I Only Look At The Pictures.

This story is not about Big Brother.

So what picture did the Mail Use on it's homepage?



This one. Which is to do with Big Brother, as you can tell. A cycnical mind might think: "Hmm, Big Brother is quite a popular subject, and this story is tangentially related. Clicky clicky linky linky...." - Which would also go some way to explaining why the headline is also so vague if you don't know what the story's about.

I'll say it now: Daily Mail, you are a bunch of lazy clickbaiting turds. STOP IT YOU SHITBAGS.

Desperately Seeking Something.

This man is 'desperately seeking attention' because of his choice of jewelery.

But when Katy Perry does this:


Then that's fine.

Why? Who the fuck knows. Maybe it's because pictures of a young woman in a rubber dress get more clicks than pictures of domestic abusers wearing video game themed jewelry.

And anyway, he might be desperate for attention, but you've fucking given it him, haven't you? "Look how desperate he is for attention, everyone! Here's another picture begging us for validation! Look, and another one! And a few hundred words about him! Look, he really wants attention but we're not going to gi-Oh, shit. Best write nasty shit about him instead, pass it off as that 'Reporter' account..."

Don't Miss.

Nah, I reckon I'll be alright if I do miss it, cheers.

What Do Flying Ants Look Like?

Cheers, Metro.

OUTRAAAAAAAAAGE.

Uh-oh.

There's more OUTRAGE coming.

I hope you're ready.

[Jeremy Clarkson] provoked a flurry of complaints after telling viewers of Top Gear on Sunday night that he had seen a Muslim woman wearing saucy underwear beneath her gown...

...By yesterday morning, seven viewers had already contacted the BBC to complain, while singer Lily Allen labelled the comment 'distasteful' on her Twitter site.

That's seven. Seven people complained about the most watched show on BBC 2.

And this is 'outrage'.

It's a good thing that the Daily mail have never published anything objectionable that might cause offence, an- OH HANG ON:

The Press Complaints Commission has received a record 22,000 complaints about Jan Moir's article about Stephen Gately since Friday – more complaints in a single weekend than the regulator has received in total in the past five years.

We haven't fucking forgotten about this you know, chaps. People still remember that you published the most complained about article in UK publishing history, and continue to employ the author of it so she can vomit her outdated, outmoded ways all over the internet for reactionary idiots across the country to read, then strip to the waist while running around the garden bellowing about immigrants eating the Queen's swans while wearing a monocle and smoking a pipe while the wife plays an old 45 of 'God Save the Queen'.

Anyway.

Thinking about it, if the Daily Mail were a robot, Clarkson would be the thing that you could use to make it short circuit and explode. He works for the BBC (Boo socialist lefty scum!), but he seems to have a general disdain for the Labour Party, and as a rule holds some rather right-wing views (Whether he believes them or not is a different story).

What's even more confusing is when (like in the comments of this story) Mail readers say that he's just being deliberately shocking, in a paper that prints the myopic and bigoted scribblings of one Richard Littlejohn - a man who writes deliberately hackneyed and controversial views of the world because he knows it will help his image as a man who 'pulls no punches'... Sound like anybody else (With curly hair and a programme about cars) that you know?

To be fair, the top rated comments disagree with the Mail's painfully obvious anti-BBC bias, and I think that quite often the most interesting information you can gleam from the Mail is when the stories and the commenters have differing opinions of the matter. If Clarkson were on any channel other than the BBC, the Mail would laud him as a non-PC hero for the Chipping Norton, big car, middle England, I've-never-seen-a-black-man-but-I've-read-about-them-and-they-sound-horrible set, but because he dare to be employed by an organisation that the Mail almost literally doesn't have a nice word for, he's damned to hell and back.

It's also worth mentioning that while half the story criticises Clarkson for saying what he did, then explaining (With the glee of a pig in shit) that he's been in trouble before, the rest of the article is filled with anti-Burka and Niqab sentiment that is a staple of the Mail. I mean for fuck's sake, if you're going to be a dick and pretend to be mortally offended at someone, don't go disagreeing with them a hundred words later, Christ.

Oh, just to put those seven complaints in perspective:

Top Gear had 5,800,000 viewers on Sunday. That's one complaint per 828,571 people. The Mail has a circulation of around 2,000,000, and received 22,000 complaints for the Gately article. That's one complaint for every 90 people.

Irresponsible Fear Farming.

Read this.

Right, now you've read the whole thing, hands up who thinks that the headline should be "EURO POLICE COULD SOON BE ALLOWED TO INVESTIGATE BRITONS IN UK, ASSUMING THE GOVERNMENT OPTS IN TO A SCHEME THAT WOULD ALSO ALLOW BRITISH POLICE TO TRACK FOREIGN SUSPECTS - ALTHOUGH WE DON'T KNOW TO WHAT EXTENT THE LAW WILL STRETCH YET"?

Scaremongering over a non story that contains far too many 'could's, 'might's and 'in theories', of course; but it's about Europe, so where did it appear in another one of the UK's papers today?



Ah. Yeah.

Outrage. OUTRAGE.

There's outrage brewing again.

There fucking is, it's coming. It's rumbling towards us like a giant bastard of a fuckcloud, ready to rain down tedious, middle England hatred.

It's coming...

Here it comes...

It's not a particularly helpful phrase...

BOOM! There's some real fucking rage right there, huh? I'm telling you, the person who said that must have been fucking fuming:- I can only assume the person quoted screamed that as their eyes burst in anger and their head split, snot blood and tears all congealing as they ooze onto the floor...

You can probably guess the score; The Mail have created themselves a bit of faux-outrage again (This time over a couple of ill-chosen words appearing in the background of a scene in Emmerdale), which they struggle to back up in the story and then unravels completely when the readers get their best crayons out to scribble their thoughts on the bottom of the page. The Mail talks of the aforementioned 'outrage', 'criticism' and 'slamming', and they demonstrate just how angry THE ENTIRE WORLD is with quotes from two people:- Namely mothers who were appalled that their children were exposed to such filth, and they didn't want to have to explain to their children what a 'jam rag' was.

Fair Enough.

Now, I'd like to interrupt this post to quickly post a few Emmerdale Spoilers and recaps here:

Leaving Zak alone, Sam hurries after Alfie in the grounds of Home Farm, only to be hit by an awful stench.

He's horrified to find that Alfie has dug up what appears to be a body.

Unfortunately while Shadrach was walking over the river he half collapsed from his liver disease and dropped his cans of beer in to the lake, upon retrieving them he was unable to hold his balance, from both the heavy drinking he'd done that day along with another sharp pain from his liver disease and he collapsed in to the river and drowned.

So, tasteful, family friendly entertainment all round then.

According to the Mail, Mediawatch also slammed the programme, although the actual quote doesn't seem to indicate quite the level of rage they imply:

It's not a particularly helpful phrase to refer to sanitary towels as "jam rags" , and it is unnecessary.

'It didn't need to be there at all.'

I'll give you a moment to regain your breath after reading that spewing torrent of offence, and then I want to look at the comments on the page:

When even the readers of the Daily fucking Mail aren't too bothered, it's fair to say that any outrage has been made up by the author (Who, in this case, is that busy little bee the Daily Mail Reporter). In fact, do a Google search for the story, and try and find some 'outrage'.

Go on, I'll wait.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...Find any? No, I didn't bloody think you would, because there's nothing to be offended about. If you don't want to have to explain it to your kids but haven't got a problem with explaining a bloke wearing just a hard hat on his cock, then you've got some fucked up priorities and I never ever want to come round to your house for tea; and if you genuinely don't find it funny, that's fine, but in the scheme of things, is it worth getting that worked up about, really?

Look at the Stabwounds on Her.

Two things immediately strike me about this:

1: It's safe to assume that the above picture sn't the first picture of her whatsoever. As a human being living in this digital age, there are probably more than one pictures of her somewhere in the world.

2: What kind of murder porn is this?

"Look!" Screams the Mail. "Come and look at the dead woman! Come and see a picture of what she looked like before she was brutally STABBED to death! We hear she might have had her throat slit, but still, come and gawp at a photo of her! Tell your friends!"

The rest of the story deals with unnamed sources, unconfirmed information and hearsay, including speculation that the woman had her throat cut, which is nothing but using Chinese whispers in order to pad out copy.

Seriously, there's very little actual fact in this story:

Police believe the 26-year-old mother's attacker, who may have been on a bicycle, was known to her.

The victim, named locally as Jane Clough, was ambushed as she left Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where she is thought to have worked.

A source named her former lover as Jonathan Vass...

It is understood Mr Vass was charged with three alleged rapes in December 2009 and was suspended from duty.

A source told the Daily Mail Mr Vass had left his wife, who was also a nurse at the hospital, for Miss Clough.

He and Miss Clough are said to have had a one-year-old child together.

And it goes on and on, all the way through the article.

Once again, the Mail is simply posting the assertions of sources to capitalise on a horrible story, not letting things like fact checking get in the way of being first to splurge this tat on their websites - And we all know how well that went for the Star recently...

Yeah, What She Said.

The other day, I read This.

In that post is the following line:

Reporting [a person's] assertions as if they are absolute fact is not journalism.

Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely surprising to see this in the Mail today - a story which is basically identical to the last one. A company is having trouble employing staff, and as a result it's all the fault of benefits culture because the person doing the employing says so; end of story.

Interestingly, owner Diane Bayes refused two staff because "they had earrings and lots of tattoos", which as far as I remember, is against employment laws. Plenty of people have piercings and/or tattoos, and neither of those things stop them from being a good, hard working member of staff.

Ah, but did they know anything about fabrics?

I asked them what they knew about fabrics and they said they knew nothing but they had to come for the interview or they'd get in trouble with the Job Centre.

Oh, well, I suppose that's fair enough. I mean, you couldn't just employ someone who didn't know abou-

We would have trained the right person up and given them full help and back-up.

Well howabout you stop judging people based on how they look then?

It's also worth mentioning that in 2009, Selby had a lower than average rate of employment, and a search for 'Jobs in Selby', 'Selby jobs fabric' 'Malins Selby Jobs' and other such terms brought up absolutely no results whatsoever apart from the Daily Mail story.

These two pieces of information give rise to two alternate theories just as valid as Mrs Bayes':

Number 1: There aren't many people unemployed in the area, and as their online presence was seemingly quite weak (I will admit that the postings may have since been removed, but usually jobs stay around for some time - in my experience of applying for already filled vacancies at least), not many people knew about the vacancy, and if they did, thought "Well, I know fuck all about fabric, it's not for me".

Number 2: "How can we get some free advertising for our vacancies? Quickly, Diane, get the Mail on the phone and blame it on ZaNuLieBore!"

Actually, I'm going to throw in another, based on just as much solid evidence as the other two:

Number 3: The shop (and indeed, the entire universe) exist only in the mind of a sleeping cat curled around an immersion heater, and the cat simply cannot be arsed dreaming up another identikit middle aged Northern woman to go and work in a fabric shop in Yorkshire.

Use whichever one you like; I'm sticking with the last one.

Daily Star: 'News' Paper.

Do the Star really think that little of their own content?

Grand Theft Apology.

Some background: A few days ago, someone on the internets made a mock-up of a video game based on the Raoul Moat story.

It looked a bit like this:



Which as you can see, is a quick 'n' dirty photoshop job that achieves nothing more than making a joke. It's obviously an amateur job, and completely different to Rockstar's art style.

So, obviously, the Star did this:



Now, that story has since been taken off the site (understandably, because it's all complete and utter hogwash), and many bloggers and gaming sites have already torn the Daily Star a new one.

Today, however, the Daily Star have published an apology.

And what an apology it is.

I think it's fair to say that Rockstar Games have some fucking impressive lawyers, judging by the smackdown they've laid on the Star here, but it raises a couple of bigger questions:

-What would have happened if Rockstar had gone through the PCC? A square inch on page 24, apologising for anything they 'implied', at best, most likely.

-Did the Star ever believe it was real? The image is very crudely done, and I can't believe that anyone would ever consider it to be real - One has to wonder whether The Star found the picture, considered the implications of posting it, and just thought "Fuck it."

It must be refreshing for Rockstar to be on the moral majority's side for a change as well, after the banning of Manhunt 2 and the furore over EVERY SINGLE GRAND THEFT AUTO GAME EVER, and it shows a patent lack of understanding of the gaming industry from the Daily Star. Rockstar's games aren't gritty dramas set in oppressive cityscapes, with great writing and characterisation, no: They're games where you murder people, avoid the police, and nothing else. This, in turn, raises questions about the legitimacy of the 'outrage' the papers stir up every so often with gaming:- surely if they bothered their arses to play these games, they'd know that they aren't just 'murder simulators' or 'rape games', they're good games that both engage and entertain the player, and to dismiss them as anything less is... well, frankly, appalling journalism.

The Star has been well and truly demolished on this, but it's sad that it took one of the world's richest video games developers and what I'd imagine is an army of lawyers to get a decent apology out of the Desmond owned, bottom feeding scumbags that are the Daily Star.

Bring on the Wall.

From The Graun:

The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show.

And aren't they happy about it.

What follows is some back-of-an-envelope maths including lots of 'if's and 'assuming's, which by the end of the article makes the paper sound like your mate in the pub who works out that if everyone paid a penny more in tax then we'd all be riding in crystal plated hoverlimos by next Wednesday.

Bad form.

Self Awareness is a Beautiful Thing.

Good point.



Oh.

It's worth pointing out that these two screencaps are of the same page in this story.

The article on Nasir demonstrates what sort of society we live in by publishing comments like this:



We all know what the Mail are like when it comes to the weight of female celebrities - They're too fat, too thin, 'stocky', 'skinny', 'saggy'... Basically unless your surname is Kardashian, you don't stand a shit's chance in a stormdrain* -although handwringing and moralising about how the Mail views women has been done countless times before by people more ennunciative than I like Anton Vowl, Upon Nothing and Tabloid Watch, and that's a can of worms I'm not prepared to delve into either way.

What annoys me is that there's somewhat of a continuity error on behalf of the Mail when it comes to the story: In the most recent article, it is said that "she had to wait six weeks until she could exercise" and "she couldn’t shift the extra weight after Bobby’s birth"; quotes that are accompanied by a clearly non-airbrushed, non made-up, poorly lit photo of Jennifer just after the birth.

But then in this story, just four weeks after giving birth, it's said that:

Looking slim but curvaceous, it’s impossible to tell Jennifer Ellison gave birth just four weeks ago.

The new mother, who has already lost most of her baby weight, bared all for her new role in Calendar Girls.

So make your fucking mind up, eh, Mail? Now I admit, for a change this actually seems to be a case of the Mail being overly nice to somebody, but the fact is, somewhere along the line, they were factually wrong.

Oh, and those "cruel comments" Ellison mentions?



The Daily Mail, a simmering cesspit where sympathy and civility go to die.

*Funnily enough, Kardashian's in the Mail at the moment as well, in a story about... Erm... The fact she's been wearing a bikini recently.

The Media and Raoul.

I type this having just found out that the standoff between Raoul Moat and the police has ended with what seems to be a nonlethal gunshot.

I watched the BBCs live coverage for a few hours, and I can honestly say that at about 10pm someone in their editing team must have got bored.

I mean, look at him. With his pan on his head and that look on his face, what else can you think?

(Alternative final sentence: I didn't realise you could buy band branded helmets now.)

EDIT: Of course, we now know that gunshot was fatal, and Martin Robbins did a far better job of covering it than I did here.

Why I've Never Won a Caption Competition.

In the dystopian future of 3045, King Kill-o-Tron 8000 surveys the scene at his Moscow Death Square while a woman's head explodes next to him. "Good..." his circuits whisper.

(Anyone who can do better than that, feel free to leave it in the comments)

A Few Short Annoyances for a Friday.

Con Air - Specifically its slow degredation from gritty, intense drama into a run 'n' gun musclefest.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Con Air, I did. But I can't help but think that if it ran for another half an hour there'd be robots and space ships and that in it, Or Nicolas Cage would spend the last twenty minutes parachuting through an exploding universe while God himself played a rockin' guitar solo as Hulk Hogan scored a triple backflip slamdunk in a basket ball hoop seven trillion miles into another universe. What starts off as interesting meeting of minds and agendas in a stolen plane quickly turns into a film that Arnie would've turned down in his heyday, saying "Thur is tew much shooting in eet". I don't mind mindless action films, but when a film starts off so cleverly (And John Malkovich is fucking brilliant as criminally insane genius Cyrus), it's sad to see it resolve with OH MY GOD WE'RE GOING TO CRASH INTO VEGAS THEN DRIVE A FIRE ENGINE THROUGH A TUNNEL AAAAAAARGH BANGBANG BANG THERE'S THE CHILD KILLER PLAYING CARDS. The film suddenly shits out any pretention of being a serious film for grownups when they end up in the plane graveyard (The moment they remember the plane is absolutely packed to the fucking gills with guns and other weapons, and then just proceeds to degrade itself more and more with each passing minute, like a hooker who's not had a punter in a few weeks and has got to the point where she'll put anything anywhere for a few bob. I know you don't care about it anywhere near as much as I do.



Children of about 13 who have been allowed to your local city unsupervised for the first time.

Who's idea of 'common courtesy' is standing by the shop assistant they've decided they want to shorten the life of, who is already in mid conversation with someone, and going "Excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me" Continuously at half a million decibels until you're forced to either appease them, or use the most potentially damaging piece of stationery you can find on their head.



People who "know their rights"

No you fucking don't. You know that you're going to go home and ring some head office and complain to some spotty sixteen year old who gives less of a shit than the people in the shop, and you'll be back in the store next week, regardless of your claims otherwise, you spineless cunt.



British Telecom

BT are absolutely, irrefutably, fucking shit at their job. Their job, for those of you who presume it's promising to ring you back and then not, not providing you with the service you are paying for while sending you to every department in their network along the way (then finally giving you the number for the department you need, which you ring, to find it closed, and closed since 1972 at that), is actually to provide you with various differing forms of telecommunication. As you probably know, however, they aren't very good at this. In fact, they are about as good at it as I am at having periods (which I'm frankly rubbish at, I've never even managed one, unless you count the time I sat on a pencil and bled like a motherfucker all over Wrexham). And this annoys me. BT essentially have the monopoly when it comes to phone lines (they own the fucking things), so even if someone else is your service provider, BT still have their manky little paws in your business somewhere. And after years and years of being the only telecommunications company there was in Britain, you'd think they'd have more practice at not being complete and utter shitstick at being a cunting telecommunications company. A quick list of the problems Ceri and I have suffered with BT:

Didn't cancel the previous account here three times

Called us "Miss Savvy" continuously, even when I was on the phone and it's neither of our fucking names

Took 45 minutes of our lives filling in an account form, then losing it.

A pitched battle while we tried to convince them NOT to send us another fucking homehub

Not connecting the line because they'd lost our details again

Promising us seven trillion Mb, and then essentially strapping a hamster in a wheel to our connection.

Giving us their 'Broadband sales' number, which turned out to be BT World Business. (You don't half feel like a prize prick phoning them up. Especially when they give you the right number, which it turns out is the one you rang yesterday, but because you couldn't succesfully find your way through BT's push button dial tone labyrinth, you pressed 6 instead of 7 and got put through to their All Year Round April fucking Fool's Department)

Not knowing when our account was due to close.

Closing that account without telling us.

Ringing me up and asking why we were leaving, then not accepting my answer of "You are bunch of fuckwits who I wouldn't trust with a cup and string."

Bollocks to them. British Telecom? British Phone Cunts, more like.



People who are "Welsh and Proud"to an almost militant standard, but don't speak a word of the language.

Your hypocrisy astounds me. I'm not a particularly patriotic person, so I speak English because a) It's the language I was taght and b) It's more widely used than the old Cymraeg. However, when I'm in a pub and I see you in your Welsh Rugby Jersey, your Woad, your dragon trousers and Daffodil hat stomping about the place, bawling about how much the English are a great big bunch of oppressive twats and how you fucking hate everything about them, stop yourself for a second and ask what fucking language you're speaking, you gigantic clutterfuck.

Vuvuzelas.

So, FIFA want to ban the Vuvuzela, because it can offend and annoy a few people who don't appreciate it.

In defence, pro-Vuvuzela parties have stated that it is part of their country's heritage and tradition, and as such should not be banned and should remain in stadiums. Just because foreigners don't like it, there's no reason not to have the Vuvuzela, they say, and they're right. They say they'll continue bringing the Vuvuzela with them, and they'll carry it proudly

People from all over the world, however, have decided that the Vuvuzela must be banned, as they don't like it, and won't listen to reason.

Now relpace the world 'Vuvuzela' with 'English Flag', and weep huge tears of shame that we live in such a fucking hypocritical country. You shit yourselves in defiance every time some rag spits out a story about banning a piece of our heritage and culture, but you've got no problem sitting at home and demanding that people aren't allowed to have theirs. You insufferable, hypocritical cunts. If you had a shred of self awareness in you, your own morality would have strangled you to death by now.

Fuck.

Dog Gives Birth To Puppy, Newspaper Considers it News.

Well done Mariah Carey...'s dog.

ChaCha, the Jack Russell owned by the aforementioned diva, has had a puppy.

Do you care?

Well, the Mail do, evidently: Not only has somebody wasted two hundred words on this complete and utter non-story, it's currently listed in the 'Don't Miss' section of the website, along with the terrifying news that Natalie Imbruglia wore the same dress two days running. OH FUCKING NO.

Elsewhere, some horrendous people call Konnie Huq fat, some more twats say Nadine Coyle looks better now she's put weight on, and there's an article about how hard it is to be a woman but not have a man (even the pro-single woman talks about how "There are times, particularly on a long winter's night, when the familiar ache of loneliness creeps in", like she's a fucking Disney princess or something).

So, everything's normal in Daily Mail world today.

Seriously, what's the fucking point?

Self Awareness.

This is an oldie, but a goody.

Here is a brief – and terrifying - glimpse into the world of those people who spend time commentating on the Daily Mail’s website.



This morning the paper posted a story about a paedophile who is to be beheaded and then crucified in Saudi Arabia under the country’s Sharia law (not normally a Mail favourite).



So far the story has attracted nearly 300 comments. To gauge the tone of the debate we decided to look at the top rated comments and then the worst rated.

Very instructive.

Here they are:

TOP RATED

A good punishment for a sick peado. Why can''t we hand out this very appropriate sentence to UK offenders? Put it this way, he won't re-offend, or cost the taxpayer anything in the future.

- MARTIN CANE, CLITHEROE, 4/11/2009 8:47


well that is certainly a punishment that fits the crime, pity we can't have a few in our courts.

- Jane, UK, 3/11/2009 20:02


fair punishment for a terrible crime against children ... should be the other way round crcify him, castrate him too for good measure and then behead him just before he dies.

- Nick, Chatham Kent, 4/11/2009 8:47


Let's see what the do gooders say about this decision.

- KDINSYDNEY, Sydney, Australia, 3/11/2009 19:59

It strikes me that if Sharia Law was called "Big Billy British's Bulldogs, Pie, Chips and Football Law Who-are-ya who-are-ya who-are-ya", it would be far more popular.

The fact that people will bellow "Muslims are animals, they still stone people" in the same breath as "Paedophiles want bloody stringing up" without a hint of irony astonishes me.

A Welshman's take on #ABE.

This morning, my attention was drawn to an article in the Telegraph entitled 'Exploring the Anyone But England Phenomenon'. Now, I could tear the article to bits for not so much exploring the situation as just stating a few blindingly obvious points while seemingly not asking anyone about it (how you can explore without doing any investigating I don't know), I just thought I would offer my own personal opinion on it as a Welshman - I don't claim to speak for anyone else in this post.

Which actually, brings me on to my first point. English people, you are not 'representing' Great Britain, you are representing England. The TV adverts, the newspapers, the patriotic sweet wrappers simply serve two purposes: One, to remind the rest of us Non-English Brits that our teams didn't succeed in qualifying, and two, it implies a certain assumption that we are going to follow you purely because we happen to share borders with you. Imagine if your next door neighbour came banging on your door, demanding you supported their child in their sports event, despite the fact that your child's team had failed to qualify. Whilst you'd be happy for them had they just kept schtum, the fact that they had constantly bombarded you with hats, flags, songs and Christ knows what else in the weeks beforehand, while assuming you're going to go all out in your support for them purely because they invited you to a barbecue last year (Which you had to bring your own beer to) is likely to breed more than a little contempt. What makes it worse is that we know that if Wales were against England, we'd still be bombarded with the same blanket gibbering about something that happened 44 years ago and how that somehow means that it could happen this year, coupled with a Derby game style competitiveness when the game was taking place.

Secondly, the England team quite often contains men of strong Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish heritage - Or in the case of some players (Michael Owen is a good example), men who grew up and live in our country. Owen actually went to school a few miles from me, and so far as I know, still lives in Wales - but stood on pitches around the world as an Englishman. Treachery is probably too strong a word, but the general feeling is that men like this have been drawn in by the relative glamour of the prospect of playing for the bigger, more successful team, and have used what could be seen as a loophole in the rules in order to do so. To use my previous analogy, imagine the people who moved into your old house came into money one day, and your child decided that because you used to live there, they were part of that family now; a family who once again, would bombard you with information about how fantastic the child that was once yours is, whilst strongly suggesting that you still cheered him on in his endeavours.

Thirdly (And this may be more relevant to myself than anyone else), Hearing fellow Welshmen refer to the England side as 'us' simply winds me up. I'm not some nationalist nutter, don't get me wrong, but the simple fact is that if Wales were still in the competition, England would be anything but 'us'. Thinking about it, this is sort of an extension of my second point; when there's a chance Wales will do it (See: Rugby), the English are the Enemy and are there to be beaten, but when Wales aren't even in the running, 'we' are England.

Of course, some people just have that local competition mindset - An Everton fan will love hearing about Liverpool losing, and in many ways the same applies at an international level. This can manifest itself at a number of different levels, from friendly ribbing all the way up to borderline militaristic racism, although the people who fit the latter category are probably twats that no-one would want to speak to in the first place - They're usually the ones who claim to 'fucking hate the English', but don't know a word of the language of the land they claim to love.

How do I feel about it? At a sporting level, I couldn't give one whether England win or lose. However, the quicker England sink out of the competition the sooner I won't have to hear about it every fucking day, and if they win I'm going to spend the next 44 years of my life listening to how it 'could happen again'.

In-ger-lund.

The World Cup can fuck off.

Actually no, that's a little harsh.

The cartwheeling, bellowing, air-punching excitement over the World Cup can fuck off, to be specific. At time of writing, the bloody thing hasn't even started and yet everyone in my office is talking about the Argentinian defence and how England should be attacking - for a while this morning I thought the Falklands was back on. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy to let the world cup happen, I'm not that much of a curmudgeon - But just leave me the fuck alone if I don't want to watch it please.

The World Cup brings with it this immediate assumption that you are a) Interested in football and b) Hoping England will win, which as a Welshman living in Wales, I find a little unusual. Truthfully, I couldn't give less of a shit who wins, and I'm not going to be one of those turds who complains about it being on TV - I understand that it's a big event that is obviously more important than everything else that's going on on telly - If only there were special sports channels where they could broadcast this sort of stuff... Obviously that's utopian future stuff that you and I won't be alive for, but-

What, you mean they already exist?

Well why the fuck do they poison the normal people's airwaves with this shit then?

It's not just the airwaves, either. The shop near where I work (In Wales, it should be said) is full of white and red tat, and the only time I want to see that much plastic with a red cross on it is if I were to stumble across Girls Aloud trying on PVC nurse's outfits. I don't want the flag banned, I just don't understand how buying England earrings will help our lads romp to victory in a competition they haven't won in forty-four pissing years.

Nor do I understand why people assume you like football come World Cup season, or even want to join in - I don't want to join your fantasy football leage, I'm not partaking in your fucking sweepstake, and I don't want to dress up like a country or have a penalty shootout against the management. I want to go home and pick my nose, eat Pringles and cry, and I'd appreciate it if you'd just leave me to it, thanks very much.

IMPORTANT NEWS STORY.

From The Mail:

Baywatch's Pamela Anderson is back on the beach... but what a difference 18 years makes

Look! look! someone looks older now than they did in 1992! Quickly, tell your friends, they'll miss it! Don't look over there! Look here! For the love of God, look at this!

In other news, some milk left on the side three days ago has gone off.

For fuck's sake. Any excuse for the Mail to print a picture of a woman in a swimsuit.

The Times Paywall.

From The Guardian:

"What we are trying to say is we are not going to show you all the news, [like] going to Google News and seeing 4,000 articles, we are going to give our take," [Sunday Times executive editor, Tristan Davies] said.

So yeah, rather than getting a balanced view of the world from all the papers, now you have to pay to read the version of the news approved by an insane millionaire who knows fuck all about the modern world. That sounds really good.

What I've Witnessed.

Ah yes, this Blog thing. I should update this more often.

Anyhow, with the election coming up, it's obviously been a hot topic in pubs and various other social establishments across the country - And it's interesting to see what people think of politicians.

After being part of a few conversations on the topic, and overhearing a few more, I decided to collate my findings somehow.

Aroundabout this point, I discovered Scroobius Pip, and that's why this blog entry has an audio element to it. I feel I should shut up and let the audio tell the rest of the story - Just remember that these aren't neccesarily my opinions, just what I've heard from friends, family and the general public.

What I've witnessed by Spann

Read The Bloody Story.

From This:

For the study, 16,507 Americans across the generations were asked to complete surveys to gauge their attitudes as they were finishing secondary school. The 'biggest change' in values was the increased desire for leisure time among Generation Y, analysis found.

And from the comments:

Generation Y must be refering to the same generation who were brought up to believe they were all equally fantastic during Sports Day in school and all of whom went home with a 'medal' boasting of their sporting achievements.

Nah, I doubt it. This story is about American kids. Were you not paying attention?

Oh, you weren't?

Well, that does make a change.

NB: How the Mail thinks this is relevant to their target audience is anybody's guess, apart from the fact that it's another way to bash 'da yoof'. Interestingly, if young people want to get a job and better themselves, that's not bloody good enough either.

Why The Mail Should Have Owned Up.

I'm sure you've heard about the Facebook story by now; and if not you should probably click those links and read those words before you continue with this blog entry.

Long story short: The Mail says that Facebook is absolutely brimming over with erect willies and men who want to dangle children's face and will do it within seconds of your precious offsrping stumbling onto the internet for the first time, where they will immediately contract cancer and probably die of that anyway.

Except, interestingly, the bloke who actually did the investigation didn't use Facebook, and as a result Facebook are, rather understandably, a little teeny weeny bit absolutely fucking fuming.

So Facebook, who are in a big enough bother as it is at the moment, decided to set the record straight.

Which is where everything gets interesting:

• Attempts made by Facebook's PR to leave comments on the story were blocked by comment moderators at the Mail - this doesn't seem too bad at first glance - after all, I can't imagine any comment moderator would let anything through claiming to be facebook without verifying it. However, as the issue at hand is what is and isn't Facebook here, one does wonder whether the comments were simply blocked to avoid an admission of guilt. Considering the Mail's moderators let this little doozy through, who knows what the fuck to think?


• The Mail didn't print a correction until legal action was threatened - despite all the evidence against them initially. The man who conducted the experiment confirmed it wasn't Facebook, any Facebook user knows that that isn't how Facebook works, and Facebook themselves were denying the claim, but it took a threat of going to court before anything was done - And then it was done in the most half arsed way imagineable. The word 'Facebook' vanished from the headline of the online version, but was still all over the page source and URL, as well as a screencap FROM Facebook, leaving the reader in little doubt as to which evil Social Network we were dealing with. These slowly vanished from the story over the last few hours, but searching for 'Facebook' on the Mail's site and organising by Most Recent puts the offending story right at the top, and buries the apology under two stories about Allison Pearson and some others. This means that since Facebook have threatened legal action, rather than just leave well alone, the Mail has continued to bash them - I can't be the only one who thinks that's a little daft, surely?


• The apologies are, well, crap - The story spent a large part of yesterday right on the front of the Mail's front Page. The correction, however, exists on it's own little page that isn't on the front. Or anywhere else. The page isn't linked to at all, and the only way to find it is go looking in the search. The apology itself opens with "In an article by a criminologist", implying that the Mail had tried to stop him from writing 'Facebook', but dammit they just couldn't do it in time - Which is also dubious, as the article contains a credit to a Laura Topham for interviewing him. The actual story has a short retraction at the end of it as well, but the story and the comments are so full of references to Facebook, it seems like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted - As does the apology on page 4 of today's printed version.

Ultimately, what it seems to have happened is that the Mail have printed this article for whatever reason - malice, poor fact checking, or otherwise, and for the first time ever they've dared to pick on someone big enough to pound them into the ground about it. I honestly believe the Mail is too used to getting away with it, going for the hyperbole and the shock first, and considering a weasely bumdribble of an apology afterwards if the PCC say they have to or they'll get no pudding. What is even more ironic is that the almighty shitstorm that seems to have blown up around this story could have been largely averted had they responded to Facebook quickly and pleasantly, rather than blocking comments and not replying to attempts to contact them. Again, while these techniques will likely work against Joe Bloggs, Facebook employ people to deal with this kind of crap, and these are people who aren't gonna give up if you don't answer the phone a couple of times. Ultimately, the paper's own refusal to accept or react to a monumental cock up being made (Other than posting yet more Facebook bashing) has been their own undoing. The Mail are still claiming that the use of Facebook was due to 'an error of miscommunication', but they do have previous in this arena, and the (seemingly very highly regarded) criminologist quoted in the story seems to be certain that he gave them plenty of notice.

Make your Fucking Mind Up.

Well come on, Nadine; Which is it?

Channel 4 were definitely solely responsible for inferring you had to live on benefits, of course.

Murder, Decapitations and Kinky Sex...

...Seem to be top of the Telegraph's readership's priorities today:



Well, it is Friday.

Notice the particular interest in decapitations - Although I assume it's that or reading about how Ashcroft has fucked the Tories.

EDIT: I hate to think what people are going to be Googling for when they come across this site. Murder, decapitations and/or kinky sex, I assume.

You'd Think I Was Above This.

From the Daily Mail comments:

There's only one place where he should be Ethiopia or aphganistan so send him there as soon as possible end of story

That's two places, you giant gonk.

Just Shut Up, Please.

Just to warn you, this blog post isn't going to be particularly well focused. It's half past two, I've got Littlejohn's newest column open in another tab, and as usual it's so full of mental excrement, blogging about it feels more like shovelling shit into two piles: Horrible shit and... well, truly horrible shit. Plus, if you've read anything by me before, you'll know that I don't really do sound, reasoned judgements; I tend to deal more with crying tears of sadness for the state of modern journalism, digitising them and jamming them, all higgledy-piggledy like, into this here pokey corner of the internet.

Over-wordy introductions aside, hands up who's read Littlejohn's latest thinly veiled piece of nationalist tat? I have. And do you know what? It's pretty much business as usual. There's some flagrant hypocrisy, a bit or racism, and some *great* jokes.

Well, to be fair it looks like it's all just one big joke, but the detestable little bumdribble's being doing this for so long, I'm actually beginning to think he really means it - Which is both hilarious and hair greyingly horrendous, in roughly equal measure.

We begin with Richard's opinion on Binyam Mohamed, who as you probably know is a terrorist suspect who lived in Britain for seven years, before travelling to Afghanistan for reasons which are unclear, and was detained by American forces for his connection with a plot that was about as devious as Doctor No: pretty fucking devious, but luckily for us, completely bloody fictional.

So anyway, once it came out that the plan didn't exist, the Americans did what anybody would when they find out that their suspect was likely innocent: Tortured the poor sod until he admitted to taking all the teabags, leaving the milk out, or something else that would let them hate brown people a little bit more.

So anyway, after all the torture and the continuous allegations that were thrown at him, it turned out that MI5 might have been a little bit complicit in the things that were done to him, and he was then flown back to the UK as he was applying for asylum at the time, questioned and then released - That's the short version of events; if you'd like to read further, then Google is your friend.

Littlejohn's opinion on the event?

We owe him nothing.

Now I don't know about you, but when it turns out that I might have been complicit in the torture of the man, I'd at least get him some flowers or something. And anyway, argues Littlejohn, even if MI5 were involved in his torture, what's wrong with that?

They would be failing in their duty if they didn't make every attempt to glean information from suspected terrorists who want to do us harm.

Just take a step back and re-read that, because there's a couple of key words in that sentence. What Littlejohn is saying is so long as you think someone might have done something (Despite shaky evidence), why shouldn't you try and drown them until they say what you want? That's playground shit right there; it's like kicking the skinny kid until he says that he loves boys, or Mr Williams, the Geography teacher with the funny eye.

There is a legitimate debate as to whether he was tortured at all, in the true sense of the word.

Fair enough Rich, but there's legitimate debate as to whether he did anything wrong in the first place, and seeing as he's been let go, according to the courts of this country, he is an innocent man. R-Li then explains, expert of torture techniques that he is, that the things done to him were approved of by the White House (The same one that decided that the Geneva Convention didn't apply to these people), and then says it's completely fine when put into context with the 9/11 attacks - which is arguably a fair point, until you consider that Mohamed was never accused of being involved with them - in fact, he lived in Britain at the time.

Next up is the statement that no conclusive evidence has ever been produced of certain torture techniques allegedly used; which frankly is a bit fucking rich coming from a man who's failed to produce evidence for his own inflammatory bullshit before now, especially when you consider Littlejohn's de facto response to anything a dirty brown says is that it's a lie - Including Mohamed's reasons for travelling to Afghanistan in the first place.

Then Littlejohn says, without a hint of irony or anything, that:

The inconsistencies in his story are glaring

What were those kids called again, Richard? Those in glass houses, and that...

Next up, we're treated to an assertion that Littlejohn doesn't condone torture. You may remember him saying that MI5 "would be failing in their duty if they didn't make every attempt to glean information from suspected terrorists who want to do us harm", which to me implies pretty heavily that anything's fair game, so long as the bloke they're doing it to is a darkie. Richard says that MI5 shouldn't discount information obtained under duress, despite the fact that duress is considered illegal by British courts.

Long and the short of it: So long as someone says they did something, then it definitely happened, no matter what you did to them to make them say it.

Now, just to go off on a personal tangent for a moment; this is a man who is paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to write for a nationally circulated newspaper and an internationally read website, and he is essentially saying that torture is alright by him. Am I the only one that thinks that might be just the tiniest bit absolutely fucked right up? Thrice in his article, Littlejohn says that he doesn't condone torture, and every time this is followed by the word 'but...'. Seriously, how does this man continue to churn out this shit?

In fact, in a typical piece of Littlejohn backwards thinking, he asks:

How do you think this information is gained - with a cuddle and a nice cuppa tea?

Because in the world of Richard Littlejohn, if you're not making hot drinks for people, you're stabbing them in the cock - And there's absolutely nothing in between.

Next time a bomb goes off on a crowded Tube train, let's hope we don't discover it could have been prevented by evidence which had to be discarded because it was tainted by torture.

Good point Rich; but hey, next time the police shoot a man dead on the tube, lets just hope they didn't jump to conclusions and kill an innocent man, eh?

Next on the agenda is pub grub. Which is funny, because Richard Littlejohn doesn't live in the UK. Anyway, his point is that chefs don't produce fancy, ridiculous menus because they like to experiment with food; nope, they're all doing it because they're moneygrabbing tossbags. ALL OF THEM.

The next section actually made me sit up and take notice; it's interesting because it shows Littlejohn showing some kind of tolerance towards other religions. Until you read this:

Hindus are net givers to society, not constantly demanding special treatment like some other minorities.

Which is yet more generalisation. Working on a similar theory, I've just worked out that all newspaper columnists are turdy shit-repeaters that use their highly public positions for nothing more than to spume hate like a factory chimney belches smoke. I mean, Littlejohn and Moir do, so the rest of them must, right? I'll miss reading Charlie Brooker, but since this shocking realisation of mine, it seems obvious that all there is to do with newspapers now is papercut yourself to death, drinking in a heady cocktail of fear and shame.

Apparently, allowing Davender Ghai to be cremated the way he wants is a "a perfect example of British compromise"... Although trying to make amends with a man the nation's security services allegedly aided in the torture of is 'yuman rites' gone mad. I mean, for fuck's sake.

Then, two finish, there's two more little joy nuggets:

Obesity isn't an illness, it's gluttony.

Fuck off. Just fuck off now. Fuck right off. And don't come back.

Nurses say they'd be happy to [trim patient's nails], but were ordered not to because of the risk of a patient contracting MRSA through a nick in their skin. Hospitals are terrified of lawsuits.

No, hospitals are terrified of ill people becoming more ill. That's the point.

But even that's ignored in order to complain about the state of our health service - Which as someone who lives with and is in a relationship with a nurse (And by extension know other medical professionals), just makes me angry. Nurses are, b and large, lovely people who work far too hard, get far too little recognition, and have to put up with far too much shit from twats like you. They're also quite handy at finding the male G-Spot... Or so I hear.

The Mail G-Spot, should you be wondering, is a Lesbian Muslim Paedophile getting a free car and running over a Christmas tree. That chain of events would trigger a ragegasm so tremendous, the actual planet would shit itself.

Feet 3: Bunions Strike Back.

Guess what?

Victoria Beckham still has Bunions.

Yeah, still.

They still haven't changed, stabbed a nurse, blown a bus up, or sold the cliffs of Dover to Forruns: Nope, they're just deformed little toesies.

But still, the Mail continue to bang on about them, in an article which, when stripped down to it's essence, can be summed up in three words: Woman Wears Shoes. And this is one of their lead stories, right at the top of the page.

So that's 4 articles in two weeks now, on a woman's deformed feet - And this one's a lead story.

Just think about that for a second. Really let it sink in. Not a single front page was given to the victims of Haiti, but stories about one person's deformed feet are given as much space on their homepage as Ali Dizaei. Does that not reek of a paper who have got their priorities a little bit mixed up?

Now I realise that I'm just as bad for going on about the Mail going on about them, but I really believe that the person who wrote that article could have been better utilised writing something a little more worthwhile - But to be fair, it was that charming Daily Mail Reporter chap, and he does write tons.

Oh, and look, there's Littlejohn's column. Joy be unrefined.

Oh good, he's called Gordon Brown crying over the death of his daughter "despicable".

There's something about Littlejohn's smile. It's the smile a man would give you while he held a knife to your scrotum.

Little Ones.

A few quick ones:

Call in the cavalry! Victoria Beckham flies to Milan to cheer up David after disastrous match

Another reference to Vic's bunions. I make that 11 since November 27th - And I'm not including all the general bunion stories and columns the mail has printed inspired by Mrs Beckham's poor tootsies.

Passengers left stunned after Muslim bus driver pulls over and begins praying in the aisle

'It even went through my mind that this might be some sort of terrorist attack with the bus blown up because I had heard that suicide bombers prayed before attacks' says the interviewee in this story - likely prefixed by the words "I'm not racist, but..."

You want broadband? That'll be £45,000, BT tells couple

"Mr Walker said that although the current available broadband speed in the village was only half a megabite it would be a huge improvement on painfully slow dial up." - Jesus, that's on your fucking WEBSITE.

Bluebirds.

Everybody, get your pitchforks! Gordon Brown's going to sell the Cliffs of Dover to the French!

And then he's going to put a baguette up his arse, and use it to draw a beret on the Union Jack!

Both of these stories are in fact, made up. Now, one was made up by me, and the other the Daily Mail. Regular readers will probably recognise which one's mine - it's the one about sticking things up peoples bums, like usual. The other one, though - The one on the website of a national bloody newspaper, and I'd imagine somewhere in the print version too - is the Mail's own work, and is one of those slabs of ineptitude that they truly excel at - the ones that might as well have 'based on a true story' underneath the headline, so much do they twist the original story to their own demented, BNP-lite worldview.

So, the headline reads:

White Cliffs of Dover to be sold to the French to help reduce Government's debt

Although the URL and page title reveal that it was originally:

Dover, symbol of British sovereignty, could be sold to French to help reduce debt

Which meant it was changed to be further from the truth than the original - A theme that runs throughout the article.

Right, you've read the headline; if I asked you to explain the story to me now, I wouldn't judge you if you said "Gordon Brown is selling the White Cliffs of Dover to make a bit of fast cash." Of course, you would be terribly, dreadfully and completely wrong, but I can understand why you'd say that.

Four sentences in, we begin to expose the actual truth:

The Port of Dover is being recommended by Government advisers for sale to the French authorities.

So not the cliffs then. The port.

The sale is expected to be rubber-stamped and the leading bidder has emerged as Nord-pas-de-Calais regional council, which also owns Calais.

So it's not definitely happening yet, it's just 'expected' to be given the go ahead - Who by? Dunno. Oh, and it's not being 'sold to the French' (Implying we went round and offered it to them), it's just that the leading bidders are French.

Chief executive Bob Goldfield said: ‘The time is right for the voluntary privatisation of Dover. We want to invest around £400million on a second terminal and need to invest in the existing terminal, but are unable to because of public sector borrowing constraints. We want to throw off the shackles.’

And it's not being done to decrease debt, it's just being done so that the Port can expand.

It amazes me that the Mail will willfully rubbish it's own lies in it's own articles - I mean, if you're going to spout shit, at least be consistent - but what is even scarier is that people don't see it (This taken from the comments, green arrowed to the sky):

How dare any UK Government sell the country to foreign owners. So called New Labour has surely plumbed the depths as far as this is concerned.

Except they're not, are they? They've applied for their own voluntary privatisation to fund expansion so they can cope with the increased traffic they are expecting. The fact that it's potentially going to be bought by the French just means that they want it the most - And as yet, we don't even know if the bloody sale's going ahead yet!

The introduction of the story, it must be said, sounds like it's torn directly from the UKIP book of England:

For generations Dover has stood as an indomitable symbol of Britain’s freedom and independence.

The town, with its white cliffs, port and sprawling castle stood at the very edge of the nation’s frontier with the Continent.

But now part of that proud history is up for sale and the leading bidder is revealed as the former age-old enemy – France.

Is it just me, but is calling France the 'age-old enemy' just a little bit dickish? If it were a German company, would that have read "Recent conquest - Germany"? Those three sentences are followed by a picture of a Spitfire flying over the Cliffs, just to remind us of what happened last time them Forrins dicked about with our ports. Prospective Tory MP Charles Elphicke has also stuck his dirty little oar in, saying:

‘It’s clear Gordon Brown has no sense of the history of our nation or the pride of our town.

‘How dare he consider selling it all off to the French? Dover is the English border. The people of Dover have a clear message for him – hands off our port, hands off the English border.’

Which is really fucking despicable. Whether it's the Mail's editing or a direct quote isn't clear, but the heavy implication there is that Gordon Brown himself is selling the entire town of Dover, and that somehow this going to affect the border of the country - And for a prospective MP to so willingly distort the reality of the situation is fucking sickmaking.

Looking back at the story, it's very nearly the perfect Daily Mail story: We've got truths being knowingly distorted, Labour Bashing, hatred toward foreign people and commenters who've read exactly what they want to read - the only things missing are Bad Muslims and PC gone mad - Both of which I'm fairly certain they could have got in, if they'd really tried.

Update: Tabloid Watch have further destroyed the story here and here.

Feet 2 and More.

Jan Moir has graced us with another sparkling droplet of her joy juice today.

So it turns out, right, Victoria Beckham has bunions. But not just any bunions, these are now world famous bunions - Or at least they are in the eyes of people who get all their information about the world from the Daily Mail, and in practice I find they know slightly less about current affairs than someone who gets all their worldy info from a drunk child.

See, while the Mail has produced 9 10 stories about a woman's mishapen foot in a little over three months, the Express have ran one, the Star two and The Sun Two. The rest of the world seemingly isn't quite as excited about them as the Mail, certainly not excited enough to mention them three times in a single week - And I'd like to point out that these bunions haven't killed anybody; they've not claimed thousands on expenses that they shouldn't have, or jumped over the walls of Buckingham Palace and tried to force themselves down the Queen's throat, they've just stayed on Victoria's feet, like bunions do. Jan says:

Poor Posh. Imagine having the most famous and most pictured bunions in Britain.

Hardly a tribute to be treasured, is it?

Good point - Can you imagine working for the paper that has ran more pictures of those bunions than anyone else in Britain, rather than reporting on... Ooh, I don't know, proper news, for fuck's sake? It'd be embarrassing. Or rather, it would be, if it didn't add more fuel to Moir's giant shit powered hate machine, which this week has also splattered itself all over Avatar, the most recent potentially Oscar winning James Cameron blockbuster - which Moir has declared 'boring'. So it seems that if you enjoyed the film, you and millions of other people all across the world are just one of the "geeks, sci-fi buffs and those with no interior life". Of course, Moir hasn't seen the film, but seeing as she seems to be studying for her Little Miss Littlejohn badge at the moment, one can understand why reading, research or checking things that aren't in the Mail aren't really important to her.

Of course, Moir's covered the Quiche story as well (Littlejohn did, so Moir has to keep up, see). This was the Mail's lead story the other day, but what's interesting is that to begin with they weren't interested in the story, according to the Leamington Observer, who first broke the story. Originally, the Mail wanted nothing to do with it as The Sun had ran it, but after it was repackaged and they saw its potential as another piece of ZaNuLab Broken Britain propaganda, they took the first available opportunity to scream it from the rooftops and then leave the clamouring hands of the Daily Mail commenters to tear it to shreds with baseless accusation, uninteresting narrative and wit so dull you could bake bread with it - despite the fact that not one other person in the world has actually managed to corroborate this story. Tesco can't find the person responsible, and no-one else has been quoted in the story, but according to the Mail and it happened and that Quiche is representative of everything ClownBrown McIrnBruJockBottle One-eye has done to this once great countrzzzz....

Feet.

If I were Kim Kardashian, I'd be most unhappy. It would seem that she's now been replaced by another woman in the Daily Mail obsession stakes.

Well, to be more precise, another woman's feet:

Bunions Beckham: Years of killer heels have left Victoria in agony - and in need of an urgent operation

Victoria Beckham shows off her pedicure (and bunion) as she loses a shoe

Have bunions got the better of Victoria Beckham? Posh swaps high heels for ballet flats

Posh ditches heels for new look... or is she just having trouble with her bunions?

Dressed down Victoria Beckham sticks to flats for a day out with the boys

Sorry Posh, your bunions aren't safe in flats either!

Mind my bunions! Barefoot Posh hit by a wave as she dips her toes in the Pacific

Despite the painful bunions, Victoria Beckham squeezes back into heels for long-haul flight to London

What bunions? Kelly Brook looks all Posh in pair of killer heels... but confesses she struggles to walk in them

That's right. 9 stories about Victoria Beckham's bunions have been written since November 27th last year. The bunions haven't changed at any point, but the Mail feel like they need to report on them, including two stories today. Of course, one could argue that it's a shrewd way of sticking pictures of women in high heels on the front of their website, or perhaps another excuse to bash someone for the way they look - But I'm fairly certain that most reasonable, non-insane human beings would argue that the journalists paid to write these articles (Especially that "Daily Mail Reporter" chap, he writes shitloads) could have been better off utilised covering something important, or perhaps doing some fact checking.

Shame those bunions weren't in Haiti, really.

The Mail Does It Again.

You know when somebody says that something happened?

Like, for example, if I said to you: "I was told I couldn't include a certain word in a job advert", you, as rational, normal human beings, would assume (And not unreasonably, I might add), that this was what had actually happened.

And consequently, it doesn't take a huge logical leap to think that if you read this in a newspaper:

A job centre has been slammed for refusing to display an advert for a 'reliable workers' - because it discriminated against unreliable applicants.

That again, you would think that it had actually happened.

So it's interesting to see that further on in the article that the above passage is taken from, an article which is in fact headlined "Employer told not to post advert for 'reliable' workers because it discriminates against 'unreliable' applicants", and is all about how a woman was stopped from putting a job advert on a Job Site because of the use of the word 'reliable', it says this:

She claimed that the job centre could be sued by unreliable people if they placed the advert on their 'job points' but told Nicole it will remain on their website.

Which is just a little bit fucking different from their initial claim that it wasn't on there at all, isn't it? Of course, after this, the article does it's best to make the whole thing into a bigger deal than it is, throwing quotes from the Campaign against Political Correctness around, who then make assumptions about how long it took the Job Centre to decide that this word couldn't be used (Even though it has been used) and then claim that this time could have been better used to get people jobs, which really is primary school argument level stuff - Trying to get somebody into trouble, based entirely on something they might have done which might possibly get them into trouble - even though, of course, It never fucking happened.

I could delve into the comments, but that'd be like that bit in Saw II when the guy has to jam his hand into that big pile of rusty needles - except in this case, I wouldn't get anything beneficial out of it:- Just regret, shame, and the feeling of abject filthiness.

I know I've not blogged in quite a while and that this is quite a short return, but when you consider that these two passages actually follow each other in the article...

She claimed that the job centre could be sued by unreliable people if they placed the advert on their 'job points' but told Nicole it will remain on their website.
A spokeswoman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness described the decision not to display Nicole's advert as 'ridiculous'.

...Then there's very little I can, or want to, add. I mean, seriously.

Cheers to Little Mark for the heads-up.