Friday Feels the Need to Set Human Beings on Fire
 News International (I do not need to tell you) is one of the most repellent organisations in the world, but this whole business might just end up working out to their advantage, in a twist of supremely Machiavellian achievement.
NI decided to close the News of the World a long time ago, as you can see from this Guardian article detailing the plans being set in place to deal with its disappearance, dating from weeks ago. The sunonsunday.com URL was registered before any of this even kicked off.
As much of a right wing, darkie-hating, shit stain of a wank rag that the NotW has always been, this might turn out to be a masterstroke by the Murdoch empire. They have been caught out in some of the most disgraceful acts of both illegality and moral offence in the history of the press, and they have managed to actually turn it to their advantage.
They close the NotW to show how serious they are about this sort of legal transgression, they reduce their market share of the UK press, and as a result they might just manage to persuade people that they are neither a monopoly concern, nor a dangerous blight on political discourse, and in doing so secure the kind of domination over the UK press and hence UK political debate which could turn us into the next United States – forever having to pander to the latest reactionary retard wheeled out on Fox News to agitate the bigots and the racists.
Because let’s face it, NI are not weakened by this event, they are consolidated. The Sun and the NotW basically catered to the same market: ignorant, unpleasant, narrow-minded racists. Closing one just strengthens the other, but if this PR stunt enables the BSkyB takeover to take place we will still be faced with one of the most conservative, racist, morally repellent organisations in the modern world owning a scarily large chunk of UK media.
Day-to-day journalists have all been fired (although given they work for the NotW in the first place I have no fucking sympathy), but the people who actually engineered and implemented all the craven, corrupt and utterly illegal actions we’ve learned about recently will all continue to work within Murdoch’s empire of sleaze.
In other words, what was potentially one of the greatest PR disasters in corporate history might just end up being turned into the kind of publicity stunt which turns the British media into a shameful mirror of the hatred, bigotry, and outright lies which is Fox News, by consolidating the power of a group of people who treat the world like their own fucking puppet show and care for nothing but insulating their own twisted version of reality to the point where a writer of dystopian science fiction simply couldn’t make this shit up.
Anyway, and breathe…
Here are your five questions for this week.
1. Your number one news media hate figure.
2. Compare someone in the news to a movie or cartoon villain.
3. Whose phone would you hack if you could?
4. Cameron and Murdoch is a predictable terrible twosome. Pick a less predictable one.
5. What will your lunch be today?
This week’s five songs are from a tape called ‘Cheerful Choons, Innit’ which I found in the van recently. I was living in Cambridge at the time, which was home to a surprising number of mockneys, hence the title.
Clem Snide – Ice Cube
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Barry Adamson – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (with Jarvis Cocker)
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1. I want to say good old Rupe, but it seems too obvious so I’m going to plum for any (or all) of the generic bimbos who present Fox “News”
2. Still Rupe, in my mind he looks like Baron Greenback. Probably not in real life though.
3. I’m not sure I should answer this as (a) I probably could and (b) I have a fear of answerphones.
4. George Bush and Tony Blair. BFFs. Who’d a thunk it?
5. Risotto. And it’s going to be ace.
First!
And second.
And I got a “You’re posting comments too quickly – slow down” warning.
1. Jan Moir perhaps. Or Bill O’Reilly.
2. Rupert Murdoch = Emperor Palpatine = The Lizard Pope, whatever it is that the current one is called.
3. No-one I like, because I might end up hating them, and no-one I hate in case I end up liking them. Maybe someone like Phil the Greek, to hear how much worse he gets when he doesn’t think anyone’s listening.
4. Ming the Merciless with Rebekah Brooks as his queen. Chillingly plausible.
5. Pakeeza. Yum!
Three-post Mentalism!
Indeed. I’ve been patrolling the internets since 8:30 this morning and I’m not sure I’m still sane.
Rebekah Brooks needs to come out and answer some very serious question. Chiefly, why she can’t spell her own fucking name properly.
That’s true, actually, she’s right up there with nucular physicist Christmas Jones. Surely you shouldn’t be given a job as a professional writer until you can fill in the first bit of the application form without making basic spelling mistakes like ‘Rebekah’.
1. Other than anyone with the surname Murdoch?.. Erm.. What about that Adam Boulton fanny?
2.
3. I’m not actually all that interested in my own voicemails. Let alone anyone else’s.
4. Mr. & Mrs. Toad
5. Probably a something and salad baguette from the office canteen.
I’m not sure the nucular thing is a good example, I have met actual ones that pronounce it that way. Although it could explain why the plants meltdown occasionally…
On a slightly radioactive aside, after Britain’s worst nuclear accident at Windscale, they just renamed it Sellafield and everyone conveniently forgot. Seems like a similar meltdown is being re-branded as The Sun on Sunday.
They should just call it The Sun Day.
“Mr. & Mrs. Toad” WIN!
Steve – The Sun on Sellafield would be a good name.
1. Richard Desmond owner of the Express group.
2. Rupert Murdoch with his Steve Bell
caricature
3. David Cameron’s right now this second!
4. Bono and The Edge
5. Tuna sarnie
Chutters, Cameron’s voicemail probably resembles a scene from In the Thick of It with uncanny accuracy at this moment in time.
Especially the later episodes where they basically just run around shouting FUCK all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe3Ou9xBAlI&playnext=1&list=PLE6723566CA482C83
It wasn’t just the amount of swearing, it was the panache with which it was delivered.
1. Brooks, Murdoch family, David Cameron, Nick ‘sellout’ Clegg…I could go on
2. Rebekah Brooks – the White Witch from the Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Let’s face it, Tilda Swinton’s probably being signed up to play her in the film of this whole sordid affair even as we speak
3. Andy Coulson – teach the little bastard a lesson.
4. Jedward – yuck!
5. Cheese toastie and a couple of apples
Yeah, I’d noticed the White Witch similarity, but it’s pretty striking now you point it out.
1. Max Clifford
2. David Cameron as Junior (the son of Sheriff Buford T. Justice)
3. Hacking a certain ex’s phone would be enlightening, but I think I’d have to go with Nick Clegg
4. Witali Klitschko and Hayden Panitierri. I mean, how was that physically possible?
5. A baguette, with ham, beetroot, and maybe even some coleslaw
Beetroot is the Rupert Murdoch of vegetables!
1. Nancy Grace who I have no doubt goes to sleep each night hoping another child disappears and/or is murdered. There, someone had to say it. She’s a blood-thirsty, profiteering monster and makes millions off others misery.
2. If only ms. Grace were taller I’d love to be able to compare her to Cruella DeVille (the BEST villain in any cartoon) as it is, she’s some sort of deranged Miss Piggy.
3. Michelle Bachman’s. If only to hear Sarah Palin bitch her out.
4. See above.
5. Chile Rellenos – pay no mind that it’s a frozen dinner, it’s still fucking delicious, thank you, Trader Joes! (single girl budget here, alas) xoxo.
excellent Clem Snide track there, darlin’
1. Bill O’Reilly.
2. Rebekah Brooks = Charlize Theron playing Aileen Wuornos.
3. Rupert Murdoch, since you’d be likely to hear conversations with many of the worlds leaders.
4. David Cameron and Nick Clegg, now joined at their evil hips.
5. Salami and pepperoni sandwich.
but beetroot is awesome
Fuck you Dylan, beetroot is awesome. Roasted, pickled, as crisps… turning your wee a strange colour in the morning!
Courgettes are the Rupert Murdoch of vegetables.
They are wrong, just…wrong.
“Nancy Grace who I have no doubt goes to sleep each night hoping another child disappears and/or is murdered.”
That reminds of the salacious glee with which rags like the News of the World report rape stories. It’s really quite unnerving.
1. My mother-in-law relentlessly buys The Sun and The NOTW (make of this what you will), and although the “journalists” are all supreme douchebags, Gordon Smart’s gurning, smarmy, Oasis-pandering, be-cardiganed mug sends me into an actual rage every time I see it. I hate him.
2. Erm, David Cameron looks a bit like the Pilsbury Doughboy???
3. Jeremy Kyle’s. Anyone that self-righteous must be up to some dodgy fucking stuff.
4. ‘Oskar and The Claw’ (as I have come to refer to my 2 children)
5. Lunch?? HA! Chance would be a fine thing.
Nope, I’m not having that about courgettes either. Slow fried with lots of butter, garlic and pine nuts – splendid!
1. Michelle Bachman. The gentle racism is so sickening, and the lies a vile.
2. Karl Rove and Agent Smith from the Matrix. Was the Matrix a cartoon? It was mostly animated. Either way the calm quite power is eerily similar.
3. Dominique Strauss-Kahn. I can not think of anything more predictable than the character assassination of the rather bruised young maid. Even the tide was slightly less likely to come in than the ritual dragging of her through the streets. I’d like to listen to him speak to see if I could find even a shred of contrition. Out of morbid curiosity.
4. John Stewart and Mike Huckabee. Watching a left wing hero soft ball and gently tug-off such hateful little toad turns my stomach.
5. Left over chinese food. But this Friday Five has raised my bile so I doubt I’ll keep it down. Seriously, the people discussed in this thread are so fucking unpleasant the Devil must be bored. I mean how do you corrupt people like this. Would it even be a challenge? Bag of twats!
I think they turn up in hell freshly baked and ready for the table.
Like beetroot
Or apples – the very testicles of Satan.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???
How should I know, you’re in charge of this circus.
Although possibly only in the same way an editor runs the News of the Screws.
‘In charge’ is just so very, very wide of the mark.
I’m just amazed that someone could dislike apples. That’s like hating the Easter Bunny! Apples are surely the most benevolent of all the fruits.
I actually had a subscription to get a box of locally grown organicy vegetables delivered each week. Which seems like a great idea except that I live in the north eastern United States. So basically the only thing that grows from September to April is beets, varieties of beets and things related to beets. A year ago I would have sided with Matthew but now, I am backing Dylan. Boooo beets!
Still, less evil that Rupert.
Oh Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben. How can a man be so wrong? If apples are, as you claim, the most benevolent of all fruits then Rupe must be Jesus.
Rupe is faaar more powerful than Jesus.
How do you feel about pears? The good twin, or merely an evil sidekick?
Evil side kick. Apples are top of the tree but I’m against hard fruits generally.
Their citrusy brethren is where it’s at fruitwise.
Well that’s hard to argue with.
I like Matthews defense of courgettes though. It’s fairly weak Matthew. I personally love courgettes but absolutely anything is tasty slow fried with lost of garlic pine nuts and butter. You sell me on eat Strauss-Kahn’s balls if you cooked them like that.
Bring them to me and it shall be done.
How about roasted courgettes in oil with a bit of mint? Or fine slices, fried in batter, dusted with paprika and served with yoghurt?
Bleuch batter! Batter makes everything taste of batter. Up here they fry oysters and clams in batter. What’s the fucking point? The roasty minty thing sounds good though.
As do the balls. Infact the roasting/frying/battering of any of the people discussed above’s gonads seems like fun.
In Turkey they do not use heavy batter. Good batter is really good but it is, as you point out, extremely rare.
Battering clams, mussels, oysters is basically just foodrape.
Raw muscles: brilliant. Seafood is generally improved by doing as little to it as possible. If pops out of the ocean (at least I assume it pops) already delicious. The amount of ‘stuff’ you need to do to it is directly proportional to how long it has been since the aforementioned poppage.
I agree, as fresh and raw as possible is the way forward.
I remember people in the restaurant I ran on Cape Cod asking our chef what she would do with a particularly good bit of fish, and being constantly disappointed when she basically just said to grill it (do Americans call grilling broiling?) and maybe drizzle a little flavoured olive oil.
‘Yes, but what sauce‘ they would implore, and Jo would basically just look awkward and try not to call them fucking idiots.
1. Not sure if he counts, but f**k it… Ben Sheppard!
2. Rupert Murdoch and Elliot Carver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Carver)
3. Cliff Richard
4. Barry from Eastenders and Megan Fox
5. Tuna pasta salad
Her face is starting to look disturbingly like his, after all the surgery she’s had.
Soft shell crab in tempura batter.
Stick that up your beetroot.
Good point Dylan. But have you ever pulled a soft shelled crab right of the ocean, slapped it on a BBQ for 2 minutes and eaten it. I haven’t but I’ll bet it’s not awful.
And in a maki roll with roe it’s despicably tasty.
Also, this might be the most middle class thread on the entire internet…
Oh but I heard Toploader has a new album coming out?
Tart, that is not acceptable.
Yes, Tart, it’s “Toploader have a new album out.”
What’s a Toploader?
Imagine if Rupert Murdoch was a form of AIDS. It’s a bit like that.
Well what the fuck do I know? Toploaders are washing machines over here! I’m still trying to remember whether courgettes are cucumbers or zucchini, you philistines cook both over there, yuk!
We don’t really cook cucumbers. That’s China. And actually, it’s not bad.
1. Cameron, Osbourne, Clegg, Murdoch…
2. Blair is starting to look a little like Joker from a cross between ‘Killing Joke’ and ‘Arkham Asylum’
3. Arsene Wenger. What the fuck is going on?
4. Coogan and Grant
5. It was a prawn baguette and a flapjack provided by the school whilst I was taking pictures of sports day.
Matthew, just for a spot of coincidence-laden fun, where did you get the link to that Greenslade story about NI’s plans being laid a while ago?