Thanks to ProPublica, we know that you can book adverts on Facebook that target anti-Semites. Most Facebook user of would ignore these ads, of course. Active Nazis are thin on the ground. And as the Jewish joke goes, “If anyone was going to hate us, thank God it’s the Arabs.” But Jew hating is increasingly popular. I am amazed and disappointed that here isn’t more outrage about rising anti-Semitism.
Propublica, whose stated mission is “to expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing” has Facebook in its crosshairs.
ProPublica says:
Want to market Nazi memorabilia, or recruit marchers for a far-right rally? Facebook’s self-service ad-buying platform had the right audience for you. Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the news feeds of almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” or, “History of ‘why jews ruin the world.’”
All this stuff exists offline. And thanks to the internet, readers and collectors of such racist nonsense can be monitored – all 2,300 of them in the gigantic Facebook ecosystem. I’d argue that if Facebook – owned by a Jew – can take their money, then good for them. Free speech and free thought are cornerstones of democracy. If people want to talk about hating Jews and conspiracy theories, let them.
So ProPublica paid £30 for “promoted posts” targeted at those Jew-hating Facebookers.
In all likelihood, the ad categories that we spotted were automatically generated… Facebook’s algorithm automatically transforms people’s declared interests into advertising categories.
Which begs the question: who programmed the computer?
Rob Leathern, product management director at Facebook, has issued the following statement:
“We don’t allow hate speech on Facebook. Our community standards strictly prohibit attacking people based on their protected characteristics, including religion, and we prohibit advertisers from discriminating against people based on religion and other attributes. However, there are times where content is surfaced on our platform that violates our standards. In this case, we’ve removed the associated targeting fields in question. We know we have more work to do, so we’re also building new guardrails in our product and review processes to prevent other issues like this from happening in the future.”
Of course, hate speech is free speech. That doesn’t mean you should set out to assault and intimidate people. It means you are free to say what you want and for it to be freely debated in public. Calling something hateful is too-often used to shut down free expression. So what did Facebook do wrong?
Ira Glasser, a former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, now president of the board of directors of the Drug Policy Alliance, nails it:
How is ‘hate speech’ defined, and who decides which speech comes within the definition? Mostly, it’s not us. In the 1990s in America, black students favoured ‘hate speech’ bans because they thought it would ban racists from speaking on campuses. But the deciders were white. If the codes the black students wanted had been in force in the 1960s, their most frequent victim would have been Malcolm X. In England, Jewish students supported a ban on racist speech. Later, Zionist speakers were banned on the grounds that Zionism is a form of racism. Speech bans are like poison gas: seems like a good idea when you have your target in sight — but the wind shifts, and blows it back on us.
You want to have official endoresment of what can be said? Surely not.
As for Facebook, well, it’s not a public service. It’s a profit-making company not a moralising force for spiritual salvation.
Crisis in Venezuela. A Mis-managed economy has created poverty from riches.
Venezuela’s government has urged citizens to see rabbits as more than “cute pets” as it defended a plan to breed and eat them – even as the opposition says this would do nothing to end chronic food shortages.
The questions must be: what do you feed the rabbits; and how do you cook them?
President Nicolás Maduro went on telly to tell the people that “for animal protein, which is such an important issue, a ‘rabbit plan’ has been approved because rabbits also breed like rabbits”.
As we’ve noted, its not rabbits you need, it’s pigeons, feral ones. In Exeter, England, vagrants are catching the vermin for food. It turn out that when you kill a feral pigeon, more replace it. As Trafford Council notes:
…for most pigeon problems, lethal methods are totally ineffective. They simply reduce competition for food and shelter, and the remaining birds increase their breeding rates to compensate. Although there is an immediate decrease, numbers soon recover, resulting in an endless cycle of killing and re-population.
And eating, too.
And there’s another problem with rabbits: they are adorable. Mr Freddy Bernal, the country’s minister of urban agriculture, says that lots of rabbits were given to communities to breed for food. “A lot of people gave names to the rabbits, they took them to bed,” says Mr Bernal.
And lots more can go wrong when you rear rabbit. “Rabbits were introduced to Australia as part of a broad attempt by early colonists to make Australia as much like Europe as they possibly could,” says Greg Mutze, research officer at the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation in South Australia. “It was hoped that they would flourish so that the owners could hunt them.” By the 1920s, Australia’s rabbit population had reached to 10 billion.
Good fun in Soho as a large contingent of Cologne fans marched along singing their songs. The police didn’t kettle them, send for the attack dogs nor smash their heads in. And so about 20,000 Cologne fans clutching 2,900 tickets between them arrived at The Emirates for the club’s match with Arsenal.
They can’t all get in. So the match has been delayed.
Has there been any bother, then? Lots of fighting and broken class? Patio furniture tossed about the place and blood on the pavement?
Oha sayın seyirciler. Köln taraftarı 20 bin kişiyle Arsenal deplasmanına gelmiş. Hepsi içeriye girmeye çalışıyor, maç bir saat ertelendi. pic.twitter.com/ChJSFMIyyK
A Met Police spokesman tells us: “At around 15:00hrs on Thursday, 14 September a large group of football fans gathered in Oxford Street, W1. The group were at the location for about 30 minutes whilst they boarded public transport to travel to a football match this evening. They did throw bottles and let off flares, but there was no significant disorder, police were on scene and there have been no arrests. The group has now left the area.”
Bit of a laugh, then. A few berks throw bottles but that’s about it. No more (surely much less – ed) than the high spirits you see at rugby matches.
So how does the Daily Mail report on the joyful rowdiness?
Germans invade London: Fights break out as an army of 20,000 Cologne football fans march through centre of the capital as kick-off of Europa League match with Arsenal is DELAYED for ‘crowd safety’
An invading army! The Mail’s ‘Crime Correspondent’ begins his report thus:
Violence erupted onto the streets of London after an army of German football fans marched through the centre of the capital.
Carnage! Or as the small print notes: “footage later emerged of two men being punched and kicked in a street during clashes.” Two men fighting. Call of the RAF. Stand down the nuclear submarine. The war might over as soon as the Hans and Jurgen tire.
At the Ground.
Well, a load of Cologne fans seems to be in the Arsenal end. Good-oh. Lots of atmosphere for a change.
Pretty much everyone you see in this pic are Cologne fans – All those in the Arsenal end. They are everywhere. pic.twitter.com/5ca4X2S8Nt
According to Mumsnet, it is “the UK’s most popular parenting website”. It’s largely monetised through adverts. But the advertisers have begun to look at what the brands are appearing alongside. Turns out that mums who spend their days talking rubbish on Mumsnet are swearing. So ‘bad’ is is that the National Trust and Bulgari are threatening to pull their adds unless it stops.
The Economist has produced a chart of the sweariest places on the site:
Swearing is enjoyably versatile. And any moves to sanitise the web are regressive. But the marketeers are only calling for the kind of ban already enforced at football grounds and on the street: in 2016 Salford City Council introduced a Public Space Protection Order that banned swearing on Salford Quays, site of BBC Media City and new quayside homes. Caught using “foul and abusive language” around the Quays and suffer the consequences. The council said it was “satisfied the ban will improve quality of life” for those living in Salford Quays.
But will such a ban make Mumsnet better or worse? Should soft-porn Bulgari get its own house in order first?
The latest health scare is that artificial sweeteners are being linked to an increased risk of diabetes. Can it be that the man-made stuff sold as a safe alternative to diabetes-triggering sugar could raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes?
Research led by Australia’s Adelaide Medical School in Australia, and presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Lisbon, concluded that taking sweeteners for just two weeks is enough to make a difference.
Lead author Prof Richard Young explains: “This study supports the concept that artificial sweeteners could reduce the body’s control of blood sugar levels and highlights the potential for exaggerated post-meal glucose levels in high habitual NAS [non-caloric artificial sweeteners] users, which could predispose them to developing type 2 diabetes.”
“This study addresses a very important global human health issue, as artificial sweeteners are food additives commonly used not only by patients with diabetes but also by healthy individuals aiming to manage their sugar intake,” adds Dr Inês Cebola, from Imperial College London, a member of the Society for Endocrinology. “Although generally thought as safe and even beneficial, artificial sweetener consumption has actually been previously associated with weight gain and development of glucose intolerance, which can lead to development of type 2 diabetes.”
The test wan’t all that large – just 27 people were involved.
Emma Elvin, clinical advisor at Diabetes UK, is circumspect. “This is a small study with interesting results, but it doesn’t provide strong evidence that artificial sweeteners increase the risk of type two diabetes,” she says. “We need to see the results of larger trials testing in settings more true to real life before we’ll know more. Consuming lots of sugary foods and drinks is very damaging to overall health and can increase risk of type two diabetes. We would advise people to reduce their intakes of sugar, and artificial sweeteners could be an option to help some people achieve this.”
Interesting, no, that the war on sugar might be creating more problems than it solves. Sugar is a source of dietary energy in many foods. If you eat it excessively it can cause problems, just it can be damaging to take in very large amounts of bread, pasta, oranges and even water. This activist-led campaign to cast sugar as a peril to public health is based on much theory and little fact. Choice is good. Sugar isn’t bad.
Real Madrid began their Champions League title defence with a routine win over APOEL. And they did it without Marco Asensio, 21, who has a pimple on his leg. Asensio’s manager Zinedine Zidane told media: “[Marco has] a pimple… which stopped him pulling up his socks.”
Asensio’s pimple, says local Madrid press, is a result of his shaving his legs.
Marco Asensio missing a match because a pimple got infected whilst shaving his legs might well be the most modern football story ever. We only hope it doesn’t get worse for Asensio when his teammates find out:
Footballers live on a diet of creams, depilated, patent skin and self-tanning unguents. Liverpool FC’s players don’t take two bottles into the shower, most likely preferring to take about ten into the almond milk bath before air drying in a wind of imported Fiji Breeze and enrobing their skin and hair in liquidised baby foreskins.
But it’s not just footballers. Man is falling in that most hairy-knuckled of spots: rugby. Gone are the days when the best you could hope for in a rugby union changing room was a bar of coal tar soap and a turd in your kit bag. Now you are more likely to find a range of hair and skin care products.
Feral pigeons in city centres are vermin. The good news is that homeless people in Exeter have taken it upon themselves to rid the city of these pests by eating them. But not everyone in the city is pleased that vagrants are both cleansing the city and beefing up for the coming winter on a diet of cheap protein.
Devon and Cornwall police are investigating. Police support community officer (PCSO) Sarah Giles has tweeted: “While doing the round of #sidwell street #exeter I have had news of #pigeons being captured for food. We will be looking into this.” Why? What crime has been committed? Police do say it could be a case of causing the animals “unnecessary suffering under the Animal Welfare Act 2006”.
But are wild pigeons, aka rock doves, protected? The Act states:
An animal is a “protected animal” for the purposes of this Act if—
(a) it is of a kind which is commonly domesticated in the British Islands,
(b) it is under the control of man whether on a permanent or temporary basis, or
(c) it is not living in a wild state.
Pigeons are covered by section (a) but legitimate pest control is not regarded as causing unnecessary suffering. All wild birds in the UK are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. And according to the BBC, “feral pigeons can legally be shot”. But what about bagged and then offed with, say, a full can of Tenants Super to the head before being eaten?
On the forums of The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, we’re told, “Feral (urban) pigeons are legal game with an air rifle.” Indeed, if you hold a ‘General License’ you can kill pigeons, both wood pigeons and feral birds. Government advice runs: “You must still follow animal welfare laws and kill birds in a quick and humane manner. You can eat birds killed under this licence, but you can’t sell any for human consumption other than woodpigeons.” And you can use a cage trap.
Melissa Gill of Natural England, which oversees the General Licenses in England adds: “The licensee is at fault if he sells on the meat of a bird he has killed under licence – it is a condition of the licence which he is granted that he does not do that… It would not be illegal to eat it, so long as the individual could prove that they had not killed it and had discovered it dead.”
The laws on eating a feral pigeon are a tad confused. And if you eat them, they don’t suffer as a species. Trafford Council notes:
…for most pigeon problems, lethal methods are totally ineffective. They simply reduce competition for food and shelter, and the remaining birds increase their breeding rates to compensate. Although there is an immediate decrease, numbers soon recover, resulting in an endless cycle of killing and re-population
Forget GM crops. Pigeons are the answer to world hunger.
One local trader at Exeter’s Sidwell Street Market goes on the record. She says the pigeon fanciers seduce the birds with seed and stuff them in a sack. PCSO Giles then puts the vermin catching in context. “Many are alcoholics [the vagrants; not the pigeons], who to keep a certain consumption level, will drink continuously… now we’re eating pigeons, now we’re killing seagulls. It escalates.”
Good. If the vagrants can be directed towards rats, mice and cockroaches, Exeter may become the cleanest city in the land.
Please note, we are unable to accept applications from catering vans or fast food lines although we do have a limited number of pitches available for unusual street food.
Forget the sack and lighter fluid, lads. It’s a stall you need. Make ready with the retro pigeon a la mode, Spingo. The hipsters will come flocking.
Louella Michie is not the subject of reports on her untimely death. The 25-year-old woman’s body was found dead on her birthday at the Bestival music festival. And ever since that unhappy discovery, the Press have been telling us who did not die: her father. The Daily Mail has produced 7 stories on Louella Michie’s unexplained death. It’s hard to spot Louella as the media zoom in on John Michie, her dad.
The Evening Standard had the news first, sticking to the facts. The body of a young London woman had been found at Dorset’s Bestival. Police were investigating. Murder was one line of enquiry.
And then the media realised that the dead woman’s father is on the telly. The pick of the front pages being the Daily Telegraph’s, which amid talk of her alleged ‘MURDER” described Louella as a “TV detective’s daughter”. John Michie had for a while appeared in Taggart, the Scottish detective show. In the twilight zone between fact and fiction, Telegraph readers might wonder if DI Robert “Robbie” Ross would be investigating.
These are the Daily Mail’s headlines. See if you can spot Louella Michie:
Holby City and Coronation Street star John Michie insists death of his daughter, 25, at Bestival was an ACCIDENT as he mourns his ‘angel’ after a man was arrested on suspicion of her murder – September 11th 2017, 11:54:26 am
Man held after daughter of Holby City star John Michie dies at Bestival – September 11th 2017
Man arrested over actor’s daughter’s death released under investigation – September 12th 2017
Drugs quiz for man held over death of daughter of Holby City´s John Michie – September 12th 2017
Holby City star’s daughter looked ‘odd and unsteady’ in the hours before she was found dead in secluded woods in drug-related death – September 12th 2017
But our pick of the Mail’s barrage of stories on the death of ‘John Michie’s daughter’ is this one about Louella Michie taking the ice-bucket challenge:
The daughter of TV actor John Michie, took part in the internet craze.
Today’s story in the Mail begins in customary fashion, with the victim absent:
The rapper boyfriend of Holby City star John Michie’s daughter has been released by police after being arrested over her death at Bestival, with the actor’s family saying they believe the pair had taken drugs
As the Mail thinks the “dead girl” not worthy of mention by name, the Sun (nine stories so far) knows so little about Louella Michie it’s reduced to focusing on her looks. Today’s update begins:
A festival-goer claims the forest area where the green-eyed 25-year-old died had been used by drug dealers and that she “didn’t look very well” when spotted before her death
As police investigate the death so other green-eyed women and look for a pattern, Sun readers find Louella Michie missing from the paper’s headlines:
FESTIVAL TRAGEDY – Holby City star John Michie’s daughter Louella was found dead at Bestival – 13 September 2017
Pals reveal Holby City star’s tragic girl looked ‘unsteady and odd’ in woods used by drug dealers before she died at Bestival as boyfriend is released by cops – 13 September 2017
BESTIVAL SUSPECT RELEASED Boyfriend of Holby star John Michie’s tragic daughter is released as her devastated family say ‘there was no malice’ in her death – 12 September 2017
BESTIVAL PROBE Man held on suspicion of ‘murder’ over Holby star’s daughter is also being quizzed over supply of Class A drugs – 12 September 2017
BESTIVAL DEATH DASH – Holby City star made 130 mile 1am dash to Bestival after WhatsApp map pinpointed where his daughter was found dead – 12 September 2017
DAYS BEFORE DEATH – John Michie posted haunting photo of daughter sewing outfit for Bestival days before she was found dead – 12 September
HOLBY PAL’S HEARTACHE Strictly star’s heartbreaking message to Holby co-star after his daughter is found dead at Bestival – 11 September
But top prize goes in the John Michie news frenzy goes to the DailyMirror, which has published no fewer than 11 stories on Louella Michie’s dad, the pick of which being:
Who is John Michie? Tragedy as ex-Coronation Street star’s daughter confirmed dead at Bestival
At a guess, we’d say he’s man grieving for his daughter.
What are your criteria for selecting your children’s school clothes? Washability, durability, affordability, practicality and compliance to a dress code? What about if you see your children’s wardrobe as a chance to define your politics and your values.
And there’s the individuality. That dress isn’t just pretty, on-trend and like the one the pop star wears; it’s an explainer, an insight into the wearer’s anxieties, life goals and morals. The dress is useful if your six-year old boy is considering transitioning to girlhood, but terrible for girls, who should be wearing gender-neutral tracksuits and John Lewis’s non-stereotyping clothes “for boys and girls”.
Should the choice to dress as a boy or a girl be only for those children agonising over their gender? How does it further transgender rights and acceptance to present them as a special case?
Priory School in East Sussex, a mixed co-ed, has banned skirts, ordering girls and boys to wear grey trousers and shirt, jumper and tie. How is limiting what a girl can wear progressive?
Which brings us to the Rowes, who’ve removed their six-year-old son from a Church of England primary school on the Isle of Wight because a boy in his class was allowed to wear a dress. Last year they removed their 8-year-old from the same school when a boy in his class also started wearing dresses. Both will now be home-schooled.
Sally Rowe, 42, and Nigel, 44, plan to sue. Says Mr Rowe: “Our concerns were raised when our son came back home from school saying he was confused as to why and how a boy was now a girl. We believe it is wrong to encourage very young children to embrace transgenderism. Boys are boys and girls are girls. Gender dysphoria is something we as Christians need to address with love and compassion, but not in the sphere of a primary school environment.”
A Diocese of Portsmouth spokesman adds: “Our schools are inclusive, safe spaces where pupils learn to respect diversity of all kinds. We comply with the legal requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and believe that all should feel welcomed, valued and nurtured as part of a learning community.”
This alters gender from a fact into a problem. It recasts children not as pupils in academia, but as trainee adults conditioned to do away with today’s adult issues. Train the children to be gender neutral and gender-fluid and – whammo! – you can eradicate sexism, misogyny and the gender pay-gap. All those life-limiting stereotypes that stopped women getting the vote and told men to suck up the pain and soldier on are gone faster than you can say “unisex toilets”. Women will no longer feel a need to stuff silicone balloons in their chests and men won’t spend years of their lives bulking up in the gym.
The problem is that the boy rather likes wearing blue, dinosaurs and playing football; and the girl likes pink and belting our songs in front of the mirror and nail polish. They don’t have to. Ballet dresses (girls) and monster trucks (boys) are not prerequisites of girlhood and boyhood, respectively. They are society’s norms against which you can rebel and test the boundaries. And doing so makes for a more – dread – diversity.
Things get messier when you link it all to sex. You can wear a dress and be a man. You can wear a business suit and be a girl. You can expand what is is to be male and female. But your biological sex cannot be ended because you prefer dresses to trousers. The boy won’t experience childbirth and menstruation because he feels better in girl’s clothes; just as the girl in trousers won’t grown testicles.
The smart move is to challenge gender roles but leave sex out of it. After all, as all adolescents know, every new generation invented sex.
Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson is soft. Having been kicked hard in the face by Liverpool’s Saido Mane, who has apologised, the Brazilian stayed on the turf for 10 minutes. TV pundit Tony Gale was aghast, telling Sky Sports News on Monday that Ederson isn’t a “proper man”. He’s not like Burnley’s British goalkeeper Tom Heaton, who dislocated his shoulder against Crystal Palace the following day and walked off the pitch with a cheery wave.
We’ve got no photo of Heaton’s shoulder, but we can share this image of Ederson’s face:
To think Tony Gale was on Sky this morning questioning Ederson’s masculinity because he didn’t wave to fans when he was being carried off pic.twitter.com/hushqtVyN2
Something narcissistic and the antithesis of stoic about showing the world your wound, but it does look very nasty. But it is to his face and not his hands, which in Tony Gale’s book means Ederson could have carried on playing. After all, it is only a flesh wound.
Hands up who feels sorry for Richard Branson, whose private Necker island was smashed up by Hurricane Irma? I said, “Hands up who…” Oh, never mind. The billionaire would-be rocket-shop operator has shared pictures of Necker after Irma hit. He tweets that he’s looking at ways to help people in the British Virgin Islands left destitute: “Necker damage huge, but BVI #Irma story is not about Necker – about 1000s of people who’ve lost homes & livelihoods.”
But how can such disasters be prevented? Better houses? More money? How about stopping climate change? On the Virgin Group website, Branson explains all:
“Man-made climate change is contributing to increasingly strong hurricanes causing unprecedented damage. The whole world should be scrambling to get on top of the climate change issue before it is too late – for this generation, let alone the generations to come.”
That’s the same Richard Branson who operates an, er airline and is looking to develop commercial spaceflight through Virgin Galactic. You might wonder how he reaches his Caribbean Island? Rowing boat? Balloon? You might also wonder if paying taxes in the country that helped you get stinking rich is its own way performing an act of social responsibility, allowing governments to sort out the cash and improve standards of living.
Branson is a tax exile.
But Branson has issued a call for help. “We were very fortunate to have a strong cellar built into Necker’s Great House and we were lucky all of our teams who stayed on the island during the storm are safe and well,” says Branson in a Virgin blog post.
He then pulls on the the missionary’s hat and tells the unfortunates without power, clothes, food, windows and roofs but who are nonetheless tuned into Branson’s views via the wind-powered internet: “There are worrying reports of civil unrest spreading. I urge everybody to stay safe, remain calm and support each other. Help is on its way.”
Virgin Atlantic is transporting aid to the region, he says. And that can only be a good thing. Think not of the rich man’s grandstanding but of the needy being helped. His son Sam is delivering supplies aboard Virgin’s 105ft catamaran, Necker Belle. “The region needs a Disaster Recovery Marshall Plan,” says Branson.
He then tells us: “There’s this image of the British Virgin Islands — yes there are wealthy people here but the very vast majority are ordinary working people,” he notes, reminding us that staff are not volunteers and not everyone’s there on holiday. Who knew?
Sir Ernest Shackleton (5 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) died on an exhibition to the Antarctic. In December 1903 the great explorer applied to be Secretary of the The Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS). Indeed, he got the job on January 11 1904, acting as the RSGS’s Secretary from 1904-1905.
The RSGS’s current writer-in-residence Jo Woolf has found a copy of Shackleton’s CV. They want to know what it says in the margin. There are pencil notes (see above). You can let them know by writing to enquiries@rsgs.org.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger turned down the role at Manchester United. According to former Man United chairman Martin Edwards, the Red Devils approached Wenger to manage the club when Sir Alex Ferguson announced his intention to retire. On May 18 2001, Ferguson told MUTV: “I will be leaving Manchester United at the end of the season and that is it.” In 2016, Ferguson called the decision his “biggest mistake”. He changed his mind in January 2002.
That was a blow to Sven Goran-Eriksson, the former England manager who has said that he signed a deal in 2002 to replace Ferguson. In Sven: My Story, Eriksson notes: “I knew it would be tricky. I had a contract with England until the 2006 World Cup and I would be severely criticised if I broke that contract. But this was an opportunity to manage Manchester United.
A contract was signed — I was United’s new manager.”
In his autobiography, Fergusson admits as much. “The head-hunters were due to meet a candidate to succeed me the following week,” wrote Ferguson. “Sven-Goran Eriksson was to be the new United manager, I believe. That was my interpretation, anyway.”
But this is about Wenger, who says he didn’t move to Old Trafford because he was happy at Arsenal. “I love the values of this club,” says Wenger, “and a club is about values first.”
….
Meanwhile, in Harrod’s department store, London, current Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has bumped into TV presenter Piers Morgan, who reports their conversation. “How the hell is Arsene still in his job?” asks Morgan. “No idea,” says Mourinho, whose family live in London, “but I hope she stays for a long time.”
Clubs can pick a manager but they can’t pick their fans.
Paul Hollywood, 51, once pulled on a Nazi uniform and strode into the White Stag pub in Monkon, Kent. His wife was dressed a member of the French Resistance, albeit unarmed and of a sort imagined by writers of British sex comedies (low cut top, perky beret, fishnets and lots of ooooo-la-la).
That Hollywood pretended to be a Nazi officer 14 years ago as part of a private fancy dress do is neither here nor there.
The British public accord unquestioning respect to presenters on TV cooking show The Great British Bake Off, and as a role model for impressionable amateur bakers, Hollywood should be rightfully shamed. Yes, the Pope wore a Nazi uniform, often, so too Kurt Waldheim, the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations, Prince Harry, and rockers like Lemmy, Keith Moon, Siouxsie Sioux, Sid Vicious and Brian Jones also pulled on the feldgrau and Swastika, but they never made cakes on the telly. And for that we should be grateful.
Keith Moon
Former Labour Party MP and shadow Chancellor Ed Balls
“I am absolutely devastated if this cased offence to anyone.” says Paul, whose picture emerged in yesterday’s Sun. “Everyone who knows me, knows I am incredibly proud of the effort of those, including my own grandfather, who fought the Nazis during the war.”
In the Daily Mail, the paper that once infamously cheered for Hitler’s blackshirts, we hear not advice on how to sport the Nazi uniform and why Hollywood’s get-up is an affront to the shirt, rather the words of former Bake Off finalist Ruby Tandoh, who opined on Twitter: “Absolutely creasin at pple telling me: “IT WAS TEN YEARS AGO” as is the Nazis weren’t bad back then.”
To say nothing of them not being on he telly all that much.
Can it proven that fast food makes you fat? Researchers at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) examined 1,500 state primary school pupils aged four to 11, looking at their postal addresses and weight. Turns out that the kids living closer to fast food outlets – within around half a mile – were more likely than their peers to gain weight during the primary school years.
This is, of course, all about protecting children from being fat – a physical state that once marked you as jolly but now casts you as a mentally negligible victim.
So can it proven that fast food makes you fat and is a danger to children’s health? Or is this more about correlation than causation? Poorer people eat the most fast food. Relocate the eateries, or make them sell just salads and watch the fatties slim down. Or better yet, turn the fried chicken shacks into gyms and therapy suites.
And what of the business angle? If you’re going to open a fast food franchise or fish and chip restaurant, you’ll do best locating where poorer people live and the rents are cheaper. Unsurprisingly, the study noted a higher density of fast food outlets – i.e. cheap food – in poorer areas.
In July, Cambridge University’s Centre for Diet and Activity Research counted 56,638 takeaways in England. And it too noted that fast food shops are more prevalent in England’s poorest areas.
NHS employee Matthew Pearce, who led the research, tells media: “We know from national data that the number of children classified as obese doubles between the first and last year of primary school. Understanding the reasons for this is important to protect the future health of children. Obesity is driven by many complex factors. Our study adds to existing evidence that the neighbourhood environment plays an important role in the development of obesity.”
“While ultimately it is down to individuals on how they choose to live, it is widely accepted that we live in environments that make managing our weight increasingly difficult,” Pearce adds. “We therefore need national and local policymakers to take decisions that support more favourable conditions that enable people to eat healthier and become more physically active.”
So what’s the plan, then? Put simply: tell the idiots how to live. Much harder to implement is the other plan: let’s get richer.
At 13:33 on August 19 2017, Norfolk Constabulary declared that the seaside town of Cromer was a no-go area. Hurricane? Terrorists? What happened to close a town? Deprived of a Town Crier, police reached out to the locals via Facebook, whereon the following message appeared:
We have additional resources in Cromer tonight following reports of low-level disorder earlier today. We are aware licensees of local pubs have taken the decision to close this evening and we will have additional officers on patrol to provide reassurance to the local community. We are also aware of mentions on social media relating to a stabbing in the town tonight – we can confirm no such incident has been reported to us.
Curious minds might wonder why an entire British seaside town had been closed. Are Norfolk people so fearful that one rumoured stabbing sends them scuttling for the cellars? No serious crime occurred. The police statement was clear on that.
Helping us get to the bottom of the story was the Eastern Daily Press. Published by Archant in Norwich, a mere 24 miles from the scene, the paper told readers:
Norfolk police moved to reassure residents, saying they had only been called to reports of low-level disorder on Saturday, including thefts from Morrisons and a pitch and putt course.
No big deal, then. Although the EDP did note that the decision of many businesses to shut on a what should have been a busy Saturday night..:
The move coincided with the arrival of a group of travellers who set up camp in the town’s Runton Road car park…
With few places open in town, a large group of people were spotted walking in the middle of the road from Runton Road to Seacroft caravan and campsite in Cromer.
However, police later blocked the entrance before the crowd were later seen leaving the site.
Over on the BBC, no word on the travellers. But we do hear from the police:
Supt Malcolm Cooke of Norfolk Police said: “We acknowledge there have been a number of incidents in Cromer over the weekend, which will understandably cause concern. However, I can assure residents these incidents have been dealt with appropriately and are of a nature routinely dealt with in towns such as Cromer on a busy August weekend.”
No-one reported what really happened. Indeed on the Norfolk police know what did not happen
Norfolk Police Deputy Chief Constable Nick Dean told media on August 21:
“Cromer is a very safe town, this is an isolated incident. We can’t deny a group of the travelling community were in north Norfolk at that particular time. But to put the blame completely on the travelling community as a whole, I think is totally disproportionate.”
The police were on message. But they are worried that the good people of Cromer were not. Why did police send out the wrong information? Do they view the good people of Cromer as a pogrom in waiting, knuckle-heads who will turn on Travellers, blaming them all for the alleged crimes of a few? The message seems to be that you should be less on the look out for the alleged villains than you should watch yourself for signs of prejudice. Rather than policing the streets, the police were examining minds for signs of possible hate crimes.
On September 6, police issued a new statement. Chief Constable Simon Bailey explained what constitutes low-level crime:
“There were a number of incidences of theft, of anti-social behaviour, of criminal damage and we misjudged our message, and I’m sorry that we got that message wrong. We got it wrong, we’ll learn the lessons. It won’t happen again. Part of our review will look at our media messages. I’m genuinely sorry that we created the impression that this was a low-level disorder. We had a rape which, whilst at the time we didn’t connect to the group, we are now absolutely connecting.” “
Alleged theft and rape are now classified as “low-level”crimes.
Hats of to the police for admitting their error. But why not just stick to the facts? Why send out a ‘message’? They’ve yet to explain why they did that.
Chelsea want their fans to stop hailing new striker Alvaro Mora with the song: “He came from Real Madrid he fucking hates the Yids.” ‘The Yids’ is, for those of not au fait with footballing abuse, a reference to Tottenham Hotspur football club. The rich irony being, of course, that Chelsea are owned by Roman Abramovich, a Jew. Mr Abramovich is Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. This might be a shock to the Chelsea goon who in the early 1980s sniffed my friend and hymned: “Fe-fi-fo-fum, I smell Yiddish scum.”
In blood, Abramovich is more of a yid than Spurs’ Harry Kane. But this isn’t really about racism. This is about finding ways to insult the opposition and upset their fans.
Most Spurs fans couldn’t give a toss about the song. The club’s self-styled Yid Army demand to sing what they want to, and good on them. The press ridiculously call it “The Y-word” (Daily Mail),fetishising the word through censorship, making it all the more exciting and daring to say aloud.
Chelsea have issued a statement:
“The club and the players appreciate the fans passionate support away from home, of course, but the language in that song is not acceptable at all. We’ve spoken to Alvaro after the game and he does not want to be connected to that song in any way and both the player and the club request that the supporters stop singing that song with immediate effect.”
That’s a rather clever twist on the usual ham-fisted demands for football fans to stop saying things or else. If Chelsea fans are annoying their own new star turn, then surely they’ll stop singing the song. It’s progress. Chelsea are not threatening fans with the police or lifetime expulsion from watching the team for the crime of singing songs. They’re politely asking for the fans to sort it out amongst themselves.
Ply board and corrugated iron won’t stop Hurricane Irma. But guns might. The terrifying and immense Hurricane Irma is heading to Florida. Over six millions Americans have been told to pack up and leave. But Ryon Edwards, 22, is staying. And he’s going to end the storm by shooting it out of the sky.
Ryon’s Facebook event page has 46,000 repondents who say they might well join him in shooting at the wind. “A combination of stress and boredom made me start the event,” Ryon tells the BBC. “The response is a complete and total surprise to me. I never envisioned this event becoming some kind of crazy idea larger than myself. It has become something a little out of my control.”
Take care, though, shooters. Aim wrong and the the bullet might not come back and kill you.
The better ideas might be to do as one man told Sky News. When asked what his plan to survive the Hurricane was, he replied: “Well, I got a big Chinese takeaway and some beers in the fridge.”
The Ugandan government is on the look out for homosexuals. Helping it to detect “homos and porn actors, especially those misusing applications like Whatsapp with sex acts” is a gadget imported from South Korea – that’s the country exporting porno fridges.
The machine was ordered last year. It’s just been delivered, reportedly. But who ordered it? And does it work?
In 2016, Uganda’s Red Pepper newspaper spoke with Father Simon Lokodo, the country’s Minister of Ethics and Integrity. Red Pepper is the Ugandan tabloid that in 2014 named the country’s “200 top homosexuals”, a day after President Yoweri Museveni signed into law a bill toughening penalties for gays: a fine of UGX 10 million ($3000) or up to 10 years in jail, or both.
The paper has an enthusiastic interest in gay sex.
The story began with a photo of the gay-hunting politician underscored with the caption, “Homos Want To Rape Me – Fr. Lokodo.” Readers were told:
The amiable man of God, who quit priesthood after being appointed minister in 2011, told Red Pepper in an exclusive interview that ever since he waged a war on homosexuality, shameless homos have decided to fight back by insulting him with gay sex advances. Lokodo’s most recent brush with the bum-drillers happened last week when — together with police — he stormed and foiled a gay pride parade that was being planned at Kabalagala in Kampala city.
Thoughts soon turn to the gay-detecting machine. Lokodo explained his “war” on homosexual love:
“We are going to attack and attack. I have fresh tactics. One of them is a censor gadget or machine. We are going to procure this machine and it will detect homos and porn actors especially those misusing applications like WhatsApp with sex acts. The South Koreans are programming it. And very soon we will ship it into the country and all the evil will be busted.
How the machine works, we don’t know. Perhaps the machine works a bit like the mysterious E-meter, the Scientology device, which, according to that group “does nothing. It is an electronic instrument that measures mental state and change of state in individuals and assists the precision and speed of auditing.” But does nothing.
The machine will detect pornographic pictures, videos or graphics taken or saved on phones, computers or cameras…. How does the pornography detection machine work though? This machine is not the first attempt at detecting porn on devices. There are several products already available, the Paraben Porn Detection Stick being an example. The Stick uses advanced image analysing algorithms to identify facial features, flesh tones and body parts that are potentially pornographic among other things.
The Stick actually works to a certain extent. It errs on the side of over-zealousness as it flags normal photos as pornographic more frequently than the opposite. The Stick however only scans for images and not videos which are harder to scan. Uganda’s machine does both, which it should at $88,000 because the Paraben Porn Detection Stick costs around $129.
Worryingly, the machine can also tap Virtual private networks (VPNS).
An interesting tidbit about the machine’s technology is that it can trace traffic from VPNs and proxy networks such as Tor. With such leads, they can they block the nodes routing traffic from the VPNs in question.
This means that we are unlikely to see a repeat of what happened during the social media blackout that was instituted in February during election time, when VPN clients were downloaded 1.5 million times to bypass restrictions.
If you go to work, make money and provide well for the large family you love, you are, in the words of Harriet Harman, a “deadbeat dad”. To be a good dad, a lively one who matters, you need to wake up and smell the shit, literally.
Harman, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party last seen wooing women to vote Labour by driving around in a – I kid you not – pink bus in her bid to “bring politics to the school gate and the shopping centre”, turning women into a special-interest group, says Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg is a prime example of a “deadbeat dad”.
Celebrity stuff-shirt Rees-Mogg thought it wise to tell everyone after the birth of this sixth child Sixtus that he’d never changed a nappy. “Men who don’t change nappies are deadbeat dads – and that includes Jacob Rees-Mogg,” said Harman.
It’s the kind of preachy micro-management of our lives we should all kick back against. Do we care that the State approves of our ability and willingness to change a nappy? The State should get its nose out of your business – and your kid’s business, too.
For added look-at-me nonsense, Harman also wants all MPs to get six months’ paid parental leave. Hard cheese, mum and dad. You earn enough to hire child care, but Harman wants you at home. You can’t be a working parent. You just can’t.
Who pays for Harman’s regressive ideas? Is there a locum MP to step-in? Or maybe Harman and lots of other nannies can be left to run everything..?
Mount Kilimanjaro is not in Wales. Never has been. But Nikki Barnett didn’t know that when she signed up for a charity hike to the summit. “I just thought it was a mountain,” Barnett is quoted in the Metro, which gives her age as 51, one year younger than she is the Sun said. “I’m not being funny, but I’ve always struggled with the pronunciation of names in Wales, so I thought that’s where it was. It was a shock when we found out where it really was.”
In the Coventry Telegraph, which first published the story three days ago, Nicki (51!), says she’s doing the climb for the hospice that cared for her late sister.
You can back them both here. I’ve done a trek for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Raising the money can be very tough. A little bit can go a long way.
By way of a follow up to the story of Hetty Douglas, the artist who sneakily took the piss out of scaffolders as they all waited in line for a McDonald’s in central London, the victims’ employer has issued a statement. It alerts readers to people, like Hetty, who equate high-vis jackets and steel-toe boot with stupidity. GKR scaffolding also notes that many highly successful businesses have been created by people with few or no academic qualifications – to say nothing of self-taught artists:
Hetty Douglas has now deleted her Instagram account. But her work remains online. As they say, no publicity is bad publicity. Although Hetty may be a little put out that the people she publicly labelled thick are appraising her work and, as the Sun says, finding it wanting. “Too much time on Facebook does this to you,” comes one comment. “Probably done at 5am after a late night,” is another.
Not that Hetty is of the same planet as her critics. On her website, Hetty’s bio presents Hetty in the third person.
Hetty Douglas makes work that represents both the light and dark that comes with simply existing. Douglas simultaneously conveys, subverts and celebrates the complexities of trust, sexual boundaries,and the labyrinth of unspoken intimacies of masculine/feminine truths.
The flippant and challenging textual content of this work is a deeply personal response to past and present relationships. It is obscure and hidden, and thus serves its unintentional purpose – to provoke an exploration of sincere emotions.
Underneath the tantalising layers of Douglas’s work lies a clear pursuit for something that truly matters – astable place and a true identity in a world that can happily chew you up, spit you out and not think twice about it.
Can Hetty turn adversity to her advantage? After all, the best bit of this story is that her Instagram photo is the most artful thing she’s produced. A series is surely in the offing, in which Hetty gets to the essence of what it is to exist today with a series of images in which she derides not only workmen, but also bankers, grammar school children, men on trains, the fat, smokersand Essex men. She should find a ready market for her stuff in the Labour Party.
Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal press conference revealed that he can talk about what might have been just as well on a Thursday as he can do on a Friday. Moving his usual press conference a day forward could be part of the club’s general shift towards Thursday night activities, such as the demand of the Europa League dictate. It’s about re-establishing body lock rhythms. Whereas once Thursday night meant a light supper in a Hertfordshire bistro and Bake Off on catch-up,Wenger is now faced with the tricky prospect of finding BATE Borisov on the SatNav and airplane snacks.
Ahead of the latest must-win game, this one against Bournemouth at the Emirates, where Arsenal boast an impeccable 100% win record this season (they’ve only played one match – ed), Wenger did his usual thing of reminding fans how close the club came to singing the cream of French footballing talent. None arrived, but it’s good for the Arsenal fanbase to know that the very best players have heard of Arsenal. Could the same be said of Hull, say, or Cheltenham?
Wenger than called for the transfer window to shut before the Premier League season begins. This, he reasoned, keeps players focused on their club. It might also stop managers selecting want-away footballers from playing the very team they are about to be flogged to, as Wenger did when he picked the anodyne Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to face Liverpool hours before he joined them for an inflated £35m.
Wenger then turned his mind to those Arsenal ‘legends” grabbing the arms of BBC office furniture and sniping at the current crop. “I always have problems understanding what a legend is and what a legend isn’t,” said Wenger. “I’ve had all the players here and we speak about today but they all had their weaknesses, as well, don’t worry about that. They had their weak games and their weak behaviours. Nobody was perfect.”
Although they did win the Premier League. They did have that, Arsene.
For those of you wondering how Wayne Rooney and the lovely Coleen are getting along, the Daily Star has front-page news: “ROONEY GIRL TRACKED COLEEN.” The Rooney girl is his could-have-been-shag Laura Simpson, who had been “tracking Coleen for six weeks” before having what says was a “kiss and a cuddle” with the married footballer.
Laura “knew when Coleen was on holiday”. How so? Did she bug the house? Stick a tracker on her car? Hack her phone? No. The devious Laura FOLLOWED Coleen on twitter and “RETWEETED” Coleen’s message: “So basically…yes on holiday again.” Coleen also “revealed” – not boasted? – she was on holiday again in another message on August 26. Just two nights later, Wayne was on the lash and driving Laura’s car when he was pulled over by the fuzz for alleged drink driving.
It’s a no-shag ‘n’ retweet story, a far cry for the 1980s, when footballers and even snooker players were making headlines five-times-a-night.
But what about those holidays? Laura’s not the only one watching Coleen testing sun creams. The Mail says “Already this year she has visited Amsterdam, Madrid, Mallorca, Ibiza, Las Vegas, Barbados and Portugal.” And this is relevant, apparently, because the Sun reports on its front page: “Drink-drive footie ace Wayne Rooney gives wife Coleen an ultimatum ‘You quit the holidays and I’ll quit the boozing’.”
And the chauffeur service, Wayne, let’s not forget about that.
But we’ll end with some advice from Gary Neville, Wayne’s former Manchester United teammate. “Look at Wayne Rooney there,” said Neville, spotting the striker in the tunnel before a match. “Old-school, looking forward, not hugging, kissing.” Wise words that Wayne and Coleen – but especially Wayne – can hang on to.
Look out Bournemouth, here come the Saudis! Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz is most displeased with the treatment meted out to his eldest son, Prince Abudullah, as he dined with his entourage at Marbella’s Finca Besaya eatery. Spain’s Territorial Security Unit raided the place, reportedly acting on a tip-off that members of the royals’ security detail were not carrying the required permits.
The prince’s party were asked for IDs and interrogated, and, as one eyewitness claims, “treated like terrorists”. For a double-whammy, the armed police then raided another restaurant, El Ancla, where Prince Abdullah’s daughter, Princess Susu, was celebrating her 17th birthday, again the story goes that two of her bodyguards had not been properly certificated.
So incensed is King Salman by the police’s actions that he’s threatening to pack up his millions – his presence is estimated to be worth €100,000 a day to the local economy; and that’s just in handbags – and never to return to Spain.
Well, that’s if you read EuroNews and believe my source who claims to be close to the King’s circle. The local Costa del Solnews paints a very different picture:
A National Police inspection of the private security guard detail of the Saudi royal family, carried out last week at a restaurant and a private property in Marbella, revealed that four guards had no license to act as security guards and were carrying blank-firing pistols, not real ones. Police officials said a representative of the Saudi royal family thanked the department and told it that the guards would be fired [no pun intended].
El Mundo also reports the fiasco as a triumph of Spanish policing – via Google Translate:
The National Police has detected irregularities in the escort service of members of the Saudi royal family who spends their holidays in Marbella when they discover that the four men in charge of their security do not have the professional qualification required to carry out this function…
In the first, Princess Susu celebrated her 17th birthday and in the second her father, Prince Abdullah, son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia, dined with his family to fire his vacation. Faced with this situation, Prince Abdullah lodged a complaint with the Spanish Ministry of Interior for a supposed vexatious treatment of the police to his family and his entourage . The officers, according to their version, came to gag their daughter. For their part, escorts of the royal delegation denounced that the police action was excessive and that they asked for passports and documentation without allowing them to give any explanation.
The police argue that the inspections were carried out with “absolute respect”, without “at any time” occurring “no violence or intimidation” . He also underlined that the identifications were carried out by plainclothes agents and uniformed police officers to avoid “any confusion in the inspection”.
The troublesome thing for the heavy-handed Spaniards is that a source tells me that when the French upset the King a few years ago – he wanted a public beach reserved exclusively for his use; locals objected with a 100,000-name petition – he left and vowed never to return to his family’s seafront home in Vallauris, preferring to take his summer hols at his palace on the beach in Tangier. He’s not holidayed in France since.
