Bear Grills

To return to an earlier theme...

Time to go.

What I like most is how he corrects Boulton with exactly the same quotation that Boulton just read out; essentially he agrees that he misquoted Osbourne but says that what he said was right all the same.

Then he says he wanted a market solution over Northern Rock; a market solution he knocked back twice when it was presented to him. At least he learnt his lesson when it came to HBOS, but should HM Government really be run by trial and error?

Litterers "are like the Wests"

People who drop sweet wrappers are acting like a Gloucester couple who tortured, raped and murdered at least 12 young women, an Anglican bishop has said.

In a letter featured in parish magazines in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, wrote: "Fred and Rosemary West represent merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck."

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about litter, we are as guilty as they were - we are in effect kidnapping young women and submitting them to a brutal ordeal of torture and rape before murdering them and burying them in the garden."

He said people were "right to be disgusted at these crimes" but that "mere disgust is too convenient".

"There are lessons for all of us to learn," he added.

Bear Grylls

Tonight's episode saw our intrepid adventurer facing yet another generously shot "sheer rockface" - this time not once, but twice - which led me once more to the inevitable question/survival tip at the heart of his whole 'Man vs. Wild' shtick: why doesn't he just buy a fucking map?

Fascists, fakers & funds

Oliver Kamm has a good little roundup post over at his blog; in it he makes a fine summation of what will be Gordon Brown's negligible legacy and outlines exactly how I feel about the Oxford Union furore.

The only addition I'd make to what he says is to express how much I disagree with some of the more militant attitudes I've seen displayed in the blogosphere on the issue. The Drink-soaked Trots have been typically bellicose and therefore make an excellent illustration: they call for those making racist remarks to be met with "a fist, boot, or bottle." At some point, when I have more time and I don't feel like death, I'd like to write what I think about the idea of 'hate crime', but in short our right to freedom of speech should extend to and include even the most repulsive of our personal convictions. As Kamm describes, "Griffin is a demagogue and Irving is a racist faker; but the offence you and I are caused by their views is entirely irrelevant to civic affairs."

We shouldn't meet any opinion with violence because - despite what the Trots say - there is a qualitative difference between calling someone a "nigger/paki/yid/poofter" and genocide; a person's right to express a personal belief - and as Kamm points out, their right to hold one - does not extend to a right to act on it, and definitely doesn't provide a tacit mandate for murder. The crimes that fascists would have done to people based on attributes given them by virtue of birth are already covered by ample laws; we cannot attempt to silence our opponents by force with the possibility that we are averting mass homicide as a fig-leaf to salve our moral conscience.

P.S. Nick Robinson and Kamm's description of Labour's current, self-inflicted, donation scandal as "gob smacking" couldn't be more apt.

Gordon Brown: A silence for the underappreciated, the underfunded and the unarmoured...

Of all Gordon Brown's attempts to change his public image (if not his policies), none have angered me more than this. That Brown - in another vain attempt to paint himself as the statesman he'll never be - has the nerve to pose as the champion of the fighting man is beyond contempt.

Lest we forget the squeeze that this man put on our armed forces while he headed up the Treasury, there are some choice examples to remind us: first and foremost, Government underspending has directly resulted in the loss of British soldiers' lives, from missing body-armour, from fratricide caused by a lack of combat ID equipment, from the lack of casevac and from faulty aircraft amongst other causes.

Training, and the equipment vital to carry it out properly, has also been at a premium since 2001, inadequate funding leading to the cancellation of major exercises as far back as the run-up to the Iraq war, and worsening as the intensity of current operations increased. And this money isn't just held back at source, it's also clawed back later, sometimes with disastrous results: much of the £1 billion worth of funding the Treasury promised for the invasion of Iraq was demanded back just a year later, resulting in the sale of WMIKs at below cost in order to refund the Treasury's money, WMIKs that would later be in short supply in Helmand.

And, considering his praise for the new national war memorial in Staffordshire, it is perhaps strange that only in 2001 was he charging £200,000 VAT bills to the builders of the Memorial Gates monument to Commonwealth servicemen.

These few examples represent only a small sample of the disrespect that this Government in general, and Gordon Brown in particular, have shown our brave men and women in uniform over a decade in power. It's just a little bit too late for all his fine words about the courage and heroism of men he's spent so long shafting.

Stopping people won't help; we need to stop idiots.

Williams: "a deal that went wrong or something that didn't really go too right..."

Watching BBC News 24's coverage of Britain's recent spate of youth gun crime and Keith Jarrett's response to it reveals a new and revolutionary strategy in policing. Knacker of the Yard should long ago have hung up his truncheon and stepped aside in favour of Sipho Williams who offers up the stunning critique of Stop and Search that "it's not gonna help if you just stop more people; you need to stop people committing crime." Blimey, what a clever sod.

"Strength to change Britain"

All this talk of strength sounds very familiar...

Live Earth is immensely popular

I note that the BBC, who are hosting extensive coverage of Al Gore's Live Earth gig, have had to rephrase their poll to get even 45% support for it. The original poll (found here) asked whether Live Earth can "make people more environmentally-aware", a simple yes or no question tackling the concerts' professed goal that scored a pretty damning 87.97% against the gig after 10769 votes cast; but now at "Sydney kicks off Live Earth gigs" the poll has changed to the totally meaningless "Live Earth: Can people make a difference?" with its equally waffly "yes/no/not sure" options. Now you don't need any great experience of quantitative research methods to work out that this isn't how you phrase a question that you actually want to know the answer to: is it asking if Live Earth can make a difference, or if people can make a difference? Well, neither: it just means that the BBC can point to a poll that says people are vaguely indifferent to the chances of Live Earth's success (as the confused 45%/45%/10% result can be read to demonstrate), rather than one that says it, just like their much-criticised propaganda for Live 8, is just another of their pet projects we couldn't give a toss about.

Al Gore invented the internet: he can have as many damn screens as he wants!

Haymarket Bomb witnessed by idiots

Idiots: "some kind of skirmish"

Watching BBC News 24's rolling coverage of the attempted car bombing in London's West End there have been interviews throughout introduced with the contention that people who were at Tiger Tiger last night have had to stay so they could get into the cloakroom for their coats. Now, am I insane or is twelve hours a rather long time to wait to get your coat? Wouldn't it have been better to go home at 2 in the morning and then come back when a major security alert is over? Why are the BBC lamenting the fact these people didn't have beds? They were out drinking, they're not homeless; how are the self-inflicted hardships of their sleep deprivation even remotely part of the story?

Now maybe some would disagree, but this is definitely the most important story to come out of this major terrorist attack on the nation's capital.

"Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?"

Well, it's finally happened, our erstwhile future Prime Minister will shortly become simply 'our Prime Minister'. Except no-one voted him in, so he's not really 'ours' at all, but when has democracy ever stopped Labour? Answer: never. They see what they want and they take it. You've got to respect that strength of will, that will to power.

Luckily, with its "very low turnout" it looks like democracy didn't even intrude on the deputy leadership contest either. Of course, that's where "the real battle of ideas" was fought: I just didn't realise you won the "battle of ideas" by getting all six of your friends to vote for you. I guess that's how we beat the commies though...

ID cards 'to be great British institution'

Britain's identity card scheme will become a "great British institution" on a par with the Stasi's truly excellent record keeping, Home Office minister Liam Byrne says.

He said it was "time to get on with it" and predicted that the National Identity Scheme "will soon become part of the fabric of state oppression".

Emily Parr "a despicable racist", says Channel 4

Emily Parr has been evicted from the Big Brother house for using the 'n word'. Like the BBC I can only use that word if its in quotes because it makes baby Jesus cry.

She apparently said:

"Are you pushing it out, you nigger?"

PANIC! Don't worry, that one was a quote, I made sure of it. Besides, it makes very little sense to me anyway, and to be honest I don't think it's quite that bad. The number of times I hear that word used in my house, the Big Brother production staff would go crazy; but I live with an early '90s G-funk group, and the Imperial Wizard of the KKK. So, you know, it's what they do. "N' this, and n' that." It's how they roll.

Try evicting them for who they are. You bigots.

"It is no longer acceptable for someone to go out, get legless and vomit over people"

"We want to make clear that it is no longer acceptable for someone to go out, get legless and vomit over people," said Lady Scotland, the Home Office minister. What a bitch. No Home Office minister's going to stand in the way of my God-given right to go out, get legless and vomit over people. I am an Englishman, ma'am! Magna carta gives me the right to vomit on anyone: Lord or Lady!

Not that these communists would understand that.

'Art' & 'Torture'

Apparently, 'performance artist' Mark McGowan has eaten a Corgi live on the radio. I say "apparently" because I wasn't listening. Partly because I, despite living in London, have never listened to "London-based arts station 104.4 Resonance FM" (although who has?); partly because the stunt, like all of McGowan's work is a mediocre attention-seeking scam on, not just the media, but the public as well; partly because it is supported by Peta, the people who arrange protests outside animal rescue centres that put ill pets to sleep, but do the same thing themselves in such large quantities that their headquarters need a walk-in freezer to store the carcasses; but more important than any of these considerations was the name of his fellow guest: Yoko Ono.

Not being a massive Beatles fan, I don't have much to hold against Ms. Ono, but she still irks me something dreadful. Whenever I hear her pontificating on whatever subject Channel 4 will pay her to talk about, I am reminded of the US military's SERE school (that is their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school), the people who train US servicemen for capture and interrogation by the enemy. After 9/11, when America realised it would require a whole new framework to cope with the questioning of the al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees who would soon be arriving at Guantanamo, they consulted the instructors at SERE to learn new tactics and techniques for interrogation. And amongst SERE's box of tricks? Yoko Ono's music. That's right, those Yoko Ono CDs no one buys are actually torture implements sitting unbeknownst to the general populace in plain sight, ready for a world where Amnesty International won't be around to protect us from such dreaded tactics as white noise and stress positions...