Last week this blog featured a post entitled America does irony (posts passim). However, your ‘umble scribe perhaps ought to have prefaced the title with the qualifying Some of… as rules that are not hard and fast have exceptions to them.
And here we come to a very big exception: namely the disgraced former 45th president of the United States, convicted felon, insurrectionist, adjudicated business fraudster, confirmed sexual predator, perpetual liar and serial golf cheat one Donald John Trump.
Anyone with two working brain cells and a hole in their backside can see the ridiculousness of The Donald’s position, even though the man himself – in the loosest sense of the word – is totally unaware of the fool he is making of himself, against which the so-called Bushisms, i.e. those unconventional statements, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, and semantic or linguistic errors made in the public speaking of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, look positively endearing. But then again, George Dubya is another Republican…
When parliament rises for the summer recess, the period until it reconvenes in the autumn is traditionally known as the silly season. This time of year was traditionally when the press would scramble around desperately for something newsworthy and printable.
This has changed somewhat in recent decades due to the emergence of the 24 hours news cycle driven by technological change, including the rise of social media.
However, the need to find worthwhile to publish is exacerbated when the silly season also includes a public holiday, a time when the great unwashed needs to be kept amused and entertained, which brings us to a piece in today’s edition of the Bristol Post/Live.
Yes, you did read the headline correctly. It does say 2024. Sadly, in this particular item, Bristol’s Reach plc local news title has not followed standard Reach procedure and included affiliate links to time machine providers in the copy, so those intent on visiting Bristol’s hinterland last year will have to go and look for their own, at least until the proofreader returns from holiday. 🙂
A common misconception about US citizens is that Americans en bloc cannot do irony.
This is known as stereotyping, i.e. people attributing a set idea they have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong.
The stereotyping was misproved (yet again!) earlier this week by the post below on the former social media site now known as X (mostly for the rating of its content. Ed.) in relation to the disgraced 45th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon and compulsive liar, one Donald John Trump.
The social media account of Larry the Cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, is no stranger to this blog (posts passim).
Larry has now taken to his keyboard yet again to educate an ignorant, insulting rich man who owns a social media platform to educate the latter on the letter of the law in connection with the recent fascist riots in the Untied Kingdom*.
In recent days Elon Musk, (yes, him! Ed.) has waded into the debate about rioting thugs, claiming the disturbances to be a matter of free speech, not violence and racism against vulnerable people who have sought asylum in the country.
Amongst the many replies to Musk came one from the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, a canny political operator who has so far survived the premierships of six prime ministers – David ‘Call Me Dave’ Cameron, Theresa May, disgraced former alleged party-time PM Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, one Mary Elizabeth Truss and Rishi Sunak.
Although he started out life as a stray, Larry quickly became acclimatised to the political climate in Whitehall, famously being one of those resignations which led to the downfall of Johnson, a man unfit to clean a public lavatory, let alone occupy the highest elected public office in the land (posts passim).
Larry has posted the following response to Musk’s bland and blissfully ignorant exhortation.
Nowhere in the entire report is there any mention of a driver, i.e. someone who might have been able to avoid the vehicle in question deciding to crash into the railway bridge of its own volition.
Furthermore, the byline shows that someone is unfamiliar with basic English language. It reads:
Services are at a stand.
The byline is in fact quoted from Inrix, a US-based traffic data company which now operates in the Untied Kingdom, but seems to be unfamiliar with the word standstill. If any illiterate Inrix employees happen to be passing, it is defined as a condition in which all movement or activity has stopped.
The phrase at a stand does exist, but its meaning – in a state of confusion or uncertainty; undecided what to do next – is subtly different from standstill.
An interesting mini-drama has played out on social media this morning in the wake of incumbent US president Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the impending campaign in that country’s presidential election.
The dramatis personae are as follows:
Johannes Huber, a member of the far-right AfD party who serves as a member of the Federal Parliament (MdB); and
In common with the characteristics of the species homo politicus, i.e. approaching each and every subject with an open mouth, Huber took one look at the news of Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the forthcoming US presidential election (called a general election in the USA. Ed.), got straight on to X/Twitter to post the words ‘Biden is not my President!’.
Note the exclamation mark. 😀
This enabled the FAZ to reply sarcastically to the MdB in question ‘Dear Johannes Huber MP, correct, your president is Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Best wishes‘, giving him both a timely geography lesson reminding him not so subtly that he is in fact a German citizen.
Meanwhile in the actual presidential campaign itself, Biden has formally endorsed his vice-president Kamala Harris to be the Democrats’ candidate; and Harris looks like she’s relishing the prospect of putting victim-playing egomaniac and disgraced former president Donald John Trump in his place.
Ouch!
The next few months promise to be interesting times indeed.
However, judging from the headline the means by which the victim’s rebuilt face was provided sounds brutal, almost as if it was performed with malicious intent and without the use of anaesthetics, unless of course the author didn’t proof-read his piece adequately and failed to notice the absence of a simple two-letter preposition. 😀
Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher infamously branded the leaders of the 1984–85 miners’ strike “the enemy within”.
In the wake of last weeks’ general election, there is a new enemy within; and one far more dangerous to the country than Arthur Scargill and his NUM colleagues.
There’s now an enemy within the walls of the House of Commons.
Step forward Nigel Farage and his four fellow MPs elected for pretend political party Reform UK, which is actually constituted as a limited liability company with Farage as the person with significant control and financed by perma-tanned “businessman” Richard Tice.
Disgraced former MEP Farage, who once famously had his MEP’s salary docked for misuse of EU funds, has finally become a member of the Westminster parliament at the eighth attempt. Your ‘umble scribe hopes that parliamentary watchdog IPSA keeps a beady eye on the new dishonourable member for Clacton given his past behaviour in Strasbourg and Brussels.
As is usual, social media has been awash the reactions to the general election result, including the following exchange.
There’s only a week to go until the vote for the Untied Kingdom’s general election to end 14 years of Tory misrule will be taking place.
A wipeout of Conservative members of parliament has been/is being widely predicted, which will give the opposition Labour party what is now being erroneously called a supermajority. For the sake of clarity, a supermajority is a otherwise known as a qualified majority. Older readers may recognise that what is being actually being talked of is in fact a phenomenon known as an elective dictatorship, a thumping great parliamentary majority that makes political opposition little more than tokenistic, a subject tackled by Quintin Hogg in his 1976 Richard Dimbleby Lecture.
As is usual, this general election has seen its fair share of bad behaviour, which was first documented by the likes of William Hogarth in the mid-18th century.
Chairing the Member from William Hogarth’s 1755 Humours of an Election series. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The most egregious bad behaviour so far in the current campaign has been the Conservative election betting scandal, which has so far implicated 15 Tory candidates and officials who are being investigated by the Gambling Commission for using inside knowledge to place bets and gain unfair pecuniary advantage.
However, more bad behaviour by the Blue Team was uncovered earlier today by Alan Beattie who writes opinion pieces for the Financial Times, namely impersonation, trying to pass themselves off as a different organisation, in this case HMRC.
Mr Beattie has today posted the following on the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Mr Beattie’s post contains 2 screenshots, the first of which is from the HMRC section of the government’s website, informing visitors what to look out for in genuine content and/or information from the tax authorities.
The other screenshot shows a letter to small businesses from the Conservative Party and purporting to come from an organisation calling itself Briefing for Business. Anyone who has been in communication with the tax authorities will immediately notice how the letter mimics the fonts, layout and colours used by HMRC. The giveaway is that all party political materials must bear an imprint indicating who is responsible for publishing the material and for whom they’re promoting it.
Your ‘umble scribe is aware that in the past political parties have passed themselves off as their opponents in election materials in an attempt to discredit them, but this is the first time he can remember a party trying to mimic a government department; if you know differently, please post details in the comments below.
And finally…
Don’t forget to vote and never forget that the emphasis on Conservatives is on the first syllable, i.e. con. 😀
Ever since the organs of the fourth estate starting getting rid of sub-editors to save costs and boost profits, bad journalism seems to be becoming the norm rather than the exception, as anyone who reads the press with a critical eye will quickly discover.
The European Football Championships currently taking place in Germany are already proving to be a rich source of inaccuracy (posts passim) and flights of hyperbole with no foundation.
Today’s Guardian provides a fine example today of the latter, as evidenced by the screenshot below.
For France, Grauniad; for the glory of the Republic? The prominence of for France suggests to your correspondent that the main reason for Killian having to wear a mask was patriotism, at least in the mind of the headline writer.
The BBC reports that the French Football Federation said a mask will be made for their captain, and quotes a spokesperson as saying, “He will undergo treatment in the coming days, without undergoing surgery immediately.” So there is no hint that the mask will be worn for reasons of patriotism, but every suggestion that medical and prophylactic motives are involved.
