The McCain camp is in full scale meltdown after making jibes at “the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd” (okay, I exaggerate slightly). This has lead to Wired running this rather imaginitive and amusing thread.

Truth to tell, it is an odd target of Team McCain considering the physical resemblance of their candidate:

moar funny pictures

Share This

Have I ever mentioned how much I love BBC headlines? Their obsession to bring everything into a certain word and character limit to ensure it will always fit on a line leads them to end up coming up with some remarkable turns of phrase. Take this for instance:

Clegg unveils green energy vision

I’m sure I can figure out what that’s supposed to mean, but I can’t really be bothered. The thing in my head is much more entertaining:

Share This

Just for the record, I did not write this.

That is all.

Share This

What on Earth is happening in City Hall? If you want to know if a ship is seaworthy, look at which way the rats are running. It doesn’t look good.

Today’s latest debacle suggests that he is rapidly turning into the liability for David Cameron that some of us predicted he would be:

He wrote: “If you believe the politicians, we have a broken society, in which the courage and morals of young people have been sapped by welfarism and political correctness.

“And if you look at what is happening at the Beijing Olympics, you can see what piffle that is.”

But there is only one politician out there at the moment claiming we have a “broken society” - David Cameron. To claim this is not a criticism of his party leader, as Johnson has insisted is simply ridiculous. Or, to use David Cameron’s own terminology: “It was a lie and it was treating people like fools.”

Of course, in Boris Johnson’s case, “piffle” is quite literally his middle name (okay, almost - don’t spoil the gag!). Speaking about the Petronella Wyatt scandal, which ended up being true, he had this to say:

I have not had an affair with Petronella. It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture. I am amazed people can write this drivel.

So it is perhaps not the best word he could have chosen to use to keep him out of trouble.

Share This

Frank Furedi, who I have always considered to be the sensible wing of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has attacked the decision by universities to allow students seeking placement to appoint proxies (usually parents):

Frank Furedi, social commentator and professor of sociology at the University of Kent, says that controlling parents are “destroying the distinction between school and higher education”.

“All universities now have to take the parent factor into account. On university open days you can see more parents attending than children,” says Professor Furedi.

He says there have been cases of parents who arrive expecting to attend their children’s university interviews.

Professor Furedi says that he tells parents that they have to leave, but there are other academics who “accept that this will be a family discussion”.

“There is a powerful sense of infantilism, where parents can’t let go.”

Frankly, when it comes to “destroying the distinction between school and higher education,” I think the boat left decades ago. Ever since the Thatcher government’s educational reforms which abolished Polytechnics and curtailed government funded apprenticeships due to a combination of parents wanting Little Johnny to go to university and the CBI not having a clue about what it really wants, we have been headed down this road. If you treat university as a system of prestige, you are inevitably going to end up with parental interference.

What I’m more interested in is what happens next. If we can now appoint agents, how long will it be before people start paying people to act as agents? We find this for everything else in life, from buying property through to getting jobs. And won’t it be easier for the universities to deal with agencies which have tens of thousands of people on their books, rather than sole traders? How long will it be before we start seeing this?

Of course, what that means is that we will see yet another barrier between talented people from poor backgrounds and decent university places. Mummy and daddy might be able to afford your university agent if you live in a leafy Kensington suburb, but they are less likely to have the readies necessary if you live on a crummy housing estate.

We should be more worried about this than direct parental interference. The solution is a more level playing field in which university applications take place after people already know their A-level (and/or equivalents).

Share This

If they can learn this after a bit of time in captivity, imagine what might have happened if someone had inadvertantly told them about our system of commerce? With the credit crunch being what it is, they’d have control of the economy within weeks!

UPDATE: Okay, so not all cetaceans are clever. Geez! And to think these bozos are meant to save our asses in the future.

Share This

I know I seem to be earning a reputation as a bit of a Clegg basher at the moment, but I am a bear of very little significance. Compare this with David Cameron’s latest jibe:

Asked for his favourite political joke: “[Lib Dem leader] Nick Clegg, at the moment.”

Classy. This is a quote from a book which, on the basis of the selected quotes the Beeb as listed and the write up on Amazon, seems to be drenched in hubris - something you would expect considering the author is a lifestyle journalist and editor of a glorified lads mag. I’m surprised he didn’t call it, without irony, “My Struggle.”

To be fair, at around this time in the run up to the 1997 General Election, similar books about Tony Blair began to dribble out and it didn’t do him any harm. But the effect of books such as The Blair Revolution was to make Blair look statesmanlike. I’m not sure that publishing a hagiography filled with invective and written by a regular on I <3 The 1980s will have the same effect.

Share This

Is it a coincidence that a few days after Tim Leunig apparently goes to Australia, a mayor in that country gets in trouble for saying this?

Share This

The Metropolitan Police have launched a beta version of their new crime mapping website. It’s a simple enough Google Maps mash up but I found it highly addictive.

It could be improved - for one thing a break down of crimes by type would be useful. But it does take the figures down to sub-ward level, which is particularly handy.

Overall though, my main reaction to it is probably as it should be: so what? It turns out I live in an “average” area for crime and by “average” I mean there was one recorded crime in June and three in May. Some of the areas neighbouring this crime cesspit have even lower recorded incidents. Where I work, things are slightly worse - 7 incidents in June within my sub-ward. But even then it is surrounded by more average areas. The overall picture is far from a city under seige.

For H2G2, Douglas Adams invented the Total Perspective Vortex - an instrument torture designed to show you exactly how small and insignificant you really are. While I’m sure the Metropolitan Police’s new mashup isn’t powered by a piece of fairy cake, it does have a similar effect. I know the Daily Mail were demanding this sort of thing a few months ago, but I suspect they will end up loathing it as it will (literally) put them in their place.

Share This

Alix’s announcement that the boardgame War on Terror has been seized by police worried that people might use the “EVIL” balaclava included in it for nefarious acts has got me wondering: what other subversive components lurk within my boadgame sets? I would suggest the following; if the Metro Police would care to raid my house and confiscate them they are welcome to as long as they don’t mind me mocking them mercilessly:

• Lord of the Rings Risk contains a replica of The One Ring. Invisibility would be very handy for committing criminal acts and anyone owning a copy of this game may inadvertantly be fooled into thinking that this bit of tin will enable them to hide in ladies’ dressing rooms for acts of voyeurism.
• While Ideology (note to self: second edition is out - check to see if the playing pieces are better quality than the 1st ed) also allows players to play the role of such admirable belief systems as capitalism and imperialism, it also has a darker side. Communism, Fascism and Islamism are all included and by suggesting that these have certain “advantages” the innocent may be seduced into believing such ideals. Filth!
• The playing pieces in Puerto Rico may officially be known as “colonists” but given their colour and the fact that you play plantation owners, it isn’t hard to work out what they really represent. A clear breach of the Race Relations Act. Similarly, the Robber in Settlers of Catan is unforgiveable (and let’s not get into all that “wood for sheep” business).
• Ca$h’n'Gun$ - with real, live (foam) guns. Need I say more?

And that isn’t even mentioning the fact that Monopoly turns the most sane, reasonable of individuals into sociopathic bastards. Fundamentally, with all these games out there, it’s a wonder we have a society left!

Share This