Endorsements

"It was the most offended I've ever been by a Killer Whale story." Mrs. Trellis of North Wales

"I liked the video bit, that was quite good." J. Stephenson of Tucson, Arizona.

"Nope, never heard of it." Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP


Friday 28 January 2011

No Sexism Please, We're British...

Right, anyone who saw 10 O'Clock Live last night will notice that Charlie Brooker somewhat stole my thunder. Since Sexismgate broke earlier this week, I've been accumulating thoughts, jokes etc. for the Friday blog and what should happen on Thursday evening? Well, only one of my heroes making very similar jokes about the same subject to an audience of millions. So, instead of banging on about it, I'll give you a quick rundown:

I was going to discuss the details (briefly, I'm sure you all know basically what happened... but, y'know, with sparkling wit and artistic flair), then I was going to make the point (that several others have made by now) that is struck me as strange that Gray, who happened to be going through the courts to gain damages from Murdoch's News International, was the one to lose his job when the surprisingly hirsuite Keys (who ultimately walked anyway after a bizarre hour-long Partridge-esque interview on talkSPORT... where he will probably be plying his trade in 6 months time, given that his opinions are not so far removed from a good percentage of the active listnership...) received only a warning.

After all that I would go on to summarise the headlines about the story in the Murdoch press, particularly on the startling hypocrisy of the Sun (again, I was beaten to this point by Brooker) whose spread consisted of: Front page- Andy Gray is a sexist pig; and then over the page, 'oh look, some tits'. I was then going to go on to point out that the media storm over this story has quite possibly harmed Sian Massey's career a good deal more than any cheap snides from two men who should know better but were probably only saying what Massey will sadly hear from the terraces every time she makes a key decision. The ensuing media scrum has resulted in Massey missing several games in which she would be officiating, whether as an assistant or as the referee in lower league fixtures, all of which would have been occasions to impress the powers at be and appear more regularly in the officials line-ups for Premier League games.

Anyway, just as we were all being reminded that there is no place for sexism in modern society, who should crop up on Question Time but the bafflingly banal, attention-seeking harridan Katie Hopkins...

So... swings and roundabouts, I suppose...

Friday 21 January 2011

Political Turmoil...

It's fair to say I've learnt a few things this week. Not only did I learn what vajazzling was, but I (as did we all) discovered a few home truths about politics. Firstly, I learnt that (and frankly we should all have taken note from Costner) it is never advisable to trust your bodyguard with a woman. Yes, poor old Alan Johnson, struggling to get to grips with his new role as Shadow Chancellor had to put up with the alleged hanky panky between his wife and his personally assigned security official. So, it was Johnson out/Balls in (and believe me, I'm on Twitter, I've heard every joke going about this, so you can all just imagine your favourite one here). And from one heavy-handed reference to a cock to another - Andy Coulson resigned as Communications Chief in the Coalition Government earlier today. Perhaps, nugget of advice number 2 is it is never advisable to award a man allegedly repsonsible for the illegal tapping of the phones of pop culture luminaries such as Sienna Miller and Andy Gray a key position in government.

So, Coulson who resigned his leadership of the News of the World amid allegations of overseeing a culture of phone-hacking and was inexplicably rewarded for this by being allowed into Cameron's inner sanctum (I've created a notion that disgusts even myself there) and today he's resigned his position with the statement that he could 'no longer give 110%'. I'm fairly certain he couldn't give that in the first place as it is A MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY. Classic hack soundbite, mind - you're resigning from the government, you're not on the fucking Apprentice. Reports of him defending his position with the claim that he has 'a field of ponies' remain unsubstantiated.

It's one of those periods of 24 hours where all news happens at once and it becomes impossible to work out who's trying to bury their news underneath all the others. Nevertheless, short of Blair yelling 'Alright, I knew this would happen. It all went wrong. Everything was wrong!' at the Chilcot Inquiry, Coulson is rightly the lead news story. Who will Dave replace him with? Rupert Murdoch? Robert Maxwell? Or perhaps just Joseph Goebbels...

That's it for this week, I'm afraid.

Soupy twist.

Friday 14 January 2011

This Was the Week, This Was....

Well, it would turn out that the furore that led to last week's blog was in fact a hoax. Hoax/joke, I basically called it correctly... anyway, it would appear that shit-stirring sociopath Kenneth Tong was conducting a 'social experiment'. Now, it comes as absolutely no surprise that someone who partook in the 'social experiment' Big Brother, would have no concept whatsoever of what actually constitutes a social experiment. It would appear that in both cases, observing ordinary folk to gain insight into cultural norms and human nature lies somewhere far behind SAYING OR DOING MORALLY DUBIOUS THINGS FOR ATTENTION.

Anyway, don't worry, it's not all going to be about Tong, I just thought I'd follow up on last week's and point out that it was all, of course, a hoax for the purposes of a social experiment... Oh and spare a thought for the Independent's columnist Johann Hari who spent a not inconsiderable amount of time interviewing the wretch when we all still thought he was genuinely advocating illness as a viable means of achieving his evil misogynist aims...

Still, he's cried wolf now, so if in March he starts tweeting about how he's found Lord Lucan under a napsack in his parent's kitchen, we'll all be wise to his games...

So yeah, forget about him. Forget about the last three paragraphs... and last week's blog... just remember that it was all very funny and someone should probably pay me for this, in all honesty...

So, another week of popular culture and anotherweek where we slip ever closer to the void and all realise that Nathan Barley was, in fact, a documentary... Anyway, topicality... that's what we need here. Umm, Labour hold Oldham... um... ah, Silvio Berlusconi is now formally under investigation for 'using a teenage prostitute and abusing his position as PM'. Mais non? Not old Silvio, the lovable rogue? Abusing his position of power? Say it ain't so.

WHERE HAVE THEY ALL BEEN FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS?! ACTUALLY WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN?!

(I'm very shouty today, sorry about that...)

Silvio has done nothing with the power he's held at varying intervals over the last three decades than abuse it. I'll take an interesting standpoint here and say that, sure Silvio's had some fun with his position, but then isn't that really the ultimate aim of having any true power or influence? Just, so that you can do whatever you want with whichever belly dancers or teenagers you want? I'm certain that Italy's greatest political commentator Niccolo Machiavelli would have just loved Silvio for proving him right about absolutely everything.

He's the modern day Cesare Borgia, but instead gaining territory Silvio makes boundless sexual conquests (and is slightly less dependent on the goodwill of the Papacy). Nonetheless the authorities in Milan are now conducting investigations into the indiscretions of everyone's favourite comedy head of government. I'm now taking bets on the likelihood of Silvio Berlusconi coming out and saying "I was conducting a social experiment into how many daliances a political leader can have before people realise they're generally unsuitable for the running of a country's infrastructure".

This week also saw the discovery of a brand new starsign, the mysterious Ophiucus. Here's today's horoscope for that one.

When the Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars, a handsome stranger will feed you some bullshit about there being starsigns, let alone a new one.

Friday 7 January 2011

Kenneth Wrong...

Right, haven't done one of these for a while but as no-one seems prepared to pay me for it I might as well dust off the old talons of vitriol and aim them at a new target.

Twitter has been abuzz for the last couple of days with an outpouring of bemusement and outrage aimed at one person in particular following a series of controversial statements. I know what you're thinking, 'who is this idling buffoon making the biggest PR cock-up since the public failing of David Cameron's perception filter led to the reveal of a grinning Lady Thatcher brandishing a large pair of shears'? (Ok, so that hasn't exactly happened per se... YET). Anyway, the figure in question is a certain Kenneth Tong. Nope? Me neither. Supposedly he took part in the formerly perennial stifling shitsauna of mediocrity that was Big Brother and now he's starring in 'the internet' where he's playing the part of the woefully misguided and remorseless villain.

Ordinarily it's very difficult to be angry with someone called Kenneth - I'm thinking Branagh, Barlow or that dildo out of off of Peep Show - however many, many people have been willing to make an exception in the case of Mr. Tong.

Over the last few days Tong has rebranded himself as some manner of body fascist, firing out tweets such as
'Only the thin truly win. My Size Zero Pill will change lives, it's like the modern day Schindler's List. Will I be your salvation?'
'Not attempting to be controversial, simply wealthy enough to be honest in saying you're fat and credible enough to promote managed anorexia.'
'There is no excuse for a Girl not to be a Size Zero. It is perfection. Skinny is so sexy, show's self control and is the epitome of beauty'.
So, it seems that he's pushing some kind of product with a staggering lack of self-awareness. Clearly Mr. Tong, who must instantly recognisable to, oh, 3 or 4 dozen people is above our mere human boundaries of taste and decency.

Well, either that or it's a joke. I doubt even someone who's appeared on Big Brother would tweet something along the lines of:
'I quite enjoy these comparisons to Hitler, have read a few Tweets about this, you lot are too kind, I'd argue this is quite a complement.'
I'd quite like to know which facet of history's greatest villain's personality or atrocities there committed he finds to be a complement (sic). The annexation of the Sudetenland perhaps or the way in which that parting just clung to his head so wonderfully... While he assures us his verification is in the post (or something), I don't really see why Twitter would verify someone who prompted equally as many 'who is Kenneth Tong's' as 'this man is a sexist vagrant's.

Joke or not, however, the point stands that any destructive, potentially fatal 'advice' constitutes an abuse of perceived power and thousands were quite rightly astounded and enraged. Cue everyone calling him a vapid, shallow jeb-end. Which is about accurate BUT here's the catch, Tong or not, he's just seeking attention. He wants you to hate him and to call him a vapid, shallow jeb-end (in those exact terms). He wants your disgust and to be vilified as a twattish monster. Like serial killers... or Richard Littlejohn.

By the way, I am fully away of the irony of writing an angry piece about why we shouldn't give attention to this person, which is why I'm advocating a mass tweet of (and bear in mind that they never catch on when started by me... as illustrated by an early effort at the Spartacus tweet that swept Twitter... fully two days after I'd attempted to get it off the ground when someone with influence tweeted it) 'Who is this arsehole and why should we give any credence to his frankly ludicrous opinions?!' perhaps with some kind of hashtag to indicate cohesion and not just a series of perhaps 10 of my friendship circle venting frustration at some unknown figure from their own real lives. #bollockstokenneth perhaps, simply because it makes me giggle from the juxtaposition of 'Kenneth' and 'bollocks'. Alternatively you could just bombard him with @replies calling him 'a vapid, shallow jeb-end', but as we've established, this would probably undermine the cause...

Now, just as we're verging on the libellous, it's probably a good time to point out that everyone is entitled to an opinion... I'm just not entirely sure why I've had to read his and why he couldn't keep his archaic, abhorrent misogyny to the confines of his presumably equally crushingly regressive friends and immediate family.

On a semi-serious note, the fact is, if you're happy in yourself who is ANYONE to tell you different, least of all Kenneth Tong, a non-entity evidently so unhappy that he's been forced to broadcast his baffling and offensive inflammatory statements in the hope that people might remember who he is.