Unwanted

Another step in the commercial colonisation of personal relationships.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/dec/27/return-santa-amazon-unwanted-gift

Bloody bile

'Kinnock... tells a Channel 4 docudrama of his surprise at David Miliband's behaviour towards his younger brother, saying: "David's response to Ed running has, to my astonishment, been deeply resentful. David's people are spreading all kinds of bloody bile about Ed being in thrall to the left and he would be in the pocket of the unions and all kinds of crap like that".' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/17/bloody-bile-miliband-relationship-kinnock)

This illustrates why Kinnock was never fit to lead anything, and why Welsh Labour may eventually dissolve in a pit of its own spite. I'm no fan of David Miliband, but why on earth would he not put it out that Ed is too far to the left. Isn't that what the election is about? Isn't that politics? For fuck's sake, the only bloody bile I can see is what is oozing from Kinnock's disgusting rectum in place of his mouth.

What's in a name?

So the runners are out of the stalls – Abbott, Balls, Burnham, Miliband, Miliband – and all from the first half of the alphabet!

If you look back over the postwar years the pattern is the same: Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown. Add in the two temporary leaders after Smith and Brown (Beckett and Harman) – that’s 9 out of 11 with names starting in the first half.

It’s the same pattern with the Tories: Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home (whichever way you spell it), Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard, Cameron – 10 out of 11.

Not so different for Liberal leaders too: Davies, Grimond, Thorpe, Steel, Ashdown, Kennedy, Campbell, Cable (temp), Clegg – 7 out of 9.

What is going on here? Could it be to do with position on the ballot paper? Possibly – if you take all 31 A-M names in the lists above, 16 of them are A-Ds (four letters) compared with 15 E-Ms (nine letters) – so the skewing to the front is even more marked.

Do we really elect our leaders on the basis of their position in the alphabet? Should we be worried?

Kiss and tell: or, hell hath no fury?

The question not yet raised in the Triesman affair is why did she turn him in? Why did she go to the date armed with a tape-recorder in the first place, and why did she think that it was right for her to sell a private conversation thing in this way? Without more information than that provided by the Daily Mail (wash my mouth out), it's hard to understand such extraordinary behaviour.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278706/FA-chief-Lord-Triesman-Spain-bid-bribe-World-Cup-referees.html
Interestingly, if you Google 'Melissa Jacobs' you get a pornstar. If you add 'FA' you get this one.

Ashes to Ashes

For systematists, the world exists to put in order. For Harold Pinter it is for dissembling, through which the good and the humane find a way to seep out through the bureaucratic cage of ingrained reflexes. In a ruthless analysis of the totalitarian, he illuminates the pain of the individual. Throwaway lines sting, little words corrode, what is half-said crushes, what is tacit forebodes catastrophe. Pinter, the tailor's son, scissors language, allowing the action to originate from the voices and rhythms of the characters. Thus, there is no given plot. We do not ask: "What will happen next"? Rather, "What is happening"? The words are instruments of power. Words are repeated until they resemble truth. In a time of over-information, Pinter frees words from describing reality and makes them reality itself, at times poetic, more often oppressive. At the end, it is only through language that we can erase our destiny and recreate it. (Per Wästberg, presenting the Nobel Prize for Literature, December 2005)

Who's a wuss, then?

So General John Sheehan thinks that allowing gays in the army makes it soft (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/19/gay-dutch-soldiers-srebrenica).
I'd like to see him repeat that nose-to-nose with Gareth Thomas (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/8421956.stm).

Result!

It's lovely when you watch a columnist getting better and better, waiting for them to hit gold, and then they do. Marina Hyde, you have scored!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/06/ashcroft-mp-expenses-unelected-influence