media | Steve Woods

For UK, see England

02/06/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

Ever since Æthelstan became King of the English in 927 CE, some in England – starting with Æthelstan himself – have had difficulty recognising where England ended and the rest of the world began. Indeed Æthelstan meddled so much in the land of the Scots that they allegedly nicknamed him “The Bastard“.

Given the dominance of England within the Untied Kingdom, this has persisted down through the centuries that separate the present from the days of Ælfred of Wessex‘s grandson.

The latest manifestation of this Englandshire = the entire UK occurs in yesterday’s online edition of Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s unfortunate newspaper of warped record, which managed to defy both demographics and geography in one awful little puff piece masquerading as “news“.
A screenshot of the headline of the offending article is offered below.

Although Wells is described in the piece as “England’s smallest city“, there is no empirical evidence provided of its lack of size. Your ‘umble scribe used a little-known research technique called using a search engine to provide an answer; in this case 5 seconds’ work gave a census population figure of 12,000 for Wells.

However, Wells is not the Untied Kingdom’s smallest cathedral city. Cymru has two cathedral cities that together have a combined population of well under Wells’ 12,000 souls. First of all there’s Llanelwy/St Asaph (pop. 3,485) and Tyddewi/St Davids (pop. 1,751), which is actually the UK’s smallest cathedral city in terms of number of residents.

Your correspondent is surprised that today’s ‘journalists’ are not familiar with this research technique he often uses, which is recommended they use as a matter of course. 😀
For UK read England (and English)

14/05/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

On Monday the country’s best known toolmaker’s son ‘Sir’ Keir Rodney Starmer, in a vain effort to stem the flow of support for the Farage fascist fan club otherwise known as the Reform Party UK Ltd., made a major announcement on ~~immigration~~ racism and xenophobia, namely to the effect that he was in favour of both, despite a side serving of the usual ‘I’m not racist, but…‘

His speech met generally with condemnation from the left and varying degrees of praise from those on the right, such as ‘Honest’ Bob Jenrick, some of whom also believed he hadn’t gone far enough to be beastly to those pesky forrins to whom they would have been even nastier.

Anyway, this was a speech in which Starmer embraced his inner Enoch Powell, echoing phrases from the latter’s notorious and deeply offensive ‘Rivers of blood‘ speech from 2nd April 1968. Where Powell remarked that the country’s white population ‘found themselves made strangers in their own country‘, Starmer stated that the UK risked becoming an ‘island of strangers‘.
Another ill-conceived utterance in his speech was that immigration and immigrants had done ‘incalculable harm‘ to the country. In particular, this drew justifiable ire from many whose grandparents or great-grandparents had migrated to Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries along the lines of ‘how dare he…‘. This reaction from tax campaigner Richard Murphy is a prime example of this sentiment.

Quite right, Richard. They come over here and do irreparable harm by (say) keeping the National Health Service running, paying their taxes and so on.

Another facet of the toolmaker’s son’s speech centred on his remarks about the use of the English language. Starmer is on record as saying:

Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.

A remark of a similar nature and of the same import was also made on Starmer’s social media account.

Which language? Starmer is conflating English, the language of England with the whole of the Untied* Kingdom, parts of which have their own indigenous languages, like Cymraeg or Gaelic. He seems completely ignorant of the fact that modern English is the product of three waves of historical incomers, i.e. immigrants, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc. who arrived after the Romans left in the 5th century CE, Norse Vikings who settled here and the French-speaking Vikings from Normandy who invaded in 1066. There are very few words from Britain’s indigenous languages in modern English.

The fact that modern English is a mongrel language brought by immigrants also seems lost on Starmer.

However, this imperative to speak English has not gone down well in either Scotland or Cymru (where Cymraeg has equal legal status with the language of invasion. Ed.), as The National reports.

In Cymru, the radio personality, TV presenter and influencer Jessica Davies took to X/Twitter to make her feelings known.

Well done, Keir. By your racism you have shown that you are well and truly a product of your father’s profession.

* = Misspelling is deliberate.
Another Bristol Live exclusive

21/04/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics, Social Media

Another day, other news.

Your ‘umble scribe awoke this morning to hear that Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic church, had died aged 88 years.

In a situation eerily reminiscent of the demise of Mrs Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Mountbatten-Windsor in September 2022, when she had been visited just two days beforehand by a certain Mary Elizabeth Truss, the pontiff’s death comes very shortly after an audience with a certain James David Vance, who has been appointed to preside over vice by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

Social media has been awash this morning with posts about the similarities between the two deaths

However, all this speculation is pointless, as is any explanation that the pope was a very ill man.

For the real reason for the passing of the pontiff, one has to consult Bristol ‘Live’, the West Country’s newspaper of (warped) record.

Under the Bristol News header, this Reach plc title seems to have an exclusive scoop at to what or who was actually liable for Francis’ demise – West Country folk reacting.

Now look what you’ve done, Bristolians and neighbours!

Unless, of course, it’s yet another example of bad English usage and even worse journalism of the putting the cart before the horse variety.
The new British invasion

13/04/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics
One of my regular weekly listens is The Coffee Klatch presented by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse of Inequality Media.

Bob’s and Heather’s are two of the few voices of sanity I hear coming across the Atlantic from a country where the head of state wants to Make America Grate Again (or something like it. Ed.) when he’s not on the golf course.

However, what has surprised me in the last two weeks is Mr Reich’s increasingly regular use of British English vocabulary.

Yesterday, for instance, he used the rude and informal term shite to describe one of the authoritarian Trump regime’s latest outrages, whilst the week before he defined another as bonkers.

We’ll return to bonkers later.

However, it seems your ‘umble scribe is not the only one to have noticed British English. Yesterday’s Guardian drew attention to the increasing use of British English terms in the USA, particularly amongst the young.

It states:

The most common was bonkers, meaning “absurd”, which was applied to topics from politics to sports to internet trends, according to the language learning platform Babbel.

The rest of the Top Ten Briticisms are:
- Amongst, rather than “among”;
- Queue, as opposed to “line”;
- Wonky;
- Cheeky;
- Snarky;
- Cheers, in the context of thanking someone;
- Keen, i.e. enthusiastic;
- Maths instead math; and finally
- Nil.
The piece notes that this phenomenon is partly fuelled by British musicians such as Charli xcx, as well as newspapers such as the Grauniad creating US editions, as well as general “global culturization“.

However, if your correspondent were to pick holes in the piece, it would be with the following assertion:

In addition to the list of words, researchers examined the demographics of the speakers. They found that the use of “bonkers” is most common among gen Z, whose members accounted for 77% of uses in the database. People aged 66 and older didn’t use it at all. Meanwhile, 90% of “bonkers” speakers were women, and 97% lived in urban areas.

Mr Reich, like your ‘umble scribe, is over 66 and therefore incapable of using vocabulary such as bonkers according to the academic researchers quoted.

In case Mr Reich happens to read this, corrections and clarifications can be submitted to the paper should you so wish. 😀
Welcome to Birmingham

29/03/2025 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics

The Reform UK Party Ltd., the private company/cult of personality masquerading as a political party, launched its campaign for the 2025 English local government elections with a rally at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena yesterday evening.

However, the charlatan commonly known as Nigel Farage was not the only one waiting to welcome delegates to the rally.

Our old friends from Led By Donkeys were also present, projecting their messages onto the side of the building, much to the bemusement of the local constabulary (judging from the video. Ed.).

Delegates were greeted by a large picture of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (aka Vlad the Invader. Ed.) and Mr Farage, after the political activists projected the image onto the big screen, with the caption: “Vladimir and Nigel welcome you to Birmingham”.

Led By Donkeys have plenty of experience of this kind of action: just ask the disgraced – and disgraceful – former UK prime minister, one Mary Elizabeth Truss (posts passim).
In your own time, Bristol City Council!

26/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The best part of 30 years ago,the late cycle campaigner Chris Hutt of Bristol’s Cyclebag remarked that perhaps the simplest way in which mobility within the city could be improved would be to tweak the timings of pedestrian crossings so that they switched over to the pedestrian green phase within seconds of the button being pushed.

Fifteen years after Chris’ death it looks like something similar to what he suggested is finally being implemented – albeit half-heartedly – by Bristol City Council.

Today’s Bristol Post reports that around 100 crossings – i.e. a fraction of those in the city – will be changed as suggested by Chris all that time ago.The change has been described by councillors as a “cost-effective way to get traffic-calming measures” that have already proved popular on some busy roads. The setting, known as “pre-timed max”, will also be installed on new crossings as they are provided.

In addition, the tweak will only be made to stand-alone pedestrian crossings, not those associated with junctions where they are just as badly needed and could be equally as beneficial.

Commenting on the scheme, Green Councillor Emma Edwards said: “When people realised what had happened, I got phone calls saying ‘can we have one down here and there, and it would be useful here’. Residents really love them and it’s such a cost-effective way to get traffic calming measures in and to help with things like school routes.”

What has taken you so long, Bristol City Council?

Your ‘umble scribe’s best guess is that the idea was filed away in the “not invented here” cabinet combined with the propensity of highways department staff not being able to see beyond the bonnet of their respective motorised tinned three-piece suites.

Given these shortcomings, your correspondent is only prepared to give the council one extremely grudging cheer.
Telling the truth costs NZ diplomat his job

06/03/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

The BBC reports that New Zealand’s right wing new Zealand First party foreign minister Winston Peters has dismissed his country’s high commissioner (that’s Commonwealth speak for ambassador. Ed.) to London after the latter told a few home truths about the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

According to the BBC:
At an event in London on Tuesday, High Commissioner Phil Goff compared efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine to the 1938 Munich Agreement, which allowed Adolf Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia without any involvement of the Czechoslovak government.

The Munich Agreement was signed on 30th September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom (represented by prime minister Neville Chamberlain. Ed.), France and Fascist Italy and provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived.

Neville Chamberlain returned triumphantly to Britain proclaiming he’d achieved “peace in our time” and waving a piece of paper allegedly including Hitler’s signature above his head.

One of the critics of Chamberlain was Winston Churchill, who was to succeed Chamberlain as the UK’s second wartime prime minister. Churchill remarked:

You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war.

Mr Goff noted that, “President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?”

In support of Mr Goff, Trump’s woeful knowledge of history is a matter of public record. In July 2019 claimed in a speech Continental Army “manned the air” and “took over the airports” during the Revolutionary War, despite the fact that the Wright brothers’ first flight did not take place in 1903, one hundred and twenty years after the end of the American revolution.

The BBC piece describes Mr Goff as “a veteran politician who had been high commissioner since January 2023. Before that, he served for two terms as mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, and was leader of the Labour Party from 2008 to 2011. He had also held several ministerial portfolios, including justice, foreign affairs and defence“.
Nanny meets fascism

09/02/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

In 1964, Walt Disney released Mary Poppins starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, the man with the worst Cockney accent ever to be recorded for release on celluloid.

One of the film’s biggest song and dance tunes was a catchy little number sung by the two stars and entitled “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious“.

According to the song’s Wikipedia page, songwriters the Sherman Brothers have given several conflicting explanations for the word’s origin, in one instance claiming to have coined it themselves, based on their memories of having created double-talk words as children. At another time they are on record as having written the following:

When we were little boys in the mid-1930s, we went to a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains, where we were introduced to a very long word that had been passed down in many variations through many generations of kids. … The word as we first hear it was super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus.

Scroll forward sixty-one years from Mary Poppins on the silver screen and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious has become part of the English language.

Furthermore, as my social media timeline this week has revealed, the word itself has been parodied and used as a pun in connection with one person in particular, the disgraced 47th and 45th president of the United States, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is currently dealing enthusiastically and vindictively with punishing political opponents, as well as dismantling the federal government as part of his mission to Make America Grate Again (or something like that. Ed.)

Sounds about right!
Daleks preferable to Musk

06/02/2025 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

As part of the background to TV science fiction series Dr Who, which has graced TV screens since 1963, one learns that the planet Skaro, home of the Daleks, suffered a thousand-year war between two societies: the Kaleds and the Thals. During this period, many natives of Skaro became badly mutated by fallout from nuclear weapons and chemical warfare. The Kaled government believed in genetic purity and swore to “exterminate the Thals” for being inferior. Believing his own society was becoming weak and that it was his duty to create a new master race from the ashes of his people, a Kaled scientist named Davros genetically modified several Kaleds into squid-like life-forms he called Daleks, removing such “weaknesses” as mercy and sympathy whilst enhancing other behaviours such as aggression and the survival instinct.

The Daleks are just about the nastiest characters ever to appear on Doctor Who: they are portrayed as violent, merciless and pitiless cyborg aliens, completely absent of any emotion other than hate, who demand total conformity to the will of the Dalek with the highest authority. Your ‘umble scribe well remembers cowering behind the settee fifty-two years ago.

However, there are worse creatures in the universe according to your correspondent’s social media timeline.

Goose-step forward fascist man-baby Elon Musk, a man with a now undisputed reputation for gesture politics.

In a poll by British science fiction writer Charlie Stross, the South African-born man-baby and best buddy of the disgraced 47th and 45th president of the United States, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat, one Donald John Trump, is beating the Skaro aliens hands-down over the most evil incarnation of government.

You will obey or you will be exterminated!

Where’s a Tardis when one’s needed?
.
Rachel buys magic beans

27/01/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

The 1734 tale of “The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean“, better known nowadays as “The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk” in the version published in 1807, all hinges on Jack, the poor country boy and the hero of the story swapping the family cow at market for a handful of magic beans, much to the dismay of his mother.

What has a fairy tale about gullibility have to do with the current the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one Rachel Jane Reeves, who despite her qualifications from New College, Oxford (PPE) and the London School of Economics (doctorate in economics) appears to suffer from the same ailment as young Jack?

Well, Ms Reeves seems to have been sold a complete fantasy by her civil service minders in the advice given to her in respect of her proposed announcement later this week of a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport to counter any opposition, as reported yesterday in The Times.

The proposals for a third runaway at the capital’s main airport have long been a source of opposition and the latest incarnation thereof has drawn opposition from Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, London mayor Sadiq Khan and local London MPs Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick), Fleur Anderson (Putney), Marsha de Cordova (Battersea), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington) and Ruth Cadbury (Brentford & Isleworth).

And the complete fantasy bought by Ms Reeves? As justification for airport expansion, she is on record as saying the third runaway is justified because of recent aviation fuel innovations.

“Sustainable aviation fuel is changing carbon emissions from flying.”

The only drawback to her argument is that there is, of course, no such thing as sustainable aviation fuel. As reported by The Guardian in 2024, a paper on sustainable jet fuels from the Institute for Policy Studies found that expectations for these were not realistic. Chuck Collins, co-author of the report remarked as follows:

To bring these fuels to the scale needed would require massive subsidies, the trade-offs would be unacceptable and would take resources aware from more urgent decarbonization priorities.

It’s a huge greenwashing exercise by the aviation industry. It’s magical thinking that they will be able to do this.

A further study by The Royal Society in 2023 found that over half of the UK’s agricultural land would be needed to produce biofuel to meet the country’s existing aviation fuel demand.

Not only is Ms Reeves indulging in greenwashing, there's an accusation of hypocrisy on the charge sheet too. She was prepared to argue against the expansion of Leeds Bradford airport near her Yorkshire constituency due to concerns about air and noise pollution.

As The Times piece helpfully points out:

In 2020, Reeves objected to a new terminal for the Leeds Bradford airport near her constituency, arguing that it “would significantly increase air and noise pollution” and “undermine vital efforts to ensure that Leeds upholds its commitment to become a carbon neutral city by 2030.”

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