It's New Year's Eve and it's party time

Last post of the year before I slip into a dinner jacket and make my way to one of South London's most exclusive night spots...




And a Happy New Year to all who pass this way

except for my friends in New Zealand, who are already long out of their heads and far, far away in Sleepy Bobo land...

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Seen outside a closed-down squat in Camberwell...

Best Photo Caption Ever? pt2

A grateful nation pays tribute to the heroic role played by the UN in saving its people...


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Christians redux

A couple of days ago I was, as I do, hanging around outside Westminster Cathedral in Victoria.

Victoria is home, of course, to London's main coach station and anyone who has had cause to use the station at any point over the last few years will have been greeted by the sight of dozens of coaches, queued nose to tail, waiting to unload their cargoes of thousands of people from Eastern Europe looking to find out for themselves if the streets of this unfair city truly are paved with gold.

Most of them, even though they soon discover that gold is pretty thin on the ground these days, move on and manage to get by. But a few don't and soon discover that a Plan for a Better Life which simply involves the following steps...

1. Get on a coach to London
2. There is no Step 2

...does have certain limitations

To cut a long story short, there are always quite a few people sleeping rough in and around Victoria. In fairness to the local council and various charities, they do get help but there are always more people taking their place

Anyway, I was standing by the 'Catholic Truth' bookshop next to Westminster Cathedral admiring its nativity scene and its fine selection of divinely-inspired cookbooks

The Whited Sepulchre bookshop, Victoria

when I noticed an interesting wee sign conveniently located at gutter level on the front door...




Not being a linguist I can only guess that the writing on the right hand side of that sign on the front door of an allegedly Christian bookshop is telling people who are down on their luck and reduced to sleeping on pavements to fuck off in four different languages



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Christians

A couple of days ago I linked to documentary about Jesus made by theologian Robert Beckwith. The central thrust of the film was that the teachings attributed to Jesus are universal and perfectly compatible with other belief systems across the globe.

I liked the film a lot because, for a welcome change, someone actually got to put up an intelligent show on mainstream TV which attempted to explore the similarities between people of different faiths, or absence of faiths. In the process the film also tried to demonstrate that being a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean being an intolerant nutcase and that, shock horror, Christianity really should be about being nice to people and doing the decent thing for its own sake

And whilst Beckwith didn’t explicitly state it, one of implied conclusions of the film was that the problem with many Christians is not that they’re Christians, it’s the fact that they’re shit Christians.

Gandhi probably put it better and without reverting to any swears…

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"

Sure, belief in a Sky God is a bit silly but it’s no sillier than, say, believing that life spontaneously sprung up out of sludge after being struck by lightning a few times

And if secular polemicists such as Richard Dawkins serve no other useful purpose it is to prove that people with religious faith do not hold the monopoly on being intolerant, and plain fucking ignorant, dicks

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The reason why I mention all this is because someone has just left me a link (thanks btw) to an internet movie called Zeigeist which attempts to make a connection between religious faith, especially Christianity, the 9/11 attacks, the War on Terror, the global banking system and elitist control of our world...





The film includes little original material and is basically a mash-up of information and clips that are freely available on the web and already well-known to people who are into that sort of thing. The most interesting part is the first third of the film which covers similar ground to Beckwith’s C4 documentary and makes a strong case that Christianity was itself a mash-up of pre-existing material and ideas.

A mash-up criticising a mash-up – oooh, the irony

FWIW my opinion of the film is that whilst it contains some very good and potentially startling factual content some of the conclusions woven around that content are totally misleading

My biggest issue is with the claim made by the film that monotheistic religion and the mindset it encourages has been the driving force for getting on for most of the Evil in the world over the last 2,000 years

Bollocks

Sure religion has often been subverted for Evil ends, but so has environmentalism, humanism, marxism, darwinism and lots of other initially well-intentioned isms I could name

If you could somehow abolish all organised religion tomorrow it wouldn't change a thing

Because people would still want to steal things off each other

And some people, the most wicked and most conniving of people, will continue to be very good at stealing - regardless of whether everyone else believes in a Sky God or not

The payload of Zeitgeist is the assertion that religion, not theft, is driving the bad things that are happening in the world. In that respect, whilst Zeitgeist purports to be a radical ‘Truth’ video, its message is absolutely no different to the Islamofascist bullshit that the Conservative Neocons and their puppet-masters are using as an excuse to rape the world


If I could be bothered I could sit down tomorrow and make my own competing film which highlights all the awful things that have been carried out in the name of atheistic secularism. The 19th and 20th centuries are littered bounteous quantities of source material. Sauce for the goose and all that...

But I won't because I think that would be a distraction.

The world’s problems don’t stem from religion, or lack of religion. They have come about because of greed and the inability of the majority of people to adequately comprehend and deal with the machinations of a ruthless, amoral minority.

When most people, Americans certainly, talk about Christianity they have one specific form of Christianity uppermost in mind - US style Christian Fundamentalism which is both intolerant and just about the least Christ-like belief system anyone could come up with.




I'd maintain that Christian Fundamentalism was created and is promoted, as with the Catholic Church, by very earthly interests. I can understand why people get wound up about religion but they are focusing on the weapon rather than the creature wielding it.

And if people keep swallowing the same old bait, crafted to divide and distract us, nothing will change

In short, whilst I think movies like Zeitgest contain a lot of interesting material and are worth watching with an open but sceptical mind, the film I’d really like to see made is the one that doesn’t fuel the eternally fruitless, divisive conflict between Christians and secular humanists but rather the film which shames the daft fucks who think they are Christians into behaving a bit more like the guy they claim to revere.

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Best Photo Caption ever?

Yet another straight rip from Lord Patel's blog but I had to have my own copy. Part of me is thinking that some children making daisy chains or a few bunnies flopping around in the foreground would have been nice additions to the scene but maybe that would have been too much...

Hostile Indian Village of the Lakota Sioux Indians, 1891

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Channel 4's JC Christmas Special

Robert Beckwith's The Hidden Story of Jesus - one hour and forty minutes of absolutely top notch viewing imho...



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Yes!!

"They were funny at first. But then they got out of hand and then I started to get scared"

A gang of about 50 rampaging students dressed as Santa have run amok at a cinema complex in New Zealand.

Staff said the Santas, who were apparently drunk, damaged property and frightened film-goers at the Hoyts Cinema complex in Christchurch by shouting and swearing.

Manager Derek Rive said the "hooligans" abused patrons, chanted obscenities, ripped down posters and knocked over cardboard figures advertising films.

Cinema patron Kate Gorman, 35, was waiting to see the movie "Enchanted" with her two children when the group arrived.

"They just caused absolute chaos. They kicked over the signs, kicked over the Christmas tree," she said.

Her children, Gabriella, 6, and Jackson, 7, had been confused by the incident.

"Jackson said to me 'are those Santa's helpers gone crazy, mum?' I said 'no, they're just idiots, basically," said Mrs Gorman.

"They were funny at first. But then they got out of hand and then I started to get scared," said her son Jackson.

Security cameras caught the action, but Mr Rive said with their hats, white beards and suits, the rampaging Santas cannot be identified.

He said he has no objections to the group coming back but only if they obey the rules.

"Apparently they were drunk or intoxicated. If they want to come back, they're welcome to. But they have to abide by the house rules like all our patrons do," he said.

As they left, the Santas triggered a fire alarm, forcing several hundred patrons to evacuate the complex for half an hour.

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.


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Stef's SuperHappyFeelGood Music Videos of the week

Ends by Everlast...



Lyrics Here (thx Tony)



Hide U by Kosheen...



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and a couple more, non music, videos which are only likely to appeal to a very select number of British people. The kind of people who'd be amused by the cast of Star Trek advertising debt consolidation services or Gordon Ramsay pleasuring himself on the toilet - the Gordon Ramsay clip is definitely not work friendly...

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The latest in South London Street Fashion

To commemorate the news that the Independent Police Complaints Commission has ruled that no-one was responsible for an innocent man being shot in the face 6/ 7/ 8/ 9 times and then subject to a cynical campaign of slander and vilification after he was executed, the Conspiraloon Alliance has just added a nifty new item to its range of fashion leezureware...




A matching stick-on beard and web browser cache full of kiddie porn are also available as optional accessories

And if you order before Christmas we'll circulate stories that you are a wanted rapist, illegal alien and crack fiend to the newspapers at no extra charge

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The Credit Crunch explained - by a man who sounds like a duck

Dr Michael Hudson

The current banking crisis is the result of a decade of freely available, low interest credit

and the only way to avoid a 1929 style crash is to cut interest rates 'far and fast'

I know this is True™ because I read it in a newspaper


So, remember boys and girls, unlike the businesses they lend to, when the banks fuck up they can't be allowed to fail and everyone else has to bear the cost of bailing the thieving scumbags out



Alternatively, you could listen to full-time Conspiraloon™ economist, and part-time duck impersonator, Michael Hudson explain what's really going (wink wink) in this mp3 file entitled 'Fighting the Class War' available on his homepage.

The interview was recorded back in August but it is still perfectly relevant because, unlike the stuff that gets passed off as commentary in the mainstream press, it's not bollocks

The file is forty minutes long and Hudson takes a while to get warmed up so it's one of those things to play whilst waxing your surfboard, shaving the cat or some other essential household chore, but the guy is spot on imho

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C'mon baby take a chance with us

"The best way to destroy the Capitalist System is to debauch the currency"

Thanks yet again to LWTC247 - this time for passing on a link to a couple of Youtube videos of Max Keiser talking about the 'death of the dollar', much of which is equally applicable to sterling. It's a good piece but I still wouldn't buy a 2nd hand car off Max (though the title of an article on his website - 'It's debt war!!! Baby Boomers versus their children!' - is pretty special)

and even if you're not particularly interested in the Death of the Dollar, the last minute or so of the 2nd clip does feature Max wandering around a cemetery near Jim Morrison's grave singing 'This is the End ...of the dollar ... beautiful friend ... la la la ...la' to himself and giggling like a total Loon.

More financial journalism should be like that






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Stef's recommended book of the month

And whilst on the subject of Wagner and the intellectual sophistication that goes with an appreciation of classical music, may I recommend the following as a perfect last minute Christmas filler...

Penetrating Wagner's 'Ring'

"Wagner's Ring cycle - "The Ring of the Niebelung" - has been described as one of the most enduring of operatic spectacles. This collection has brought together writings on the Ring and includes articles by George Bernard Shaw, Georg Solti and Andrew Porter, excerpts from Wagner's own letters and works and discourses by over 30 other writers. Covered is the tetralogy of the Ring - "Das Rheingold", "Die Walkuere", "Siegfried" and "Goetterdaemmerung" - in essays on Wagner's intention, the theory behind it, its interpretation, artistic backgrounds, historical influences, literary sources, musical architecture, modern stagings, the "Ring" in English and various styles of performance. The book is designed to serve as an introduction to the "Ring" as well as a companion to fans and performers of Wagner's operas."

Inspired, I suspect by this book being recommended by Derren Brown in his equally excellent 'Tricks of the Mind', several comments in the Amazon review section on Penetrating Wagner's 'Ring' scale new bottoms in homosexual double entendre, which I enjoyed tremendously...


"As implied by the title, this collection probes deeply into Wagner's vast Ring piece. Accusations of anti-semitism make Wagner's Ring a sensitive area today, but it continues to offer pleasure to many. This is a masterful work of musical scholarship that deserves a place on any sturdy shelf. No doubt it will influence appreciation of Wagner's Ring for many years to come. Among the highlights is the revealing chapter on the many characters than Wagner has managed to cram into his Ring. Also covered are the brass instruments that Wagner designed specifically for use within his Ring. There will always be those who are opposed to musical analysis (just the same as there will always be those who resort to juvenile humour, regarding the title). They will say that Wagner's Ring is 'violated' with excessive force of scholarship. For this reviewer, however, Wagner's Ring remains quite intact and is indeed tightened by the exploration. In short, this stimulating venture in and out of Wagner's Ring has resulted in a seminal, fluid output."


"I have read the excellent scholarly contributions by Messrs Redhart, Schwartz and Reaney, amongst others, and just had to get involved. What a subject, and what a book! The expansiveness of Wagner's Ring often leaves one panting for breath, and anyone lucky enough to have even half-probed its depths deserves full recognition. Even without the messy bits, this sixteen-hour musical epic leaves one with no alternative but to reacharound for academic help. And this book provides it, and more. Stimulating, it cannot fail to tickle the imagination as it enters the Ring from every conceivable angle--musical/practical, theoretical, historical and cultural. For fans of all things Ring-like, this is a must."


"I was disappointed to find that 'Penetrating Wagner's Ring' edited by John Louis DiGaetani, not was in fact a hitherto unknown part of Tolkin's 'Lord of the Rings'.
But the question still remains as to whether they were mates, or 'Just good freinds'?
The title of this book disturbs me. I will pray for you all this evening."

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If you're going down South they got no work to do

And in my second flagrant rip of the day from Lord Patel I refer to his post on the effective nationalisation of a certain financial institution entitled 'Northern Rock ... Apocalypse (almost) Now'

and whilst I approve wholeheartedly of his chosen Wagnerian soundtrack for the unfolding spectacle, personally I'm veering more towards Led Zeppelin, specifically...

"Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move



All last night sat on the levee and moaned,



Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home.
Going, going to Chicago... Going to Chicago... Sorry but I can't take you...

Going down...



going down now...



going down....



Still, look on the bright side, a lot less people are going to be worried about Inheritance Tax thresholds next year




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Phew! What a scorcher!

This one is so priceless it's worth lifting straight from Lord Patel's blog

Per the UK met office...


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My Messiah™ is better than yours♫ - a Conspiratune♫™

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Vocals by Kindergarten Dalek™

Video by Muncher®

(Lyrics here)

It would be fair to say that some of us out here in Etherspace are none too impressed with self-styled Messiahs putting out bollocks 'truth' videos about 7/7 which can and almost certainly will be torn apart by the corporate media as a light snack before breakfast

(btw - just because I have just linked to J7 Truth's rebuttal of '7/7 Ripple Effect' that does not mean that the above video is anything to do with J7 Truth - a group of people who have spent two years painstakingly researching the events of 7/7, filing freedom of information requests, trawling through official documentation, forcing the Home Office to change its Official Narrative on the sly, boring stuff like that. To the best of my knowledge, J7 Truth is not in the business of making silly videos and leaves that sort of thing to Conspiraloons™ and wannabee Messiahs with a hard-on for Alien UFOs, Crop Circles, Ancient Sumerian prophecies and any other old crap they can sling into the mix - and there appear to be plenty of them out there)

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The 'Credit Crunch' explained aka That's NumberWang!!

Pocket money - Weimar style...

Now seems like a good time for a quick recap on the basic Weimar 1923/ United States 1929 - 'It's the Bankers stupid' Conspiraloon™ model of what 'Credit Crunches' are really all about


aka From relative Freedom to Serfdom in half a dozen or so easy stages...

• central bankers increase money supply by creating masses of money out of thin air and lending it out at low interest rates

• prices on the essentials of life - food, water, fuel, housing - rise as a result of the massive increase in money
  

(though thanks to everything being electronic now most people don't need to buy wheelbarrows this time around)

• because the inflation is driven by increased debt not by increased income, incomes/wages don't rise at the same rate as prices

• to keep up with the inflated prices people, businesses and nations take out larger and larger loans

• the bankers put their own wealth somewhere safe (invested in essential utilities and commodities) and then sharply restrict the supply of money

• people, business and nations either go bust and sell their assets to their creditors at knock-down prices or they don't go bust but are saddled with huge loans owed to banks and which are now harder to pay off because there is less money around. Those people, businesses and nations effectively become tenants in their own homes, factories, farms and countries
  

...and that's NumberWang!!




and it's probably worth pointing out the rather obvious fact that if and when a bank does goes tits up it's more than likely that depositors (or, in the case of Northern Rock, tax payers) will lose some or all of their money but it will be a cold day in Hell before borrowers see their loans vaporise in a similar way

It's also worth noting that the German people were smart enough to realise that they had been deliberately and systematically fucked over in the 1920s but, sadly, dumb enough to be conned into blaming the wrong group of people. Fortunately, we live in more enlightened times and the chances of us being distracted into blaming all our ills on one particular innocent ethnic or religious group, rather than a small bunch of elitist fuckers, are now virtually zero

Well, maybe not quite zero

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Maybe not all but quite a few roads lead to Goldmans - redux

My new Fish of the Month, and a strong candidate for Fish of the Decade, the bottom-feeding Ratfish

It's nice to see that my old spooky psychic powers haven't eluded me

A couple of days ago I slap up a post whittering on about Northern Rock and the not so Hidden of the Market that is Goldman Sachs and today I discover (via Lord Patel) that Goldman Sachs have been 'hired to aid Northern Rock rescue'

Well fancy, fancy that

Fancy

This decision on the part of HM Treasury?/ The Bank of England/? Northern Rock's board?, which is somewhat akin to putting Vlad the Impaler in charge of a blood bank, has apparently been made because of Goldman's 'global reach'

which is one way of explaining how the world really works I suppose

That Northern Rock rescue bid in full swing...

but, fret not children, we won't be footing Goldman's bill (the least of the opportunities they now have to make lots of luvvly, luvvly money out of Northern Rock) because...

"The Treasury spokesman said the U.S. bank's fees would be paid by Northern Rock."

because, as we all know, Northern Rock has got loads of spare cash knocking around to pay Goldman's fees

Oooh, oooh, the pyschic powers are tingling again

...and they're not telling me happy things

As I, and others, have said to anyone who would listen to us, like the Titanic when it was first holed, there was an almost mathematical certainty about Northern Rock's fate which none of the distractive bullshit of the last three months could change. An unbelievably large sum of money has been effectively stolen from all of us in broad daylight and it seems more than likely that the perpetrators are going to get away with it.

And there is every reason to believe that Northern Rock is not the end of it.

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Stef's hand-selected Hardcore Internet Porn Site of the Week

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PORN FOR GIRLS!!

by Girls

brought to you by the creators of 'The Internet: Now in Handy Book Form!'


(posted in commemoration of my disappointment at discovering that HIPS was not a government acronym for Hardcore Internet Porn Site)

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That Newsnight report on Policy Exchange faking evidence...

Here's that Newsnight piece on neo-con fake think tank Policy Exchange forging evidence I mentioned a few days ago. I doubt that Youtube will be keeping it up for very long...








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7/7 Ripple Effect - now available from inside 'Mossad controlled' Google

I've written a couple of times about the Messiah-produced car crash in waiting that is the 7/7 Rippple Effect 'truth' video about what really happened (sic.) on 7/7.

And I have good cause to suspect, and I am waiting for, a very particular reason to write about it again

In the meantime, this comment from the appropriately named 'Dingbat' on the US Anti-Neocons forum gave me reason to laugh in a not particularly happy-sounding way...


"(7/7 Ripple Effect) available outside Mossad controlled Google if you follow links on this page"




a swift peek at Google will reveal that 7/7 Ripple Effect is in fact most-favoured by 'Mossad controlled' Google and Google video, unlike anyone who has criticised the movie, my humble self included, who have been bumped down on Google to a quick and remarkable, verging on the suspicious, degree in double quick time

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Maybe not all but quite a few roads lead to Goldmans

Good news for anyone looking to get a mortgage and worried about the impact of the ‘Credit Crunch’ on the ability and appetite of banks to lend them money

Northern Rock is still offering 125% sub-prime mortgages

Huzzah!!

The Northern Rock ‘together’ Mortgage

“together is more than just a flexible mortgage.

It gives you the money to buy your home as well as providing you with a cash reserve for the things you want.

All at the same interest rate.

It’s ideal for first time buyers and it’s flexible, so it changes as your life changes.

A together mortgage adapts to your needs, from helping you onto the housing ladder to moving to a bigger place, extending your home and providing extra cash when you need it. Or you might simply choose to switch your mortgage from another lender, to take advantage of together’s features.

How together mortgages work

together is different to a normal mortgage. It works by combining your secured mortgage with an unsecured loan at a single interest rate with one monthly payment. This combination can be worth up to 125% of your home’s value.

together is a mortgage which allows you to borrow up to 125% of your home’s value. It’s a bit different from a normal mortgage and works by combining a secured loan worth up to 95% of your home’s value, with an unsecured loan of up to £30,000, all at the same interest rate.”


After all the speculation of recent months, it’s reassuring to see that Northern Rock management aren’t spunking away that £30,000,000,000 of the British public’s money on toxic financial cack

And the emphasis on spelling ‘together’ with a lower case ‘t’ is also a good sign that Northern Rock focuses on the important, fundamental things and not just superficial marketing bullshit

When the Titanic started sinking the Captain did at least have the decency to turn the engines off

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Elsewhere in the entirely honest world of high finance I was touched to read this heart warming tale of three Goldman Sachs traders unselfishly battling adversity and ordering in chicken salad as they sold the US housing market short…




Three Bankers Make £2bn Out Of Mortgage Misery

Three New York traders are celebrating one of the biggest profits in Wall Street history after making a £2bn bet that sub-prime mortgages would fall in value.

The trio at Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, watched their winnings grow as the rising numbers of mortgage defaults caused chaos in a worldwide financial crisis.

Dan Sparks, 40, Michael Swenson, 40 and Josh Birnbaum, 35, bet that the sub-prime mortgage market was in trouble and scooped £1.96bn, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

Their win, one of the biggest windfalls in the securities industry in years, wiped out between £0.73bn and £0.98bn of mortgage-related losses elsewhere at the bank.

Goldman Sachs is now expected to report a record £5.3bn annual profit - and the three traders are in line for bonuses of between £2.45m and £7.34m.

The Wall Street Journal revealed how Mr Swenson would leave his home early enough to travel to the office from New Jersey and fit in a workout at the gym before arriving at his desk by 7.30am.

Mr Sparks, who commuted in to Manhattan from New Canaan, Connecticut, would leave his house by 5.30am.

With no time for breaks, the trio ate breakfast and lunch at their desks - a chicken and vegetable salad from a nearby deli for Mr Swenson and a chicken or turkey sandwich for Mr Birnbaum.

They often worked past midnight and missed weekend trips with their families as they battled with their bosses to keep their bets from being whittled away by more conservative risk managers.

Investment banks tend to keep a tight leash on traders, with memories of Nick Leeson's losses of £827m from unapproved trading which sank Barings Bank in 1995 at the forefront of their minds.

In February, Mr Birnbaum was overruled when he insisted it was the "the wrong time" to be cutting the bets. The decision was later reversed.

Other traders on Wall Street, including at Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, also bet against the sub-prime mortgage market this year, but their gains were wiped out because they underestimated how far the markets would fall.

• Goldman Sachs is, of course, the natural choice for the discerning and well-informed investor. What with its uncanny predictive abilities and all

• Goldman Sachs is, of course, the firm that was selling toxic financial products like crazy whilst at the same time betting against them

• Goldman Sachs is, of course, the firm which had a major hand in the 1929 implosion

On the positive side, Goldmans is big on supporting global warming activism and youth education and does what it can to keep senior politicians around the world in caviar and hand-jobs in the periods when they are out of office

Goldman Sachs is, of course, highly unlikely to be one of the firms that goes tits up if and when the financial markets finally melt down and will no doubt still be around for the next one

Time for a new Fish of the Month methinks...

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And one thing that is always worth remembering at times like these is that when a bank, or an oil company, or whatever, reports a profit of 1, 2, 3, 4 or £5bn, or even a loss, there are a thousand and one ways to siphon off profit before it reaches the company's bottom line.

There is no way on God's Earth that mere mortals such as ourselves could ever be able to understand just how much is being made from the misfortunes visited upon us or even who is making it

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Top Ten Messiah Update

Messiah Connoisseurs the World over will be delighted to learn that the Conspiraloon™ Alliance has just released its updated Messiah Top 10 Chart

In the wake of the ritual, and tediously formulaic, humiliation of his followers on Channel 4 last night and the fact that the World has stubbornly staggered on past his predicted end date, Michael Travesser will no doubt be comforted by the fact that he has been awarded the coveted Number One spot by the UK's leading coven of Conspiralunatics and identified as this month's One True Messiah

And We should know, We've seen a few




And remember boys and girls, when not being distracted with stories of nutcases in canoes and teddy bears or being fobbed off with bullshit whilst a group of crooked fuckers plays pass the parcel with toxic banking sludge and leaches the remaining life blood out of a critically sick financial system, never forget that anyone who espouses any kind of non-material, spiritual worldview is definitely a creepy nutcase who probably touches up small children.

Remember that and then go out and buy some shit, preferably on credit

...and no, for the life of me, I cannot quite figure out how it is that Richard, Son of Bran, didn't make it into this month's Top Ten...

Warning: No Photoshop was applied to
Richard's teeth in the reproduction
of the above photograph

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The illustrated adventures of Vince Cable

Thanks to anon for leaving me a link to a transcript of last night’s House of Commons debate on the Northern Rock farrago

It’s a long read but made easier by the cute little pictures of the participants which give the transcript a nice comic book – photostory kind of vibe. The pictures are also just the right size for prodding angrily with your forefinger

Vince Cable was, obviously, on form...


Taxpayers are already committed to the hilt; they have already advanced staggering sums. In normal circumstances, I would not dream of recommending my solution, but we are in an extremity—and in an extremity we have to look at the options. The one that I propose is the least undesirable; I shall come to the reasons for that.


...as were most of the other elected representatives who spoke – greasy, self-serving, deceitful little shits right down to virtually the last man and woman.

A selection of some of my favourite greasy, self-serving, deceitful contributions from the session…



Jim Cousins, Labour

I come back to this point. One of the real skills built up by Northern Rock's workers is making mortgage lending available to the lower end of the income scale and making those mortgages work in a sustainable way. So far, the published record indicates that the bank has been very successful in doing that. That set of skills is of enormous value to our current housing market and it would be sensible not to downgrade those skills and destroy that reputation, which would make that work impossible.



Peter Atkinson, Conservative

The hon. Gentleman has been dreadfully dismissive of the small shareholders, of whom there are 140,000. Yes, some acquired their shares on demutualisation and have been counting them as their savings for retirement. Many others, including people in my constituency, bought small quantities of shares because they wanted to support a good local business. They are the ones who will suffer. They should not be dismissed and put out of the picture.



Doug Henderson, Labour

I understand theoretically some of the points that the hon. Gentleman is making, and I have read the motion. Is he aware that Northern Rock employees do not want nationalisation? If it is difficult now to sell the business as a going concern, they wonder how much more difficult it will be to do so in future. The small shareholders, some of whom I see in the Gallery, oppose nationalisation because they would lose any value that they have.



Kevan Jones, Labour

Is the hon. Gentleman at one with the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Newcastle city council who, along with the majority of elected politicians in the north-east, supports efforts to get a solution for Northern Rock? Is he not in danger today, with the emotive language that he uses, of running down the company and making matters worse?


Plus one strange exchange where someone actually seemed to be trying to suggest something constructive for a moment...


David Drew, Labour

I, for one, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on calling the debate. Did he consider another option—the possibility of remutualising Northern Rock? Some of us feel strongly that one of the great problems of demutualisation is that it was predictable that some companies, because of the nature of the marketplace in which they operate, would overstretch themselves. Is it not time we looked at the strength of mutuals again?

Vincent Cable, Liberal Democrat

That is a helpful intervention, with which I have a great deal of sympathy. I used to be involved in an organisation called Save Our Building Societies, which campaigned against the original demutualisation of Northern Rock for precisely that reason. After a period of temporary public ownership, that might be one of the options that appear viable, but rushing into a sale now would preclude it. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.


…and then everyone went back to the serious business of being greasy, self-serving, deceitful little shits

So, remember boys and girls, Northern Rock is a superbly managed financial institution which is only suffering problems because of a) something which happened in America and b) the acting Leader of the Lib Dems, one of the handful of apparently sane and honest people in the House, talking it down all the time. A kindly, bearded and jovial man in a big balloon is shortly going to make everything alright again in time for Christmas

"Look! It's Richard Branson - He'll save us!!"

• The Virgin bid is bollocks

• As the result of a special recipe secret blend of incompetence, corruption and outright fraud, Northern Rock is going down

• Other banks and businesses are also going down

• It is going to hurt

• A lot

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Policy Exchange hate tank busted?

Last night, BBC's Newsnight aired a jaw-dropping piece accusing the 'centre right' think tank/ Lobby group Policy Exchange of faking evidence used in the production of a widely quoted report it published a couple of months ago. A report which claimed that one in four British mosques are distributing material which says that it's OK to abuse women, crucify homosexuals, eat Christian babies and generally be a bit of c*nt to anyone who isn't a Muslim

Author of the tremendously well-written and informative 'Celsius 7/7', co-founder of the Policy Exchange think tank, Tory front-bench spokesman and all-round chopper Michael Gove - very similar in many ways to his neo-con contemporaries in the US but without their charm or personality

I say jaw-dropping because this is the only occasion I can think of when national broadcast media have suggested that someone might be deliberately faking material in support of the current domestic war on terror paradigm

Why Newsnight should break the habit of a lifetime and report something like this completely baffles me. Maybe they're doing a 'Gilligan' and the whole thing is going to blow up in the BBC's face. Maybe there's a war going on behind the scenes. Who knows

but, anyway, the show is currently up on the Newsnight website here and should stay there until tomorrow night's show is broadcast (the marvellous display of synchronised Lobby-trolling currently taking place on Newsnight's daily blog will presumably stay up for a little longer)

and if anyone knows how to download a local copy of the program please please do

remarkable...

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I'm always forgetting anniversaries - redux

Thanks again to LWTC247 - this time for reminding me that today is the anniversary of the Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan in 1969



And if you don't know much about the Piazza Fontana Bombing, Operation Gladio, The Strategy of Tension and P2 that's not a surprise. This stuff doesn't get much coverage in the English media because this sort of thing only happens to foreigners in foreign lands

Yeah, right

In fact, so confident is the State Broadcasting Company that people understand that this sort of thing could never happen in Britain, and won't see any parallels or make any connections, it is happy to post up reasonably candid pieces about this kind of explosively covert behaviour when it happens in other countries...

"Over 4,000 arrests were made in the aftermath of the bombings and one of the suspects, Guiseppe Pinelli, died after falling out of the fourth floor window of the police station where he was being held.

The bombing marked the start of a series of attacks known as "the strategy of tension" between 1969 and 1974 by the right wing group, Ordine Nuovo.

Their aim was to prevent the country falling into the hands of the left -wing by duping the public into believing the bombings were part of a communist insurgency

... One of the original suspects, Pietro Valpreda, was eventually tried alongside two neo-Fascists and numerous other secret service agents in 1974, but all the accused were acquitted in 1985 following numerous trials and appeals."

and thanks also to LWTC247 for taking the opportunity to link to a brief post I made about another forgotten anniversary, this time the Bologna Station bombing, I made barely a month after 7/7.

What I continue to find truly, truly depressing is that, over two years after 7/7, this pissy little, relatively low traffic blog, originally created to share photos and the occasional knob gag, frequently figures high-up in simple Google websearches for information and photographs from 7/7 and 21/7

I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to do some basic research on 7/7 and 21/7 only to find Google returning my blog as a source





For fuck's sake

So much for the rest of the British blogging 'commentariat' - the useless, blinkered, dissonant, parochial fucks

(Ok, Lord Patel is a worthy exception and shares my passion for senior policemen trying to pass off tupperware and toothbrushes as WMDs in press conferences ...and there are a few others but not many)

All I can say is that we're just so damned lucky that this false flag terror business never takes place in Anglo Saxon countries and only happens to wops, wogs, fuzzy wuzzies and daigos - and, anyway, they sort of deserve it for being a bit foreign don't they

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The Andrew Gilligan Drinking Game

Andrew Gilligan - The 'Devon Loch' of British investigative journalism

Andrew Gilligan is, of course, the former BBC journalist whose ace reporting skills fucked up a crucial news story about the Government lies which led up to the invasion of Iraq.

In fact, Gilligan did such a good job of fucking up the reporting of such a potentially damaging story that the prospects of any further serious mainstream criticism of those government lies was given a good strong kick in the balls – the pain of which lasted for a very long time indeed

So, imagine my delight on seeing a posting on a British '9/11 Truth' board (a perversely entertaining if somewhat depressing forum) which pointed readers towards a recording of a recent talk given by Gilligan

Yes, Andrew Gilligan giving a one hour talk on, amongst other things, professional standards in journalism

You couldn’t make it up

The person who posted the link promised that Gilligan’s presentation would give an insight into how the government bumps stories out of, and presumably into, mainstream news programming (by having a journalist make a spectacular balls-up of reporting those stories maybe?)

Personally, I didn’t learn anything new along those lines whilst listening to Gilligan but I did come up with the idea for a very good drinking game

What you do is play the speech and every time Gilligan says something that is bollocks you call out 'huzzah!!' and take a small sip of your favourite intoxicating tipple

And if you’re still sober after the first 20 minutes you’re not playing the game properly

(As a slight aside, a couple of times in his presentation Gilligan points his audience towards a peculiar wee article in the News Statesman called Spies and their Lies - written by journalist David Rose. Like Gilligan, Rose is another journalist of the highest professional standards and integrity, and in his New Statesmen piece he explains how he was recruited by and shilled for MI6 over a number of years. Back then he wasn’t telling the truth but it goes without saying that we can be absolutely sure that he is now)

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And in the same vein, for people who take an interest in 9/11 and/or The Continuing Adventures of Gorgeous George Monbiot…

The George Monbiot – David Ray Griffin Drinking Game (thx to LWTC247 for the link)

Legendary Cock Jock James Whale recently hosted an on-air debate (sic.) between one of the acknowledged leaders (apparently) of '9/11 Truth', David Ray Griffin, and leading '9/11 Truth' critic George Monbiot – a man who has likened anyone who entertains the possibility of state sponsored false flag terror with plague carriers

The debate is fairly drab fare and offers much less potential for drinking game based self-intoxication but if you take a stiff shot every time Monbiot says something like ‘You’re too busy focusing on the detail to think about the bigger picture’ you should at least get a little tipsy.

If for no other reason, the recording is a worthwhile listen for 9/11 and 7/7 sceptics just to hear Griffin wax lyrical about his passion for One World Government, an objective he shares with Monbiot ... and one or two other interesting characters

It sure is great to know that one of leaders of ‘9/11 Truth’ has many common objectives with one of the leading critics of ‘9/11 Truth’.

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NEW ! Economic Disaster Trumps™ !

The Conspiraloon Alliance™ range of Trump game cards just keeps growing...






edit: a thanks to Tony for sending me a link to this blast from the not too distant past...



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Hypno-Teddy gets a canoe

I subscribe to Channel 4 News daily email

Here's a small selection of some of the more recent emails C4 has sent me...

Do you enjoy having your intelligence insulted on virtually a daily basis? Subscribe to Snowmail today!!

That's not all of them, I deleted some immediately upon receipt purely on reflex, but I think there are enough there to illustrate a point that is verging on being so bleeding obvious that it almost seems a waste of time making it

How the f*ck does this guy sleep at night?

There have been several rather blatant and shameless attempts to assist the media in its effort to distract people's attention away from Northern Rock as well as recent revelations about the corruption of our political system. The two most cynical have been IMHO...

• Our home secretary trying to scare the shit out of us with tales 'credible' intelligence which indicated that Muslim extremists were going to give us all a dose of dirty radiation for Christmas ('They hate us for our seasons')

• That video reminding us of the plight of five British hostages who have been held captive in Iraq for 173+ days who 'feel that they have been forgotten' - not any more guys, everyone in charge has started remembering you now

but, to be honest, all that stuff is just a little bit too highbrow and serious to serve as a really good distraction

What people really want to take their mind off things is teddy bears

...and nutcases in canoes

Yes, teddy bears and nutcases in canoes

...and if at all possible, bearded nutcases in canoes




Meanwhile, a group of bankers has made off with all that lovely risk and debt free £30,000,000,000 in cash that was shoveled into Northern Rock in our name and rumours are starting to appear that there's a spot of predatory market shorting of debt-burdened, insolvent high street stores taking place as well as of the debt-burdened insolvent banks which the folks at C4 News and all their fellow media idiot-whores aren't talking about

There really seems to be little doubt that something catastrophic will take place in the UK economy. It's not about 'If' any more, the question merely is 'When? - before or after the holiday season?'

Average London house prices (£) per the Halifax: Apparently, the house price bubble is entirely a result of shortage of housing supply and the market definitely won't crash but will simply settle down to a 'soft landing' - and anyway if prices do drop sharply we can just deal with any fall in demand by knocking a few thousand houses down and everything will turn out just peachy...

Meanwhile, let's not worry about the people in the know getting their mates and bitches to bullshit for a few more weeks' or months' worth of time so that they can siphon their (our) money out of their f*cked system. Let's all keep thinking about teddy bears nutters in canoes instead

Think only of the canoe...

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NEW ! IMPROVED ! the Cop Trumps™ range has been reissued

The 'Expense Accounts' deck looks like it's going to be especially popular this Christmas...




Further details, as always, from the One True Conspiraloon Alliance blog - and remember it's cash only

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Stef's recommended Christmas present of the Year

Pop over to Amazon now and read a gushing review of the classic Bic Crystal biro, a stunning buy at only 13p...

"Very good if you need to write on paper"

"....on the third day of ownership I went on a trip to London and took my pen carefully packed away in my brief case, but I needn't have worried, this isn't some temperamental ink pen that leaks when you store it at the wrong angle. I sat at my meeting and confidently removed the cap from my pen and it wrote flawlessly, almost immediately..."

The appreciative comments made in response to this fascinating and thoughtful 636 word long review are also worth reading

May I also recommend that if you're planning to buy one for the Conspiraloon™ in your life that green is always a very popular choice of ink colour

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7/7 Ripple Effect licks donkey nuts ... big time

A couple of days ago I posted about a new video about the 7/7 bombings called ‘Ripple Effect’ which has appeared on the Internet recently

As I mentioned, the film does contain some decent material (much of which has probably been sourced from the July 7th Truth website). Again, as I’ve already mentioned, my problems with Ripple Effect were twofold:

Firstly, it contains unverified assertions presented as fact which are woven into a speculative narrative (none of which was sourced from the July 7th Truth website) that is at least as flawed as the Official Narrative

Secondly, I’ve seen reports that copies of Ripple Effect have been sent, unsolicited, to people who lost loved-ones on 7/7. Combined with recent news that some of the bereaved have been sent unsolicited autopsy details by accident (sic.), I am concerned that this has all the makings of PR car crash which could reflect very badly on anyone who questions the Official Narrative of 7/7

An additional concern I have, which I didn’t elaborate on in my previous post, is the fact that the person who claims to have produced the video and sent it to the bereaved also seems to be claiming that he is the Messiah and the Rightful King of England (aka Muad'dib)...


Muad'dib’s website makes fascinating reading (not that I’m going to grace it with a link here, The Anointed One can presumably handle his own publicity needs) and the site promises some degree of Enlightenment to anyone spiritually courageous enough to send £100 (cash only) to a PO Box on the Mystical Isle of Canvey

The mystic and sacred Isle of Canvey

The Once and Future King appears to have at least a couple of devoted followers who are boosting Ripple Effect all over the place and accusing anyone who expresses concern about sending unsolicited material to murdered people's relatives of clearly being a government agent.

Oh dear

I try very hard to be a pluralistic as possible in my life and acknowledge other people’s right to hold different beliefs to my own; provided that is they stick to the Golden Rule. So whilst I do not question Muad'dib's right to make a film like Ripple Effect, just as I have to right to point out that the film contains patently misleading material and therefore licks donkey nuts, I do believe that Mr dib and his acolytes have crossed the line in sending their misleading and speculative film to people who had friends and relatives murdered on 7/7

And if it seems like I'm labouring this issue too much with two long, successive posts the simple fact is that there are interests out there itching to leap upon and make a meal out of 7/7 sceptics (as opposed to 7/7 fairytale theorists) putting even a single foot wrong. They've tried before and they'll try again

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And in an entirely unrelated and coincidental development, the Conspiraloon™ Alliance is currently working on a new deck to add to its existing range of Conspira-Trumps™ game cards...



The Conspira-Trump™ range already includes such firm favourites as Masonic Plod, and the closely related Bent Cops, as well as End Times Predictions (my personal favourite), and Fuckwit Celebrity Global Campaigners packs and now, in commemoration of the burgeoning number of self-proclaimed Messiahs attempting to associate themselves with the 7/7 Truth movement there’s a new deck in town…

Which one's your favourite?

Here’s a taster of the contents…


Further details, along with the all-important pricing information, are available at The One True Conspiraloon™ Central blog

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The Conspiraloon™ Alliance is also investigating ways to move into the lucrative and influential phone-sex market. Expect to see a range of eye-catching promotional materials in a public phone box near you; as soon as someone in the team figures out how to combine the following two images in a seamless and aesthetically pleasing fashion…


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Matthew 7:15 and the 7/7 Ripple Effect

Last week I was privileged to spend a little time with some members of the July 7th Truth Forum.

Whilst not an active member of the group myself we do share a common scepticism about the Official Narrative of the events of 7/7

I have had great respect for J7 Truth since its inception and meeting some of its core members in the flesh for the first time has only added to that respect.

The focus of J7T has always been to highlight and research the inconsistencies and omissions in the mainstream accounts of what happened in London two years ago.

Aside from an implicit premise that we haven't been the told the truth about 7/7, J7T is not in the business of promoting any particular alternate theories about what happened that day

I support that approach wholeheartedly and in spite of some fairly crude attempts at infiltration by individuals with their own agendas and acts of provocation carried out with collusion of the mainstream media J7T has adhered to this philosophy

It was also clear to me that members of J7T genuinely care about all of the victims of 7/7

On the way home from the meeting last week the one thought uppermost in mind was a sense of regret that there aren't more groups like J7T out there. The public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes is simply crying out for a group of concerned citizens getting together researching, collating and publicising the lies and omissions in the official accounts of what happened in Stockwell. Prosecutions under Health and Safety legislation in which none of the people present at the execution, either the shooters, Tube staff or members of the public, give testimony are nowhere near adequate and represent a disturbing indication of just how bent our system of Justice can be

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A few days after I attended the J7T gathering I started noticing links and references to a new 'Truth Video' about 7/7 appearing on the net

The film is called 7/7 Ripple Effect

I've watched Ripple Effect through a couple of times now and for anyone concerned about the flaws in the official accounts of 7/7 watching this video is like watching a car crash in slow motion



Whilst the bulk of the information presented in the video has at least some factual basis it is stitched together in the form of a speculative narrative of 'what really happened' on 7/7. Worse than that it is peppered with unfounded claims that certain facts have been 'proven' about 7/7 - that the widely-circulated photo of the alleged bombers allegedly taken at Luton station is a fake or that home-made explosives have been proved not to have been used on 7/7, for example




The Luton photo does indeed look dodgy and the nature of the explosives official accounts say were used on 7/7 is indeed still ambiguous but none of this has been 'proven'

This is most definitely NOT a film that I personally would show to someone I was trying wean off the Official Narrative of 7/7

Where's the mileage in criticizing the flaws of Official Narrative with a film that commits exactly the same sins?

The video is produced by a man who calls himself Muad'dib after the Messianic character in Frank Herbert's Dune. I've noticed that there has been some discussion about Mr dibs' religious views on a couple of specialist forums but to be honest I wouldn't give a damn what he was into if he had produced a decent film

'He has the Weirding Way...'

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The Number One establishment technique for subverting those who question official accounts of atrocious events is to goad them into answering the question...

'How do you think it happened then?'

As soon as anyone is daft enough to answer that question they immediately put themselves into a weakened, defensive position. Instead of being people scrutinizing somebody else's fairy tale they are transformed into 'Conspiracy Theorists', defending their own speculative narrative

This is rarely a good idea

I have seen enough evidence to indicate that we are being misled about 7/7. There is absolutely no requirement for me, and other people who can see the same flaws as I do, to come up with our own fable about what happened that day

(There is a small caveat to be made here, in that speculation is a valid tool when thinking about possible avenues for research and investigation. I wouldn't disagree but a line is crossed when such speculation is presented as being fact in the way the 7/7 Ripple Effect does)

A commonly used criticism of Conspiracy Theorists is that those who believe in nothing will believe in anything ('them who believe in 'nowt with believe in 'owt')...

Bollocks do we

The same rigour we sceptics apply to official narratives has to be applied to competing, alternate narratives. If not, we are at least hypocrites or maybe something worse

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July 7th Truth has posted a rebuttal to 7/7 Ripple Effect on its website here...

7/7 Ripple Effect - a rebuttal and rejection

And whilst I did not have a hand in the production of the rebuttal I support it totally; particularly as I am starting to hear stories that Mr dib and some of his chums are sending unsolicited copies of 7/7 Ripple Effect to relatives of people who were murdered on July 7th

WTF?!!

If an action like that isn't deliberately intended to smear anyone with concerns about July 7th as being a heartless and insensitive prick it's a bloody good impression of one

And whilst I'm not a big fan of bullshit on-line campaigns I encourage all bloggers and non-bloggers with an interest in 7/7 to watch 7/7 Ripple Effect, reach their own conclusions and keep an eye open to see if this possible wind-up of the bereaved takes place and is transformed into something even nastier

(any co-incidences with the timing of the families of the people murdered on 7/7 being sent unsolicited autopsy details of their loved ones at the end of last week are doubtlessly entirely, well, um, co-incidental)

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We don't know the half of it...

Independent journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has made it quite clear on multiple occasions that she thinks people who hang around the Internet, especially bloggers, are a bunch of narcissistic, bullying and virulent child molesters, pornographers and religious fundamentalists

Typical blogger

Yasmin is just a teensy wee bit elitist

She is also versatile and capable of spouting desperately unsound shite on a wide variety of topics

So, I must admit to being just a tad surprised that Yasmin is the first corporate commentator to square up to the rather large elephant in the living room that is the current Labour Party sleaze crisis

Yasmin has just written an article about the impact of lobbying on British political life. She focuses on the Labour Friends of Israel but, reasonably enough, widens the discussion to include all the groups of shady fuckers who are seeking to exercise behind the scenes influence on the way our country is managed

People like this guy

There is little dispute that American politics is infested and influenced by what are known as Political Action Committees and the signs are there to indicate that British politics is no different. However, the corporate press rarely talks about lobbying in the UK. Partly due to an arrogant sense that 'it couldn’t happen here' but also because the people who run our lobby groups are interchangeable with and interconnected with the people who run the media as well as the political parties

What is really puzzling me is why a member of that caste has just written and been allowed to publish an article talking about its malign influence

I’m f*cked if I can figure out what angle is being played

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To be honest, a few million grubby pounds bunged to all the major political parties doesn’t make that much difference here or there to the way the country is run.

The really interesting subjects are the more intangible ways in which popular consent is manufactured and managed.

Which is why I am one of those people who are fascinated by organisations like Common Purpose.

Organisations which, by their own admission, focus on identifying future leaders (the younger the better) and grooming them for membership of a leadership caste, whilst at the same time promoting a scary brand of soul-less, corporate ‘McDiversity’ which frankly gives me the willies

Hmmm, McDiversity good. Global corporate branding ever better...

These organisations are also characterised by their fondness for masking whatever it is they are really up to through the use of a particular brand of BollocksSpeak™ which baffles the uninitiated with an unrelenting torrent of ‘glittering generalities’.

This network of consultancies, think tanks and lobby groups are interrelated in such a way that not even the majority of the people associated with them can be entirely sure if they are part of, and subservient to, some larger hierarchy or not.

Once you’re switched onto these outfits and the kind of people they promote you can spot them virtually instantly

I fucking hate them

The top echelons of the major political parties are full of the fuckers

And if, as it seems, that membership of this particular loosely-knit group is a prerequisite for preferment then the claim that they seek to identify society’s future leaders starts to sound very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy

The latest addition to my list of fruity little clubs which seem to be part of this network came about as a result of reading the Wikipedia entry for the Leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament, Wendy Alexander

Wendy's in a spot of bother at the moment


One particular paragraph in her Wikipedia entry caught my eye…

Alexander's brother Douglas, the Secretary of State for International Development is a Labour Member of Parliament for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. Both were chosen to take part in the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (now known as the British-American Project) which was described by the journalist John Pilger writing in 'The New Statesman' back in 2003 as "a masonry of chosen politicians and journalists conceived by the far-right oil baron J. Howard Pew and launched by Ronald Reagan and Rupert Murdoch".

So, off I clicked to the Wikipedia entry for the The British American Project and…

The British American Project for the Successor Generation was founded in 1985 by Nick Butler to perpetuate the close relationship between the United States and Britain. It has a membership of around 600 leaders and opinion formers from both countries. It holds an annual conference to which journalists are not invited and rarely appears in the media, although many members are themselves journalists.

...and then onto BAPS’ scary homepage, especially the FAQ section with its disturbingly Common Purpose sounding jargon and super-fruity ‘future leader’ selection process (well worth reading)

..and then onto an article on BAPS from the Grauniad a couple of years ago, including a taster of BAPS’ membership.

It is truly heart-warming to find so many people with apparently so many different political beliefs able to come together with a common, er, objective

No surprises to see Julia Hobsbawm’s name there (well worth a few minutes Googling and worth pairing up with ‘Gordon Brown’, ‘McCann’, ‘Editorial Intelligence’, ‘Common Purpose’ for starters)

And not much of a fucking surprise to see Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on the list either…

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Spicy Adventure Stories

Here's a little something that's doing the rounds at the moment...

See anyone familiar?

It looks genuine enough and consistent with the rest of the 70 year old Spicy Adventure Stories back catalog - and to be honest I don't really care if it's fake or not


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And in other news today, Hypno-Teddy is going from strength to strength and replicas are now available on ebay

Well, when I say replicas, all someone has done is listed their teddy as being called Mohamed and a couple of dozen people have been stupid enough to bid it up to one hundred and seventy quid...



Fucking woeful

edit: 832 quid now...

edit: now withdrawn

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Good Quotes from Good Movies #427

"All this anarchy for FIVE POXY GRAND!!"

(taken from a comment underneath Matthew Parris' article about this week's shenanigans - and it's about time The Long Good Friday got a look in; what with Northern Rock, those missing disks and the David Abrahams thing all taking place in the North East of England all the movie references being made have been 'Get Carter this' and bloody 'Get Carter that'...)

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