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Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:34 am. 0 comments
As US elections shift ever closer, aides close to the President are growing increasingly frustrated with trying to explain to Bush that he won’t be up for re-election. George W, who was memorably described as “a towering pillock” last year by a tipsy Earl of Lancaster, is seemingly unaware of the constitutional rules describing just two consecutive terms of office.
“It’s got to the point where he’s in my office at least twice a day, rubbing his hands together and saying “Right, when are we hitting the campaign trail?” It’s beginning to get right on my tits. We’ve seriously considered sedating him” Anonymous White House Source
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Posted 11 months, 4 weeks ago at 5:26 am. 0 comments
The world of science is in a turmoil today with the news that donations from middle-class people have no affect on cancer research. The shock discovery, the result of a three year longitudinal study in association with the London School of Economics, has shown, that despite cash injections from guilty benefactors riding a high tide of property prices and a strong pound, medical advancements in fields as diverse as breast and bowel cancer to leukaemia have not been advanced one iota.
“We thought it was a mistake at first … until the test results came back in. Even sterile swaps bought with middle-class money end up a bit dirty. You may as well piss it up the wall; we’ve been buying photocopier paper and beer bongs, it’s bloody useless” Anonymous Researcher, CTSU Oxford University
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Posted 1 year ago at 10:44 am. 0 comments
Last night my significant other, our robot cat and I were playing a lively game of “Fuck Off I’m Al Gore”. It’s a popular pastime, currently sweeping the nation’s schoolyards and prison quadrangles, in which you compete to think up scenarios - novelty interviews, station idents, charity whimsy - so extreme or ridiculous that eco-Al would say “fuck off, I’m Al Gore” with a sense of astonished injustice. The great thing about FOIAG is that you can substitute any notable celebrity; I understand “Fuck Off I’m Michael Howard” is particularly popular among some Labour backbenchers. Anyway, votes were equally split over whether Al would queue up for a few days for an Apple iPhone: pros were that he’d appreciate the headline grabbing with the minimal of traditional advertising; cons however were that he’d be reluctant to wear the same suit for a few days in a run.
Mike Peake in today’s Sunday Times recalls an interviewwith the Gorester, who’s undergoing something of a publicity flurry right now with his Live Earth concert malarkey and trying desperately to make environmental issues sexy. Al could take a leaf out of other growth industries such as rhinoplasty, terrorism and auto-erotic asphyxiation; the attacks in the UK this week have been automatically attributed to fundamentalist Islamic extremists, myopically ignoring the controversial public smoking ban that came into force today.
My theory is that, with the anti-smoking lobby receiving a much-needed fellate-in-the-bushes with the new clean-air legislation, irate tobacco-hounds have staged a number of aggressive protests aimed at significant locations in smoking lore: Glasgow Airport, home of duty-free bulk-buy fags, and a popular nightclub in London, such establishments being a common place for smokers to “light up”.
As the UK government, newly under the baleful eye of Gordon “Marrowbone” Brown reacts with the inevitable nicotine ID patches and mandatory registration with the police for convicted cigarette-users, we can expect to see howls of protest unfurled across newspapers and pamphlets, keeping the topic firmly in the public eye. And what do the the eco-mutterers give us? A Toyota Prius and a glass of organic orange juice. For shame!
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 4:34 pm. 0 comments
God bless America - I mean, where else could a guy dress up as a hooker and still make a decent career as a right-wing pundit? I’m talking of course about the gas-filled apocalypse of good-taste that is Ann Coulter, still I would imagine gurgling with excitement after calling John Edwards a “faggot”
Poor Ann, everyone has jumped on the “club the homophobic, inappropriate bitch to death with her own Adam’s apple” bandwagon and missed her point entirely: is it possible that Americans are about to vote an offal-based meatball into office?
Coulter has obviously spent some time in the UK (possibly in the company of Bernard Manning), and thus understands that a faggot is:
“traditionally made from pig heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon minced together, with herbs added for flavouring and sometimes breadcrumbs. The mixture is shaped in the hand into balls, wrapped round with “caul” (a membrane from the pig’s abdomen), and baked” Thanks Wikipedia!
To be fair, if I was about to be governed by a chunk of pelvis-clad abattoir floor-scrapings then I’d want to know. I’m not sure what the possible implications on foreign policy might be, but I can’t see American-Islam relations being done much good by having a Commander in Chief made from pork by-product.
Ladies, gentlemen, (and that curious middle ground occupied by Ann) we should be thanking Coulter not lambasting her. Yes, the odorous sack of effluence is an embarrassment to taste, sanity and human-kind, but at least she knows her meat.
Posted 1 year, 5 months ago at 4:05 pm. 0 comments
Ah, there’s nothing I like more than to use my Moral Decline tag, especially when tongue is firmly planted in cheek. And with the furore over Catholic adoption agencies and the new UK anti-discrimination legislation, it’s been a whole blizzard of diatribe and vitriol. Tony “does anyone have a spare legacy” Blair has been pushing for an outright ban on any agency, state-led or otherwise, from refusing to place children with same-sex couples merely on the basis of sexual orientation, while the Catholics (as well as a surprising background chorus of other faiths, each with that dear-in-the-headlights look of “maybe I’m next?”) were demanding exemption on the basis that their faith says homosexuality is naughty.
It’s interesting to see the church treat the government as a car dealership. They know what they’re getting in the normal deal - free mats and a full tank of fuel, or the equivalent in tax exemptions and preferential treatment of their schools - but just like you and I when we’re shopping for a new urban runaround, they’re after some freebies from the options list, too. Last year they managed to add exemption for faith schools from having to take non-faith students, primarily by taking the stance of squealing loudly and calling on support from conservative (with a small C) religious politicians. So it’s not all that surprising that they’ve taken the same approach this time round.
Only it looks like the deal has finally been stretched to breaking point, as an incredulous church finds itself without car and distinctly out of favour - the government says “no can do, boys, there’s no profit-margin in that.” And now they’re left bleating about vague impacts on volunteering rates, perhaps all too aware that when you’re responsible for just 4% of all adoptions it’s hard to make yourself sound essential (later the quote was “they placed one-third of the difficult-to-place children”)
It remains to be seen whether this signals the beginning of the end for religious impact on politics, and the way Catholic adoption agencies handle the next 21 months (the period they’ve been given to “get used” to having to treat gays as reasonable parents) will perhaps be key. They can either close - and face being ignored as archaic - or come back to the negotiating table, force a laugh or two about unreasonable demands, and maybe have some hope of swaying future policy.
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 5:46 pm. 0 comments
The British press is frothing violently at the mouth with the news that two paedophiles, one convicted of downloading over 200 explicit images of children and the other bailed pending sentencing after sexually abusing a teenager, have been allowed to walk free thanks to prison overcrowding. Meanwhile, in the United States of America a 29 year old man successfully convinced school authorities that he was, in fact, twelve - attending seventh grade for several months before discovery.
The judges responsible blame recent Home Office edicts that only the most dangerous criminals should be imprisoned, a move which has reduced the militant-pure to tearing at their hair (or the hair of whichever profession has been confused with paedophiles that day: pediatricians beware) and screaming blue-murder. Frankly, it looks like the nation’s love-hate affair with cases of child abuse has faded; today’s fast-paced and fashion conscious world equates “dangerous” with “sexy”. And therein lies the issue: paedophilia just isn’t sexy any more.
Look, for instance, to Britney Spears. Once she was the poster-child for inappropriate lusts, all pig-tails and slutty school uniforms; now she gurns drunkenly at paparazzi, falling out of cars and generally looking loutish. You can’t blame the perverts for going off her. Even the guy who almost finished seventh grade doesn’t look happy: is this the face of a man ecstatic of all the close-proximity to the hairless?
No, if ever there was a ‘philia in need of rebranding, child molestation is it. I took to the streets to ask paedophiles what they thought could put touching kids back on top of every parents’ hate-list; being unable to identify any didn’t stop me.
I found a nation confused and belligerent. One man, who begged desperately to be left nameless, told me that, before they met, his wife of thirty-two years was once a 14 year old, and that physical relations with her is, he fears, a form of latent paedophilia. Another woman described an incident at a municipal pool where she briefly shared a foot-bath with a much younger girl while leaving the changing rooms; she feels unable to return to those premises for fear of vigilante reprisals.
The overwhelming consensus was that I should put my microphone away and sod off, you unpleasant little git. Difficult to analyse in SPSS, for sure, but if an edgy public is a changeable one then perhaps we’ll see that sudden tide-turn in attitudes once more.
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 10:29 am. 0 comments
So, on the day that Saddam Hussein was hung for crimes against humanity, I was sat in a Manchester cinema watching Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Aside from the unpleasant casting of Dustin Hoffman, some inevitable incongruities with the book (which is superb) and the fact that Grenouille is supposed to be ugly and yet Ben Whishaw is not, it was enjoyable. There were still plenty of close-up nose shots, which I guess is the easiest (if not the most subtle) way of demonstrating a character smelling something on film.
In contrast, video of Saddam’s death is apparently already leaking onto the internet, filmed on somebody’s cellphone. I’ve no doubt it will be as hungrily sought by fans as by foes of the man, and I’m equally sure that neither will be satisfied by the footage. A tenth of a second till death, no flailing limbs or muffled squeals; quite the contrast to the cinematic demise we’re used to seeing on screens both small and silver. Perhaps they should’ve got someone to direct and choreograph it.