[Watchman]

The “Tommy can’t get me in Portugal” blog

[Bones McCoy]

There's a whole discussion to be had on deprogramming cultists.
Twitter, in particular, harbours them like an unwashed toilet.

Being the type I am, I've tried ridicule, and most seem immune.

When you have the likes of "Johnny Rotten" and "That nice fellow from the Coast" trumpeting conspiracies.
It's no longer a case of looking at mugshots of Toby Young, Daniel Hannan and drawing the natural conclusion.

[Andy McDandy]

Fenton's wanker has employed the particularly annoying tactic of accusing anyone taking issue with his cut and paste diatribes, of being obsessed with him. Or falling back on either "U OK hun?", or "the Internet never forgets" like it's 1996 all over again.

Arguing online, like pigeon chess. Just say no.

[Abernathy]

The latest social attitudes survey apparently shows a marked decline in people saying they feel "proud to be British".

This has, naturally, sent the radio phone-in shows into some sort of feeding frenzy. People claiming to be "proud" of being British because of the UK's mountains, lakes, coastline and beautiful scenery. Proud because of Britain's long and damatic history. Proud, of all kinds of stuff like that.

But nobody seems to be pointing out the inherent absurdity of the concept of taking pride in what is in essence a totally random occurrence, which is to say happening to have been born in the particular territory that is the nation-state of the United Kingdom. An event in which one has no say, and no choice. Someone born in the UK could just as easily have been born in Yemen, say. Are Yemeni people to be proud of being randomly Yemeni, too ?

Sure, you can be happy to be born British, for all those reasons concerning mountains, lakes, and scenery , etc. But proud? Pride is usually something that is engendered by personal achievement. Passing exams. Climbing mountains for charity. Being the parent of a graduating son or daughter. You can't, in all reasonableness, be "proud" of a random event over which you had no choice, control, or influence.

National pride, of course, is the very worst kind of idiocy, as recently manifested in the Farage Riots.

[MisterMuncher]

I think Bill Hicks had something of a point in breaking national pride down into an emotional attachment to where your parents decided to fuck.

[Youngian]

Fenton's wanker has employed the particularly annoying tactic of accusing anyone taking issue with his cut and paste diatribes, of being obsessed with him. Or falling back on either "U OK hun?", or "the Internet never forgets" like it's 1996 all over again.

Arguing online, like pigeon chess. Just say no.

Is he living ‘rent free in your head?’ Or replies to a reasoned argument with a laughing emoji.

[satnav]

I've had a double dose of Jeremy Vine today he really is appalling as a presenter. On his Channel 5 show he had Ann Widdecombe and of course the subject under discussion was immigration. She spouted all kinds of lies and misinformation and at no point did Vine challenge her about anything she said. He then took calls from a bunch of callers who were just as extreme as Widdecombe they were all spouted stuff about all the generous benefits and free houses that immigrants allegedly get. Instead of challenging these callers Vine just nodded along with what they were saying and then towards the end of the discussion he threw in his own piece of made up nonsense when he said somebody who comes here as immigrant can expect to receive £2m of free health care during their lifetime. I'd love to know how he arrived at that particular figure.

His radio show is just as appalling. Listening to him is like listening to a talking version of the Daily Mail. During a discussion on the NHS he must have told at least 3 people that one of his friends who is a GP had now left the NHS to become a private GP. He thought that this was a major revelation but everybody he mentioned it to were completely non-plussed. One guest simply pointed out that his friend was filling a gap in the market giving quick consultations to people prepared to pay money to be seen quickly.

I really need to find a new radio channel to listen to when I'm out in the car between 12 and 2.

[Andy McDandy]

I think when he tried to define "woke" and came out with "Weeeellll, it's, you know, touchy-feely, Guardian reading, don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, bit namby-pamby, bit concerned what people think of them..." while Marina Purkiss looked on in pity, that was something of a nadir for him.

But then there's always the great exchange he had with a guy from CERN (on to explain the significance of the Higgs Boson):

JV: "But come on, you're not exactly curing cancer, are you?"

CERN Guy: "Given that we invented the MRI scanner, we're actually doing quite a bit to cure cancer."

[Bones McCoy]

I think Bill Hicks had something of a point in breaking national pride down into an emotional attachment to where your parents decided to fuck.

I must be a "back seat of a Cortina" nativist then.

[Youngian]

I really need to find a new radio channel to listen to when I'm out in the car between 12 and 2.

As I can't be arsed to upgrade to digital, I've become a regular R3 listene. Very soothing and facts about composers that I forget but fascinated by in the moment. In direct contrast to Vine's listeners, R3 audience sound like really lovely people.

[Yug]

I see Boeing are living up to their reputation

A communications satellite designed and built by embattled aerospace giant Boeing has broken up in orbit.

The satellite's operator, Intelsat, has confirmed the "total loss" of iS-33e, which has affected customers in Europe, Africa and parts of the Asia-Pacific region...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8d886l028o.amp

[Andy McDandy]

https://websitesfromhell.net/

Feast your eyes on some truly awful bits of web design. It's like 1995 all over again!

[Yug]

Bloody Albanian migrants. Break out of their accommodation and go thieving.

Two bears who sparked the evacuation of a wildlife park involving trained firearms staff and police had headed straight for the honey store, the park has said.

Wildwood Devon, a conservation charity near Exeter, said European brown bears Mish and Lucy made their way to the food store after breaking free - and then consumed a "week's worth of honey"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrxn4x7yx2o

Wots are Nigel got to say about these bloody criminals?

[Bones McCoy]

Bloody Albanian migrants. Break out of their accommodation and go thieving.

Two bears who sparked the evacuation of a wildlife park involving trained firearms staff and police had headed straight for the honey store, the park has said.

Wildwood Devon, a conservation charity near Exeter, said European brown bears Mish and Lucy made their way to the food store after breaking free - and then consumed a "week's worth of honey"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrxn4x7yx2o

Wots are Nigel got to say about these bloody criminals?

I saw that one on the BBC website while listening to the Woke Cricket coverage.

The story took me back to the happy days when broadcast news closed with an "And finally" feelgood story.
Before the news had been invaded by energy vampire lobbyists, and think thanks on speed-dial.

[Boiler]

Bloody Albanian migrants. Break out of their accommodation and go thieving.

Two bears who sparked the evacuation of a wildlife park involving trained firearms staff and police had headed straight for the honey store, the park has said.

Wildwood Devon, a conservation charity near Exeter, said European brown bears Mish and Lucy made their way to the food store after breaking free - and then consumed a "week's worth of honey"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrxn4x7yx2o

Wots are Nigel got to say about these bloody criminals?

I saw that one on the BBC website while listening to the Woke Cricket coverage.

The story took me back to the happy days when broadcast news closed with an "And finally" feelgood story.
Before the news had been invaded by energy vampire lobbyists, and think thanks on speed-dial.

If you can, listen to the end of the six o'clock news on Radio 4 today. The article was done in the style of A A Milne

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002dzgk from 27:12 in.

[Abernathy]

Didn’t really know where to post this generalised observation about the state of UK politics and what’s likely to play out over the next four years of this government.

The next election is still four years away.

Labour, and Starmer in particular, are still struggling to achieve any measure of popularity, emphatically not helped by an exceptionally hostile news media(which in fairness was always going to be the case) and some piss-poor comms coming from Downing Street.

I have the impression that it is all but universally accepted, particularly in the minds of electors, that the Tories are finished, at least for the short to medium term. The caveat here is obviously that it is always a mistake to write the Tories off.

The aforementioned hostile (and even non-hostile) news media are doing all they can to promote the idea that Reform UK has now displaced the Tories as the favoured alternative to Labour, and Farage, crazy though the notion is, as the next PM.

The Corbyn/Sultana party, I’m fairly confident, will prove to be a damp squib, particularly if Corbyn is installed as its leader.

We are at the point where things really need to start visibly going right for Labour. Cynical electors toying with the idea of a Reform UK government in particular need to see and feel that the Labour government is driving positive change and doing people good.

[davidjay]

Bloody Albanian migrants. Break out of their accommodation and go thieving.




Wots are Nigel got to say about these bloody criminals?

I saw that one on the BBC website while listening to the Woke Cricket coverage.

The story took me back to the happy days when broadcast news closed with an "And finally" feelgood story.
Before the news had been invaded by energy vampire lobbyists, and think thanks on speed-dial.

If you can, listen to the end of the six o'clock news on Radio 4 today. The article was done in the style of A A Milne

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002dzgk from 27:12 in.

Only the BBC can do that.

[Youngian]

Labour, and Starmer in particular, are still struggling to achieve any measure of popularity, emphatically not helped by an exceptionally hostile news media(which in fairness was always going to be the case) and some piss-poor comms coming from Downing Street.

I have the impression that it is all but universally accepted, particularly in the minds of electors, that the Tories are finished, at least for the short to medium term. The caveat here is obviously that it is always a mistake to write the Tories off.


We are at the point where things really need to start visibly going right for Labour. Cynical electors toying with the idea of a Reform UK government in particular need to see and feel that the Labour government is driving positive change and doing people good.

Peter Kyle did cut through today and put Farage on the back foot by accusing him of supporting online nonces. That’s the level of the current media eco system that the government has to play in. Fucking grim.

[Abernathy]

The Ozzy grief-fest.

Am I alone in finding it all over-the-top, slightly distasteful, and faintly ridiculous ? It’s the biggest outbreak of performative, vicarious grieving since Princess Diana.

Okay, Osborne was from Birmingham. And he was fairly successful as a popular musician, and kind of well-known because of his TV appearances on “reality” TV - much parodied as a kind of clueless, drug-addled Brummie half-wit by the likes of Jon Culshaw and Rory Bremner. A “celebrity” in contemporary terms.

But that was all. He was not someone whose (not un-anticipated) death I would have anticipated as triggering the mass outpouring of grief that it seemingly has.

Living in Birmingham, I’m acutely aware of today’s public obsequies, centred as they are on the city. It’s on every national and, particularly, local news bulletin.

There have been frankly idiotic online petitions set up, one calling for Osborne to be given a full state funeral (which might have been a piss-take, but I can’t be certain), and one demanding that Birmingham’s airport be re-named Ozzy Osborne Airport (I think that one was deadly serious).

Frankly, it’s a little embarassing. I’ve found myself wondering which, if any, other famous sons or daughters of the city of Birmingham would engender such grief-driven excess by dint of their demise. Jeff Lynne? Bev Bevan? Jasper Carrott ? Can’t think of one.

[Killer Whale]

Roy Wood. Deff Roy Wood.