Wednesday, August 05, 2009 

Silly season moaning.

Every year it's the same. The newspapers moan about politicians while they're at Westminster, then they moan when they're not at Westminster. Gavel Basher in Private Eye today points out that those most fingered as being useless can't win: Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, pilloried for being out of his depth and described in the Sun's umpteenth leader on Our Brave Boys having to fight the government as much as they're fighting the Taliban as a "bungling Defence wallah", went for a few days break, just as the row about compensation broke out. He came back, as you would, and the same newspapers complain that he shouldn't have bothered.

The situation is almost exactly the same with whoever it is who deputises for the prime minister while he's away for a couple of weeks. John Prescott got it in the neck repeatedly simply because he wasn't Tony Blair and also from the usual suspects for being a working class idiot above his pay grade. This year it's Harriet Harman's turn, and it being the silly season and there being no real politics to write about, she's transformed by the Mail especially into a feminist harridan determined in just a week to strike a blow against the oppressive patriarchy. The evidence? She jokingly repeated her remarks that women would make better bankers than men (they couldn't be much worse), is daring to introduce lessons about relationships at the age of five which in the Mail becomes five-year-olds being indoctrinated in the ways of feminazism, and might have suggested that the proposals on reforms to the rape laws aren't tough enough. It's utter nonsense, but it fills the space and makes for a good front page splash.

The last person to deputise for the prime minister who was given anything even approaching respect was John Reid, who was praised for his handling of the "liquid bomb plot" raids while Blair was off sunning himself. Reid of course was the hard, unflappable and determined politician which the authoritarian tabloids especially love, at least until they decide that what was up must be brought back down to earth. As for Bob Ainsworth, attacked as much for his choice in facial hair as for his current performance as defence secretary, he's just the latest poor bastard to be cleaning up the mess which Reid himself left at defence, he being the one who told the world that he hoped the troops in Afghanistan would be able to return home from their mission without firing a single shot. We might get the politicians we deserve, but we get the media we deserve as well.

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8/05/2009 09:47:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 

The summer holidays were here again...

The silly season, in case you haven't already noticed, has begun in earnest. Not that newspapers and news sites aren't normally stocked fully with churnalism, but it just becomes instantly more evident when there's next to no real news around.

In case then you wondering, the Wookey Hole witch is a publicity stunt. Even if they are paying the winner £50,000, that's nothing as to the free advertising they've received and will receive, especially when compared to how much it would cost to take out adverts on the same pages and same size as the stories themselves will appear. Likewise, the BBC story that "Swedes miss Capri after GPS gaffe" is almost certainly a similar piece of churnalism. It's plausible, as anyone could accidentally make a typo on their system and be guided to Carpi instead of Capri, but like the Wookey Hole story it makes for excellent publicity, even if it isn't as unbelievable as the benchmark, the "Cab, innit", girl. Not directly publicity seeking churnalism, but also designed to fill up the pages, is the Coca Cola carbonated milk launch, which is only happening in the US. Why then do we care over here? Because we haven't much choice.

Over in the Sun they don't need so much churnalism because they've bought Amy Winehouse's ex-husband's story, no doubt for a gigantic wad of cash. This is despite the fact that the newspaper on numerous occasions directly blamed Blake Fielder-Civil for Winehouse's descent into drug addiction, and which it is now handsomely profiting from, with such eye-opening exclusives as the fact that Fielder-Civil saved her from an overdose, and that she stole cocaine from Kate Moss's bag. Winehouse herself in fact claimed that Fielder-Civil saved her, as reported by the Sun at the time, except with the added aside by the paper that FC left her in hospital to go and collect another fix. Doubtless though, the Sun was merely misinformed, and reports headlined "Amy's lag hubby has no shame", "Amy and Blake back to worst", "for God's sake, get help Amy!", "Amy stop your brainrotting", and "You should be ashamed Blake" were mistakes, all now rectified thanks to a bulging cheque.

With all this in mind, the Daily Quail has set up a form where anyone can submit a post mocking a specific example of piss-poor journalism, which has this blog's full support.

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7/28/2009 08:51:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, August 11, 2008 

Neverending Maddie-balls.

*No, of course it fucking isn't. Not even we're that stupid. The only reason we're printing this is that an otherwise completely ordinary little blonde girl, of which we all know there are only a handful out of 6 billion inhabitants of this planet, just happens to be walking along with a woman wearing a hijab, or a headscarf, meaning she must be a Muslim, meaning she can't possibly be white, meaning there just shouldn't be a little white blonde girl with her. It's the same reason why we printed those photographs of a little blonde girl in Morocco, because there just simply shouldn't be white blonde girls in Morocco, even though she didn't look anything like Madeleine when seen close up. We just never fucking learn, do we? Why are people still buying this crap? How did I end up working on the Scum when I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Bernstein and Woodward? Why don't I just shoot myself in the fucking head?

Away from the thoughts of the average Sun journalist, reaction to my rather poor satire on how tabloid coverage of Madeleine might look in 16 years' time has been predictably polarised:

You wrote the article because you fantasise about having sex with children, you need help quickly and lets hope it's not too late before you hurt some innocent little child

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8/11/2008 10:45:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, August 08, 2008 

16 years from now... (warning: in very, very bad taste)

I HAD SEX WITH MADELEINE MCCANN, SAYS HOLIDAYMAKER

By Lori Campbell

The Daily Zoo can exclusively reveal the latest sighting of Madeleine McCann, the missing 4-year-old British girl who vanished 6,667 days ago. Rodney Shabby, an 19-year-old holidaymaker from Cleethorpes claims to have had sex with her while visiting Praia da Luz in Portugal.

"I met her in a bar near to the hotel where the McCanns originally stayed. I never asked what her name was, but she had long blonde hair, a necklace with "Maddie" on it, and she definitely had that funny thing in her eye, although that might just have been a monocle. I was pretty pissed though, and she left after I threw up all over her tits."

The Daily Zoo, in a magnanimous gesture in no way associated with wanting to sell more daily news discs and make money out of the McCanns' unending misery, paid for Mr Shabby to travel to meet the McCanns and provide a photo fit of the woman he claims to have had sex with.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCann's spokesman, talking to us from Broadmoor, was enthusiastic about the Daily Zoo's discovery. "It certainly raises possibilities. Madeleine, if still alive, would be 21 now and doubtless engaging in a typically vigorous casual sex life. This is just another example of how the Portuguese police have failed us for the last 16 years."

Shabby himself is glowing in his new found fame. "It's not every day you can say that you've boned a missing 4-year-old girl, is it?" Asked whether the pre-schooler was good in bed, Shabby was effusive. "I would say so. I mean, I don't even know how I got it up, but she didn't complain or anything, not until I covered her chest in Sambuca, half-digested chips and orange bits, anyway."

"I just hope my sighting brings some kind of relief to the McCanns. What could be better than to know that your daughter's still alive, that she's still hot, and that she's spending her time doing what every young British person on holiday does best?"

The Daily Zoo, using Shabby's photo fit, has re-imagined what a naked 21-year-old Madeleine McCann with vomit all over her funbags might look like. Press select on your remote now to see the 3d representation.

(Loosely based on today's asinine silly season exploitation of both the McCanns and Anna Stam in the Mirror.)

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8/08/2008 11:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 

Holidaying in your own misery.

I do realise that it's the silly season and that means that almost anything is far game when it comes to filling up the newspaper, but is it possible we could do without the fatuous, shallow or attempting to be humourous analysis of just what Gordon and Sarah Brown and David and Samantha Cameron are invoking through their choice of dress and poses? Yes, they're partially to blame for letting the photographers take the shots in the first place, but they're probably doing it with the proviso that they then fuck off and leave them alone for the rest of their holiday.

It's almost enough to make you wistful of the days where the Blairs denied the publication of where they'd gone on security grounds. Their two-fingers up message to anyone who thought it was tacky to stay with one of the biggest political crooks of all time, or to make use of the Cliff Richard villa was at least fundamentally honest; we don't care what you think and we'd rather you left us alone for at least a couple of weeks a year. You can't help but get the feeling this might yet be repeated once the Camerons are safely in 10 Downing Street.

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7/29/2008 08:49:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, August 15, 2007 

The kids aren't alright.

Death, outraged reaction, draconian solution suggested, draconian solution rejected/forgotten, cycle repeats. It's all too familiar, too rehearsed, too tedious. Add in the factor that it's the silly season and the whole thing is taken up another couple of notches, resulting in editorials claiming that every street is full to the brim with drunken teenagers while the police are handcuffed to their desks filling in paperwork. It's beyond silly and inaccurate, it's exacerbating the already out of control stereotype that the youth of today spend all their time drinking cheap strong booze while smashing up the local playground equipment, and it does absolutely nothing to even begin to sort out the existing problem that there actually is.

Peter Fahy's suggestions on what has to be done to tackle the "yob culture" and youth binge drinking are discriminatory, downright daft and completely wrongheaded. The tragic death of Garry Newlove, the inquiry into which Fahy is meant to be heading, which occurred when he tackled a group of teenagers alleged to have vandalised a small digger he had hired, has not been linked in any way to whether the group had been drinking or not, but that doesn't seem to have gotten in the way of Fahy's arguments on what must be done.

How raising the legal age to purchasing alcohol to 21 will help such avoidable and pointless deaths from happening is not explained, most likely because it will most likely only make the existing situation worse. Nearly all supermarkets and off-licences, which are currently erroneously getting it in the neck for selling to those who are underage, have almost all instituted schemes across the board which require staff to request ID from anyone who looks under 21 before selling them any age restricted product. This already means that those above the legal age but unfortunately don't look it are required to carry around ID lest they decided they'd like to buy a beer. The same is true in pubs and clubs; there may be the odd store which doesn't care, but the fines are now so heavy and strict that it isn't worth the risk. This points towards the fact the most alcohol is being bought by adults, either at the request of teenagers who congregate outside shops and ask them to buy it for them, or by their parents, who either don't care or have it stolen from under their noses. Raising the price of alcohol will also only do so much: it completely ignores why both children and adults are increasingly turning to mass booze binges, while penalising them for wanting to escape from their own humdrum lives for a few hours.

Banning public drinking might remove the odd clusters of youths that do in some places get together, drink and start getting rowdy and harassing people, but again it will only take the problem off the streets, making it more likely that the same will just occur either in private houses or in other places not considered "public". It takes it out of public sight without changing the practice itself. That's all well and good for the police, who aren't called out to deal with it, and for the residents of places where groups have previously suffered, but it just moves it on to somewhere else.

The lessons that the Unicef report on wellbeing ought to have taught have similarly been completely forgotten. It showed that the relationships that are vital in cultivating happiness are just not there - whether it's with their own peers, or with their "elders" themselves, who are by turns either disconnected from their children and young adults, or as the case seems to be with those outside of a family circle, completely uninterested or even hostile towards other children. This is down not to a broken society, as the Tories claim, but to an erosion of empathy, the cult of the self and the mantra of false individualism. When such relationships are missing or stilted, it's little surprise that the things that do bring people together - booze, drugs and sex - are all being increasingly abused by those younger and younger.

What's needed is a complete reapprasial of what it means to both be a child and a teenager in Britain today. Rather than it all being the fault of political correctness and a failure to intervene as the tabloids preach, we've become so scared of our children because of how beastly and violent they're meant to be that we've forgotten that they are us - just even more confused, apprehensive and frightened than we are. Cameron was mocked for suggesting that teenagers needed a lot more love, dubbed by the press and Labour as "hug a hoodie", but he more or less had it right. Despite all the obstacles, we need to both talk and listen. At the moment, the Victorian cliche of being seen and not heard is half right - we see them all too often, but we ignore them.

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8/15/2007 08:03:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, August 14, 2007 

Now is not the time for liberal thought.

Are these the end times? The tabloids, infected with silly season pessimism, seem to think so. COULD BRITAIN BE HEADING FOR A NEW GREAT DEPRESSION? screams the Express. BRITAIN'S GONE MAD yells the Sun, followed up by an editorial which takes the decision by the Thames Valley police to train two 16-year-olds as community support officers to mean that the policy is not only supported by Downing Street, but that the streets are soon to be full of spotty urchins tackling the misbehaviour of other spotty urchins. Battle Royale here we come.

(Not to mention yet another BBC bashing editorial which follows it, claiming that they'd brought out a clip of Redwood failing to sing the Welsh national anthem to mock him. Perhaps they'd like to point out which bulletins that was on, as I watched the news on BBC1 on Sunday at around 6 and then again at 10, both of which had reports on Redwood's bureaucracy cutting proposals and neither featured it (Update: see comments for clarification, apparently it was featured for a whole 5 seconds at the beginning of the report). It also again claims that the BBC's "own watchdogs" had described it as "institutionally biased" when they have done no such thing. The Sunday Times said the "safeguarding impartiality report in the 21st century" was going to come to that conclusion; the phrase, predictably, doesn't feature anywhere in it. The less said about Redwood's actual plans and the Sun's claim he's one of the few to get it the better.)

It isn't that there aren't plenty of things to depressed about. While the tabloids preach doom and gloom on a daily basis about violent crime, yobs and moronic parents with too much money getting their fat, spoilt little princes and princesses' school uniforms lined with Kevlar in case they get stabbed, the great depression which is our meaningless, work-filled and selfish lives continue. As the middle classes go off on their holidays to spread their own omnipresent misery to the inhabitants of countries unlucky enough to be tourist destinations, those worrying that this unstoppable orthodoxy of ever increasing consumption and growth is unsustainable are finding that this brilliant democracy of ours suddenly starts losing its sheen when you so much as attempt to raise awareness by camping near an airport.

Even by the surreal standards of journalism during the month of August, last night's Newsnight discussion between George Monbiot and the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, with Mahmood demanding that Monbiot condemn anyone who decides to climb on the fence at Heathrow was indicative of the madness that seems to descend when the lack of news combines itself with the authoritarian, repressive and draconian excesses of both this government and the businesses that have done so very well out of Labour's crackdown on civil liberties. Would a company before the rise of New Labour really have had the guts to go to the high court and request such a wide-ranging and badly-drafted injunction as that one BAA did to try to stop legitimate protest from taking place in the vicinity of Heathrow? While the judge stood her ground and cut it down to naming just one small group and three individuals, it set the tone for the whole reporting saga, with the press swiftly switching sides from supporting the rights of National Trust and RSPB members to be able to go to the airport if they so wished to scaremongering wildly about just what the less savory, younger and scruffy direct action types might do.

It was almost as if BAA had been taking lessons from Tony Blair's government: not only was the spin that they hadn't been trying to ban up to 5 million people so patently see through that the spokesman might as well have been a ghost, but the raising of the spectre of the terrorist threat was the most ridiculously insulting and absurd argument against protesters doing anything other than standing in a field while being surrounded by the police since Frank Field implied that the police can't handle both the cash for honours inquiry and the security of the nation at the same time. Even if some of the more radical members did decide to get onto the runway, despite the 1800 police which the Met have decided are necessary to secure a site which at the moment has less than 500 hundred actual campers on it (according to the Grauniad, journalists themselves currently outnumber protesters by about 2 to 1), just how are they going to hide the weaponry necessary to bring down an aircraft? As the black maskers scale or cut the fence, someone carrying a rocket launcher in a holdall just might look slightly out of place, and anyway, they don't make bongs that big.

For those of us lucky enough to be dismissed as the "civil liberties brigade", it's good to know that some of our utmost opponents would in fact like the Human Rights Act to be extended ever so slightly further. According to Mike Ambrose, if environmental campaigners attempt to force their views on those who want to travel, they'll be acting against the principles of civilised society, and their actions could prove to be an abuse of the democratic right to protest. Never mind that BAA attempted to stop any protest whatsoever: there needs to be a new human right, and it's the right to go on holiday. Not that Ambrose and his ilk of obscurantists even needed to say anything; they could have instead relied on the Evening Standard to print smears and embellishments to rival anything the Scum could have come up with, claiming that protesters were planning to leave "hoax suspect packages" in order to cause disruption. The Sun gleefully picked up the same ball and ran with it this morning. The police themselves have been making mass use of section 44 of the Terrorism Act, previously used to keep Walter Wolfgang from re-entering the Labour conference and to harass absolutely everyone other those likely to even have the slightest involvement in terrorism, and also have taken to taking photographs and recording everyone that so much as goes near the camp, all just for their own records, obviously.

Systematically but slowly, the right to protest, to express the slightest criticism of almost any business within the vicinity of their premises and to actually act like an individual rather than indulge in "individualism" is being eroded, mocked and criminalised. It's little wonder the young themselves, at least according to the gutter press, are becoming more violent, angry, insolent and feckless. They're the children of the baby boomers after all, who enjoyed all the trappings of the welfare state, free higher education and ideological struggles of the 60s and 70s only to rip all of those things up when they themselves gained power. Selfishness and greed inevitably begats the same, and only now do they not like the results.

Addendum:

This pretty much sums it all up.

I'll seriously disrupt the nose of anyone who get's (sic) in the way of my family holiday this year.

- Mark, Welwyn, Hertfordshire

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8/14/2007 08:36:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, August 08, 2007 

Scum-watch: Could you possibly believe it?

Remember last week's amazing Scum exclusive that a great white shark really had been sighted off the shores of Cornwall, and that it had the picture to prove it? Having nicked the story from the Newquay Guardian, which ran it on its front page, it opened its account of this dramatic personal experience thusly:

GREAT White shark fever gripped the West Country last night — amid claims that ANOTHER of the maneaters has been sighted.

Whoops! As I commented at the time, it seemed ever so slightly convenient that Kevin Kebble, having supposedly taken the photograph two weeks earlier, only took it upon himself to contact one of his local papers' with the news that he'd snapped a shot of one of these terrifying sea creatures once the Scum had been spreading the idiocy across the nation nation. Today he confessed to the Newquay Grauniad's rival, the Voice:

"I took the picture while I was on a fishing trip in Cape Town and just sent it in as a joke," Kevin Keeble told the Newquay Voice newspaper. "I didn't expect anyone to take be daft enough to take it seriously.

"I can't believe the story went so big in the first place. I didn't even get any money out of it. If I'd have made a few quid then maybe I could have gone on another fishing trip to South Africa."

Oh dear. Coming so shortly after its rants against the perfidious BBC and its faking of competitions, it's little wonder that the newspaper declined to comment.

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8/08/2007 07:55:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, August 01, 2007 

The paper that cried shark.

Suddenly, it all becomes apparent why the Scum is yet again leading with its spurious nonsense on sharks, with quite possibly the least amusing front page of the year (source: it sent Steve Wright and friends on Radio 2 into hysterics this afternoon). It's a great excuse to print a photo of two gorgeous young, pouting damsels in distress! (Not reproduced here you filthy perverts.) Thank the black baby Jesus that "hero" Joe Miller (26) saved Hannah (student, 23) and her sister Freya (20) from certain death at the hands (surely fins? Ed.) of err, most likely a basking shark. Freya informs us:

“I was shocked and scared. But at the same time it was quite exciting.”

She added: “I hope it hasn’t put me off swimming — but next time I’m not going too far from the beach.”

Which hopefully the Sun can capture and print on tomorrow's front page. Incidentally, all this happened off the err, Plymouth coast, nowhere near to where the Scum's phony "great white" has been sighted.

But fear not! The Scum just might have managed to find someone who really has sighted and photographed a great white! Only problem being that err, this shark, identified by Doug Herdson (who does actually appear to be an expert this time) as having the markings consistent with a great white was sighted off Newquay, which again, is not St. Ives. Whether we should believe Keeble's story about taking it two weeks ago and only now presenting it after all the Scum's hype is another matter. The Newquay Guardian doesn't seem to have an online entity, although this appears to be their story.

Elsewhere, the Scum does indeed deserve some credit for reporting on Robert Cottage's sentence, complete with photographs of his stockpile and weaponry, even if it is written in tabloidese. It's the comments that you could have predicted:

10 years ago I would have said he was potty but today I think he's got a point.


Your not wrong england7777 the government should be in the dock for treason


For letting illegal immigrants into the country, or not shooting Tony Blair? I report, you decide.

Fly87 has it in a nutshell.

Come back Mr powell the country needs you...

And so forth.

Meanwhile, over in Daily Mail land, Sue Turton, the Channel 4 News reporter goosed live on air is presented in the spot usually given over to the fruity unfortunately dead young woman. Just to prove that the Mail, despite having the largest female reader base of any newspaper is in no way misogynistic or demeaning to those who suffer the indignity of being either abused or mauled in public by the opposite sex, she's described as a "newsgirl". Not a female reporter, newslady or newswoman then.

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8/01/2007 08:06:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, July 31, 2007 

Scum-watch: Wade found floating off St. Ives.

Has such tedious, idiotic, hyperbolic nonsense ever occupied a newspaper's front page for three days straight? No, I'm not talking about the Star's Big Brother obsession, or the Express' various fixations on Diana and Madeleine, although both could equally apply, but the Scum's continuing insistence that there really is a great white shark currently swimming off the coast of St. Ives. Oh, and it's female, and most likely has a mate nearby.

That's the latest stone tablet to be delivered by today's Scum, quoting this time "Leading Aussie shark watcher Dave “Sharkman” Baxter":

“That’s definitely a Great White — probably an adult female about 12ft long. Her mate will be close by.”

Incidentally, this leading Aussie shark watcher is so famous that searching for him on Google only brings up the various news articles currently quoting him and his expert insight, oh and one forum post.

Quite why the Scum is continuing with this charade is difficult to fathom. Their original source for it possibly being a great white has decided that it isn't, as noted yesterday, and now David Sims, who leads the only scientific study of large sharks in the UK (and does appear on Google) has ridiculed the coverage by saying that the first film shows either dolphins or porpoises, while the second is a basking shark, as others from the start pointed out it was most likely to be.

God, writing this I feel like a vicious, humourless little pedant, so that must mean that I'm about the same as usual. Does the fact that it's not a serious news story though make any difference when the newspaper is quite possibly purposefully misleading the nation?

The paper is though asking for suggestions for what the shark should be called. How could it be known by any other moniker than "Rebekah"? It's phony, pretending to be something it isn't, and tends to lash out after spending all day drinking.

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7/31/2007 06:32:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, July 30, 2007 

Various things.

First up, Andrew Dismore and the Joint Committee on Human Rights thoroughly eviscerates the government's "case" for doubling the detention without charge period for terrorist suspects.

Sarfraz Manzoor, in his article on British Asians (much discussion of the report underlying it over on Pickled Politics) and success talks of "coconut" as being the British equivalent of the insult "Oreo". It's no doubt a regional thing, but the insult here has always been similarly junk food based, with those thought of trying too hard to fit in being called a "Bounty".

Finally, with the Scum yet again leading on their brilliant expose of how sharks are going to infiltrate our schools and start eating children, Richard Peirce bursts the bubble by suggesting it's far more likely to be either a porbeagle or a mako shark.

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7/30/2007 07:14:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, July 28, 2007 

The silly season commences and Fox News takes on Anonymous.

The politicians have deserted Westminster, school's out for summer, it can only mean one thing: the silly season is upon us. What better way to get it started than in today's Scum, with the usual hoary old tale of a "great white shark" being sighted off the coast of Cornwall?

SHOCKED tourists told of their terror last night over the Great White shark sighting off Cornwall.

And one holidaymaker said: “This has got to be every swimmer’s worst nightmare.”


Despite getting the head of the Shark Trust to proclaim that the shark filmed is indeed a "predatory shark", it remains far more likely that it was a relatively harmless basking shark, which are often sighted off St. Ives, as this one was.

Even the Sun's usual standard of journalism can't come close to the level of idiocy displayed in this Fox 11 News "investigation" into Anonymous, a coven of "hackers on steroids" using "secret" websites to defame and intimidate various individuals across the length and breadth of the interweb.

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One can only come to the conclusion that this will not end well.

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7/28/2007 07:45:00 PM | | | links to this post

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