Silvio Berlusconi

Speaking about the Italian Government's refusal to fund scientific research, the curiously dark-haired megalomaniac and serial user of prostitutes stated "Why do we need to pay scientists when we make the best shoes in the world?".

He may be corrupt, stupid, spiteful and racist but you can argue that he has a point: England might be world leaders in pharmaceutical research but we also have ShoeZone and Brantano.

QuickQuid.co.uk

Saw an advert for these pricks earlier. They charge 2950% APR. How is that even legal?

Iris Robinson

I'm enjoying seeing the pious homophobe Iris Robinson shown up for the hypocritical vile, corrupt, base, shameless, amoral cow she really is. On the night after an horrific homophobic beating in Northern Ireland she popped up on a BBC radio phone-in show to recommend that homosexuals have therapy to "cure" themelves before she described homosexuality as an abomination on a par with paedophilia that made her nauseous. She cited bible passages from the book of Leviticus to support her stance.

Fast-forward eighteen months or so and we see Iris Robinson's political career in tatters. She has confessed to having had an extra-marital affair with a 19-year-old man Kirk McCambley (she was 59 at the time) despite the bible's position on adultery which she should be very familiar with as it is stated in the book of Leviticus.

So far so good, but this isn't all. It appears that she went further than merely sleeping with the boy behind her husband's back. Mrs Robinson (oh the irony) then solicited £50,000 in unsecured loans for her lover to start his own business, a café. £50,000 for a nineteen year old with no commercial experience or capital of his own? Makes you think doesn't it. The money came in the form of two £25,000 from property developers and at the same time Mrs Robinson was lobbying in favour of a development being planned by one of the men. But what was in it for her (aside from fumbling teenage humping and the illicit thrill of breaking her beloved bible's sacred covenants obviously)? Well, just ten per cent of the loan which she kept to pay off debts of her own.

Of course with a commercial venture like that, there's all kinds of red tape involved. It isn't as simple as just buying up an empty café and opening for business. Especially not when there are more people trying to buy the property and start the same business on the site. Young Kirk didn't need to worry though, when the bids for the lease of the café was discussed by the local council Mrs Robinson was on the committee. Imagine that, what a stroke of good fortune! And not only that but luckily for Mr McCambley the committee found her lover's bid to be the only appropriate one and so he got the café. Mrs Robinson, by the way, didn't officially reveal her conflict of interests in seeing his bid succeed although this was a legal requirement. I'm not sure where Leviticus stands on this but that's okay because pretty soon it became clear that the bible stands wherever Mrs Robinson chooses; as she told her aide after ending the extra-marital affair "God's word was very clear on it. He was reasonably OK on it. I am not". Barmy.

Ooh, you know what? I haven't mentioned the best bit yet. Yes, even better than the bible-bashing homophobe cheating on her husband and abusing her position to solicit dodgy loans for her lover and taking a slice of the pie for herself. Her husband, Peter Robinson, is the First Minister of the country. The head honcho, the top man, the numero uno. And when he found out about all of this, do you know what he did? He covered it up in return for her returning the money. And so we have the unseemly saga of the top man in Government covering for his wife's crooked financial and personal dealings in return for her bullying Mr McCambley's family for the return of the dodgy loan she secured for him. Shameful, isn't it?

You think that's shameful, though, it has nothing to do with his response to his wife's suicide attempt after he found out. He went to work as normal that morning after she told him she was going to do it and, when she was found and rushed to hospital, he stayed there. That's right, as his wife was on her way to hospital to save her life after an overdose Mr Robinson- having just been told about it- can be seen on television footage laughing and joking with Parliamentary colleagues. Of course when the truth came out last week he was overcome with emotions and choking back the tears as he was interviewed about the whole thing. Some people might think those were crocodile tears, but maybe it was just delayed shock. Delayed by ten months until the cameras were rolling, that is.

She deserves a cunt of a husband attempting to gain political advantage from her depression and attempted suicide like that. And he deserves to be cuckolded for a spotty boy with an eye on an easy few quid.

And obviously they both deserve the sack because the country deserves neither of them.

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

My wife, who is in most things very sussed and cool, has an unerring knack of choosing the worst films in the world. The only saving grace about her selecting this pile of abject, risible, insultingly unfunny wank is that in the week that we went to view it she had already seen Marley and Me on her own. If I'd had to see that too, it may have been too much for my barely adequate sanity to survive.

This is so bad that I feel morally offended that any of the clowns involved- the squeaky fat one, the gargoyle-faced one, the one with all of the brothers- hasn't come out and publicly apologised for it. I now hate them all. Hate. It's a comedy-horror with no comedy or horror in it. The plot, which was written on the back of a soggy beermat, is thus: 'give the film a title to get teenage boys interested and make it look like a Lynx advert with a couple of flashes of nipple'. This is so bad that even Paul Ross wouldn't like it.

I hoped that I would feel cleansed if I admitted that I'd seen it, instead I'm repulsed by the memory.

Dining Rooms

Is there anything more fecking stupid in a densely-populated country where housing tends to be smaller than in neighbouring countries than a tradition of reserving one room for some overpriced furniture that you hardly ever use? It's a sop to that section of the working classes who inexplicably want to appear affluent and will go in hock to their eyeballs to do so- a strange demographic that Tony Bliar did very well out of as it happens.

You have families where two kids share a bedroom or one gets a box room so small that it won't accomodate a bed and wardrobe and yet in the same house there is a fucking 'dining' room where no-one ever eats and kids aren't allowed to play in the pretence that life is as sophisticated a Gold Blend advert.

A pox on all who persist with this lunacy.

Top 5 Famous Person Anagrams

Caster Semenya – Yes! A secret man
Virginia Bottomley – I’m an evil Tory bigot
Nigel Lawson – We all sign-on
Michael Barrymore – I’m a merry bachelor
Eric Clapton – Narcoleptic

This Bank Charges Ruling

Just a quick note so that I can record for myself that this actually happened.

The Office of Fair Trading have been told that they are not allowed to investigate whether banks are trading fairly or not. The OFT hoped to investigate whether charges are designed to generate profit rather than cover costs and one of the reasons that they are not allowed to investigate is that the revenue is a significant proportion of the Banks' profits.

This really happened.

Shit.

An Islamophobic e-mail

I don’t often receive those e-mails that you hear about, I guess people know that I’ll check what it says before repeating it down the pub or passing it on, something that probably doesn’t suit the originators at all. In fact it has only happened once before, but today I received one. The subject-line read “How can you remove this from school history lessons cos it offends a religion” and the subject matter boiled down to the following sentiment “This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offended’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred”. A little Googling shows that it is an old propaganda piece, which has been recently resurrected- presumably in the hope that people have forgotten the truth from the first time around.

I obviously responded to everyone in the e-mail trail that I could find to present the facts, but have so far received no response. I also alerted Islamophobia Watch and, should you receive one, I would urge you to do the same.

For the record, the most recent curriculum changes were to move the focus away from UK-centred history towards more international events. “Changes to the secondary history curriculum, announced last week, which will see less focus on figures such as Churchill, Hitler, and Gandhi from next year. Study of both world wars and the Holocaust, the development of political power, the British empire and slavery remain“.

The other mail I received, by the way, was some time ago which warned that millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money that was allocated to the preparations for the 2012 Olympics was secretly being utilised to build a mosque which would be bigger than St Paul’s Cathedral and hold more people than Wembley Stadium. The truth was that a privately-funded and much smaller mosque was being built vaguely near the site of the Olympic village.

Daniel Hannan

I note with wearying inevitability that self-publicising Tory scrote Daniel Hannan has got his ruddy slapheaded gurning visage in the papers again by bigging up ex-Conservative MP and all-round fascistic thickshit Enoch Powell. Oh how fucking surprising. This prick has been shouldering his way remorselessly into the public eye for as long as I can remember now with his stage-managed controversy and tedious flesh-pressing. He is the political equivalent of those sad fuckers in your local pub who set fire to their farts just for the fleeting frisson of infamy. I tell you, if I looked like a shaved stoat dressed up as a parody of Bertie Wooster the last place I would want to be is in where people can point at me and laugh till they micturate, but this completely amoral flaccid cock positively laps it up like a coprophiliac in a sewage farm.

Now that Boris Johnson is safely under house arrest as the titular Mayor of London, Hannan clearly sees a niche for a bumbling, privileged twat who isn’t afraid to drop a bollock or two in public if it will get him a thirty second slot on The World At One and build towards the much-coveted role of out-of-touch posho being humiliated by the commoners on Have I Got News For You. Well more power to your elbow Hannan; you might be an odious, cretinous, slimy, lickspittle cunt but at least you’re causing Call Me Dave to quickly gather together a couple of focus groups and see how well the idea of fascism would play with the public at large. The fucker might even learn something.

Keep it up cunt-face.

These notes were originally published on August 27, 2009 at modelanswers.wordpress.com

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

It's a real minefield this. It is definitely funny for a certain demographic (in a childish sniggering down your sleeve at the back of the class at the word penis way) and definitely offensive. But the counter-argument, as I understand it, goes that it is offensive to everyone equally and that the offensiveness is simply a tool to expose the hypocrisy and bigotry in others. Borat is defended as a kind of agent provocateur fearlessly exposing others by the act of making them feel comfortable in their ignorance by indulging in behaviour which makes them seem moderate in comparison. Others may say that anything is fair game in the world of comedy and part of me agrees with that. I certainly wouldn't want to see the likes of Borat censored or banned on the grounds of bad-taste, who knows where that may lead? No, that's not what I would want at all. But I don't have to like it either.

I don't believe for a second the idea that Sacha Baron Cohen is ultimately trying to do anything so laudable as expose hypocrisy in others, except to point at them and say "look, they don't even react when I make Bestiality jokes". What he does, he does very well but the value of the thing isn't worth the cost. If you think a group of people are inherently racist and want to expose that, then reinforcing their repellent and closed-off world-view by portraying them as culturally and intellectually superior is a really dumb way to go about it.

The film itself is pretty muddled. Cohen talks straight to the camera throughout and is accompanied by a documentary producer (played by Ken Davitian) and an unseen cameraman. Sometimes the cameraman exists ("don't film me, film him") and sometimes he doesn't (when Cohen and Davitian flee various locations and he films their departure objectively). The weakness of the plot- go to various niche events and act like a prick so that other people are encouraged to make themselves look half as stupid- then stage an attempted kidnap of Pamela Anderson and get thrown out of a shopping mall- could be covered by the humour of the piece were that not so weak too. I'm sure that it has thousands of avid fans, but then I'm sure that American Pie 4 (or whatever number they've reached) does too. That's the level of humour on show here- fart jokes, gay jokes, naked jokes, sexist jokes. Oscar Wilde it ain't. There is a scene where Borat hitches a lift with some beer-drinking fraternity boys and says ludicrous things to encourage them to do likewise and, being drunk and immature, they do so- advocating the return of slavery, for example. And this is the problem and this is why the film is a failure as an exposé of latent xenophobia, homophobia etc- it is targeted at the people it is lampooning and leaves them with the wriggle room to enjoy it. No-one who came into the movie theatre would have their preconceptions altered at all.

There's no defence of this shit. It is only funny for people who find the later Police Academy sequels funny and it doesn't challenge bigotry at all, it supports it. 0/10. Verily.

Crank: High Voltage (2009)

They say that ignorance is bliss. I had no idea what Crank: High Voltage was going to be like or else I would never have gone to see it. To those who say that ignorance is bliss I would say "you couldn't be more wrong". I have made notes on (more or less) 150 movies since I began keeping a record. Of those I gave 0/10 to a handful- four or five maybe and, indeed, tonight I re-evaluated a couple and revised their score upwards. It is as if with Crank: High Voltage I discovered an tenth circle in Dante's Inferno. Some of the films I saw were just rubbish because they didn't need to be any good to achieve their commercial aims (Lesbian Vampire Killers, My Bloody Valentine 3D), some were the product of people who had given up caring about film-making (Ashanti), some were puerile, lowest common-denominator rubbish (Borat) and some were mindlessly, ignorantly offensive (Slumdog Millionaire). This is like a compilation of the worst bits of the most craptacular films I have ever seen. It is artless, witless, joyless, offensive, amateurish, nonsensical, banal, exploitative, nasty, backwards, overbearing, derivative, vulgar and, frankly, shit. Apparently this is a sequel- there were suggestions of a back-story throughout- and I'm perversely curious to know if it can possibly be anything like as appalling (in the truest sense of the word) as this.

This film is not only gob-smackingly bad (there are moments of literally jaw-dropping ineptitude from everyone present) and grotesquely, deliberately offensive (being offensive to everyone doesn't even it out somehow, it simply multiplies it) it also has the temerity to masquerade as being inventive or cutting-edge by throwing in the kind of visual gimmicks (weird fonts for subtitles etc) that would see an Art School student repeating the year. It even has a segment ripping off the likes of Aronofsky and Tarantino with Jason Statham's character as a boy on a Jeremy Kyle-style chat show with Spice Girl (fairly suddenly) turned old woman Geri Halliwell.

The problem with Crank: High Voltage, apart from it's utter shitness, is that it gives ammunition to the Mary Whitehouse brigade. How can you argue that censorship is too restrictive and that art must be unrestricted to thrive and challenge and develop when you get the likes of Neveldine and Taylor (the Directors) using the freedoms that have been fought for to let Jason Statham grease the barrel of a shotgun and insert it into a fat bloke's anus? Argue that it's funny and that I'm taking it to seriously if you wish, I'd buy it if that was an isolated incident, but it is simply the prelude to a conveyer belt of similar lowbrow, low-invention cack.

I have no problem with violence or gore or gratuitous sex and nudity or dumb explosions. I can even live with sexism, racism, homophobia and other offensiveness if (seriously, that is a big if) it is necessary and in context and challenged or used to provoke debate or thoughts in the audience. Where this lump of bollocks differs is that the violence and gore and gratuitous sex and sexism and racism and homophobia (which is the whole film, by the way) are glorified. This is a film for fourteen year olds to wank to and giggle about. This isn't Nine Songs or Dirty Harry or Super Vixens or Saw, it is a pale imitation of the schlocky bits of them and films like them with all of the intelligence replaced by dumb visuals.

I am disgusted that David Carradine was involved (albeit only momentarily) in this.

I haven't been able to express in any depth or with any clarity the myriad reasons that this horrible film is an abomination. Genuinely I think it is a new cultural low-point. I was taken aback so far by it's uselessness that I was rendered speechless. -1/10. Yes, minus one.

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

My wife, who I love more dearly with every passing day, has an unerring knack of choosing the worst films in the world. The only saving grace about her selecting this pile of abject, risible, insultingly unfunny wank is that she had already seen Marley and Me on her own in the week and I know that I don't have that to come. This is so bad that I feel morally offended that any of the clowns involved- the squeaky fat one, the gargoyle-faced one, the one with all of the brothers- hasn't come out and publicly apologised for it. It's a comedy-horror with no comedy or horror in it. The plot, which was written on the back of a soggy beermat, is thus: 'give the film a title to get teenage boys interested and make it look like a Lynx advert with a couple of flashes of nipple'. This is so bad that even Paul Ross won't like it. 0/10. That's being generous.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

I hated this. Hate, hate, hate. I hated it so much that I feel like quoting Melvyn Udall to emphasise the point. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

First off, the trivial reasons to hate the movie: it is horrible and contrived, it is effective but only inasmuch as the audience can see the predictable ending so far in advance that they feel chuffed with themselves when it eventually transpires. Every scene of every film I love is designed to provoke a certain reaction in the audience and so, to that extent, they are all contrived- but this is just so blatant. It tries every cheap trick in the book, it ladles on the syrup and relies upon the perpetually tearful star to tug at the heartstrings enough. The plot has more holes than a tennis racket, the visual style is flashy for the sake of it and I can only think of one performance that was credible (Anil Kapoor's). Oh, the movie as a piece of work is just terrible.

For all of that, it would have been looking at a one or two out of ten rating. But that would've merely been dislike and I don't just dislike this movie. This movie made me want to commit gross acts of unspeakable, inexcusable, hateful violence upon the makers. Yes, I am using the word hate here (cheers Melvyn).

Slumdog Millionaire capitalises on the squalour and poverty in parts of India for comedic effect. It is amoral, wretched and unprincipled. It was like that programme where Fergie went round council estates teaching people to eat fresh fruit. Just as there was no altruistic rationale behind her actions, there is nothing positive behind this film. None of the issues it inadvertently raises are tackled in any other way than demonstrating what a shit life some people have but it's okay because they can dream of winning a gameshow. The only ones who are shown improving themselves are the murderer, the gold-digger and the bloke who wins the gameshow. I don't think it reflects the reality that you can work your way out of the slum at all. The only job the kid from the slum can get is making the tea. Danny Boyle got a lot of unnecessary stick for glamorising drugs in the gritty, death-ridden anti-heroin advert that was 'Trainspotting', and here he's getting lauded for trivialising child poverty, abuse, murder, organised crime, police brutality and corruption to make this year's Juno'. Funny how things change.

All that Slumdog Millionaire does to elicit a laugh is to poke fun at the poor, the destitute, the unfortunate and the victimised. Hahaha, look at them- they sht in a big hole and pretend to be English in a call centre to make a living, aren't they funny? Listen to their accents as they pretend to know about Eastenders. Look at them scavenging food to eat and sleeping in rusted, abandoned vehicles in the rain. Isn't it funny- oh, I hope he wins the money and gets the girl who shagged his brother and will only leave her gangster pimp for him if he's rich, it'd be a lovely ending.

It is patronising and vile- like City of God remade as a Lionel Bart musical or a mobile phone advert. Just as I wouldn't ever go to a Freak Show, I wish I hadn't watched that. 0/10 and a very, very bitter aftertaste.

Write a letter to the Daily Mail

Hey kids, are you stuck for things to do when it rains during the summer holidays? Why not make like a grown up and write to the Daily Mail? It's fun, it gets you attention and it only costs the price of a stamp. Here's how:

Take an article from the Daily Mail, it doesn't really matter which one but articles about Asylum Seekers, Drug Dealers, Terrorists, the Labour Party and Paedophiles usually work best. Most days you can find a front page story that manages to tie all of them together- that's a sure-fire winner.

Now, you must start your letter by making it clear that you refer to that article. After that, there are no rules. It's a free-for-all. What fun! All that you need to do is to copy some or all of the following phrases in any order that you like and then end the letter with a woman's name (the frumpier the better) and add the title 'Mrs' in brackets afterwards. That will convince them that you aren't one of those awful dungaree-wearing feminists that used to appear on news bulletins in the 1980s. Here are your phrases:

• "The country is full up. I'm sorry, but we can't take your riff-raff any longer"
• "One of two of these people should be made an example of"
• "These people should be made to sit up and take notice"
• "What reasonable-minded person actually objects to bringing back the birch?"
• "It never did me any harm, I can tell you"
• "These bleeding-heart liberals really get my dander up"
• "We all know that these Socialists are only out to line their own pockets"
• "I come from an ordinary middle-class family."
• "The good old British taxpayer is the mug who has to foot the bill for this"
• "Decent hard-working British people who have paid tax all their lives"
• "This anarchist's paradise where there are no restrictions on the drinking of alcohol?"
• "I am English and proud. Why is that so offensive to our visitors here?"
• "All sorts of organisations will jump on the bandwagon and cry inequality"
• "This 'Nanny state' where people aren't allowed the freedom to smoke a cigarette"
• "If those of different faiths who have chosen to live in this country can still observe their customs, why can't we?"
• "Winston Churchill would be spinning in his grave"
• "It seems the politically correct brigade have been at it again"
• "What a child needs is discipline"
• "Can someone explain to me why soft drugs are tolerated by this Labour Government"
• "I'm simply disgusted at the way in which our government expects us to pay taxes through the nose"
• "It's no wonder this country is going to the dogs"
• "It's PC gone mad" (if you want to be really creative try something that means the same in fancier words like "this is secularism in a demented form")
• "Who can blame the millions who emigrate every year?"
• "Gordon Brown and his left-wing cronies in the cabinet"
• "What a child needs is to be kept out of danger from these lecherous beasts who are seemingly waiting at every turn"
• "People who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear from this legislation"
• "I'm simply outraged at the way in which our government fails to provide anything more than the basic services that people need in hospital"
• "I've voted Tory all of my life and this country has never needed a Tory Government as badly as it does now"
• "Is this what generations of English men fought and died for?"
• "These people want nothing more than to be governed by Germany"
• "Isn't this simply another Labour Government attempt to extract more money from our pockets for fewer services?"
• "I have worked hard all of my life and for what?"
• "An Englishman's home used to be his castle. Well not any more"
• "Oh how I wish we could let Margaret Thatcher get hold of these people"
• "Is nothing sacred any longer?"
• "What a child needs is the freedom to learn and make their own mistakes without these namby-pamby rules interfering with the process"
• "These left-wing do-gooders will destroy every custom tradition and belief that English people hold dear"

The top Tories in Britain today

With David Davis gone, this is an opportune time to reacquaint ourselves with the top Tories in Britain today. Here they are in all of their glory:

David Cameron- Conservative Party Leader: educated at Magdalene College, Oxford.

Boris Johnson- Mayor of London: educated at Magdalene College, Oxford.

William Hague- Shadow Foreign Secretary: educated at Magdalene College, Oxford.

George Osborne- Shadow Chancellor: educated at Magdalene College, Oxford.

Dominic Grieve- Shadow Home Secretary: educated at Magdalene College, Oxford.

It's not what you know, it's who you know. Of the 28 members of the Shadow Cabinet 13 went to Oxford (5 at Magdalene) and a further 6 went to Cambridge.

Is this important? I think so. I think it paints a very clear picture that the Old Boy's Network remains firmly in place in the Tory party. They talk about reaching out to the aspirational, they position themselves to appeal to the occupiers of the centre-ground, they patronise the working classes with talk of social mobility. But they remain very much the party of the few and for the few.

They are besting the sitting Government in arguments over the NHS, over child poverty, the abolition of the 10p Tax Rate, fuel prices, heating prices, food prices and other issues that worst-off members of society. It is a triumph for spin, for the power of the Sun and the Mail to affect the opinions of the majority and it is a testament to the betrayal of the Labour Party's core voters that the New Labour project continues to be.

The Labour Party should be the party of the many. If they aren't, who will speak for us? Who will care what happens to the people of Liverpool or Newcastle or Hull or Hackney if not their chosen representatives in the supposedly left-wing party. Let's be frank, it won't be the boys from Magdalene College, Oxford will it?

The rise of fascist-sympathising political parties to power in Italy

I have posted the following in response to a thoughtful post by "Dave, the Void on Fire" on Complex System of Pipes and would encourage you to read the original post.

The rise of fascist-sympathising political parties to power in Italy is astonishing and saddening in equal measure. In pockets across Europe, there are worrying signs that fascism is considered as almost an acceptable part of the political landscape. Across Europe we have seen the scapegoating of immigrants by mainstream politicians playing to the right-wing gallery and now, all of a sudden, the creeping Islamophobia that has become more or less acceptable doesn’t seem so trivial. The original post gave a great example by quoting the anti-Islamic rant made by Martin Amis. Who but Terry Eagleton really challenged Amis in the press? Why was the matter downplayed as an ‘Academic spat’? Even when Amis continued in another interview that he feels racist impulses and urges, the response was muted and conciliatory.

Derogatory terms such as “PC do-gooders” (like the epithet "looney left" twenty years ago) have been used to undermine those who stand up to casual discrimination with the result that it is less socially acceptable to pull someone up over an Islamophobic slur than to make one.

In Italy, the successful campaign by the new Roman Mayor made use of posters showing a glum-looking Native American and worded (I’m paraphrasing from memory) “This was his country, now he lives on a reservation”. Is that so far removed from the current “British Jobs for British Workers”/”Must speak English and assimilate our culture” rhetoric that the main players in UK politics are happy to engage in?