A good take-off or just irritating?

The album cover for Kraftwerk's 'Man Machine' album -  a classic album made by a great original group.

The promotional picture for Ant and Dec's new TV series 'Red or Black' - another light entertainment show made by two irritating and derivative entertainers.

I just don't understand - oh hold on, now I do

The death of Jade Goody was the lead article on the BBC Radio 4 News yesterday evening; why? A minor celebrity famous for:
1. being less than intelligent

"Do they speak Portuganese in Portugal? I thought Portugal was in Spain."

2. for making racist remarks to Shilpa Shetty
3. for making a lot of money from a little talent

has died. For some reason this "news" is the lead item on the BBC why? In OK magazine, the Sun newspaper and on Radio 1 maybe, but on the home of intelligent speech radio?

Then it hit me, Gordon Brown the man who vowed to mark the end of "celebrity culture" has waded in so as to share the nation's grief. The BBC loyally report that:

"Prime Minister Gordon Brown is leading tributes to reality TV star Jade Goody who has died of cancer at 27, praising her as a "courageous woman".

...

The prime minister said he was "deeply saddened" by the news.

"The whole country has admired her determination to provide a bright future for her children.

"She will be remembered fondly by all who knew her and her family can be extremely proud of the work she has done to raise awareness of cervical cancer, which will benefit thousands of women across the UK."

It is more than apt that whilst Tony Blair lead the Country's grief at the death of the Princess of all our hearts, Gordon Brown tries to lead the Nation's "grief" at the death for a minor celebrity of limited intelligence.


Where Gordon Brown leads the BBC must follow so the lead "Have Your Say" subject is What is Jade Goody’s legacy?. It appears that the BBC is agog to know:

"Did you know Jade Goody? What contribution do you believe she made to cancer awareness? What are your thoughts?"

As is often the case the Readers recommended comments are a breath of sanity, take a read, it would seem that there are some people out there with a sense of perspective.


As an aside I have a friend who is currently trying to fight off cancer, she is managing this with dignity and honour whilst raising money for cancer charities rather than for her family and there are many more like my friend. I would have thought that their life and fight was more worthy of celebration than that of the self-obsessed Jade Goody.

Some catch-up articles

1. Charles Moore argues that whether in Northern Ireland or among Britain's Muslims, extremists will exploit the reasonable majority. Here's an extract:

"The extremists are much more aware than we are that the front line of the rule of law matters. So they demand that the front line be broken. Sinn Fein made sure, as a condition of entering government, that Tony Blair would abolish its most formidable adversary, the Royal Ulster Constabulary. One reason that three members of the security forces died this week is that we no longer have the police and security knowledge needed to prevent such attacks.

In facing militant Islam, the police, attacked for "institutional racism" and "Islamophobia", effectively seek "Muslim permission" for legitimate inquiries. This risks hampering proper police work.

Guess whom the Bedfordshire Police arrested in Luton. Not the demonstrators with their revolting insults, but the members of the soldier-supporting public who threw things at them. "

2. Ed Husain says

"We can expect Luton-style protests and worse in the years to come unless the Government gets a grip on Islamism" and includes these thoughts: "It's comfortable for us to think that these are the actions of a small minority – but are they? The vile mob that hurled abuse against returning troops does not operate in a vacuum, somehow removed from other Muslims. Only two weeks ago, the same group of extremists openly marched in Tower Hamlets, Britain's most densely populated "Muslim area". Where was the local outrage against these bigots? The nearby east London Mosque – Europe's largest Muslim institution – sends groups of young vigilantes to hound local prostitutes and drug dealers, but it turns a blind eye to extremism.

This nationwide network of fanatics, who give themselves various names at different times to deceive the authorities – from al-Muhajiroun to the Saved Sect – is an offshoot of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that shares al-Qaeda's aim of a global caliphate, but uses different methods."

3. Was it really Michael Jackson at the London Arena tour announcement. Does anyone really care about the shrill voiced freak whose singing career has left me somewhat unenthusiastic since he went solo.


4. Himmelgarten Cafe explains why DNA profiling is not as accurate as we have been lead to believe:

"Suppose the police have a big DNA database. They find a degraded DNA sample at the crime scene which matches only one in a million people. A name pops out of the database, plod dashes round and makes a swift arrest. If there is no other evidence what is the chance of chummy being guilty?

The prosecutor's fallacy is to say it's 99.999% - there's only a one in a million chance that the DNA sample got the wrong man.

In reality, if the sample matches one in every million people, it must match around 60 people in the UK alone so, if we know no more than the criminal is probably from the UK, the chance of chummy being guilty is 1 in 60, or 1.67%."

5. Rugfish explores Gordon Brown's Monopoly tactics:

"Gordon meanwhile, is on his way to the bank and he's not said a word because the Bank of England is "independent", and it's got "nowt to do with him". It would appear that Gordon is acting more like a silent Monopoly Man with our economy, rather than someone who's a part of the game others have no choice but to play."

6. ExPatYank discusses what is a citizen. Do read the whole very interesting article, here's an extract:

"So increasingly absent the unifying Established Church that had for centuries helped mark out a large part of the “national boundary,” what remains? Shakespeare and Gibbon (and some today) might well have shared the views of certain Muslims regarding the proper fate of a pope. But that doesn’t mean that they would have shared the view that those same Mohammedans Muslims could be just as English as they themselves: how could they be, given they don’t adhere to the Established Christian Church?

Mr Norman and his Independent though, have cracked the exceedingly complicated question. No longer need we ponder it. Yes, we get it at last: if you are born in a barn, you are indeed a horse."

7. Brackenworld exclaims that

"The next person to argue to me that this recession is happening because of "deregulated" banks is going to get a carefully gift-wrapped punch in the face."

Do read the whole piece.

Cricket is coming home

The second cricket test between the West Indies and England has been moved from the soulless out of town Sir Vivian Richards Stadium to the atmospheric, centrally located Recreation Ground. The new ground's bowler run-ups were described by the match referee Alan Hurst described as "unfit and dangerous for bowlers". Of course the rescheduling means that first the Recreation Ground will need some rapid sprucing up and some attention to the square and second that a lot of England supporters will miss the end of the test as their itineraries will mean they will probably be in hotels in Barbados.

As the match is at the Rec, maybe Gravy could be brought back to entertain the crowds. Gravy is the nickname of the splendidly named Labon Kenneth Blackburn Leeweltine Buckonon Benjamin, the bearded resident of St Johns, Antigua, who entertained the crowds at the Rec for many years. You can read more about Gravy here. One personal recollection; when I went to Antigua some years ago, possibly the biggest thrill was seeing Gravy on his stall in St Johns.

First Eurovision, now "I'd do anything"

First Eurovision fell victim to political voting as Russia stormed home on a wave of ex-Soviet bloc voting. Now I learn that in the BBC's "I'd do anything" show aka "Graham Norton - Looking for a Nancy" there are worries that one of the favourites lost out unfairly. Yes, there are rumours that:

"There have been reports that politicised voting from different regions of the country have skewed the votes."

Surely not, who would have thought it...