Archive for August, 2008
Give up the Fags and take the money to Waitrose.
That life expectancy, even in 21st century Britain, can vary by as much as 30 years in adjacent areas is alarming, but not, on closer inspection, surprising. It isn’t, of course, a matter of where a person lives, so much as how they live.
With full respect to the mourners, would they disagree that in many cases, if these sadly early departees had kicked the tobacco habit early enough, and spent the money they saved (£50 a week for a 30-a-day habit) and spent it on a tasty, well-balanced and nutritious diet, then backed it up with a good long hike along Clydebank once a week, a lot of them would easily have extended their innings by 30 years.
It’s not a complex sociological conundrum; it’s about choice.
I hope those they leave behind decide to make the right choice.
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The News of the World is indignant.
The News Of The World is indignant this Sunday about local authorities using surveillance techniques to catch Council Tax cheats. There’s always an enjoyable sense of the ridiculous to be had in seeing the Screws working themselves up into a righteous frenzy about someone else doing exactly what they’ve been doing – extensively and sometimes illegally – for years.
In their usual scrappy way, without naming one authority or citing any specific examples, they tell us that ‘Town Hall’ snoopers are using anti-terrorist powers to monitor mobile phone signals to see who is sleeping over with whom, and doing it regularly enough to nullify a single occupancy discount. They quote MP Eric Pickles “the country is walking into surveillance state where spying on citizens has become the norm.”
Yes – and more often than not by the News of the World.
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Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez sought justice in Britain
The Independent’s Legal Forum has commented on what it describes as a “LIBEL TOURIST INVASION.”
The use of “Invasion”, in a way that is uncharacteristic of the Indie, gives an indication of the paper’s position as it sets out to describe how a number of American celebrities – Cameron Diaz, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, among others – who have been subjects of defamatory stories in the American press have found it more effective to sue these publications in Belfast or London, on the grounds that UK editions are available, or the information can be seen by British readers on the papers’ websites.
Popularity: 1% [?]
News Management in Georgia
The President of the Republic of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili is a savvy fellow, and he looks it. He’s young (still 40), well-groomed and suited and wouldn’t seem out of place in the swishest of Manhattan offices. He laughs a lot; he speaks fluent, idiomatic American (and half a dozen other useful tongues) and he knows the terms of reference to use. These are all characteristics guaranteed to endear him to large sections of the American administration. Add to that a passion to join the EU and NATO, and there is the basis for a love feast with all the big boys of the Western World. George W is standing right by him (for all the good it will do him), the French have Sarkhozied up to him and even Young Cameron has shot over to see him (for all the good it will do YC).
Popularity: 1% [?]
PRESS GAZETTE – Journos’ trade paper unsupported by Bosses
Like all mortals, newspaper editors are corrupted by power – in some cases by the quite considerable power of a strong national title.
A symptom of that corruption, also common among long-serving UK Prime Ministers and African dictators, is a reluctance to accept criticism.
When a responsible trade journal, seeking balance and fairness, suggests that there may be flaws within an editor’s own organ, the editor will get very moist about the collar, demand interviews with the editor of the Press Gazette and withdraw their paper’s sits vac advertising, which is the lifeblood of the only Newspaper Trade journal.
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Jazz Classics in Ludlow
When a top class musical act comes to a small town like Ludlow, it’s worth making the most of it, and I went to see Paul Ryan and Kenny Clayton twice this weekend when they appeared at the Ego Bar on Saturday night and the Charlton Arms over lunch on Sunday.
Paul Ryan is the best British singer of the great American Songbook of the 30s, 40s & 50s that I’ve ever heard. His timing, the tuning and timbre of his voice (honed by a steady intake of unfiltered Senior Service) would stand comparison with any of the great crooners (Frank, Bing, Dino or Bennett). But he’s not just a Sinatra tribute act. Performing in a double-breasted suit, ex-Chicago c.1932, with dark hair swept back and a scarlet silk brow-mopper, Paul has the air of a musical ‘Don’. With features perhaps best described as ‘well caroused-in’, he brings a cartload of personal baggage and life experience to his delivery of some of the great songs of the last century, with his own distinctive interpretation of the clever, sophisticated lyrics of Jerome Kern, Ira Gershwin or Lorenz Hart which no X-Factor teenage wannabe could dream of achieving.
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If Ian McEwan pinched it from Jeffrey Archer, who did Archer pinch it from?
A couple of months ago at the Hay Festival, Ian McEwan inadvertently added to his reputation as a plagiarist.
It had come to light in late 2006 that significant chunks of the hospital scenes in Atonement had been lifted from an autobiographical account of wartime nursing by the late Lucilla Williams, a well-known romantic novelist. McEwan did, in fact and in small print, acknowledge Lucilla Williams’ work as a research source in the back of his book. However Ms Williams herself was quite unaware of the substantial contribution she had made to his much-lauded novel until four years after it was published, when a post-grad research academic, Natasha Alden told her about it. McEwan’s error was, perhaps, a failure to mention more fulsomely and manifestly the extent to which he had used her work.
Popularity: 2% [?]
France follows my lead, and Taxes the Tubbies
It seems that the power and influence of my blog is spreading. The day after I proposed (on August 5th) that we Tax the Tubbies in Great Britain, the French announce that they are going to take this sensible measure in France, where food is, traditionally, more important than it is here (despite the horrible expansion of MuckDonalds across that fine country).
I hope to see a reaction soon from Parliament, starting with our own excellent representative, Philip Dunne, Member for Ludlow, the food capital of the Marches, where no Golden Arches will ever sully the view.
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The Evening Standard adopts Wapping tactics
It seems that Associated Newspapers have caught some nasty habits from Wapping – or maybe they’ve always indulged in the same practices.
They’ve been engaged in illegal prying into the privacy of the royal family.
Yesterday the London Evening Standard quoted ‘unnamed medical sources’ that confirmed the Duke of Edinburgh had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
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Tax the Tubbies – and do them a favour.
Last week in the Guardian, Alan Johnson (Secretary of State for Health) told us….
“Today, two thirds of all adults and one third of all children are either overweight or obese. By 2050, on current trends these figures will rise to almost nine in ten adults and two thirds of all children. By then, obesity, which is already responsible for 9,000 premature deaths each year, 58% of all type 2 diabetes, 21% of heart disease and a nine-year reduction in life expectancy, will lead to a seven-fold increase in direct health costs with wider costs to society of around £50bn.”
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Hello Peter
Listening to you at the Leveson Inquiry today, I thought you might be interested to have a look at ...
@Fleur,
I suspect he still has a job because he knows where the bodies are buried. 
Not much to write home about Neville? 
hi peter,great website. i bought your book news of the world and managed to get hold of CAMERA ASSASSIN 2 ...
they finally caught the little toad if he can lie at a small tribunal he certainly can rely on ...