Cover the Night?

Filmed in my city, which is kinda cool.

Brooker on Kony 2012

Spot on.

A Little Sunshine Amongst So Much Rain

Goodbye #NOTW

Is it a sad day?  No.  Did a glorious bastion of what makes Britain great lurch its self to an unsavoury death.  No.  Well apart from the unsavoury death bit.  Do I feel like the whole thing is Murdoch taking his ball away.  Yes.

'You don't like it, well fuck it, you can't have it,'  I imagine he said somewhere on a golf course while someone fearfully told him how brilliant he was.  At everything.

Will I miss the News of the World?  No.

Do I feel like the wrong people got punished this week?  Yes.

There seems to be a ground swell of opinion that if News International bring out a seven day a week Sun then all employed at the News of the World will keep their jobs.  I've worked in a business that went from trading six days a week to seven and I don't recall more staff being taken on.  We just spread the load.  Sure some of the big name journalists will probably be reemployed but there will be plenty of others at the paper, in all sorts of other positions, that won't find employment at the new paper.

Imagine putting News of the World on your CV now.  I mean it looked pretty bad anyway but now...

I can't say I'm sad to see the News of the World going and I didn't buy the paper today (I bought a sandwich) but I do feel sorry for the people that have lost their jobs because of the deeds of others.  And don't get me wrong those deeds were awful.

Will the full truth ever come out?  I doubt it.  Did the twitter hash tag win anything this week?  No.  It cost people their jobs and left a gap in the market for the same company to fill with a new title while spending less on staffing.

Murdoch still has the ball it's just that no one can spot it.

Today

It was the tweets that broke the news to me this morning before I'd even turned on the television.  I realise this goes against the twitter grain, but I tend to gently wake up to Sky News in the morning and having seen that there'd been an earthquake from the few tweets that were coming in I turned on.  The images that greeted me filled me with horror, as I'm sure they did many of you this morning.  There's something about a Tsunami, mother nature at it's most potent and destructive.  The fact that because of twitter I have friends living in Japan and Japanese friends living in the UK made the whole thing feel so much closer than it would have done just two years ago.  Twitter for its all of its faults has done that.  The chaos of those images we've all seen today of a wall of debris moving across rural land, taking homes, vehicles and doubtless hundreds of people with it will live with us all for a long long time.  The horror of it, the aftermath to come, the panic of a man running down a country road to get away from the oncoming water, the gut wrenching fear so many have felt today in northern Japan will live with those caught up in it and lucky enough to survive today, forever.  Think of them tonight as your sat in your warm comfortable house or flat and be thankful.

Humbling

The Lady

I don't have many heroes these days.  Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the few I have left.

A woman so fiercely dignified in her beliefs that for the last seven years she has been under house arrest in Burma completely cut off from the outside world.  Yesterday she was released.

To the people of Burma she is a symbol of hope, the slimmest of signs that democracy can find their country but to the rest of us she's an inspiration.  I doubt if the Burmese authorities, led by a man who moved the nations capitol on the advice of an astrologer (?!!), will allow her to make a jot of difference to the way Burma is run.  But that she's free will lift the people and bring a little hope.

For that, on Remembrance Sunday, we should be grateful.  One of the most important women on the planet might, just might, start being able to do what she believes she's here for.  To make a difference. 

'Dude, you have no Quran!'

Prime Sinister

David Cameron it is then and the Country got what it voted for.  The rainbow coalition was never really looking like a great option to be honest and the Libs week of playing at power is nearly over.

Electioneering

I will stop, I will stop at nothing

Say the right things when electioneering

I trust I can rely on your vote  

Gordon Brown - Bully?

Around 13 years ago I worked for a bully.  His name was Matt and he was an utter wanker.  The reason he bullied was because he was terrible at his job as store manager of a major retailer in London's West End.  He turned a great, harmonious team, into a disaffected and ineffectual one in weeks, it was my hardest period in retail.

Back in 1510...

Back in 1510 we'd probably be looking forward to a beheading this week.

Michael Martin has a nice big pension to look forward to.

Which does seem like a bit of a pity.

On the other hand it's always great when something happens for the first time in 300 years.  I can't help but think that the rest of the world must look on in shock at how totally old hat we are.  Has any other country even got something in place at their heart of government that could repeat itself 300 years later?  

So anyway, off with his head and that...