Obsolete

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Panic on the streets of London.

There was consternation today after a gang brawl involving spades, screwdrivers, bars and sticks was captured by a innocent paparazzo on his way to attempt to get a up-skirt shot of Julie Christie.

The terrifying scene, with kitchen utensils and DIY logistical tools being used for purposes far beyond their intended design has been seen as yet another vignette showcasing Britain's inexorable global decline.

Said one onlooker: "What sort of example does this set to the rest of the world? Once again we've come out bottom of everything, this time in the gang fight stakes. Where was the choreography of the great gangland battles which Los Angeles, Tokyo and Sicily have provided us with? Where were the knives and guns which the newspapers inform us every youth now has easy access to? The best we can manage is a pointed stick, a screwdriver and a Wellington boot. It's no wonder no one goes out at night any more; they're terrified of being attacked by youths armed with bits of 2 by 4 and buckets and spades from the seaside, rather than the Glocks, machetes and Uzis of our foreign cousins."

What do you think? Do you think this shows that Britain has lost its place in the great urban battles league? Do you think that I should stop attempting these feeble attempts at satire? Do you think the Daily Mail would have given a shit if this hadn't happened outside Julie Christie's house? Don't leave any messages, as I'm liable to censor them all.

Labels: bullshit, Daily Mail-watch, gangs, Mail-watch, mockery

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9/04/2008 11:17:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Friday, February 23, 2007

Scum-watch: Smacking is back in fashion.

Bloggerheads notes that today's page 3 girl, the views of which usually correspond with the editorial opinions of the newspaper itself, is all in favour of bringing back caning. Could this possibly the same newspaper that goes out of its way to find a story about an evil pervert preying on our kids almost every day of the week? The same newspaper that scaremongered about the possibility of "perv sirs" and paedos being in class?

Perhaps Rebekah Wade would like to explain how allowing a teacher to hit a pupil as a punishment isn't either assault or a form of child abuse. If a pupil hit a teacher, he or she would be suspended or expelled, and quite rightly so. "Rhian's" "views" are based on a survey which found that parents believe that discipline in school has declined since the abolition of corporal punishment, which may well be true, but it certainly doesn't mean that bringing back the cane is the way to restore order. The Guardian report on the survey is predictably calmer. The rules on what can be done to restrain violent and unruly pupils have also been made far clearer in recent years.

Still, we all know about Wade's own fondness for smacking her husband (now ex). Could this explain her apparent lust for physical violence?

Elsewhere in today's Scum, they make a big deal out of Ryan Florence pretending to shoot David Cameron with his loaded fingers, who they interview just to make sure that he gets more publicity for being both an idiot and a boastful most likely lying little twerp. Those who are now taking Florence as an example of yob culture Britain would do well to remember the other teenager who heckled Cameron, rightly working out that he doesn't know his arse from his elbow.

The Scum's leader is foaming at the mouth, as per usual:

BRITAIN is in the grip of an ugly gun culture.

No it isn't. Distinct, inner-city parts of Britain may be in the grip of an ugly gun culture, but Britain as a whole is certainly not. America is in the grip of an ugly gun culture, but Murdoch's minions would never dream of suggesting that.

That’s the message to Tony Blair and David Cameron, who got a first-hand taste of the snarling morons who glorify guns yesterday.

Quite right too. I suppose the kids who play with toy guns and water pistols are glorifying them as well. Believe it or not, kids have been pretending to shoot people with their fingers for decades. That someone wet between the ears was trying to impress his dumb friends doesn't mean he was glorifying gun violence.

Kids as young as eight are toting deadly weapons. Others won’t leave home without body armour under their anoraks.

I'd like to see some statistics that back up the first part of this sentence, seeing as the police only spoke of 13-year-olds having guns hidden in their houses. The same age group was spoken of wearing body armour. We're talking about a tiny percentage of people, but from this Sun leader you'd think the whole of the next generation were tooling themselves up ready to massacre each other.

Laws to curb gang membership are vital. Anyone caught carrying a gun must be slung in jail.
The police must be given every power they need — with the orders to use them.

Replica guns should be outlawed.

Maybe I wasn't being too outlandish in suggesting that children with water pistols are glorifying gun crime. We ought to outlaw them too to make sure they aren't converted into lethal weapons. No concern for those who shoot for pleasure in outlawing replicas, but we shouldn't of expected any.

We are at war with gangs — and no measure is too extreme to tackle them.

How about caning them? I hear that works wonders.

But laws are not enough on their own. We all have a duty to clean up our streets.

Governments must send clear messages about right and wrong.

That means backing the family, the teacher and the rule of law.

This is a war we must win.

Seeing as the government and the Sun see no wrong in breaking the rule of law to call off the SFO's investigation into the Saudi Arabian slush fund, not to mention the legality of the Iraq war, they're hardly the ones to start parroting about it. Everything is war, and war is peace.

Labels: corporal punishment, gangs, gun crime, Ryan Florence, Scum-watch, Sun-watch