Ulterior Motives
Posted: Sat 9 June, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, Thoughts 1 Comment »I truly don’t care one jot about Big Brother at the best of times. So far I think I’ve seen maybe 30 seconds of the new series, while flicking through channels.
I truly disliked the entire hysteria and unpleasantness around the racism claims from the last season of Celebrity Big Brother, although to some degree I also find the current paranoia about any further racism claims to be very funny, especially when one considers that the initial plan for Big Brother was to show people “as they truly are”.
However, in this week’s micro-fight about racism, I find it truly objectionable that the story has given all the media the supposed ‘right’ to print an offensive slur, and all the while dress it up as “news”.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Whodunnit
Posted: Fri 11 May, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 4 Comments »Ever since the story of the little girl ‘abducted’ in Portugal last week started, there’s been something about it (OK, lots of things about it) that smelled bad.
Personally, I think the parents killed her – whether accidentally or deliberately, I’ve no idea – and the entire ‘abduction’ thing has been a ruse to divert attention and provide a reason for the child to suddenly not be around any more. I suspect that the Portuguese police are thinking along similar lines, from the way the search has never really seemed to be all that serious.
All the guff about ‘we left her and her younger brother and sister in the apartment while we went out for a meal – but we checked on them every half hour, honest‘ is just bizarre, especially when the apartment complex has a child-minding service etc.
Of course, I could be A) Overly cynical and B)Wrong – in many ways I hope I am, because whatever the result, it’s a pretty grim and sad situation.
At long last
Posted: Thu 10 May, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, News Leave a comment »Seven weeks today, and Blair finally quits..
Frankly, the time just can’t go quickly enough.
However, I assume that the media needs that much time to figure out what to whittle on about incessantly, now that all the speculation about ‘when the lying little weasel-shagger will finally fuck off'(© Me.) is over and done with.
Pyromania
Posted: Wed 2 May, 2007 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Is it me, or is the news this week dominated by fires for some reason?
- Last Friday/Saturday – Fire in Oxford Street, London
- Monday – Fire in Dale Street, Manchester
- Tuesday – Fire in old colliery, South Wales
- Tuesday – Gorse fires in Wales
- Wednesday – Boy aged 3 rescued from fire in Bridlington
- Wednesday – Fire at a care home in Strathclyde
And that’s not all of them, it’s just a selection.
But it does seem like there’s a theme for the week…
Unable to Buy
Posted: Fri 13 April, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »All the major UK media carried a story yesterday about how public workers can’t afford to buy houses. I’m sorry, but I’m actually quite unsympathetic about this.
You see, the public workers that are mentioned in the story are teachers, nurses, police, and firefighters. And with the exception of the teachers, all the others are a self-inflicted problem. Well, not self-inflicted per se, but most certainly it’s a problem that’s come about through the decisions of the employers of these public workers about 20-25 years ago.
Before the 1980s, hospitals, police forces, and fire brigades all had subsidised accommodation for their staff/members (whichever you want to call them). In some areas, the police and nurses in particular had whole housing estates of subsidised housing. The same is true of the MoD, and soldiers having subsidised housing although even that is now coming to an end.
In the 80s and 90s, though, the various authorities (regional police forces, health authorities etc.) decided to sell off those housing areas, and make some money. OK, a load of money. So that’s what they did – bang, all the subsidised housing getting sold, giant profits being made on the sales, and not a thought to what would happen in the future.
And that’s what resulted in the current situation. If the subsidised housing were still available, the affordability of it for those key workers in the public services wouldn’t be an issue.
Just another case of short-sighted (and greedy) actions for a quick profit, and no thought to the future…
Boo-Hoo
Posted: Fri 13 April, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, News 1 Comment »Awww, poor baby.
We get a lot of coughing wherever we go, even when we go abroad to Spain. Generally it’s good humoured, and if it gets intimidating we just walk away.
“But there’s a very small minority in the local community who are really vitriolic and make our lives hell.”
Now without even trying, I know that most UK readers will have a pretty good idea who might be griping here.
And yes, some of the (alleged) incidents are quite unpleasant, but basically the guy lives in a Jeffery Archer-esque life where you can’t believe at least half of what he says anyway, so *shrug*
Right Place, Right Time
Posted: Fri 23 February, 2007 Filed under: News, Photography 1 Comment »While I think the story itself is more than a little hysterical, every time I see the image involved, I just think “Wow”. The photographer, Martin Rickett was so obviously in the right place at the right time. It’s just a brilliant shot.
