contractually obliged to supply the UK first. Stella Kyriakides (congrats to longtime reader Mrs Stella Kyriakides for answering right; hard cheese Mr Stella Kyriakides for his wrong answer) says: “We reject the logic of first come, first served. That may work in a butcher’s shop but not in contracts and not in our advanced purchase.”
AstraZeneca says it can deliver 25% of the doses scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of the year once the European medicines authority has given its approval. The company says it will deliver 2m doses a week for the benefit of UK residents, as agreed.
The “daft Germans” will have to wait.
‘Queen Bitch’ Margaret Marilyn DeAdder’s obituary is the best read of 2021
Margaret Marilyn DeAdder (1942-2021), of New Brunswick, Canada, loved coupons, bitchiness and menace on the roads. Her obituary is choice:
Margaret Marilyn DeAdder, professional clipper of coupons, baker of cookies, terror behind the wheel, champion of the underdog, ruthless card player, and self-described Queen Bitch, died on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. Marilyn, the oldest of four siblings, was born Marilyn Joyce in 1942, to parents Hannah and Edgar Joyce, in New Glasgow, NS. She grew up in a modest home, which still stands on the top of a hill where the Westville Rd. forks to the Town of Westville in one direction and the old drive-in in the other. Growing up with very little taught her how to turn a dime into a dollar, a skill at which she’d excel her whole life.
Marilyn loved all children who weren’t her own and loved her own children relative to how clean-shaven they were. She excelled at giving the finger, taking no sh!t and laughing at jokes, preferably in the shade of blue. She did not excel at suffering fools, hiding her disdain, and putting her car in reverse. A voracious reader, she loved true crime, romance novels and the odd political book. Trained as a hairdresser before she was married, she was always doing somebody’s hair in her kitchen, so much so her kitchen smelled of baking and perm solution. Marilyn had a busy life, but no matter what she was doing she always made time to run her kids’ lives as well. Her lifelong hobbies included painting, quilting, baking, gardening, hiking and arson. Marilyn loved tea and toast. The one thing she loved more than tea and toast was reheated tea and toast. She reheated tea by simply turning on the burner often forgetting about it. She burned many a teapot and caused smoke damage countless times, leaving her kids with the impression that fanning the smoke alarm was a step in brewing tea.
Marilyn liked to volunteer and give back to the community. She was a lifelong volunteer at the Capital Theatre in downtown Moncton, which her sons suspected was her way of seeing all the shows for free. For all of Marilyn’s success in life, her crowning achievement occurred in the mid-to-late eighties, when, left with mounting debt, no job, no car, and no driver’s license, she turned it all around to the point in the early nineties that she had paid down her house, paid cash for all her cars, and got her three boys through university.
Marilyn is survived by her three ungrateful sons Michael (Gail), Paul and David (Trudy), whose names she never got completely right, and whose jokes she didn’t completely understand. She loved them very much, even though at least one of them would ruin Christmas every year by coming home with facial hair, and never forgot that one disastrous Christmas in which all three sons showed up with beards. Everything she did, she did for her sons.
Marilyn is survived by her three granddaughters Meaghan (19), Bridget (16) and Madelyn (5). While her sons committed unspeakable crimes against humanity, her granddaughters could do no wrong. While her sons grew up on root vegetables and powdered milk (funneled directly into the bag to hide the fact that it was powdered, fooling nobody), her granddaughters were fed mountains of sugary snacks as far as the eye could see, including her world-famous cookies and cinnamon rolls. Her love for them was unmatched.
Marilyn is survived by her sisters, Melda and Linda, and her brother, Lloyd, who still owes her $600* (*inside family joke – sorry, Lloyd). Marilyn is also survived by an incredible number of close friends, who cannot be named for fear of missing somebody.
Marilyn, ever the penny-pincher, decided to leave this world on the day Moncton went into red-alert, her sons believe, to avoid paying for a funeral. But, on the other hand, she always said that she didn’t want a funeral, she wanted an Irish wake. She didn’t want everybody moping around, she wanted a party. Marilyn will get her celebration of life when COVID-19 is over. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you do something nice for somebody else unexpectedly, and without explanation. We love you, mom, a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.
As seen on. the website of Cobb’s Funeral Home and Cremation Center.
Posted: 28th, January 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
US Senator Ted Cruz thinks Paris isn’t in Texas
US Senator for Texas, Ted Cruz, has noticed President Joe Biden returning the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement in November 2020. Says Cruz:
“By signing this order, President Biden indicates that he’s more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh.”
And the Texas Senator isn’t?
Posted: 21st, January 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
UFC fighters can test positive for marijuana and still compete
Good news. Before your next Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), you can smoke a spliff. Taking something that might well dampen your aggression and reflexes is not the most sensible move when the opponent is trying to knee you in the face. But you can do it. Returning a positive drugs test for for carboxy-THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, will only be a violation of the sports rules if the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is able to prove that an athlete intentionally used it for performance-enhancing purposes.
However the message is mixed. Last week the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) suspended UFC fighter Bevon Lewis for six months and fined him $1,200 for a positive drug test for cannabis.
Is it right you should be banned from doing your job for smoking weed? Marijuana stays in a person’s system for weeks or months after usage. It’s possible that workers could use marijuana in their personal time in a place where it’s entirely legal to do so and get sanctioned for testing positive on a drug test when they’re back at work in a different location.
And what if a UFC fighter is permitted to use medical marijuana in one state but forbidden in another state? Maybe just legalise all drugs in spot, right?
Legal marijuana increases sales of junk food
It turns out that stoners enjoy eating fast food. Who knew? A new study has linked the legalisation of marijuana with an increase in demand for salty, sweet fast food. Economists at Georgia State University say that “monthly sales of high calorie food increased by 3.2 percent when measured by sales and 4.5 percent when measured by volume.”
“You think marijuana does no harm – that’s pretty much the consensus today,” said Georgia State University economist Alberto Chong in an interview with The Academic Times. “But there are unintended consequences, and one of them is the fact that you really get very hungry and you start eating crap.”
The researchers added that while the tendency to binge on junk food after smoking a joint may be a stoner stereotype, their findings have real implications for public policy at a time when more than 40% of American adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
An earlier version of the paper included a breakdown of junk food sales by type that did not make it into Economics & Human Biology. Legal marijuana boosted sales of ice cream by 3.1%, cookies by 4.1% and chips by 5.3%, according to Chong and Baggio’s 2019 working paper…
But is more weed being smoked than when it was illegal? Cannabis was hardly tricky to get back then, which was one of the drivers to legalisation. Walk down pretty much any street in the UK and you can smell the skunk. Attempts to control it are futile. The new prudery is about food that makes you fat. You can be stoned, but if you’re fat, the State will really monster you.
Posted: 16th, January 2021 | In: News, The Consumer | Comment
Newport man throws away £210m Bitcoin hard drive
James Howells “believes” the hard drive he threw away in 2013 contains £210m-worth of Bitcoin, the super-traceable cyber currency that may well be or not be a fad. Howells’ 7,500 bitcoins are possibly languishing in landfill site news his home in Newport, Wales. And he wants the local council to help him search for it. If they find it, Newport city will be in for 25% of the amount.
Nice idea but even if he finds it, should the bitcoin millionaire sell his haul, the price of his holding will go down or even collapse. Sell more than the market could take and watch the price skid. Increase supply with no corresponding rise in demand and price falls. No?
One question would be: can’t he find a hacker to crack into his holding? If bitcoin all that secure? And can’t he just use the promise of buried riches to create his own cyber currency?
Spotter: BBC
Posted: 14th, January 2021 | In: Money, News, Technology | Comment
Elizabeth was not ready for the Trump Revolution
Elizabeth came to Washington DC from Knoxville, Tennessee, to march for Donald Trump. She made it a foot inside the Capital before she says she was maced and forced back outside. Elizabeth is upset. Elizabeth was not ready to the Revolution.
Posted: 8th, January 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Hilaria Baldwin and Phoebe – life mirrors 30 Rock?
Hilaria Baldwin, née Hillary Hayward-Thomas, is a celebrity, yoga instructor and the current Mrs Alec Baldwin, star of TV’s 30 Rock. She is accused of creating a fake Spanish heritage.
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and appears to have attended school in the state. But, as reported widely, a now deleted bio on her management’s website said that she was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca. As the BBC notes: “She also previously claimed in an interview that she did not move to the United States until she was 19 to attend university in New York.” Page Six adds: “Her 2016 interview with Hola! magazine also stated: ‘Hilaria, who was born in Spain, has made certain to raise her children with her native language, Spanish.'”
In this video, Hilaria Baldwin seems to forget the English word for cucumber, something many of us (vegetarians included) have done.
Hilaria goes on the record. In a long video on Instagram, Hilaria Baldwin says she was born in Boston, but was partly raised in Spain.
“I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture. This is something I take very seriously, and for those who are asking – I’ll reiterate my story, as I’ve done many times before. I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the USA. We celebrate both cultures in our home – Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised.”
Both her parents appear to be American with pretty deep roots – Dr. Kathryn Hayword and David Thomas moved to Mallorca in 2011. Vanity Fair adds: The obituary for Hilaria’s paternal grandfather, David Thomas Sr., also states that his “family presence in that part of Vermont pre-dated the American Revolution.”
And the name Hilaria? She says she was called Hillary in the US and Hilaria in Spain. She opted for “consolidating” under Hilaria – but will answer to both, adding:
“I care because my thing is about being authentic and then if people say I’m not being authentic, it hurts my feelings…I don’t really understand why it’s turning into such a big thing…I’m getting attacked for being who I am…people wanting to label me Spanish or America, can’t it be both? It’s frustrating that is my story.”
It’s all more than a bit ridiculous. She can call herself whatever she pleases and talk however she likes. More’s the pity Hilaria didn’t respond to accusations of cultural appropriation’ by wearing a Fez and speaking in a rich Scouse accent.
And it might be nothing like a scene in 30 Rock when Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) falls for Phoebe (Emily Mortimer). In one scene, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) confronts Phoebe:
Phoebe : You know how John Lennon was better than the rest of the Beatles, but didn’t realize it until he met Yoko Ono? Well, I’m Jack’s Yoko.
Liz Lemon : You want to be Yoko?
Phoebe : This is none of your business, anyway. I’m marrying Jack. He’s everything I ever wanted.
Liz Lemon : Oh, I bet he is.
Phoebe : [in American accent] You don’t know anything about me, so back off!
Liz Lemon : What happened to your accent?
Phoebe : [back to British accent] Um, I don’t know what you’re on about. You daft wanker!
Image: Creative Commons / Wikipedia by Joella Marano
Posted: 29th, December 2020 | In: Celebrities, Hello!, News, TV & Radio | Comment
Covid-19: A Shot at freedom but new war on NHS looms
Covid-19 has infected pretty much the entire country’s mainstream media with support for the Government’s upbeat diagnoses. With Brexit done, the UK’s negotiators can sit down with Covid-19 and hammer out a deal. You might suppose the virus is setting the agenda, but Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, says the country is “ahead of the curve”. Where Britain goes Covid follows – whether we go train, jet or big red bus.
Take the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror‘s lead news story. “Lockdowns could end as soon as February if the Oxford vaccine gets the nod from regulators within days,” says the tabloid. Could. If. Circumspection get thee hence. This is a “SHOT AT FREEDOM” – rather like the other vaccine lots of Britons have been injected with, which was also a shot at freedom.
At least the Express deals in fact, declaring, “WE WILL BE FREE BY FEBRUARY.” Fact. Well, if the regulators approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which could happen…
The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail deliver the numbers: 10,000 medics and volunteers have been recruited by the NHS to help deliver the freedom vaccine. You can get the jab in sports stadiums and racecourses, says the Telegraph. The Mail suggests getting “a jab in your village hall”. (You getting an insight into how papers view their readers?)
An unnamed source tells the paper: “The vaccine is the way to make us safe and get us through this pandemic. We are throwing the kitchen sink at it”. Now wash your hands at the standpipe.
There is one dissenting voice. The Guardian looks at other ‘coulds’ and ‘ifs’. Dr Adrian James, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, says Covid-19 poses the greatest threat to mental health since World War Two. But even that’s not scary enough so the Guardian mutates his opinion into: “NHS urged to prepare for ‘biggest threat since world war’.”
As war looms, the Guardian says war continues. NHS staff have been denied the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, leaving doctors “scrabbling” to get immunised. A survey of medics finds “fear the government’s decision to prioritise over-80s and care home staff over health workers has left them at risk of catching the disease”.
The remedy is clear: get some Sun.
It’s gonna be great.
Posted: 28th, December 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
