Jet Boy Jet Girl

Get well soon

Best wishes to Curly who is receiving treatment at the Freeman Hospital after suffering a heart attack. You know we all love you really despite your whacky right wing views. Get well soon and stop sponging from a socialist health care system ;~)

Short circuit

I was looking forward to hearing radio 4’s interview with Art Spiegelman, the cartoonist and author of Maus. The interview was being broadcast after last nights episode of the Archers, so I put up with an abysmal episode about the organisation of the Ambridge Christmas panto, then settled down to listen the interview.

The interview started well with Spiegelman musing over the British mental health colloquialism ‘sectioned’. Then as Spiegelman went on to discuss the traumatic suicide of his mother, someone at the beeb pressed the wrong button and a jovial and highly distracting tune was played over the top of the recorded interview. Spiegelman has a very dry sense of humour so I suspect he’ll see the funny side.

When asked if there would be a third volume of Maus he replied “There would have been but the war ended!”

Mystery Nazi

Gazette journo David MacLean has stuck a big wooden spoon into the local political scene with this article about the BNP. In a sentence that didn’t appear in the printed version of the paper David states:
“The (BNP membership) list, which includes names, addresses and occupations, included 72 names from South Tyneside, including one who is a member of a mainstream party in the borough.”
Time to check that list again!

Deeply Shocking

Surely I’m not the only person to be concerned about this?

Don’t let the BNP tell you they aren’t Nazis

BNP founding member John Tyndall in his Nazi uniform.

Cottaging

Looking at some of the comments being left on Nazi web sites, it appears that the entire BNP membership have come down with a collective dose of dysentery. They’re not happy!
Scrolling through the BNP’s leaked membership list makes fascinating reading. At least we now know why you never see any Jews or black people living in the Mariners Cottages!

Perfect timing

As soon as I’d blogged yesterday I checked my emails and at the top of the list of’ ‘710 unread’ was one entitled ‘Hazel Blears is a lying Twat!’ Perfect timing or what?
Blears has recently responded to an article by Dr Hugh Ellis criticising Labour’s new planning bill. Hazel Blears states in the Guardian that “A quick, predictable and fair planning system is crucial in rocky economic times.”
Labour’s planning reforms will be predictable, but I can guarantee that they certainly will not be fair. The new planning bill to all intents and purposes is new Labour dropping to its knees and fellating its cronies in the supermarket/airport/nuclear lobby.
In the article Hazel Blears claims that Hugh Ellis “wants to maintain the status quo.” An odd claim considering Hugh has been a long time campaigner for a fairer more accountable planning system, and the first line of his critique reads “The existing system for approving or turning down major infrastructure projects such as runways, ports and power stations is far from perfect.”
Could it possibly be that Hazel Blears is cynically misrepresenting what Hugh Ellis said in order to suit Labour’s ‘big business uber alles’ agenda?

Spreading corrosive cynicism

Curly over at the corner shop has already highlighted the fact that Hazel Blears holds bloggers responsible for spreading corrosive cynicism about politicians. Mmmm… perhaps Blears should look a little closer to home if she wants to discover why the public are cynical about politicians.

Just take two examples from the last 24 hours.
No one came out of Prime Ministers Questions yesterday with their dignity intact. With the possible exception of the much maligned Gorbals Mick, who at least had the sense to realise that the braying Tory and Labour backbenchers sounded like a bunch of deranged caged animals.
Then we have Tory MEP Den Dover, who has been caught being a very naughty boy filling in his expense returns. Can you imagine the outcry from politicians if a single mother or asylum seeker had been caught pocketing three-quarters of a million quid.
It must be the fault of us bloggers.

An interesting graph.

11/11

You remember me if I die in war but not if I live in peace.

-Spike Milligan

Green spaces

Speaking of the health divide…

FACT: BNP are a bunch of fuckwits!

Green and Lib Dem voters are the cleverest, says research.

Inequalities in Health

The gap between the richest and the poorest in society has widened under new Labour, so I really shouldn’t be too surprised that Labour are deliberately widening the health divide. What was that about the NHS being safe in their hands?

Rehab

Glancing at my diary confirms that I’ve managed to run for five consecutive days now. A bit of a record for me these days. Ok, they’ve been very slow short runs totalling 20k, but my knee has survived them which is what counts.

Formula Eins

Congratulations to Swiss Formula One racing World Champ Lewis Hamilton.

I don’t begrudge him his success at all, I have a high regard for anyone who single-mindedly dedicates their life to being the best they can be at a particular activity. Where I do have a problem is with F1, or motor racing in general, being described as a sport.

Paula Radcliffe demonstrated, yet again yesterday, that she is one of the all time greats of distance running. But her achievement was relegated from top spot in the sports headlines by a non-sport.

Maybe it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that a bunch of overweight sports editors get more excited about a ‘sport’ where you sit on your arse driving a car than Paula running 100+ miles per week, pushing her body to the limits of human endurance.