I’ve never understood why it is that public figures who are caught with their proverbial - and sometimes literal - trousers down, are always so keen to qualify their offence as much as possible, as if it makes it any better.

So it was that we had Clinton admitting he smoked cannabis but didn’t inhale. More bizarrely, Mark Oaten earlier this year got most exercised when the Independent reported that his sexcapades with a male prostitute involved a glass table. His denial somehow made the whole sorry incident sound even more sordid.

Now we find US Evangelist and personal buddy of George Bush “Pastor” Ted Haggard admit to buying drugs and getting a massage off a gay masseuse, but deny taking the drugs or having sex with the man. Far from making it okay, you’ve got to wonder why he wasted his money.

* The title above refers to the drugs, not the gay sex. Of course.

Share This

David Cameron’s latest effort to get wit da yoot involves having tea and crumpets with a man who goes by the name of Rhymefest.

Rhymefest, who may or may not be allowed to sleep with Cameron’s wife afterwards, accuses Dave of knowing nothing about rap.

Far be it for me to stick up to Cameron here, but it should be pointed out that this photo demonstrates that Rhymefest knows nothing about the wearing of eye protection. My old science teacher, Mr Marshall, would have had a fit.

It is of course a matter of some debate as to which of these areas of ignorance is more serious, but I would suggest that knowing about rap isn’t likely to stop you from being stabbed by a 12 year old with a flicknife, while knowing about eye protection is liable to prevent serious blindness when using a lathe.

And they wonder why US industry is in decline.

Share This

I should have mentioned this earlier in the week, but over the weekend a friend of mine bought a pirate DVD of An Inconvenient Truth off some bloke in a pub. When we sat down to watch it on Saturday, the disc turned out to contain a 90-minute Fox News documentary that was all about how climate change is all a hoax.

On the one hand this anecdote is an amusing moral lesson about why you shouldn’t buy dodgy DVDs off blokes in pubs. On the other hand it did get me thinking: why would you go to the lengths of copying the wrong programme on a disc unless you were politically motivated?

I know I’m liable to be accused of wearing tin foil hats in my spare time for saying this, but is there an agenda to undermine Al Gore’s campaign by flooding the black market with disinformation?

The other DVD he bought - Superman Returns - didn’t have a Fox New programme explaining how it is physically impossible for a man to fly and lift up islands with one hand.

Share This

I watched More 4’s Death of a President last night and, to be honest, I rather wish I hadn’t wasted 2 hours of my life.

I don’t have a problem in principle with either mockumentories or a drama speculating what would happen if Bush was assassinated. I enjoyed the BBC’s If… series as well as their one-offs about smallpox and transport system collapsing. But most of these had something in common: they either explored how a supposedly unlikely to terrible event might conceivably happen, or they explore (rather more speculatively) what would happen in such a situation.

Death of a President did neither of these things. What we got instead was a rather feeble story padded out by use of the mockumentory style (authentic looking footage, lots of talking heads going over the same incident from several different angles…). It wasn’t making any serious claims about weaknesses in the Secret Service’s methods, it didn’t say anything really about the War on Terror or the civil liberty implications of the Patriot Act. The only thing it had to say was that a lot of people don’t like George Bush very much. Well, duh.

Worse, it ticked the box of every leftist prejudice going. The main suspect was a Syrian man who trained at an Al Qaeda camp. Therefore, he must be innocent. Instead, the murderer turns out to be an ex-US soldier, driven to do it because his son was killed in Iraq. In fact, far from being presented as a lunatic (who, let us not forget, inflicts President Cheney on the world for God’s sake), it actually portrayed as a tragic hero. The “villain” of the piece is clearly made out to be the Intelligence Community who lock up an innocent man, and Cheney, who nearly declares war on Syria despite having no evidence of their involvement.

Either this film has a message - in which case it stinks - or it doesn’t - in which case it is utterly pointless. I happen to think it is the latter. If instead of concocting some silly whodunnit the programme had explored the national and global consequences of what happens when the world’s most powerful man gets wiped out, it might have been more interesting, but even then I suppose it would inevitably have been politically loaded.

But at least it would have been better than the lazy nonsense I had to sit through last night.

Share This

There is a question which this article does not (dares not?) ask: how retarded must the 2 out of 5 Americans who don’t know who Homer Simpson’s son be?

If people are that ignorant about popular culture, what hope is there for politics?

Share This

No, not this news report about snogging in New York, which is innocuous enough, but the name of the correspondent.

Tory Blair? Surely someone is taking the piss?

Share This

My boss has written a nice post about the last episodes of the West Wing last night, linking it with the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s report this week on Royal prerogative.

For me, the “choke” moment of the two episodes was the bit when Bartlet gave Charlie his copy of the US Constitution. But then it got me thinking: not only do we not have a document with similar meaning in the UK, but for our government such rules are problems to be got around, not sacred limitations of their power.

Both America and the US Constitution have their faults, and the iconic status many Americans grant the Constitution occasionally strikes one as bizarre. I would certainly take issue with the way some treat it as if it were written on tablets of stone - constitutions have to be able to slowly evolve over time. But I take far more issue with those, including its current non-fictional president, who act as if it is a legalistic buffet that you can pick and choose from to suit your agenda.

In the UK, we desperately need a written constitution; the last five years of repeated assaults by Labour on our civil liberties prove that. But going hand in hand, we need a culture that values constitutional documents.

Yet the nearest thing we have to a constitutional document, the Human Rights Act, is continually under attack. We are told we have a “human rights culture” - the truth is we have anything but. A human rights culture is a culture in which people instinctively understand what rights are, not one in which the police claim the HRA forces them to give perps Kentucky Fried Chicken on demand.

The problem is, for constitutions to have that sort of ownership or resonance - for them to be able to convey that West Wing “choke factor - they tend to be borne of war or revolution, neither of which are things liberal democrats (small-l, small-d) should wish on the country. The real problem with the HRA is that it was drafted by ministers and civil servants while the rest of us were shut out. It should have been drawn up in a more open fashion and should have been ratified by a referendum - back in 1999 Labour could have easily won such a thing. If we are to have a written constitution, it has to be written by the people, for the people, and nothing less than a Citizen’s Convention will do.

Share This

I’m afraid I was somewhat underwhelmed by Superman Returns, which I saw on Saturday evening. In part, this may be because I built it up too much, being a fan of both the Richard Donner film and Bryan Singer. However, there are a number of ways in which I think the film took a wrong turn. So, Mr Singer, here’s my constructive feedback: (more…)

Share This

In this post-Gitmo world where all deaths are to be presumed PR moves, what is one to make of this?

Share This