Given the alleged home secretary’s widely reported, callous and ill-conceived remarks that homeless people living in tents was a ‘lifestyle choice‘, this blog thought it only appropriate to come up with a musical response to the latest vile political utterance spouted by this amateur human being.
So here’s a dedication to Cruella Braverman from 1969, long before her assumed conception, courtesy of the wonderfully anarchic Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, also known affectionately as the Bonzos.
And if you’d like to sing along, Ms Braverman, here’s a link to the lyrics.
Finally, beware the saxophone solo,#; it’ll strip paint off your walls!
In what clearly counts as an instance of buyer’s remorse, today’s inews carries a piece about two Britons – one in his thirties and from Bristol, the other a pensioner from Winchester, who both voted for Brexit and now seem surprised they cannot get visas to live permanently in their respective properties, as per the screenshot below of the report’s headline and byline.
Both are now suffering remorse and a feeling of betrayal (remember all those smooth-talking right-wing politicians who lied to the public saying nothing would really changed in our relationship with the EU and its member states? Ed.).
As defined by the dictionary, the phrase buyer’s remorse has two meanings:
a sense of regret or uneasiness after having purchased a house, car, or other major item; and
a sense of regret after having committed to an endorsement, policy, plan of action, etc.
Either of both of those definitions may be applicable in these two instances.
These stories have a moral, i.e. think before you vote (bearing in mind that all politicians lie. Ed.) and always remember the law of unexpected consequences.
The Shropshire Star is a local newspaper serving the county where your ‘umble scribe was born. However, its role in the field of science – and the discipline of asinine anatomy in particular – has not previously been recognised.
Until now, that is.
On Friday the Star carried a report of a donkey with its back legs and rear stuck in a storm drain somewhere undisclosed in the vicinity of Market Drayton, your correspondent’s home town.
The incident was attended by crews from Market Drayton, Telford Central and Wellington fire stations, who were able to extract the donkey called Amigo from the drain.
The Star was so pleased with its contribution to asinine anatomy and veterinary science that it incorporated it into its headline: Firefighters rush to rescue donkey stuck waist-deep in storm drain,
Here’s a donkey. Spot the waist. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The EU Commission has announced it has sent a request for information to social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, under the Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). It follows indications of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech. Furthermore, the request also concerns compliance with other provisions of the DSA
The Commission reports it is investigating X’s compliance with the DSA, including the following:
Policies and practices regarding notices on illegal content;
Complaint handling; and
Risk assessment measures to mitigate the risks identified.
X needs to provide the requested information to the Commission by 18 October 2023 for questions related to the activation and functioning of X’s crisis response protocol and by 31 October 2023 on the rest. Based on the assessment of the replies, the Commission will assess next steps. This could entail the formal opening of proceedings under Article 66 of the DSA.
The Commission can impose fines for incorrect, incomplete or misleading information in response to a request for information under Article 74 (2) of the DSA. If X does not reply, the Commission may decide to request the information by decision. In this case, failure to reply by the deadline could lead to the imposition of period penalties.
Your ‘umble scribe believes that the platform owner’s normal response to those he does not like – a turd emoji – will not placate the inhabitants of the Berlaymont building in Brussels (posts passim).
One time long ago there was a county called Gloucestershire. It was a large county that included the city of Bristol as one of its major centres of population. However, that all changed in 1373 when Bristol was granted county status in its own right by the king through the usual expedient of paying him a sufficiently large quantity of cash.
However, that has now all changed and Bristol is once again in the embrace of Gloucestershire, even though the news has been suppressed and can only be found by a creful reading of the Bristol Live website, where it appears in a piece by Emma Flanagan inviting readers to vote for their favourite Chinese takeaways.
The headline to the article asks Where can you get the best Chinese takeaway in Bristol?. There’s no mention there about the city being returned to its former historical county 650 years after making its escape from the clutches of the county that grew up based on the old Roman settlement of Glevum.
The clue to Bristol returning to Gloucestershire is well concealed, hiding in the photo caption near the top of piece; it reads Tell us the best Chinese takeaway in Gloucestershire and we’ll crown a winner.
Will this mean a change in the city’s extortionate rate of council tax? Better public services? Improved public transport? Not a word mentioned.
No corresponding article asking readers to rate Chinese takeaways in Bristol has been found on Bristol Live’s sister title, Gloucestershire Live (so far. Ed.), so this dreadful piece of copy has not been shared with other Reach publications.
Moving Bristol to Gloucestershire was not the only inaccuracy of the geographical kind appearing on the Bristol Live website today. By some strange alteration in geophysical forces, the city has been moved from nestling on the banks of the Bristol Avon to those of the mighty Severn/Hafren, as per the screenshot below.
Since this morning the text of the headline has now been changed to read Five-star Severn Bore live as ‘the greatest ride on earth’ rolls through West Country.
If the Bristol Live website ever had a corrections and clarifications column, it would be several times larger than the paper’s website! 😀
When your correspondent was enjoying a pint at a quayside pub down Bristol’s city docks (which some call the ‘Harbourside’. Ed.) some years ago, the subject of boats came up somehow, along with a fine adage, i.e. “a boat is a hole in the water into which you shovel money“.
Yesterday in on the banks of the Avon in Bath, quite near the railway station, your ‘umble scribe came across evidence of what happens when one stops shovelling money into that hole in the water…
Local news titles owned by Reach plc, which also owns the Daily Mirror and Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) frequently share stories so frequently that anyone would think either that slow news days were commonplace or that the the country’s major cities had annexed vast swathes of territory well removed from their location.
An example of this practice occurred earlier this week in the Bristol Post, supposedly the city’s (former) newspaper of record, as per the following screenshot.
Last time your ‘umble scribe looked, Fowey in Cornwall was not – and has no intentions of being – a suburb of Bristol. The entire story has been copied and pasted en bloc from Cornwall Live, a sister title to the Bristol Post/Live, including a glaring spelling error – busses – in both the headline and the copy.
That spelling error is one that should have been eradicated in primary school, not allowed to persist into the professional life of an alleged ‘journalist‘.
Your correspondent recalls talking to a former sub-editor some years ago, who was then lecturing at the University of the West of England, teaching online journalism to media studies students. He remarked that before before he could start training them in how to report stuff online, he had to teach them basic English first!
On Thursday the perpetual victim otherwise known as the disgraced 45th President of the United States of America, one Donald John Trump, surrendered to the authorities at Fulton County Jail, Georgia on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, brining to four the number of times he has faced criminal charges in 2023.
During his 20 minutes in custody, the Fulton County Sherriff’s Department took the congenital liar’s fingerprints and photograph (aka a mugshot), the latter of which was released and in which the disgraced former commander in cheat shows off his compassionate and humane side to best advantage.
The Donald looking like his mother’s told the toddler him that he cannot have a cookie.
After leaving custody and returning to his perpetual hobby of cheating on the golf course, Trump found time to voice his continual grievances on his own Truth Social [sic] social media platform, griping yet again that the 2020 US presidential election being “RIGGED” (note block capitals. Ed.) and, er, “STOLLEN” (one more note block capitals. Ed.).
Stollen, Mr disgraced former president? According to Wikipedia, “Stollen is a cake-like fruit bread made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Orangeat (candied orange peel) and candied citrus peel (Zitronat), raisins and almonds, and various spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan, may also be added to the dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished bread is sprinkled with icing sugar.”.
Stollen. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
It has yet to be determined by the courts whether a German Christmas speciality is less of a threat to the constitutional integrity of the United States of America than its 45th head of state and his credulous supporters.
If it did come to a vote and your ‘umble scribe was enfranchised, he would always vote for a German Christmas than someone who can’t even be honest when he plays golf.
As a title in the Reach plc newspaper stable, the Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) has long inhabited an alternative reality, a world where the economic disaster otherwise known as Brexit is a roaring success (e.g. ‘Global Britain is thriving’).
In recent times the title has gained a reputation more of right-wing posturing than for the factual reporting of news and current affairs
A new charge must now be added to the title’s many crimes against reality and journalism – a crime against English, as seen in the headline below posted today on the paper’s website in its continuing campaign of hate against Harry Mountbatten-Windsor and his wife.
Wouldn’t it be a boon to journalism if those who write for the fourth estate – even on trivial, gossipy matters – had a basic level of competence in the language in which they are writing?
Your comments would be welcome below.
PS: for any passing illiterate Reach plc hacks in search of enlightenment, the grammatically correct version of the headline would read: “Harry’s six word response as to why he and Meghan won’t give up titles“.
A little over a year ago, this blog covered the case of a Welsh court dismissing the case of a Welsh motorist prosecuted for not paying a parking charge because the notice and other correspondence were all in English and the refusal of the parking management company’ – One Parking Solution (whose registered office is in Worthing, West Sussex. Ed.) to provide the court with Welsh translations thereof. (posts passim).
When a judge dismisses the case, that’s the end of it, isn’t it?
Usually.
Nevertheless, in this instance the monoglot English parking company decided to appeal the original judge’s decision, as Nation Cymru reports.
A bilingual car park sign in Caernarfon. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The case at Aberystwyth Justice Centre did not go well for One Parking Solution, even though the company had in this instance bothered to send legal counsel to the court.
Deputy judge Owain Williams decided the company had delayed for too long before launching its appeal and introduced it under incorrect rules.
In addition, the judge ordered that One Parking Solution pay Mr Schiavone’s travel expenses. The defendant said that this money would be donated to Cancer Research Wales.
Mr Schiavone was triumphant, stating:
The travel costs of the counsel alone are more than the cost of translating the fine and the cost of conducting the case are a hundred times or more the cost of providing a Welsh fine.
The company’s attitude has been completely contemptuous and completely against the rights of Welsh speakers.
Siân Howys, of Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s Welsh Language Rights Group, stated the following after the hearing:
“We are pleased that the judge ruled in favour of the defendant, as in a similar case in Caernarfon, where the judge Mervyn Evans-Jones ruled that the defendant did not need to pay an English-only fine.
It is becoming increasingly evident that these companies need to change their attitudes towards the Welsh language. To put pressure on them we will today be launching a campaign encouraging people not to pay for parking in car parks with English-only signs, nor to pay the resultant fines.
The Government should set Standards in this area and for other businesses, such as supermarkets and banks, so that there is a requirement for the private sector to provide their services in Welsh.
Given the alleged home secretary’s widely reported, callous and ill-conceived remarks that homeless people living in tents was a ‘lifestyle choice‘, this blog thought it only appropriate to come up with a musical response to the latest vile political utterance spouted by this amateur human being.
The EU Commission 
