Tories unveil shockingly unoriginal election policy

In a real departure, the Conservative Party today outlined the key theme of their manifesto for the coming general election: immigration. What cunning! What nous! Who ever would have thought it? The Tories using immigration as an electoral strategy? Truly, I am speechless at the sheer originality of the whole concept. And where did the unveiling of this masterstroke take place? A full page advert in the Sunday Telegraph. Of course it did, of course it did.

Amusing that, nearly eight years on from being brushed aside from power, being on their third leader and not once increasing their ratings in the polls for any prolonged period of time, the Tories have bravely decided to press on once again with the very policies that kept them unelectable in 1997 and 2001. The contempt I feel for Michael Howard is pretty extreme at the best of times but it takes moments like this to remind me why. Using immigration as a core feature of your election strategy is despicable. Even more outrageous is the fact that his own parents were immigrants to Britain in the 1930s, fleeing from anti-semitic persecution in Romania. Yet he would seek to severely restrict this right to others seeking shelter from similar tyranny. All in exchange for a few more votes from feeble minded little Englanders who have read in the Daily Mail that foreigners want to come over here, get their daughter pregnant, eat without cutlery and take a big poo in their drawing room. Then, they'll be off to claim their welfare money before moving in to a ten bedroom mansion in Surrey courtesy of the British taxpayer.

Michael Howard, you are an odious little turd and, although I have issues with Tony Blair and his government, I still look forward to seeing your party routinely swept aside once again on May 5th. I look forward even more to the inevitable Conservative party leadership challenge on, ooh, May 6th.

VW Polo - resistant to suicide bombers

This would have been a great, although tasteless, TV ad. It's been officially confirmed as a hoax now, unfortunately.

Set your phasers to "male bonding" setting

Did anyone else see this hilarious bit of news? In the mid 1990s (oh, those heady, carefree times) the Pentagon invested considerable time and energy researching non-lethal chemical weapons. They seriously attempted, in what reads more like a story from The Onion, to develop a drug that would make all enemy fighters irresistible to each other, thus rendering them incapable of fighting. One can already picture the enemy soldiers holding hands, lobbying for marriage rights and taking a sudden interest in home furnishings. Another one of the whacky ideas was to give guerilla fighters severe halitosis so they could not easily blend in with regular citizens (not much use if they were fighting in France, of course, where bad breath is not only common, it is mandatory). Another stroke of genius was the idea to make enemy positions attract swarms of enraged wasps or rats. Quite, quite surreal.

It all reminds me of that routine by Eddie Izzard about the original Star Trek series. Eddie suggests that having only two settings on their phasers - kill or stun - was a bit limited, so comes up with a few more that would have made things interesting: "bit of a cough" setting; "depression" setting; "ice-cream van nearby" setting; "sudden interest in botany" setting; "left the oven on at home" setting.

And people claim the military was under-funded when Clinton was President? Sounds like some people had too much money and time on their hands to me.

Anyway, the British army has had a surefire method of making its officers gay for years now. It's called "boarding school".

Condi spells it out

We've gone from the "Axis Of Evil" to the "Outposts Of Tyranny" in three short years. A slightly wider net, and a little less emphasis on abstract concepts like "evil". And who are the countries, these terrible few?

Zimbabwe
Iran
Belarus
Burma
Cuba
North Korea

What, no France?

Puritan watch

How's this for an example of an ever-encroaching puritanical streak sweeping through the most advanced nation on earth? Truly, it makes me wonder if we humans are ever going to progress when people can still get worked up about so little. Retarded is the word. Fox are going to pixelate a man's arse (or "ass") shown in a television show. Ridiculous enough at the best of times (who, exactly, is offended by buttocks? We've all got them, even family-values obsessed members of the FCC), but the show in question is a cartoon called The Family Guy. That's right, a cartoon arse is considered too controversial for US networks now. Meanwhile PBS are cutting from an imported BBC drama a scene that features (gasp!) a naked woman. It's not even a scene of a sexual nature, it's depicting decontamination after a dirty bomb is exploded. But the scene's gotta go - might offend someone and we can't have that. Thought: anyone who is "offended" by a naked human body needs help, not protection. Fuck these people, they deserve to be offended. Let's broadcast footage of bum sex into their homes 24 hours a day.

Of course, all the networks are imposing this draconian self-censorship on themselves after the furore last year when one of Janet Jackson's tits popped out during a halftime performance with Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl. What a yawnathon that story was. I'd have to say that the only thing that would interest me less than Janet Jackson's music would be a brief glimpse of one of her prosthetic breasts. Even more ridiculous were the subsequent lawsuits, with people suing networks for "emotional distress" and other nonsense. Only in America, as the saying goes.

Makes me glad to live in the UK, where we tend not to get so excitable about these things. But we also need to be on our guard. The organised protests against the BBC last week after the broadcast of Jerry Springer - The Opera should alert us to the fact that there is a vocal and mobilised puritanical task force out there operating in much the same way as the religious right in the US. It will be interesting to see where they pop up next.

Enough, already!

Please, please, please! No more talk about Prince fucking Harry and his choice of fancy dress! The hysteria surrounding this whole affair is beneath us. I've been holding out on writing anything about it because the fuss over the last couple of days merely perpetuates the fallacy that we should care or are influenced by the behaviour of the royals. To dress as a Nazi is suspect enough at the best of times, to do so when you are third in line to the throne is irredeemably stupid. So that's decided then, the prince is a halfwit. Well, there you go, glad we've drawn a line under that one.

The whole story is dragging on because it feeds two British obsessions: those inbreds we call royalty and World War II. I would be very happy if we could put both to the side for once, but no: this story is everywhere for the second day running. Usually this shit is relegated to the tabloids but it really can't be avoided today: the quality press have it on their front pages, Radio 4 has been talking about it all morning. Please, everyone, stop it now.

Whopper of the day

"Absolutely."

Gordon Brown's answer today when asked by reporters if he trusts Tony Blair. Yeah, pull the other one, Gord! You trust Tony Blair like a turkey trusts Bernard Matthews.

But more seriously. . .

In a comment piece in the Independent, DJ Taylor, himself a Christian, defended the BBC's broadcast of Jerry Springer - The Opera. Indeed, he watched and enjoyed the show, but he asks the following:

Would the BBC, you wonder, care to commission Behtzi (the play that was shut down by Sikh protests in December) for its Saturday night schedule, or a comedy satirising the Koran? No, because the ethnic minorities thereby offended take these things seriously. . . . A similar, though less widely reported, spat of this kind took place three or four years ago in Glasgow, when the local branch of HMV was found to be selling a T-shirt advertising the oeuvre of a death metal band called Cradle Of Filth and emblazoned with the slogan "Jesus is a cunt". HMV declined to withdraw the garment on the grounds that they were opposed to censorship. . . . Would HMV have been equally eager to stock a shirt printed with the words "Mohammed is a Motherfucker" or "Vishnu Sucks"?

It's an interesting point and the answer is, of course, no on both counts. They wouldn't dare. A mixture of political correctness and a genuine fear of reprisal would keep them well away from such areas. Christianity, meanwhile, always seems to be fair game. It's a blatant double standard that needs to be acknowledged.

Here we go again. . .

Some Christians and various other self-appointed defenders of public morality are up in arms at the decision of BBC2 to show Jerry Springer - The Opera on Saturday night. The controversial show, a hit on the stage in the West End for a couple of years now, was transmitted after a week of furore about its alleged profanity: 8,000 swear words, apparently. Although it transpires that this is a fabrication: somebody somewhere had multiplied the number of naughty words by the number of people saying them. Hmmm, very scientific. What has really rubbed some Christians up the wrong way, though, is a scene where Jesus reputedly appears in a nappy and admits to being "a bit gay". Blasphemy apparently, and one group is actually planning to SUE the BBC on this basis. Meanwhile, another "concerned" group of Christians published the phone numbers of BBC executives on the internet, others going so far as to issue death threats to those responsible. Now, I've never studied the bible at great length, but I'm pretty sure Jesus was against that kind of thing.

Speaking of the teachings of Jesus, whatever happened to turning the other cheek? Or, alternatively, if thine TV doth offend thee, change thy fucking channel. I watched the show in question for about ten minutes. I didn't have the slightest idea what was going on and I cared even less. It was a very simple process: I wasn't interested, so I didn't watch it. Yep, a simple process with universal applications.

The whole issue has thrown up a few voices, but by far my favourite quote has been this one by Stephen Green from the Christian Voice prayer group:

"The damage that must have been done to impressionable young people is incalculable."

Ah yes. The voracious appetite of Britain's youth for watching opera late on a Saturday night on BBC2 knows no bounds. The kids of today just can't get enough of satirical musicals. I bet the playgrounds across the land today were abuzz with the talk of nothing else. As if children need introducing to swear words anyway! They are the most foul mouthed creatures on the planet. Observe one lunch break at an average sized school and I bet it would yield more "fucks" and "cunts" than a thousand showings of Jerry Springer - The Opera.

It always astonishes me how the reactions of such a small number of people can be treated so seriously. At its peak, this show attracted 1.8 million viewers, then the next day 900 people call in to complain. 0.05% of the audience! As far as I'm concerned, 8,000 swearwords is NOTHING compared to the deluge of profanity that will pour from my mouth if I ever have to read about religious groups trying to dictate what can and cannot be broadcast on national television again.

One down, fifty one to go

So, we're 1/52nd of the way through the year. It's flying by already. More importantly, we are 1/8th of the way through Helluary and so far, despite the holiday season being over and having to go back to work, it hasn't been too bad. The blog has been neglected somewhat though, so here's a few thoughts on events of the last seven days. . .

Another dreadful week for Tony Blair. First there was all the drama about not cutting short his Christmas holiday after the Asian tsunami disaster. I must confess, I never really got what all the fuss was about here. Yes, it would have been a gesture, but what difference would it have made to the national and international response? None whatsoever. Additionally, it seems that the same people critical of this decision are the same people who accuse him of theatrics and political point scoring whenever he responds to events of magnitude. Blair's approval rating always goes up whenever he takes to the stage. In my opinion, by staying out of the limelight for a few days, he was showing a rare display of humility. What was he supposed to do? Don a cape and fly over there? Then there were the charges of the government not pledging enough money for the aid relief, while the British public continue to pledge more and more. I agree, £50 million from the government isn't enough, and surely much more will come, but let's not lose sight of the fact that whatever the government finally hands over is OUR money anyway.

Meanwhile the conflict between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown is now so obvious and so destructive, it's difficult to see who is really leading this government. Something is going to have to give very soon. This is, after all, an election year. (Probably.)

More drama at Old Trafford this week where Tottenham were denied a clear goal. In fact, if the ball was any further over the line it would have been in Yorkshire. This has obviously intensified the debate about introducing video technology into football. Seems reasonable enough to me, if this is the alternative.

More evidence gathers that the world has finally gone mad, as Germaine Greer is unveiled as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother. It's all for charity, and she is going to donate any proceeds to her rainforest fund, but still. . . . what IS she thinking? It's slightly depressing, seeing such a renowned thinker and academic participating in this circus. What next, I wonder? Stephen Hawking on Stars In Their Eyes? Dr. Robert Winston on Extreme Makeover? Richard Dawkins on I'm A Darwinist, Get Me Out Of Here!??

Then today, the news we have all been dreading: Brad and Jen announce their split. Boo hoo, sob sob, etc. Actually, this is bad news for me because I know what's going to happen now: it's going to be non-stop phone calls from Aniston seeing if I'm available. Sorry Jen, but I'm not interested. Please, just leave me alone.