If suicide is painless does that make the Indy spineless?

As regular readers might well recall one of my recurring ‘things’ here is newspaper health correspondents (many of them are crap) and in particular health correspondents at the Independent (who are even more crap than most of the rest). Now I have my ‘thing'(s) and the Indy has […]

Roll up your trouser legs before entering

Oh well, I thought I’d finished with the invective for today but then this turned up on the Beeb’s RSS feed… Brothel users ‘should give DNA’ Men using brothels and massage parlours should be made to give DNA samples in an effort to reduce the number of prostitute […]

The World’s Worst Round – Kay Burley Edition

If, like me, you’re a bit of an aficionado of improvised comedy shows like the classic ‘Who’s Line is it Anyway’ or ‘Mock The Week’ then you’ll know that one of the staples of such shows is the ‘World’s Worst’ round in which comedians are given a hypothetical […]

Doctors in Clover? Not really…

For as long as I can remember it has been an axiom of British political culture that the Conservative Party considers itself to be the natural party of business and, in particular, the one true political friend of the small businessman, a view that I strongly suspect has […]

Piss poor arguments and parliamentarians

First things first, let me commend Rhetorically Speaking for delivering this first-class commentary on the moral hypocrisy of the ‘pro-life’ lobbies efforts to advance a case for restrictions on access to abortion: Edward Leigh decides to kick around Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, presumably because it’s easier to […]

The Blue Max

Been playing catch-up on the whole Max Gogarty thing, you know the Groan’s gap-year dilettante who caught a good old fashioned monstering last week – check the comments under his post and you’ll see what I mean. First things first, by far the best thing to come out […]

Breaking Glass

I must admit that it’s with considerable personal interest that I note that Tom Watson has been given responsibility in his new Cabinet Office job for ‘some of the Government policy towards websites’ – meaning its own web presence and not everyone elses. Did I tell you that […]

Being A Helpful Sort…

Based on this e-mail… From: rsreply@dwpub.com [mailto:rsreply@dwpub.com] Sent: 13 February 2008 15:57 Subject: Response Source – Diana Appleyard , Daily Mail PUBLICATION: Daily Mail (Request for personal case study) JOURNALIST: Diana Appleyard (staff) DEADLINE: 14-February-2008 16:00 QUERY: I am urgently looking for anonymous horror stories of people who […]

I want my… I want my Crackberry

MPs ‘should get free Blackberrys’ A Labour MP has called for handheld Blackberry computers to be made available – for free – to herself and everyone else with a Commons seat. Sharon Hodgson, like all other MPs, can borrow a personal digital assistant (PDA) from Parliament’s IT department. […]

Hugo and fuck yourself, matey

What’s in a name, do you think? Take, for example, the name ‘Hugo’ – what kind of image does that convey? I suppose if you’re of a literary bent you might think of the great French author, Victor Hugo, while Sci-Fi fans will think of the Hugo Awards […]