Man on the Clapham Omnibus

What a Balls Up!

2009-12-04T12:12:00.002Z

Hahaha: this is funny as fuck!

ZaNuLiebore and their hatchet-man Alastair Campbell have blown the dog-whistles and declared it open season on class war, pointing and laughing at top toffs Cameron and Osborne and Johnson. Bullingdon Club. Hooray Henries. And so forth.

All jolly japes and high jinks.

Now MotCO is no god-botherer, but as winner of my institutional learning facility's Divinity prize 3 years running, I am reminded of Matthew 7:5. Best in the King James version:

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

You see, bug-eyed Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Mr Ed Balls has been outed as one of the chaps. As Guido Fawkes reports, after leaving his expensive fee-paying school in Nottingham, said Balls was installed at posh toffs' Keble College, Oxford, where he wasted little time in:

(1) Joining the Oxford University Conservative Association, and

(2) Signing up to a notorious all-male drinking club known as 'The Steamers'

Here is said Balls, whooping it up at some initiation rite whilst clad in full Nazi regalia and contemplating the buttocks of a close pal...

But he's not just an arse man. He goes for tits, too (Ed's the chap on the right)

All good sporting fun for these public school and Oxbridge educated toffs, eh? Quite reminds me of my own days at the other place!

The Shipping News

2009-12-03T10:18:00.006Z

So. A motley crew of scruffy sailors from the Middle East was found drifting in British territorial waters last week, without the requisite permits and what have you. Happy to say that the appropriate authorities took them into custody for a few days where they were asked a bunch of questions about what they were up to, and a small investigation was launched to see if the story checked out. Turns out they were kosher, had just got lost while looking for Ireland, released a few days later, no hard feelings.

Good on you coastguard chaps! Can't be too careful, these days.

UPDATE

Mea culpa: a little too much Amontillado with breakfast. Got the whole thing arse about tit. Sorry!

Turns out they were British sailors taken into custody by Iranian authorities.

Well that just proves it! These people are no more than warmongering savages! Hell-bent on destabilising the region and starting World War 3 with their ceaseless provocations!

Tiger Woods Family Christmas Card 2009!

2009-12-03T09:40:00.000Z

Deaf News

2009-11-29T17:17:00.001Z

I have just watched the news with signing for deaf people.

The poor woman doing the sign language just had to give up after 3 attempts at signing Cockermouth.

UPDATE

Apparently they're now having terrible flooding problems in the South Yorkshire town of Penistone

Money, That's What I Want

2009-11-29T13:39:00.006Z

All this fuss about thieving MPs and their abuse of the expenses system.

One sees the Labourites, having dragged themselves up by the bootstraps and still hip to the mores of the working man, putting in for a Remembrance Day wreath here, a tin of corned beef and 10 Benson there. The Tories generally had a far better handle on the opportunities on offer, what with their duck houses and moats and mood lighting and Bang and Olufsen stereo systems for the stables.

But the whole thing suggests to me a lamentable lack of ambition. The rest of the world must be pointing and laughing at this shower of craven milksops.

For example, those African chaps know how to make a few quid out of a decent government job. General Sani Abacha, de facto president of Nigeria from 1993 until 1998, is reputed to have mulcted the public purse of some US$ 3–4 billion in but 5 years. Now that's proper troughing, Mr Elliot Morley MP.

Closer to home, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has this week been voted 'Rock Star of the Year' by Rolling Stone magazine in homage to his debauched antics with an array of models, aspirant actresses, plain old tarts and foot-worshipping lesbians. Partying the night away in a manner that would have caused Caligula the odd moment of self-reflection.

Commenting on the fact that the 73-year old had been chosen unanimously by the panel for the prestigious award, Editor Carlo Antonelli observed:

'This year the choice was unanimous, for his obvious merits due to a lifestyle for which the words "rock 'n roll" fall short. Rod Stewart, Brian Jones, Keith Richards in their prime were schoolboys compared to him.'

73! And the fellow couldn't be more popular in his native land. Hell, if I were elected leader I'd behave just like that. And more besides. Scenes that the brush of Hieronymous Bosch would have hesitated to paint. Whoo yeah! Otherwise, what's the point?

British politicians would do well to take note. Forget bailing out banks and allocating more money to the cleaning of festering hospital cesspools. A little more blowing the loot on cocaine-fuelled orgies with an array of crack whores and Gordon Brown and his madcap crew of crazy funsters would be a shoo-in for the next election.

An Eye for an Eye

2009-11-21T07:04:00.003Z

Those Saudis don't fuck about, popular wisdom would have it.

The party line runs roughly thus: ruthless application of Sharia law means some pretty condign punishments for breaking the waves. Shoplifting hummous? They'll lop your hand off, without so much as a pre-sentence report.

But I'm not so sure.

Take the case of Muhammed Basheer al-Ramaly. Murdering paedophile, so to let the punishment fit the crime, the authorities have decided that he's going to be publicly beheaded with a sword, crucified, and have his head stuck on a pole pour encourager les autres.

Call that an execution? Whatever happened to chopping off his tackle, sticking it in his mouth first?

Travesty

2009-11-18T22:43:00.003Z

OK you crazy cats.

Latest random long playing record is a thing called "Oh Scorpio" by a jazz beat combo that style themselves 'The Films". Fucking stupid name for a band, for a myriad reasons, but bear with me here.

Great retro sleeve, great sound! The sort of cynical yet up for it indie pop that gets MotCO playing and playing on the tortured and ill-used iPod. A serious candidate for my Record of the Year*.

Imagine, if you will, a cross between the Arctic Monkeys and the Cars, with a singer that has a twang (when affecting pain) of that fellow out of the Killers. Back when they used to be good.

You can hear some of this fine stuff here.

It's a fucking great record, but 2 things really bug me.

First, in this age of instant information, I can't find jack shit about this lot. Seriously. A wikipedia ferret-around finally gets this. It's all in sodding Greek!

Second: no publicity. No fanfare. Even Amazon seem scarcely to have heard of them. WTF?

Ah, but ranting about the music industry is a fool's game. That is why lowest common denominator wank prevails.

Unless it's something to do with decent bands apparently craving anonymity.

*An awards ceremony in Finchley awaits, with balloons, jelly, and last year's copy of The Supreme Court Practice for the lucky winner

A Gap in the Market

2009-11-18T12:19:00.002Z

On the cheesy listening station of my Hackney carriage driver's electric radio set this morning, the mournful ditty 'Solitaire', as sung by the Carpenters.

Not really my cup of tea: frankly the thing's a lugubrious dirge. But with my keen ear for a tune and eye for a story I resolved to investigate the central premise, that "Solitaire's the only game in town...".

And what do you know? They're all at it. The Carpenters hailed from New Haven, Connecticut. Another version was recorded by Andy Williams (Wall Lake, Iowa). More recently Sheryl Crow (Kennett, Missouri). "A little hope goes up in smoke", indeed. Even some bloke called Elvis Presley (Tupelo, Mississippi).

All across the United States, miserable communities whose sad and empty lives remain unenlivened with a little Twister, a couple of rounds of Ker-plunk.

So here's the plan: I'm gonna open me a chain of bowling alleys, multiplex cinemas. Give those mid-western folks a taste of the good times. It'll be like printing money. Gonna sell 'em some chess sets out the back. I'll clean up!

The song was originally written by crooner Neil Sedaka, whom Wikipedia tells me was born in Brooklyn, New York City. Now either he's the biggest liar on earth, or those Islamo-fundamentalist crackpot chaps have got their heads seriously up their arses on this whole Great Satan thing.

Oenophilia!

2009-11-16T23:01:00.005Z

The hot tipple amongst the kids that know is Bordeaux Clairet. Light, voluptuous, fresh and very aromatic wines with a luminous ruby colour; a lighter, more aromatic version of Bordeaux AOC wines, made according to the tradition of the first wines exported to the United Kingdom.

Darker than a rosé, lighter than a red. Nose of redcurrants and fox terriers. South facing slope. Trodden by Serge and Gaston.

Best yet: gets a chap utterly rendered, but with style.

Class Envy

2009-11-13T09:31:00.003Z

So Gordano and his henchmen in ZanuLabour P.F. now plan to withdraw the child care vouchers that have proved reasonably successful in getting folk off their arses and back into work. The reasoning seems to be that occasionally the odd family that might just about class itself as middle class might actually save a few quid in tax through the scheme. The sort of riches that leads to a new pair of shoes for the kids once in a while, the ability to pay for them to go on the school trip.

I declare no vested interest in this, as I pay through the nose to educate the MotCOlings privately. Why? (a) because I (just about) can, and (b) I do not want them taking crack in the playground and being stabbed.

However, the whole thing fucking stinks.

It's another dogwhistle to the sort of lumpenproletariat welfare-guzzling scroungers that voted for this shower of faeces in Glasgow last night. 70 years - 70 YEARS - of ceaseless deprivation and they're still too thick/off their tits on Buckie to get it.

"Yeah: all your problems are caused by those nasty middle class characters, what with their jobs and their shiny cars and their clean kids that are actually encouraged to eat food and study. So we're going to take some more money off the fat greedy sods and use it to make your lives a little better. Few more benefits, more ciggies and smack for you."

The dribbling fools lap it up. It's why there are still 'safe' Labour seats.

Speaking Unto the Void

2009-11-12T21:40:00.003Z

Blimey: feel like I speak unto the void, like that dude in the Bible, but what the fuck.

Today's theme: pop music snobbery.

Cecilia Bartoli (bless her) having finally introduced a sense of ennui, the MotCO iPod now features the new long player from Echo and the Bunnymen as Top of the Week's Pops.

Entitled 'The Fountain', for fans of this sort of thing, I think it's skill! Really! Jingly jangly indie-pop with a dash of world-weary cynicism and the near-tearful plangent sound of Ian McCulloch's voice. A dashed cut above the scrawny devils that infect the MotCOlings' chums' stereos, that's for sure*.

You'd think that fans of Ian M and indeed the band would rejoice in a new record with decent songs and all the rest of it, not least to rise above the common pap. But no!

Look at these cunts!

And these!

"Oh well they were far better in my day, and it's not the same thing, and I was into them before they were anybody, and the songs are a bit too good now, blah blah blah de fucking blah...."

Pretentious fucking tossers. They would seriously prefer that their favourite band had stopped making records in, like, 1982, so they could now spend their time listening to Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver and introverted shite like that.

Lesson time, pals: these dudes are now 30 years older.

As are you. Now fuck off.

*as part of their expensive education, the MotCOlings are at present rationed to a diet of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Their pals (such as they have) call them weirdos. But they will SUFFER.

Executive Relief

2009-11-12T10:05:00.004Z

Anyway, who says it's not big or clever to drink?

I'm 6 foot 3, a professor of Ontological Dualism, and get royally slaughtered on a nightly basis.

And based on my epidemiological studies conducted in a nameless Irish city over a recent 3 day period, 100% of respondents over 6 foot in professional employment drank at least 15 pints in any given 24 hour period.

So fuck off, teetotallers. And the arse to your lies.

Who Says You Can't Polish a Turd?

2009-11-12T09:27:00.002Z

In today's exciting episode, Telly Savalas does Portsmouth.

He sounds a tad jaded: if I didn't know better, I'd say Birmingham took a little out of him.

Romantic Weekend Minibreak

2009-11-11T09:57:00.004Z

To Cork, for a weekend's cultural stimulation.

It may have a climate to make Manchester look like the Côte d'Azur, and over-zealous hotel staff who become a trifle exercised about a chap or two exercising the equitable remedy of self-help, but for my money a fine city, with many many fine buildings worthy of detailed scrutiny.

A typical art gallery

As a place with more than its share of more or less ginger-haired alcoholics, a chap like me could feel right at home. Much like Telly Savalas and Birmingham, "I can't sing it like he can, but I can assure you, this is 'My Kind of Town' ".

A & E

2009-11-05T16:48:00.003Z

To St Bart's Hospital, where I trust they will be able to staunch the blood flow after next door-but-one's ginger Tom got wind of my culinary schemes and engaged in a spirited self-defence

Fact of the Day: Bonfire Night Special

2009-11-05T12:34:00.000Z

Guy Fawkes chose November 5th as the evening to blow up Parliament because the sound of the explosions would be hidden by the fireworks of bonfire night.

Carrion Porn

2009-11-05T10:08:00.002Z

Fascinating article on Melvyn Bragg's radio 4 show today, all about the Münster Rebellion of 1534-5

Dovetailing nicely with the central themes of one of my favourite books, 'Q', by a posse of Italian know-it-alls masquerading - for knowingly ironic reasons I cannot fathom - under the name of former Watford association football player Luther Blisset, the article featured a trio of donnish types rattling through the mayhem that ensued when a motley crew of Anabaptists seized control of the German city duting the Reformation.

Prophecies, rebaptism, God's judgment, famine, warfare, unimaginable acts of cruelty, demagogue cocks having their cocks nailed to doors and some uber-loon running the show taking unto himself 16 wives* before it all went tits-up with terrible inevitability, segueing gently into insane acts of torture and the bodies of the ringleaders being hung from the church steeple in cages that are still there to this very day. The story really has it all: I don't know why nobody's made a movie out of it yet - perhaps a Bollywood version would suit, with lots of jolly singing and dancing. That Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall chap would do well to take note before making any more of his action-light carrion porn.

But the central message I take from all of this is that folk really will subscribe to any bug-eyed, batshit nonsense you can conceive of - and then some - in the name of religion. And once we've sorted out the world economy and developed a cure for swine flu and all the rest of it, we're still gonna be left with that one.

*He's alleged to have chopped one of their heads off in the market square, although such of his pals as survived the slaughter claimed this to be Papist propaganda, thus foreshadowing the antics of both Henry VIII and the population of Ulster.

Falafels!

2009-11-05T09:58:00.001Z

Owl pellets!

A Cautionary Tale

2009-11-04T15:47:00.004Z

According to my secret sources, a black bear is alleged to have set about and killed a bunch of jihadists in Kashmir.

What part of the Almighty's plan were they engaged in when this evil fate befell them? Washing and praying? Setting roadside bombs? Beheading villagers?

No! Loafing in a cavern. Eating pudding.

That was no bear. That was Shaitan. Punishing them for their decadence and greed.

The Post Office is Shit

2009-11-04T10:28:00.002Z

Just had to go and send something recorded delivery. Or was it registered? Fuck knows.

What a miserable, depressing place. After I'd roamed the streets of London Town for ages trying to find one that hadn't been shut down (the 2 nearest to the Slave Pits having recently taken the axe), one enters this drab, overheated, tatty shithole, peeling posters enticing the gullible with 'best value' travel insurance, a row of 'service' windows as far as the eye can see, all but one unmanned, and a queue that stretched twice round Aldwych and all the way to Nelson's Column.

Old biddies paying 'the electric'. Dossers collecting their pitiful stipend to squander on fags, cider and Sky Sports. And the occasional business type actually seeking to conclude a business transaction, forced to waste oceans of time waiting. Endlessly waiting.

I'd compare the experience to waiting in line to see an official about, I dunno, a permit to purchase bread in communist East Germany. Except I expect that the officials there, as a minimum, actually spoke intelligible German.

A Quiet Evening In

2009-11-03T11:51:00.004Z

Last night, for the first time since about 1997, I sat down and watched a DVD.

Entitled 'Cook on the Wild Side', it featured an engaging fellow named Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. A floppy-haired, well-educated chap, he reminded me very much of me, except that instead of suffering excruciating hangovers on a daily basis and occasionally dispensing legal advice, Hugh seems to spend his time driving around rural Wales in a battered Land Rover and eating crows.

While to my mind the show could have profited from a few deviant sex angles and the odd car chase, I'm all for the basic premise of self-sufficiency and harvesting nature's bounty. Inspired by his lifestyle, I have resolved to try the Hemingway thing, hunting, gathering, catching my own supper, for myself.

Admittedly wildlife is a bit thin on the ground at and around MotCO Towers. The odd squirrel, a few wood pigeons, nothing more than an amuse-bouche, really. I shall therefore commence my new culinary Odyssey with the neighbours' cats.

War

2009-11-02T16:21:00.003Z

Edwin Starr famously asked "War War, huh, yeah. What is it good for?".

His conclusion - absolutely nothing - rather missed the point. War's great for invading one's enemies, imposing one's political and social systems upon them and murdering and enslaving their people. Plundering of resources and generally fucking shit up is a bonus.

It's also a neat way to road test your new military hardware. Keep the common soldiery out of domestic mischief. And let the world at large know you're not going to stand for any tomfoolery.

Few countries understand this like my own. Since the end of World War 2 the UK has become embroiled in more international armed conflicts than any other on earth. That's a fact, fact fans.

Oddly, for a nation of cookery-obsessed pansies, the French run us a pretty close second. I expect that fairly soon the UN will organise a Charity Shield-style play-off for the title of Hardest Nation on Earth.

Spiders on Drugs!

2009-11-02T15:54:00.002Z

Not sure why the cretin that upped this to Youtube had to stamp the words 'real funny' on the thing, mind. American, I'd wager.

The Gaping Maw of Hell

2009-11-01T21:25:00.004Z

Crap jokes aside, I am heartily sick of pumpkins.

Much of the year goes by in a thankfully pumpkin free blur of root crops, salad greens and the occasional butternut squash for amusing phallic relief.

But for one weekend... I have been obliged to carve, insert candles into, peel, dice, reduce with garlic and purée the devil's own legion of pumpkins.

Next year they get plastic ones. Curse them.

Hoots, mon

2009-11-01T21:21:00.002Z

Prince Charles is visiting an Edinburgh hospital. He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness and greets one. The patient replies:

"Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm."

Charles is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient. The patient responds:

"Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit."

Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the Prince moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:

"Wee sleekit, cowerin, timrous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle."

Now seriously troubled, Charles turns to the accompanying doctor and asks "Is this a psychiatric ward?"

"No," replies the doctor, "this is the serious Burns unit."

Caged Beast

2009-11-01T17:38:00.002Z

Took the kids to a zoo at the weekend.

All they had was one poxy dog.

It was a Shih Tzu.

If Music be the Food of Love...

2009-10-30T13:25:00.003Z

On the MotCO iPod today, ‘Sacrificium’, the new long player from everybody’s favourite mezzo-soprano, Cecilia Bartoli.

Dedicated to the (arguably thankfully) lost ‘art’ of the castrati, young fellows with their family jewels lopped off before their voices broke to preserve and enhance their vocal purity, Bartoli's latest project presents a dozen arias from obscure Baroque-era composers, including such non-household names as Nicola Porpora, Francesco Araia, Antonio Caldara and Leonardo Vinci.

For all the obscurity of the pieces (11 of which are world premiere recordings), the thing’s a tour de force. Each aria is an explosion of emotion, virtuosic music of coloratura verve and passion. It's also sumptuously packaged with a 108 page hardcover book telling everything you need to know about castration.

I like to contrast this with the similarly sublime music of a chap who plainly has not has his nads snipped off, Mr Josh Todd of the popular beat combo Buckcherry.

As he puts matters in a sensitive paean to his lady-love:

Hey, you're a crazy bitch,
But you fuck so good, I'm on top of it
When I dream I'm doing you all night
Scratches all down my back to keep me right on

I can’t decide which I like better.

Light Relief

2009-10-30T07:57:00.003Z

Well after that Dan Brown book I needed some light relief. So I took up my old copy of The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm.

It's a thumping good read, and old Erich tackles some pretty big themes. In a world in which violence in every form seems to be increasing, Fromm ponders the whole nature/nurture thing and asks: what is there in the conditions of human existence to lead man to the orgies of destruction and violence in which he has indulged?

Well I'll tell him. As any trip down the main drag after dark will show one with eyes to see, the vast mass of folk are, in the main, filthy drunken animals fit only for senseless violence and joyless couplings in doorways.

Still. Keeps honest jobbing lawyers in claret and pies.

Noetic Science

2009-10-29T12:28:00.002Z

Dan Brown all finished. There's 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.

To be fair, while it won't win any prizes, was ok for a bit of escapist tosh. But to my mind the plot rang a bit hollow from an early stage. Nothing to do with all the wonky symbology, tanks of liquid oxygen and charging about in awe-inspiring buildings, no no. Bit more fundamental than that.

You see, it seems to me that the whole silly hoopla could have been avoided if those Masonic chappies had simply exercised a bit of due diligence. Before admitting a 6 foot 4, heavily tattooed, steroid freak eunuch into the holy of holies, a swift CRB check, couple of references, the game's up, pal.

After all, I have to go through all that crap if I want to drive the neighbour's kids to a football match.

Secret society entrusted with hidden knowledge of earth-shattering power? Wouldn't trust 'em to run a whelk stall.

Public Displays of Affection

2009-10-29T10:01:00.003Z

Dear God...

On my morning commute, engrossed in chapter 3 of my new Dan Brown novel (you know what? I'm pretty sure the shaven tattooed loony is that rich bloke's son whom he abandoned in some Turkish oubliette... more to follow) when my attention is diverted by them.

Always the same. Sucking each other's faces off. Like industrial suction pumps. Tongues and slobber. In a crowded carriage. At 8.30 am. Oh sweet Jesus.... he's fondling her arse, now...

OK. I'm sure you spent the night pleasuring one another to the bounds of human capability, and beyond. I just bet you wild, licentious young things got up to stuff that meat and potatoes guys like me could not even begin to imagine. But I implore you, keep it in the boudoir. Weary workers en route to the slave pits do not need to be subjected to this.

And they ming. They always ming.

More Literary Criticism

2009-10-28T12:09:00.003Z

Just started trying to re-read Paradise Lost

It kicks off rather well, I think:

"Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire
That Shepherd..."

But, Jesus wept, does it go on. And on and on. With barely a full stop to be found.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, I'm buying the new Dan Brown.

Weak Bibliophile Joke

2009-10-24T23:56:00.004+01:00

If you can't find the book you're looking for, you're probably shopping at the....

Industrial Relations

2009-10-22T09:43:00.003+01:00

I'm all for this postal strike.

The relief postie came early, limited the delivery to letters that were actually addressed to MotCO Towers and appears reasonably content in carrying out his job of work.

Feminism

2009-10-21T23:20:00.004+01:00

What do the following have in common?

Boudicca

King Alfred the Great

Richard the Lionheart

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson

Sir Isaac Newton

Enoch Powell M.P.

Stumped?

Me too. If I hadn't been on a fact finding mission to the BNP Gift Shop.

Great to know that even racist bigots like a decent feminist icon like Boudicca...

Can't wait for Question Time

!!!UPDATE!!!

They do a decent line in Golliwogs.

But, sorry chaps: most lines are sold out in XL and XXL

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

2009-10-13T10:25:00.012+01:00

Right. This is both sinister and hilarious.

The Guardian newspaper has been slapped with an injunction preventing it, for the first time anyone can remember, from reporting parliamentary proceedings, viz. a question properly placed upon the Order Paper to be answered by a minister later in the week.

Bearing in mind that the Order Paper is a document of public record and that both the question and the answer will be delivered upon the floor of the House of Commons (and anyone with half a mind to do so can go and listen to the exchange), it is Kafkaesque in the extreme that:

"The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret."

Indeed the only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves everybody's favourite libel funsters Carter-Ruck & Partners.

What's this all about? Matters of grave national security? Deeply damaging personal slanders about some incredibly important pillar of the community?

No! According to speculation on the Guido Fawkes blog, and elsewhere, it's that old chestnut Big business dumping toxic shit on Africans.

From Wikileaks (page now itself taken down): "Following press reportage about dumping off the coast of Africa, Waterson & Hicks, a UK law firm acting for the large London based oil and commodity trader, Trafigura, ordered and received this confidential report (the so-called "Minton report") into toxic dumping practices by its client along and on the Ivory Coast.

The report reveals a number of toxic dumping incidents and appears to be the report behind this extraordinary secret gagging of the Guardian newspaper (article Oct 12). "

It seems that the parliamentary question in, er, question, may be this:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) - To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Now while the Guardian has been slapped into line - for now - the Twitterverse and the blogosphere are going stir buggo. Alex Massie in The Spectator has had the stones to pick up the story and run with it.

Odd to think that freedom to report parliamentary carry-on was initially enshrined in the 1688 Bill of Rights and has been debated, and upheld, over the subsequent 300 years or so.

With all the hoo-ha, it's virtually guaranteed that what would otherwise have been a relatively obscure piece buried on page 27 is turning into a front-page three-ring circus...

UPDATE

Wonder whether they'll be able to injunct the European Parliament?

UPDATE 2

At about 1 pm Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian's editor, announced via Twitter (somewhat appropriately) that Carter Ruck & Co. had caved in. The paper is now free to report what's been all over the net all day. Chalk it up as a victory for freedom of speech won by the bloggers.

Peace

2009-10-09T10:59:00.002+01:00

Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

WTF?

I like the cut of the chap's jib and all, but last I looked we were still embroiled in Afghanistan, Iraq. The Israelis and Palestinians are still at it and it's all gonna kick off in Iran and Pakistan any day.

Jesus: I got both his books for Xmas and found them unreadable.

I'm gonna get myself elected as the first black PM. Then I can have a Nobel prize, too.

And I deserve a chuffing peace prize: the mayhem this morning over who got the remote control first. The problem was solved by sticking MotCO Minor in the other room where there is another TV! Bish, bosh, peace restored!

The UN are flying me out to Jerusalem on Monday.

MotCO Towers, 8.30 am

2009-10-09T09:22:00.001+01:00

It was at about this point a middle aged woman in a stupid shite mini 4x4 (Suzuki Jimny or some equal toss: if you're gonna drive a gas guzzler, drive a proper environmental crime. Like, I dunno, a BMW X6 or something. But I digress) started pipping her horn in an irritated fashion.

'What's the problem?' I ask

'I insist you move that lorry' she replies

'I'm afraid that's not possible: they're moving steel girders, each one weighs half a ton', I explain

'Well I don't care about that. It's blocking the street and I need to get through'

We go on in similar fashion for about 5 minutes. Her basic position was that there wasn't enough space to get through (there was, as matters turned out) and she couldn't proceed on her way (she could). I pointed out that there was in fact enough space (there was), or in the alternative, as MotCO street is in fact a crescent, she could turn around and go back the other way. But no! Forwards it had to be.

It ended thus:

'If you don't move that lorry I shall call the police. I must inform you that I'm a J.P.'

'I knew there was a reason I stopped appearing in magistrates' courts. The lorry stays.'

As it transpired, midst much gunning of the mighty 1.4l engine, she was able to proceed on her urgent business and park up down the street.

Turns out she was cluttering the place to walk her dog in the park out back.

Quantitative Easing

2009-10-02T13:34:00.002+01:00

Toss ya for the leadership

Literature

2009-10-01T13:57:00.004+01:00

Biographies of great men and women are where it's at.

Today: Association football player Dwight Yorke, revealing all in his wittily titled 'Born to Score' (do you see what he did there?)

On his first date with a young maiden named Katie Price, who by all accounts has a certain notoriety for sporting a firm pair of large breasts and calling herself Jordan, Dwight had the novel idea of adding her chest of booty to his trophy cabinet of conquests. Sadly not: "My hopes for a more entertaining end to the evening were quickly dashed. Jordan made it clear nothing like that was on the agenda - she even paid for her own McDonald's."

Good to see that young people in the public eye still know how to conduct themselves with dignified restraint.

Zen

2009-10-01T10:53:00.004+01:00

Sitting at Court, where the hoons have block-listed about 96 cases for pre-trial review at the same time.

The only rational explanation is that it's a deliberate attempt to fuck with our minds, give us Stockholm Syndrome, to the point where all futile resistance crumbles and one is prepared to accept any settlement offer, no matter how ludicrous, simply to get out of here. All around me are besuited characters gently segueing from boredom into a Zen-like state of inactivity. Strings of drool connecting their lower lips to their knees.

But not me! Armed with naught but a 3G phone and a keen dose of exhibitionism I can rise above this common herd by updating my blog.

UPDATE

They upped their offer! 2.5k for a severed limb possibly on the low side, but I'm out of here, suckers.

3 Weetabix For Breakfast

2009-09-30T18:27:00.003+01:00

That moment everyone's talking about...

Update! There's More!

The 70s

2009-09-30T08:23:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I was having a discussion with a pal over the relative merits of being in my late 30s in this decade, as opposed to the 1970s. She made some valid points.

Don't you wish (she posited) that you were 39 in 1970 rather than being born 39 years ago in 1970?

So cool. the clothes, the music, the drugs (the lack of drug TESTING)...

Proof, if proof were needed, can be found in this video of a popular beat combo from Winnipeg, Manitoba, showing how it's done:

Now I'm not certain I'm with her on the clothes: man-made fibres and my strawberry roan hair were not designed to co-exist. And I think her summary of the merits of that decade rather over-simplifies a time of great social and economic difficulty. John Travolta did look fucking cool in Saturday Night Fever, though.

She went on: no AIDS, free lovin', big massive cars...

All sounds pretty good, huh? But I'm afraid I've concluded you can keep your 1970s.

The real clincher?

Hairy porn.

Politics

2009-09-29T10:41:00.005+01:00

All this fuss about whether Gordon Brown is off his head on mind-bending drugs or not. Who cares? Certainly not Andrew Marr, who fluffed the question last Sunday.

Nor me. Bill Hicks (or was it Denis Leary: I find them interchangeable) famously ranted about how drugs were a definite aid to creative thinking, to music and so on. The Beatles? So high they let Ringo sing.

Consider El Gordo's wit and wisdom long before he was alleged to be on the gear:

"Of course liberty - with roots that go back to antiquity - is not and cannot be solely a British idea. In one sense, liberty is rooted in the human spirit and does not have a nationality. But first with the Magna Carta and then through Milton and Locke to more recent writers as diverse as Orwell and Churchill, philosophers and politicians have extolled the virtues of a Britain that, in the words of the American revolutionary Patrick Henry, ‘made liberty the foundation of everything’, and ‘became a great, mighty and splendid nation…because liberty is its direct end and foundation’." *

Blah blah blah blah blah. Boring as arse.

Compare it with the deep insight of a chap that - allegedly - has done every species of rare herb and prescribed chemical on the planet, and then some. Let us take as our muse, I dunno, Mr Sean Ryder, of popular beat combo The Happy Mondays:

"Son, Im 30
I only went with your mother cause shes dirty" **

It's like a haiku, penned by Wordsworth.

In a Ryder/Brown run-off, I know who'd get the popular vote. Keep popping the pills, Gordon. Or the patches. Or suppositories, whatever. It's not gonna make a blind bit of difference come May 6th.

*Speech on liberty, 25 October 2007. There is more. Much, much more, here: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page13630
** Kinky Afro. Available in all good record stores.

Filth

2009-09-29T09:43:00.001+01:00

As an unreconstructed Luddite and busy man-about-town, no time to talk, I have shied away from this blogging caper as an obvious thief of my precious time.

Well. I have finally been spurred into action. I can remain silent no more!

Been reading too much Enid Blyton with my daughter.

"I say, Dick, she's a spunky girl!"

"Yes, Julian. She certainly has a lot of spunk in her!"

Libraries peddle this filth to 7 year olds.