The Choice Is Yours

‘AT the next General Election, voters will be presented with a clear choice – do they want more choice or do they want more choice.

‘Do you want me to take out your appendix or your spleen?’

Parents will be able to choose which schools their kids go to; patients will be able to choose which hospitals they are taken to; and criminals will be able to choose which prison they’re locked up in.

It’ll be choice with everything – and believe us, we are going to be well and truly sick of the word by next summer.

Both major parties appear to have chosen choice as the battleground on which the next election is going to be fought.

That’s all well and good, but what of the voters who don’t want any choice? What choice have they got? Or, er, is that just the point?

Anyway, the Guardian lays out the choice on its front page – the faux-sincere Tony Blair or the smarmy Michael Howard.

Blair promises choice as ‘one important mechanism to ensure that citizens can indeed secure good schools and health services in their communities’.

‘We are proposing to put an entirely different dynamic in place to drive our public services,’ he says. ‘One where the service will be driven not by the Government or by the managers but by the user – the patient, the parent, the pupil and the law-abiding citizen.’

What about the rest of us? What about the healthy, childless, law-breaking section of the population? Who speaks for us?

Certainly not Michael Howard, who was also banging on yesterday about abolishing NHS waiting lists by giving patients choice – the choice to die before making it to hospital, the choice to spend their life savings going private etc.

Choice is not limited to NHS patients either – under the Tories, people with private health cover will have the choice of claiming 50% of their treatment costs back from the public purse.

This will in turn lead to a substantial reduction in insurance premiums, thereby giving Toby and Annabel the choice between going on holiday to Tuscany or buying little Zara a pony…’

Posted: 24th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Letter From Baghdad

”SORRY I haven’t written for a while,’ the letter goes. ‘I am afraid I have been otherwise detained.

‘This dictating business is enough to turn you grey’

‘Life has changed quite a lot for me since I last wrote. I am no longer dictating and since the Americans arrived I have had to move out of all my palaces.

‘I have also grown a beard. It’s got a few grey bits in it, but nothing that a bit of Grecian 2000 wouldn’t sort out. The trouble is it’s very hard to get hold of here. Could you send me a bottle?

‘Also, I’m down to the nasty strawberry ones in my last box of Quality Streets. I know I should have saved some of the toffees, but you know me. I never could resist them.

‘Anyway, must dash – have to go and answer some more dumb American questions. Still, I’ve been promised a cameo role in The Simpsons if I cooperate.

‘See you soon. Love, Saddam.’

The Telegraph says that during his years in power the former dictator of Iraq was accused of murdering tens of thousands of people, waging war against neighbouring states, systematic torture, using weapons of mass destruction against civilians, arbitrary arrests and a catalogue of other human rights abuses.

But in a letter delivered to his family by the International Committee of the Red Cross and made public by his lawyers, Saddam’s mind is on more mundane matters.

He asks relatives ‘to say hello to everyone’, adding: ‘My spirit and morale are high, thanks to the greatness of God’.

However, the Guardian says that nine of the 14 lines of the latter were blacked out by US military censors, with only 17 Arabic words visible.

What was contained in the deleted bits we don’t know, but Saddam’s lawyers insist that their client is being mistreated by his captors.

On his capture card (on which Saddam describes his occupation as ‘president of the Republic of Iraq’), two options regarding the detainee’s health have been ticked – ‘good health’ and ‘slightly wounded’.

As the form instructs captors only to tick one box, Anorak has learnt that the capture card itself is therefore invalid – an administrative blunder which means that Saddam will have to be set free.’

Posted: 24th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Dogs Of War

‘IT is inconceivable that Saddam Hussein has been tortured while in captivity – because that is not the American way.

‘Donald, where’s your trousers?’

President George Dubya will tell you so, and insist that he has never, will never and whatever that other tense is never authorise torture.

Of course, there is torture and there is interrogation appropriate and consistent with military necessity.

And what may have looked like torture to you and us – using dogs, forcing detainees to adopt stress positions, isolation for up to 30 days, forced shaving, stripping, hooding and 20-hour interrogations – is nothing of the sort.

They are just, as the Independent explains, interrogation methods authorised by the Pentagon in general and by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in particular.

The paper says Rumsfeld complained in November 2002 that existing interrogation techniques were too soft.

‘I stand for 8-10 hours a day,’ he scribbled on one page. ‘Why is standing limited to 4 hours?’

At the end of a hard day, Rumsfeld also likes to strip naked, put a hood over his head and whistle for his neighbour’s Alsatian dogs…’

Posted: 24th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Burning Bush

‘IT is one of those bizarre twists of logic that President Bush’s approval ratings with the American people should have peaked just after 9/11.

‘I have everything under control…’

The prime responsibility of any government is to defend its country from attack, yet Bush’s failure to do so (and his wobble in the immediate aftermath) is rewarded with poll figures of over 90%.

Go figure, as they like to say on the other side of the Atlantic.

However, as the graphic on the front of this morning’s Independent shows, the President’s approval rating has been on the slide ever since.

And now for the first time since he took office, more people disapprove of his performance than approve.

Public opinion is even turning against the Iraq war, despite the constant lies the American people have been fed about Saddam Hussein’s involvement in 9/11.

Only 47% think it a war worth fighting (compared with 52% who don’t) and a similar number think Bush will do a better job combating terrorism than his Democratic challenger John Kerry (who is a percentage point ahead).

The happy news for the majority of America who voted for Al Gore in 2000, as well as the rest of the world, is that Bush is now eight points behind Kerry in the polls.

Kerry is seen as much more trustworthy than Bush (by a margin of 52% to 39%) and as much more understanding of the problems of the ordinary American (by a margin of 56% to 36%).

What is more, the overwhelming majority of the American people believe that Kerry can remain conscious throughout the whole process of chewing and swallowing a pretzel.’

Posted: 23rd, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Reaping What We Sow

‘IF Britain finds itself in a difficult position regarding the eight prisoners currently being held by Iran, it has its American ally largely to thank.

Another day in Bush’s America

The Times publishes a picture of one of the men blindfolded and reading out a ‘confession’ on TV after straying into Iranian territorial waters on Monday morning.

And, although it says the use of blindfolds is not expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, the paper does remind the captors that Article 3 prohibits prisoners being subjected to ‘humiliating and degrading treatment’.

However, that’s hardly likely to cut much ice after the flagrant breaches of the convention by the United States at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison.

And the Guardian says prisoners in Afghanistan have also been routinely tortured and humiliated as part of the interrogation process in the same way they were in Iraq.

The paper has discovered that five detainees have died in custody, three of them in suspicious circumstances, and survivors have told stories of beatings, strippings, hoodings and sleep deprivation.

The White House insists that it didn’t authorise the use of torture, and yesterday released documents outlining its internal deliberations on the subject.

However, the legal anomaly that is Guantanamo is itself an affront to what is left of the good name of America.

And, as Democratic senator Patrick Leahy says, ‘these abuses were part of a wider pattern stemming from a White House attitude that ‘anything goes’ in the war against terrorism, even if it crosses the line of illegality’.

After all, if you start by stealing an election at home, then it’s clear that the line between legality and illegality is a merely academic one.’

Posted: 23rd, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

It’s Easier For A Rich Man…

‘CONGRATULATIONS to the Barclay brothers, who last night won the battle to become the new owners of the Telegraph group after their £665m offer was accepted by Hollinger International.

‘And this is our bronze lifesaving badge’

We are quite sure that this change of ownership will not affect the paper’s editorial independence in any way.

And that will no doubt include continued attempts to shed light on the highly secretive business interests of the billionaire brothers.

But for now the paper is just happy to welcome Sir David and Sir Frederick aboard and is fulsome in its praise.

‘We have ended up not just in safe hands,’ trilled chief executive Jeremy Deedes, ‘but with new owners who have a great track record for nurturing, developing and investing in their acquisitions.’

And editor Martin Newland is equally as thrilled, commissioning a piece explaining how the reclusive twins made their money the hard way.

(That’s the Telegraph’s way of saying they had to earn their money and didn’t just inherit it like most of its readership.)

We at Anorak would also like to add our name to that list and take the opportunity to remind the Barclays (who are worth more than £3.7bn) that if they’re in the market for a humble online magazine…’

Posted: 23rd, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Reading The Roo-ns

‘IS there any connection between Iran’s decision to seize three Royal Navy boats and detain their eight crew members yesterday and Wayne Rooney?

‘We want our Rooney back!’

Apart from splashing a picture of the latter across their front page and leading with the story of the former, the papers don’t draw any obvious parallels.

But doesn’t it seem too much of a coincidence?

The Times admits that Iran’s motives in seizing the boats, which had strayed into its territorial water along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, were unclear.

Foreign Office sources reckon that it is unlikely that the move was in retaliation for Britain’s support for a resolution criticising Tehran for failing to come clean about its suspected nuclear weapons programme.

‘They were hoping the incident – the first since the war in Iraq a year ago – was simply the work of an overzealous local commander,’ it says.

The normal diplomatic procedure in incidents like this is for us to pinch something of theirs, swap it with whatever they have and both sides come out of it with head held high.

But what will the British government do if the Iranians are playing for bigger stakes? What will happen, say, if they offer to release the eight men in exchange for…Wayne Rooney?

It is the nightmare scenario that none of the papers are yet prepared to face up to.

The Guardian says ‘the assumption in defence circles was that the incident was the result of a mistake’ – and it still may prove to be so.

But as Rooneymania sweeps the world – from Ullswater to Ulan Bator, from Teddington to Tehran – we need to prepare ourselves for the worst.

As England line up against Iran in the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa, parents point out the legendary Iranian No.9, Ebrahim Rahmati, to their kids.

‘He was ours once, son,’ they say. ‘He was Wayne Rooney…”

Posted: 22nd, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Flippin’ Rooney

‘TRADITIONALLY, England football fans like to celebrate by throwing plastic chairs and glass bottles at riot police laid on by their hosts for the occasion.

Don’t try this at home, kids

Greeks smash plates, the Irish get smashed, we smash up whatever bar we happen to find ourselves in – it is one of cultural idiosyncrasies that make life so interesting.

But all that changed last Thursday when a certain Wayne Rooney celebrated his second goal against Switzerland with a cartwheel.

Now, you can hardly move in Mumbai for Indians cartwheeling down the streets; downtown Dallas is awash with Texans ‘doing a Rooney’; and Lusaka has literally flipped in its excitement.

However, the Rooney flip comes at a cost – and safety campaigners are warning that fans could find themselves cartwheeling all the way to hospital.

‘People could really hurt themselves if they are not as fit as they used to be,’ a statement by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said.

‘The Rooney cartwheel could cause injury if not done correctly.’

However, Peter Tatlow, the Daily Telegraph’s gymnastics correspondent, points out that even Boy Wonder himself doesn’t get a perfect 10 for his performance.

‘His legs were straight, although the snap-down was poor,’ he observes. ‘I can’t see that it’s dangerous.’

However, Mr Tatlow has never tried doing it down Kuala Lumpur high street with a couple of hundred thousand other people…’

Posted: 22nd, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Running Out Of Roo-m

‘THE only people, apart from the killjoy safety campaigners, not ‘doing a Rooney’ today are the yokels who live in the English countryside.

Madonna in traditional peasant garb

This is partly because they don’t have TV in the country and newspapers generally arrive a couple of weeks late.

But it also because the countryside is now so crowded that there is barely room to indulge in the olde Englishe sport of cat-swinging, let alone do a cartwheel with quarter turn.

The Independent says more than a million people every decade are turning their backs on civilisation and opting to live with the savages in the villages and hamlets that Starbucks forgot.

Even accounting for the hundreds of thousands of people moving the opposite way in search of fame, fortune and a decent cup of coffee, net migration is running at more than 100,000 a year.

The paper says that, although the population shift has pushed up house prices, it has produced certain social advantages as well.

For instance, the incomers generate employment for local people, who can earn as much as £10 an hour being shot at by Guy, Madonna and their friends.

They also teach them important social skills like table manners, how to speak without dribbling…and who exactly is this Wayne Rooney that everyone’s talking about.’

Posted: 22nd, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Euro Facts

‘TONY Blair knows a lot about the battle between reality and myth – although in the majority of occasions recently he has been fighting in the latter camp.

‘I’m still, I’m still Tony from the block…’

The existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s ability to strike against Western interests in 45 minutes, Cool Britannia, the Millennium fireball…all were products of the Prime Minister’s fevered imagination.

But when it comes to the European ‘constitution’, Mr Blair is very much on the side of the angels as an unholy alliance of the right-wing press and politicians conspire to spread yet more myths about the EU.

The Independent this morning exposes a dozen or so claims made in the past few days about the document for the lies that they are.

For instance, it dismisses UKIP MEP Nigel Farrage’s absurd claim that Britain would have to surrender its place in Nato, on the UN Security Council and at the G8 summits as ‘fantasy’.

It castigates the Sun and the Daily Mail for selective misquoting and misrepresentation, such as the former’s claim that ‘a secret clause in the constitution would give Brussels control over our oil’.

And it shows up the claims of Tory politicians like shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram’s assertion that the constitution is ‘a gateway to a country called Europe’ for the tosh that it is.

But what can one paper do when the vast majority of the national press is eurosceptic by inclination or by proprietor’s decree?

So Anorak today promises to join the battle on the side of reality and expose three euro-myths for the bunkum that they really are.

MYTH 1: Under the new constitution, Brussels will have the power to confiscate any child under the age of 18 months and sell them into slavery.

FACT: Britain has secured an opt-out from this provision, which will apply only to the 10 countries joining the union.

MYTH 2: Under the new constitution, any Frenchman or Italian will be perfectly within their rights to sleep with your wife or girlfriend whenever they choose.

FACT: This is true, but it is no more than a clarification of the existing position.

MYTH 3: Under the new constitution, it will be an offence to be seen in public with orange skin.

FACT: As this measure only applies to Robert Kilroy-Silk and Grant Bovey, it is surely one that will be welcomed across the country.’

Posted: 21st, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Skirting – The Issue

‘THE antipathy towards anything European in this country is all the harder to understand given that our politicians have banned far more things than Brussels ever has.

Some of Year 10 were taking things a bit far

Smacking is next on the agenda, according to the Telegraph, no doubt followed closely by smoking, spitting, swearing and anything else beginning with S.

That will, of course, include skirts – and Kesgrave High School near Ipswich is stealing a march on its rivals by introducing the ban now.

New uniform regulations will require girls at the school to wear trousers to school from September to stop them turning up for lessons in miniskirts.

Chairman of the governors Margaret Young explained that an attempt to ensure skirts were of a regulation length two years ago had failed.

‘The impact was short-lived,’ we are told by the Telegraph, ‘and it wasn’t long before the skirts were very short again.

‘Parents might see their daughter go to school in one skirt, but they change to another shorter one at school or they roll up the top to make them look shorter. Some are practically pelmets.’

Some people might suggest that it was ever thus, but head teacher George Thomas says the ban was necessary because some girls’ skirts were impractical as well as immodest.

Now, we at Anorak are no experts in the finer points of women’s apparel, but how can a short skirt be more impractical than a long skirt?

Unless the problem is that some of the male teachers are having problems concentrating on their lessons…’

Posted: 21st, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Just Say No

‘WHEN the Americans were stationed in Britain 60 years ago, the joke was that they were “overpaid, oversexed and over here”.

‘How do I get this bloody thing off?’

That is not something that could be said of the new generation of Yanks entering this country – members of the Silver Ring Thing here to preach chastity.

The Times says 50 members of the group will arrive on Friday in the Surrey village of Claygate to warn teenage virgins of the risks of premarital sex.

But it looks as if they’ll have their work cut out if reaction in the Times is anything to go by.

The paper speaks to one 15-year-old boy called Owen who asks: “What’s chastity?”

Nor is the message likely to hit home with Nicola, who thinks that most teenagers are mature enough to lose their virginities at 14.

And 17-year-old Tom dismissed the Silver Ring Thing members as “churchy types” and said he didn’t know anyone who would be going.

“They make too much of a deal about sex,” he complained. “It should be seen as more of a recreational thing.”

Rather like riding a bike…’

Posted: 21st, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Oui The People

‘SO much for the United States of Europe.

‘I too cannot tell a lie’

While the nation on the other side of the Atlantic cites its constitution with pride and recalls its signing in Philadelphia with feelings of brotherly love, Europeans debate the colour of the ink in the signatories’ pen.

It’s unlikely to be orange of the Kilroy-Silk UKIP kind but, with so much conservative blue, socialist red and eco-friendly green in the inky mix, any signature is any danger of resembling a muddy coloured smudge.

What will happen to the future of European unity is being debated in the grandiose Council of Ministers’ building in Brussels.

And Tony Blair has, the Times says, laid down “red lines” in the latest Irish draft of the EU constitution, in which Britain plans to veto plans for harmonising tax and social security and to limit the powers given to the European court.

And this has upset the French and Germans, which although not bad per se – indeed, it’s pretty much guaranteed to make many Britishers smile – is unlikely to please Chris Patten.

The last time many of us saw the former Tory Cabinet minister was when he was waving a teary goodbye to British control over Hong Kong and his role as its governor.

But since then, the Times says, Patten’s been shuttling to all the capital cities of the EU’s 25 member states in a bid to whip up support for his bid to become president of the European Union.

But the stand-off between Britain and the Franco-German alliance over Blair’s militaristic red lines could mean the man who would be George Washington is in danger missing out.

While the Times notes how the Germans are trying to play down any differences, the French and their leader, Jacques Chirac, are having no problem giving vent to their feelings.

“It’s difficult to have the representative of a country which doesn’t take part in all European policies [at the head of the EU],” says Chirac.

“The ambitions that we had have been reduced, in particular over tax and social initiatives, by the very clear ‘non possumus’ [Latin for ‘we cannot’] strongly expressed by the United Kingdom.”

The French president then put the mood in a language that needed no translation, saying how Britain’s position presented a “real problem”.

Which leaves the question, if not Patten, then who? We the people of the United Europe, have, er, not the foggiest…’

Posted: 18th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Bill Of Rights And Wrongs

‘BILL Clinton’s autobiography, the heavily marketed My Life, runs to 957 pages.

How could he?

The length will put many people off reading it, especially when they realise that Clinton can drag even the most clear and concise question out to a fine point.

(Did we ever get to find out what “sexual relations” really meant?)

But the good news for slow readers, and members of the Bush clan, is that the book is sure to contain many pictures of the man in the throes of action – perhaps even some of a famous blue dress, with or without stains.

But there’s no stain on the Clinton character because, while doing the rounds for his book, the former US president told CBS that his four-year long battle with special prosecutor Ken Starr was a ”badge of honour”.

Honour might not be the first word many of us think of when we consider Clinton squirming in a chair as he was asked questions about what a 21-year-old Monica Lewinsky was looking for under his desk.

But now Clinton has seen that the time is right to come clean – hell, he’s got a book to sell.

When asked by veteran American newscaster Dan Rather why he dallied with Lewinsky, the Times says Clinton was more candid than he has ever been.

“I did something for the worst possible reason – just because I could,” says he. “That’s just about the most morally indefensible reason that anybody could have for doing anything.

“There are lots of sophisticated explanations, more complicated psychological explanations, but none of them are an excuse.”

You might well scratch your heads and wonder what those scientific non-excuses could be.

Surely there is nothing too complex about a powerful married man getting his jollies with a hungry young office girl?

Clinton’s line is hard to buy. But sex sells – and non-sex might just sell even better…’

Posted: 18th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mann Overboard

‘AS miscarriages of justice go, there can be no bigger case of mistaken identify and plain wrongness than the lot of some of our fine lads in Portugal.

‘Two goals in the last minute against the French and now this. How unlucky can one man get?’

Each time it’s the same old story: the local, foreign police are a bunch of think hotheads who, bent on violence and culturally ignorant of British ways, mistake a cheeky bunch of rapscallions in high spirits for a mob of painfully dim pissed–up hooligans.

So, it’s with our customary heavy heart that we turn to the Independent and catch up with Garry Mann, the so-called ringleader of a riot in Albufeira.

And Garry, who is now starting a two-year jail sentence for his part in the mayhem, is not being forgotten by the good people propped up against the bar at the Railway Hotel in Faversham, Kent.

“How can he be the ringleader?” asks a man not ashamed to be known as a friend of Mann’s. “He was a firefighter, for God’s sake; these guys are the best.”

How very true! That alone should secure Mann’s immediate release, but we fear the Portuguese will not be swayed from what passes for justice in their land so easily.

There needs to be more if we are to free The Faversham One. And help is one the way.

The Independent goes on to say: “Family and friends of Mann…believe he is the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and crucially, with his shaven head and muscular fireman’s build, simply sticking out in a crowd.”

“He’s in bits,” says his sister-in-law Bernadette (shaven head, heavy fireman’s build). “He’s innocent. He wasn’t even in the area when the trouble broke out.”

This is getting murkier by the minute. He wasn’t there! In which case, where was he? In a church? Taking tea in a cake shop? Saving a family and their pet cat from a burning building?

Or what about in a shop buying clothes?

If Mann was getting a new outfit, the Guardian has a cautionary tale for him and others like him as it profiles “hooligan chic”, the outfit sported by the authors of mayhem.

For anyone not wanting to be taken for a total dickhead, the Guardian lists the things you need to avoid wearing lest you be branded a hooligan and banged up in a cell.

The items are: Aquascutum cap, Hackett T-shirt, Burberry shorts, Adidas socks, Puma trainers, pint of lager, cross of St George tattoo (“often emblazoned with the name of some small market town in the Midlands”), stainless steel wristbands…

…large, yellow helmet, retractable hose, metal pole…’

Posted: 18th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Three Chairs For England

‘IT’S long been a bugbear of the English sporting hierarchy that so many of the sports in which the English excel are not part of the Olympic sphere.

‘Will mummy kiss it better?’

Where is snooker in the pantheon of sporting excellence? And why is there no darts arena being constructed in Athens?

At least the Portuguese have given the English enough beer on the Algarve to enable them to smash the place up and engage in what commentators routinely call the English disease.

Having calmed their pre-match nerves with a dozen or so pints of extra-strength lager a man, imbibed under a merciless sun, a group of English hooliganistas set about their sport.

The Times looked on as the signal to start the game – “It’s the Germans!” – was given, the customary call for Englishmen to grab hold of a plastic chair, take a firm grip on a bottle neck and start to look angry.

But first a song. “England ‘Til I Die,” screamed a man with a bulldog tattooed on his chest. “No Surrender To The IRA,” sang another. “There Were Three German Bombers,” came a third.

Here was Eurovision in action – although the only entrants were the English.

But just as the English were getting into the swing of things, the Portuguese riot police stepped in.

The Telegraph says that running battles ensued as police fought with a rampaging mob (or team) hurling those prerequisite plastic chairs and bottles.

A dozen arrests were made, and the Telegraph tells us who they were.

“These were not ill-educated and feckless young football fans from broken homes”, it says, “but studious achievers from comfortable middle-class homes as well as married men in settled jobs.”

Cripes! These idiots are the Telegraph’s target audience. And just look at the state of them – a drunken, beer-spattered bunch of narrow-minded, xenophobic berks, hooked on the war and blessed with a herd mentality.

There’s John Jackson, a university graduate, described by his tearful mum as a “quiet lad”. And John Parkes, an ancient history student and said by his mum to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And Andrew Williams, whose mum says how he’s been “brought up with a strong sense of right and wrong”.

And the pick of this mum-loving bunch is Jack Hobbs, who earns the paper’s Victor Ludorum for his part in last night’s sport.

Jack’s from Oxfordshire, where he lives in a £750,000 home with his mum and dad, and is described as a “lovely boy”.

And that’s dad, Michael, a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist who also lectures at Oxford University. How proud he must be of his boy, as are we all!

Move over Tim Henman, Oxford and England have a new sporting hero – and he’s got a plastic chair…’

Posted: 17th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)

Itching For A Fight

‘DID anyone else notice how close the English football hooligans arrested on the Algarve last night are to their mums?

‘One riot policeman…two riot policemen…three riot policemen…’

We deduce from this that they are all good boys who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Their behaviour has nothing to do with a pathetic urge to untie the apron strings, whatever the cost to a Portuguese copper’s face and England’s reputation abroad.

Indeed, these poor lads are the real victims – and today, courtesy of the Telegraph, we learn why.

It seems that more than a million Britons may suffer from what is called “restless leg disorder”.

This ruins their sleep and is manifest in a “creepy-crawly” sensation that can only be alleviated through walking around.

Dr Wayne Hemming, the New York scientist who led the study, says that “restless leg syndrome” is a common cause of sleep disruption and often remains undiagnosed.

Most of the 2,000 British patients studied said they found it hard to sit down and relax and over half claimed that their daily activities were disturbed.

Some had taken to wandering the street of the Algarve at night, their “involuntary leg jerks” causing them to kick people and chairs as they literally itch for a fight…’

Posted: 17th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

National Disservice

‘IN the old days, football hooligans would have found themselves dressed in khaki uniforms and sent out to fight for their country…with a gun.

‘Three World Wars and no World Cups…’

And such is the number of wars Tony Blair is fighting at any one time that the days of National Service could yet return.

But before they do, the Guardian has seen a report into the background to the current campaign in the deserts of Iraq.

The US commission set up in the wake of the September 11 attacks has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda engaged in any sort of “collaborative relationship”.

This is at odds with the thinking of the Bush administration. The paper reminds its readers that, as recently as Monday, US vice-president Dick Cheney was telling his supporters that Saddam “had long-established ties with al-Qaeda”.

The Independent heard the same address, and has also seen a poll commissioned by the Washington Post newspaper in which 69% of Americans believe Saddam was involved in the September 11 attacks.

The result is that, whether the message from the White House is correct or false, the majority of Americans believe the war was just.

But since some Americans still believe George Bush is a good leader and that London is the 51st state of the USA, we should not give the poll too much importance…’

Posted: 17th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Run DMZ

‘SHHH! Can you hear that? Listen harder. Still can’t hear it?

‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want…’

Well, we can tell you that what you cannot hear is the sound of silence. And not of the Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel variety but genuine silence, of the quiet, non-sounding sort.

And it’s coming from over there to the east, where, the Times reports, the two Koreas have turned off their ghetto blasters.

The paper says that shortly after midnight last night, the North Koreans and their neighbours in the south stopped broadcasting their mixture of slogans, insults and other antagonistic sounds over the Demilitarised Zone.

No longer will nefarious sounds designed to warp the mind and contort the senses (think of hearing the collected works of Stock, Aitken, and Waterman on loop for half a decade) be blasted across the great no-go area.

Not that the lyrics always attained the dizzying heights of I Should Be So Luck’ or the seminal statement of purpose that is the Reynolds Girls’ I’d Rather Jack.

Just listen to the closing message from the South Korean sound machine.

‘We believe, at this point, that we have faithfully served you who work near the Military Demarcation Line in our effort to open you up to the outside world by broadcasting various useful information and delightful music since we launched our programme in 1962.’

The closing address from North Korea was equally inspiring. ‘All kinds of propaganda activities within the DMZ area are being stopped. This is entirely the shining result of General Kim Jong II’s great unification ideology and guidance.’

Few will be downloading those onto their iPods to play on the beaches of Ibiza this summer.

But the absence of noise leaves something of a gap in the DMZ schedules and, while the sound of nothingness has its fans, we believe something is needed to replace it.

And surely that means it’s time to unleash the West’s greatest weapon in the war on communism.

Pick your way through the landmines and step under the search light, Victoria Beckham. The captive audience is yours.

‘Hello Korea! Day-vid and me are very solid. And here is my new single, a cover of Princess’s Say I’m Your Number One…”

Posted: 16th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Art Of Relaxation

‘FEELING as stressed out as a Korean border guard? Tense, nervous headache?

‘Clearing up leaves, cooking, looking after two small kids…’

Your brain packed with unexploded rage? Got an urge to scream out ‘Why me?’ at the top of your lungs, to crawl under your desk, to hug your knees and sob?

You do? Well, you need some serious help. We’d recommend that you take handfuls of brightly coloured pills but, not being doctors, we can only legally advise that you seek urgent medial assistance.

For the rest of you that muddle by and only occasionally have the desire to place your head through the computer terminal in front of you, the message is: ‘Go to Manchester.’

No, not to see people worse off than yourselves and so feel better by relation, but to pay a visit to the soothing environs of the Manchester Art Gallery.

The Times says that the venue has recruited two experts in stress management to choose pictures ‘guaranteed’ to leave even the most neurotic basket case at ease with themselves and their world.

So welcome one and all to the ‘tranquillity tour’, which invites city-centre workers to spend their lunch hours staring at a canvas.

‘Looking at art is a stress relieving activity,’ says Kim Gowland, an executive at the gallery, who wants the stressed out to chill out with paintings rather than rush round the shops.

Helpfully, for those readers not in the Manchester locale, the Times reproduces some of the collection’s works, including Durden’s Summer in Cumberland, Thomson’s Aeolian Harp by Turner and Millais’ Autumn Leaves.

Times readers can cut out and keep the calming snapshots in a wallet or other handy place where they can be gazed at moments of high stress.

The rest of us can buy some crayons and begin creating our own art by drawing on the walls…’

Posted: 16th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Comprehensive Care

‘FEAR prevents us from doing many things with a free heart…and no profession prays upon our fears more than insurers.

Richard Keys after theives stole his chest wig

‘Planning a holiday?’ asks the man in the grey suit. ‘Have a nice time…but what if the plane crashes and your hotel burns down?’

‘Buying a new computer? What if a power surge causes the keyboard to become white hot and your fingers to melt?’

‘Getting out of bed today? That’s nice. But have you fully considered the implications if you were to trip over your own feet, stumble and fall through an open window and become impaled on a garden gnome?’

No, you’re worried.

But to help us, the nice insurer has a plan that for so much money a month will ease our concerns.

So what if the odds against it happening are one trillion to one – it’s better to be safe than sorry, or dead.

Just take a new insurance policy, which, the Times reports covers some modern dangers.

The paper says that Acumen, an American insurance company, is offering Britons the chance to insure themselves against becoming victims of mugging or road rage.

There are an estimated 388,000 muggings a year in Britain, a place which, according to the British Association of Anger Management, is also the ‘road-rage capital of Europe’.

But while you prepare for carefree motoring and no longer worry about taking that shortcut home through the badly lit park, underwriters at Lloyds of London have another great deal.

The Telegraph hears that men (but not women) can now insure themselves against loss of chest hair.

A new policy provides men with cover for up to £1m for permanent loss of chest hair caused by accident.

But be warned, hair loss resulting from nuclear contamination, terrorism, mass destruction, war, invasion or revolution is not covered. And neither is loss resulting from fire eating.

Although third party, fire and theft are covered…’

Posted: 16th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

You’ve Been Kilroyed

‘THERE is something contagious about Robert Kilroy-Silk, the new East Midlands MEP. And all the papers have caught it.

‘I only touched his hand and the next minute…’

There he is on the front page of the Independent quaffing a glass of what is described as “English wine”.

And there he is in the Telegraph sipping some more. And there he is again in the Times, draining the glass to the end.

And now here he is in the Guardian talking about what he plans to do to the European Parliament when he takes up his seat, or doesn’t.

“Wreck it,” says the orangey one. “Expose it for the waste, the corruption and the way it’s eroding our independence and our sovereignty.”

And how will Kilroy-Silk launch his wrecking ball? Why, by wishing his colleague Nigel Farage a hearty “bon voyage” and waving him on his way to the heart of European darkness that is Belgium where he hopes to form a 60-strong bloc with other Eurosceptic parties.

Parties like Poland’s Self-Defence Party, Denmark’s June Movement, Holland’s Europa Transparant and the Czech Republic’s Civic Democratic Party.

It’s all very hands across the continent, and we duly wonder if European unity could not have been hastened by all of us voting for Eurosceptic parties.

These people love to talk about the perils of a United Europe, and if they can do it a large room in Brussels while downing English plonk then so much the better.

The entire event will, of course, be televised – and, with Kilroy-Silk as host, will also give the representatives of the various parties a chance to confront their other demons, like “My mother never loved me”, “Wheelie bins: Why?” and “My father’s a transsexual grocer from Copenhagen”.’

Posted: 15th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Primary Colours

‘JUST as most things in Hollywood revolve around the actor Kevin Bacon, we’ve noticed that Robert Kilroy-Silk lies at the centre of world politics.

‘I don’t think much of yours’

Kilroy is one step removed from Joan Collins, one step removed from Tony Blair (Kilroy was once a Labour MP) and two steps removed from Bill Clinton.

The step linking the orange one with the sax addict is revealed by the Guardian.

And the step’s name is Dick Morris, once Clinton’s pollster and now “the brains” behind the UK Independence Party’s electoral strategy.

The paper says that Morris is now in town to tell Kilroy how to gear up for an assault on the General Election.

And that could mean the sighting of the lovely Jan, Mrs Kilroy-Silk, the lady who would be first.

But before that great day, the Telegraph brings news of the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, who yesterday returned to the White House on important business.

It was the unveiling of the official Clinton portraits, one for him, one for her. And the Telegraph has shots of both paintings for us to examine.

In hers, Hillary is seen standing beside a wooden chair, her right hand resting on its back as if to steady herself after a nasty shock, while her left hand lies on the top of a bureau.

Bill meanwhile is standing before a large desk. This could be a risqué moment, but the artist has clearly studied the Clinton years in no small detail and, rather than have Clinton facing the desk, he turns him away.

If anyone is under there, the best or worst they can do is to kiss his buttocks.

Cue George “Dubya” Bush: “Bill Clinton showed incredible energy and great personal appeal,” says the President. “He showed a deep and far-reaching knowledge of public policy…” and so on.

Dubya then gave a plug for his predecessor’s book, the autobiographical My Life, before crawling out from under the desk and straightening his tie.’

Posted: 15th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Brum Lot

‘HOW clever it was of the authorities to ban all known English hooligans from travelling to Euro 2004 in Portugal!

Let the games begin

Thanks to their zealous planning, the louts, yobbos, ingrates and plain dickheads who wrap themselves in the Cross of St George as they smash up everything in sight got to stay at home.

Did the Football Association not realise that one of the great pleasures for non-violent football fans, and the millions more who don’t care about the national game, is gleaned from watching Gary from Staines getting pepper-sprayed and roughed up by the local plod?

The FA’s ploy means that this year Gary and his mates are free to detonate their own town centres and attack their own policemen.

And the Independent has some photos from Birmingham to prove it.

Alongside a snap of English fans taunting their French rivals before their countries’ opening match in Lisbon is a second picture of English fans confronting riot police in England’s second city after the final whistle.

Just as Portuguese police were counting the number of English fans arrested on their unbroken fingers (only one was arrested and deported) – and the FA was starting to believe that the “English disease” had been cured – police were arresting 85 people in violent confrontations in England.

The worst mayhem was in Croydon, the plain south London suburb, where around 400 dolts clashed with police…and in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where a vicar went “berserk”.’

Posted: 15th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Kilroy The Messenger

‘THE future really is orange, as the advert said it would be.

Brown is this year’s red, blue, yellow…

Although written before all the results from the European elections were in, the papers are all of a mind that Robert Kilroy-Silk’s UK Independence Party has done rather well.

Campaigning on a ticket of free sun-beds for all, the United’s Kingdom’s withdrawal from Europe and the restoration of Kilroy-Silk to the daytime TV schedules (right after Joan Collins’ Dynasty omnibus and Make-Up Masterclass), the orangey-tans made remarkable gains.

We now know that around 39% of us went to the polls and how the UKIP is on course to capture 12% of the popular vote, with the Conservatives and Labour on 25% and 17% respectively.

Besides meaning meltdown for Labour and the Tories over Europe, it gives the Guardian’s readers a chance to see how valid a YouGov poll is.

Such a poll, carried out on polling day last Thursday and now produced by the paper, suggests that Labour and the Tories will tie in first place on 22% of the vote apiece, followed by the UKIP on 20%, ahead of the Lib-Dems on 14%.

Although not bad, those results point to a significant margin of error. However, one thing the poll did get right is that when the percentage points are totted up the big two parties’ share of the vote is well under 50%.

This, the Guardian says, might well have something to do with “voter backlash” against the Government.

And it might well be a wake-up call to the Opposition, what the Eurosceptic former Tory party chairman Norman Tebbit tells the Telegraph is “a way if firing a shot across the bows” of the Conservatives.

But it might just be a sign of support for Kilroy-Silk in his own right.

And right on cue, here is the perma-tanned political tyro telling the Telegraph that, if Tony Blair signs up to the EU constitution in the face of so much hostility, “he would be treating the electorate with contempt”.

And whether you believe the electorate deserves to be treated so, such a move would do little to enhance Blair’s waning popularity.

And possibly propel Kilroy-Silk even further up the political tree. Do not doubt his ambition – as the Independent says, the UKIP plans to stand in every seat at the next General Election.

What price Prime Minister Kilroy-Silk and First Lady Collins? It’s a new political dynasty. And it’s wearing an all-over tan.’

Posted: 14th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment