Maybe Next Time

Ant and Dec have come under attack while visiting British troops in Afghanistan.

According to reports today, the nation's favourite mummy's boys were out there to present a Pride of Britain award to the Army's MERT (Medical Emergency Response Team). As they prepared to leave from Kandahar, the airport was shelled by Taliban forces.

Jesus, what's wrong with these Afghan rebels? Can't they shoot straight? First Prince Harry goes out there on vacation, then his brother pops over for a nosey. Both came out unscathed, and now Ant and Dec have too.

Talk about rotten luck!

Still, hope springs eternal. Maybe Paul McCartney has Afghanistan pencilled into his world tour itinerary. A mouth that big should be a good target.

Tune in to The Pride of Britain Awards 2008 (ITV1, Wednesday 8pm) to see Ant, Dec, and their fellow forelock-tuggers, present awards to Britain's unsung heroes.

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Paul Newman

The Hollywood legend died yesterday, aged 83. He appears to have lived a clean life, free of scandal, married to the same woman for 50 years.

Tributes have come from stars, friends and biographers. Sam Mendez, who directed Newman in Road to Perdition, commented that for a movie star, he was completely free of ego.

That I have a teeny bit of difficulty with. Watch the opening titles of The Towering Inferno. Observe that Newman's and McQueen's credits appear onscreen simultaneously - the solution to a wrangle for top billing.

No-one gets by in Tinseltown without an ego!

My favourite Paul Newman movie is 1981's Fort Apache: The Bronx, also starring Danny Aiello and Ed Asner. I saw the film on TV as a small child, and I liked Newman ever since.

Rest in Peace, Cool Hand Luke.


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Cut to the Chase

Yahoo News ran a story today about the 27th teenager lost to violent crime in London this year. That's already one up on last year's total.

Such reports are now virtually a daily fixture, especially on Yahoo News, and they often lament the lack of Government action to curb youth violence in the capital.

As is often the case, this latest victim's mother (they rarely have visible fathers) has hit out at the Government's failure to address the growing knife-crime problem. However, she offered no ideas of her own.

What to Do?

Hold on a moment. Just what is Westminster expected to do about random street violence? Reintroduce the death penalty? No deterrent. Certainly hasn't worked in the States.

Knife/gun amnesties are a joke. Each new amnesty - besides being quick, cheap police PR - is an opportunity for macho clowns to make empty gestures, feel good about themselves for a moment. Show off a little, maybe draw an approving nod from local police. Then they can go home and look around for a replacement blade. Carrying weapons appeals to crass egos, as does the prospect of stabbing or shooting someone.

And what of the victims? Harsh as it may sound, most if not all of the 27 dead are unlikely to have gone on to live productive, positive lives. They tend to be involved with gangs themselves, which of course has much to do with their deaths.

No Quick Fix

Now, those who point accusing fingers at politicians, I fear they haven't given the situation any real thought. Isn't it true to say that a great many criminals and violent offenders tend to come from ghettos and poorer backgrounds? Isn't it also true that the fecklessness that gives rise to crime and interpersonal violence, tends to be passed from generation to generation?

Simply put, if socially-immobile people were prevented from producing children who are almost certain to grow into carbon copies of their parents, wouldn't that be a start in putting a dent in the violence/crime problem? Simpler still, if you haven't gotten your shit together before you go having a family, what chance do your children have of creating decent lives for themselves?

Do I advocate a degree of control over who gets to be a parent? Indeed I do.

I'm not making a sweeping statement that all ghetto killers and their victims become what they are because their parents made poor decisions - but for sure that is a part of it. Face it. Kids from poor backgrounds are more likely to grow into gang members, drug abusers or prostitutes, than architects, teachers or lawyers. There's no great mystery in all of this.

Before folks give lawmakers a hard time, maybe they ought to look hard at themselves. And don't expect instant results. Problems that take generations to create, take generations to solve.

Politicians know all of this, but in today's climate, to say so in public would be political suicide.


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Can You Bel-Yves It?

Today, a Swiss adventurer crossed the English Channel (or perhaps he calls it La Manche) at record-breaking speed, flying a home-made, jet-propelled wing.

49-year-old Yves Rossy (pictured) was dropped from a plane 8500 feet above France, then cruised from coast to coast at 100mph, parachuting in at South Foreland Lighthouse, on Dover's fabled White Cliffs.

Rossy, a pilot by day, was understandably delighted upon landing safely, said he felt as though he were dreaming. His dream, a sane man's nightmare!

What is it with people from that part of the world? Only weeks ago I read an article about the latest exploits of Frenchman Michel Fournier, who specialises in ultra-high-altitude skydiving. He plans or planned to jump from a helium balloon at a mind-bending 150,000 feet, the very edge of space.

In fact, the French have cornered the market on dizzy-heights lunacy. Human spider Alain Roberts is still going strong at 46, scaling skyscrapers the world over, from Chicago's Sears Tower to the Petronas Twin Towers of Kuala Lumpur - unassisted by ropes or any other equipment, other than chalked hands.

Then there's Philippe Petit, who in 1974 flouted the law to walk a tightrope between the world famous (and sadly now infamous) Twin Towers of New York City's World Trade Centre. The ballsy Parisian slung his high wire between the quarter-mile-high office blocks before construction was even complete, surely knowing that would be his only opportunity.

There must be something in the water in Northwestern Europe. As for Yves 'Fusion Man' Rossy, his Channel-hop makes David Walliams' charity swim look a little sick, dunnit!?


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Click post title for a pic of Petit's WTC high-wire stunt

A Week is a Long Time in Politics...

These past few days, I became quite sick of hearing about Prime Minister Gordon Brown's keynote speech, which he finally delivered to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester yesterday. *

Many were keen to hear what Brown had to say about his political future; particularly in the face of rumour that Foreign Secretary David Miliband is angling to supplant Brown before the next General Election.

When Brown addressed his party, two elements of the speech struck me. First, he was introduced by his wife Sarah, who spoke briefly, kissing her husband before he addressed his colleagues. I've never seen such a thing before, and it strikes me as copycatting the Americans.

The PM used the word I as much as he did the word we, perhaps hinting that he isn't going anywhere just yet. But as we've seen, such defiance can be the kiss of death for a politician. Remember Margaret Thatcher in 1990? She spoke of a further ten years leading the Conservatives. If I remember correctly she was gone within days, replaced by the less-than-dynamic John Major.

Britain in Bloom

I fear that the Thatcher era marked the end of charismatic statesmen or women in this country. Indeed, however long it takes, it appears that Gordon Brown's heir is the aforementioned David Miliband (pictured with Brown). Do we want someone with such an eerie, joyless grin steering Britain into the next decade?

A journalist recently joked that his smile reminds her of Orlando Bloom. I see what she meant.

There can be no doubt that Miliband intends to take the reins. After his own speech in Manchester, he was heard to comment I couldn't have gone any further, it would've been a Heseltine moment. A reference to Michael Heseltine's push for Tory leadership, also in 1990.

Ruthless

Perhaps not so good for New Labour is the news that Ruth Kelly is to resign her post, perhaps bowing out of political life altogether.

The Transport Secretary cited a wish to spend more time with her family; but it may be that she cannot reconcile her personal religious beliefs with her party's policies on genetic intervention and abortion.

I've had little real interest in politics up 'til now, but some of New Labour's ideas intrigue me. In a week when child poverty has been in the spotlight, the PM has announced £3m plans to provide free broadband Internet access to poorer families.

I'm off to look up 'poverty' in the OED. I'm almost certain there'll be no mention of Internet access.


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* Click post title to view the speech in full

Eva Forever

Once again, there's a television ad for a 'new' album, from an artist who's been brown-bread for years.

Eva Cassidy was one of those musicians whose career took off only after she'd shuffled off this mortal coil. Now fans are invited to run out and buy 'a unique collection of newly discovered songs'.

Newly discovered! Stretching credibility a little, isn't it? Where were these songs discovered? A recording studio that'd been closed for over a decade? Or maybe Eva's old Walkman found its way onto e-bay, tape intact.

Nah. More likely it's a cynical record-label marketing ploy, one that works time and time again because twats and their money are soon parted. Gotta be all kinds of stupid to be robbed by a dead chick.

Look out for Eva's new single Still Dead.


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Turn Your Dumb Ass to Teaching

Just watched a new TV advert, latest in the Government campaign to attract people to the teaching profession. Nothing wrong with that, but I was angered by the content of the ad.

A teacher shows her class pictures of other kids in chains, images that suggest forced child labour. Then the teacher solicits predictable comments from her kids, like how bad they feel about what they have, in comparison with other kids' supposed plight.

Teaching? This is teaching impressionable kids to be extra grateful for whatever they have, relieved that they aren't at the mercy of a corrupt government or a society that exploits children. And, given such media output, is that really the case?

Kids need to be educated. What they do NOT need is to be distracted by adults laying guilt trips on them, complete with heartstring-tugging slide show. I myself had that same crap at school, passing around the tin, collecting coins for the 'black babies'. Then we went home and
saw Ethiopians on TV news.

We were encouraged to think hard about how 'lucky' we were. What's the intent? That kids feel privileged by birth, so they learn not to strive too hard to better themselves or attain wealth. Another generation of drones.

Makes me sick. Schools are for learning to read, to write and to count. Not a platform for sap teachers to brainwash and distract us at our most vulnerable time of life.

If you plan to become a teacher, think hard about what you're saying to those little people.


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Thaied Up in Knots

More 'racism' nonsense this week, borne of the Big Brother House.

Former EastEnders and Are You Being Served? actress Wendy Richard sparked a spot of mild controversy Monday night, when she guested on BB's companion show Big Brother's Little Brother.

She harmlessly stated that Thai contestant Kathreya is not often forthcoming with opinions of her housemates. Richard cited a literary reference to Chinese inscrutability, acknowledging that Kathreya is in fact Thai, but that "it's all Oriental".

Hardly inflammatory to anyone with an ounce of objectivity, but

too much for a number of viewers

who complained to Ofcom.

BBLB host George Lamb was quick to do his slavish duty, stepping in to wipe Wendy's mouth for her, suggesting that inscrutability is peculiar to Kathreya, not to Asians.

Asians. Are we Yanks now? Since when does 'Asian' mean Chinese or Thai to the British? All of my life, Asian has meant Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, people of the Indian subcontinent. Not Oriental.

Richard took the first opportunity she got to apologise and backpedal, stating on LBC Radio that she's 'not that sort of person.' What sort? The sort who speak freely and expect not to be targeted by lefty airheads?

She claims an American friend told her that 'Oriental' is now considered offensive in the US. WHAT!? Where exactly in the US? If that's true, it simply shows that Americans are even bigger slaves to media bullshit than we British.

Far as I'm concerned, Oriental means Eastern. I can't and won't accept that it could ever be meant with malice. Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe there's a chink in my personality. Chortle!

This little affair is another arrow in the back for good sense, not to mention liberty. Wendy Richard's simpering I'm-close-to-tears apology hasn't helped matters.

Still, far more interesting than cardigans, cups o' tea and Mrs Slocombe's pussy.


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Click post title for an interesting old pic of Wendy