This is supposed to not be about me....

...but I've transgressed that rule already. This blog is an unthemed mess, and noone really reads it :)

I seem to be a different person every few weeks, which makes planning for the future a little difficult. Actually it just goes round in circles between 3 or more personalities. It can be very uncomfortable, especially when I go through days, possibly weeks, feeling as though I am emotionally dead. But I know that it all goes in circles, a sine-curve, and sometimes I play music on stage and there's an audible sigh after I've finished before the applause starts, and I feel the way I do (or used to) when a beautiful woman shows unmistakeable strong interest , or more.

For some reason, Born Slippy seems to express this mood quite well, especially the euphoric slow chords between the manic madness.

I hope to be coming out of the malaise soon...

Sharon Osbourne: "I do think it’s quite fabulous"

What does Sharon Osbourne reportedly think is fabulous?

It's the story of a  "California woman accused of cutting of her husband’s private part and disposing of it in a particularly gruesome way after he asked for a divorce"

Fabulous eh? If you say so. And if a man mutilated a woman in some way would that be fabulous too? Is someone going to convolutedly argue that while (for example) rape is an evil crime,  mutilating a man's sexual organs is just fine!

The audience apparently shared the joke

BBC on the Murdoch story

The BBC have been focusing on this story since it broke, to the exclusion of all else in the news. I feel tired of saying this - but it has to be said again:

a) The BBC's claims to 'impartiality' are a joke,
b) All news sources make decisions about what to print or broadcast. These will necessarily be a kind of bias, but what we have here is a battle between news giants, being conducted at the expense of bringing the public news about Libya, Greece, problems with the Euro etc.

Here is one of many excellent posts on the biased-BBC blog showing how this story of questionable importance is attracting several times as much space and time fro the BBC as all other issues put together. And over and over, BBC journalists are using the story to try and put the Prime Minister's judgement into doubt, because of their own political leanings

This is irresponsible reporting and editing. People believe the BBC is impartial (including some who work for the organisation, bizarrely), as it has a written obligation to try to be.

In fact exactly the opposite is the case, and its entire news agenda has been dominated by a a story fuelled by inter-journalistic rivalry and schadenfreude.

The Murdoch papers are running scared - the Telegraph is also run by anti-Murdoch elements (by being successful and ruthless, he's just made too many enemies) and are not doing enough - apart from an excellent piece by Janet Daley

Spread the word. Everyone needs to understand this.

Will Self attracting amusement again

A ludicrous piece of writing appeared in the Guardian very recently written by Mr Will Self. It is his commentary on the closure of the News of the World and one of such pretentiousness that I almost achieved Nirvana reading it. At least I was aware of being on quite a different level of consciousness after reading it, to the one I started off with before I was unsuspectingly drawn to this abomination.

The subtitle of the piece will give you a clue:

"We are in a strange interregnum of titillation between cultural hegemonies, before familiar hierarchies appear online"

Now I quote the late, great George Carlin here: "that is what is known as being STUNNINGLY, EMBARASSINGLY full of s**t". There's plenty of it, too :) Here is some more

"key to an understanding of how this interregnum is eating holes in the British social fabric"

Which led the way for my personal favourite from the 100s of bewildered comments. This from someone calling himself DannyKen:

"Blimey, Will. You don't so much mix your metaphors as put them in a blender"

I too commented on the images this put in my head. Someone is having a laugh here, surely?

Poor old Johann Hari

...so it seems to me. Guido Fawkes has really got stuck in - as is his wont*. He's not the only one. British journalism does not seem to be replete with the milk of human kindness...**

I suppose we look back with rose-tinted spectacles at the greatness of George Orwell. Maybe when our descendants look back at this era with the telescopic view of 100 years in the future, another figure will seem equally great to them. Nevertheless, I doubt any of the recipients of the prize named after him will be that figure (Polly Toynbee is one who comes to mind, how did she get the prize? She and Laurie Penny came to Hari's defence yesterday. Not a roll-call of my favourite journalists, I'm afraid)

There's a good quote here, from Splintered Sunrise, on the whole business:

Which is not to say (and I’m trying to be scrupulously fair here) that Toni Negri or Malalai Joya might not have said something to Hari similar to what he quoted – he’d simply lifted his quotes from elsewhere because they evidently read better than what he had on tape. Which, as it happens, is the explanation given by Hari himself in his remarkably pompous blog post (“intellectual portraiture”, forsooth) owning up to this sharp practice

It's a decent, and I think balanced, post to read about the whole business

*though I do look at Guido's blog fairly regularly to er..keep an eye on things

**I'm not sure about the quality of writing there :S

Thoughts for the day

Themed blogs are not conducive to rational discussion. Exactly the opposite is the case: they seem to allow people free rein to their prejudices. Over and over I see a voice that slightly deviates from the line taken in a blog construed as "trollish". I myself have just been accused of "wanting to start a fight" because I sounded a note of mild context-giving to a particular debate on a BBC-bias blog.

It was the same behaviour I've seen before, and it is anti-debate, anti-rational. People will simply become yet more entrenched in their lopsided views as a result. There's no doubt a blog or site for every misguided world-view around, so you can agree with like-minded people instead of having your views challenged and in the realest sense possible 'rationalised'

Hallelujah!

I am not alone! Why did it take me so long to find these people....

So I've been going on about the BBC left-wing bias for a while now, feeling as though
a)  I was micturating into the wind, and
b) no one else thought the same way.

Well I was wrong, and my web-searches were inadequate. There is Biased BBC, and also see the comments in David Thompson's blog post here.