Depression and the media

Like everyone else, I was shocked when I saw the news about the passing of Robin Williams. He may have been in a fair amount of duds but he was also responsible for elevating mediocre films to greatness.

Seriously, imagine how bad this film would have been if it was Eddie Murphy instead

Early reports indicate that the cause of death was suicide. The death toll for 2014 is already looking like a who’s-who of brilliant talent: Sue Townsend, Tommy Ramone, Roger Lloyd Pack, Ultimate Warrior, Harold Ramis, Bob Hoskins, HR Giger, Rik Mayall. The death of Robin Williams was different though. It wasn’t his body giving up, it was his mind. Depression effects a lot of people, and is very rarely taken seriously. People’s understanding of mental illness is sorely lacking, especially compared to physical illness. People just don’t take them seriously. It’s why people think it’s acceptable to tell someone who’s suffering from depression to just “smile” and blame them for their illness. It’s why people are made to feel guilty for suffering, and it’s why headlines like this are deemed acceptable

Imagine that being said about ANYTHING else:

“Want to beat leukemia? Do what I did – just get better!”

It’s because of this attitude that people who are suffering from depression can find it so hard to get help. They fear being judged, mocked, and most of all, guilty. Read pretty much any news story about a celebrity suffering from depression and it’s almost guaranteed that there will be at least one comment saying “yeah, most be so hard being rich and famous”, which doesn’t add to the discussion at all, it perpetuates the myth that they’re just doing this for attention. It’s similar for non-celebs too, I estimate that everyone who has depression has had someone say to them “what do you have to be depressed about? There’s kids with cancer, and people starving”. What these people are essentially saying is:

“you have no right to feel the way you do, and the fact you do feel that way is because you’re a selfish person.”

So now the person who is depressed also feels guilty. They also feel that they can’t confide in anybody, they can’t talk to anyone about it, and getting help is pointless as they don’t really have anything wrong. Saying “you can’t be depressed because people have it worse than you” is like saying “you can’t be happy because people have it better”.

Why I’m on this point I need to clear up a very common misconception: depression is not “feeling a bit sad”. Depression is to sadness as dismemberment is to a paper cut. Depression physically HURTS and is exhausting to go through. When you’re not depressed it can be very easy to say things like “why don’t they just ask someone for help?”, when you’re depressed however it’s different. You’ll feel you have nobody to turn to, and sometimes if you do talk to people and they try to help it can feel worthless. No matter how many people say helpful things it can be hard to resist the urge to scream “no, you’re fucking wrong. I’m obviously shit and you’re just lying so you can make fun of me later”. The trouble is the media depiction, when people in films are depressed it basically becomes their character trait, that’s all they are. They’re not “the smart funny person who happens to be depressed”, or “the love interest who loves books and happens to be depressed”, they’re just “the lonely person who never speaks and all they need is a change of clothes and they’ll be happy”. The only accurate piece of media I’ve seen about it is Hyperbole And A Half by Allie Brosh. If you read this you will understand depression a hell of a lot better: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

So, what can you do if you’re depressed? I’m not really sure, there’s no definitive “right” answer, there are however some suggestions that might be helpful.

There’s also a variety of forums and websites online. From www.imalive.org, www.samaritans.org, and the aforementioned time-to-change.org.uk.

So that’s that, hopefully the death of Robin Williams will lead to a change of media perception of depression. Maybe when people say they’re depressed they will no longer be referred to as weak or selfish, but as people who we can at least attempt to help. We can only hope that’s the case. But I’d like to leave this blog on a more angry note, I refer you to this stunning piece of insensitivity from ABC news.

Seriously, go fuck yourself abc.

News For The Past Week (16th-22nd June 2014)

American news first. “The right to free speech” is something that’s often thrown around to defend saying something racist, homophobic or sexist.

Or really really really stupid

Now it’s been used to defend something entirely different. The Susan B.Anthony list (not to be confused with the actual Susan B. Anthony who was pretty damn good) went to court in Ohio this week to defend their right to lie about candidates seeking office. It stems from an incident a few years ago when they posted up billboards accusing Ohio candidate Steve Driehaus of being in favour of taxpayer funded abortions. He went to the courts to get these billboards taken down due to the slight issue of it being a complete lie. The court agreed and made SBA take them down. Logical response to this would be to either prove that you weren’t lying, or to shrug your shoulders and just be like “well, we tried”, right? Well unlike the eponymous feminist, the group do not believe in logic. Their response was a truly american response.

No, not that

They sued. Saying that , and I am not making this up, that being made to be honest is unconstitutional and that making shit up is “core political speech”. So, remember kids, if you get caught lying, it’s okay, you were just expressing political speech, and should be commended for it.

 

Now moving on from lying for political gain, to the EDL. Now I’ve seen people I follow on twitter being threatened by the EDL for saying things about the EDL so I’m going to be very careful here. I’m not going to point out the hypocrisy of having both a “we hate all immigration” policy and a Spanish base. I’m not going to point out how most of what they say is bullshit. I’m certainly not going to call them stupid. I’m just going to show a headline and let the facts speak for themselves

Blogging news now. Now those who are good at blogging can find it quite profitable. It can lead to money from advertisers as well as possible TV interviews and/or book deals. It’s a crowded space with a lot of different people vying for attention. As such it’s hard to stand out. You have to find your own niche and people find it in different ways. Jack Monroe posted affordable recipes, John Green, well he’s John Green. And then there’s Lacey Spears.

Erm, I guess that’s unique. Lacey Spears ran a blog called “Garnet’s Journey” about her son being ill all the time. He died earlier this year and doctors noticed unusually high sodium levels (reported as fatally high a week before his death). The case was brought to court this week and Lacey was suffering from Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. Which I guess makes sense. Although I’ve read all the news on it and I’ve yet to find an answer to one very simple question: why didn’t she just lie? I doubt people who read her blog were fact-checking everything and asking for medical proof. It’s okay to lie, I lie all the time in this blog (for example: there’s no such place as Ohio, I invented it for the purpose of this blog). And even if she did get caught out lying it’s still a hell of a lot better than harming her child surely? Lying is unethical, yes, but you know what else is? Killing children! It’s one of a multitude of reasons why I don’t it.

A summit on sexual violence and rape was held this week in London. Now obviously this is very important and deals with a topic that needs to be handled with delicacy, tact, and dignity. Let’s see how The Mail reported on it:

I swear, it’s like they’re just a parody of poor journalism now.

Finally some good news.

Finally something good. At last something glorious. Waiiiiit a minute, so they weren’t illegal before? For fucks sake Japan. You invented robots BEFORE realising that child porn is a bad idea? No wonder Godzilla hates you.

Gay marriage

So it finally happened: Britain had its first legally binding same-sex marriage this weekend. Maybe I’m just cynical but I expected the worst: I expected hundreds or thousands of people attempting to gatecrash the wedding. It turns out that this didn’t happen, there was a protest, but it was, (how can I put this?), poorly attended to say the least. In fact the entire protest group was kind enough to all gather together so they’d fit in one photo. Ready?

That’s former UKIP (well it would be UKIP wouldn’t it?) candidate Bryan Barkley there, providing an example, not so much of why gay marriage is bad, but of the importance of protesting in a group. Whilst a lot of photos from outside weddings are quite heartwarming, this one is just kind of depressing. But it’s also rather great, look at that photo again and realise THAT was the reaction to the first same-sex marriage. Now tell me that doesn’t fill you with sunshine a little bit? Maybe attitudes are changing, maybe Britain is becoming more tolerant and dragging itself out of the 19th Century and into the 21st. Maybe we’ll soon realise that homosexuality is not to be feared, maybe the future will be full of happiness and smiles.

Oh for fucks sake! That’s ridiculous and has no business being printed in anything outside of a pamphlet distributed by a mad person under a bridge. The reasons against same-sex marriage just don’t stand up to reason. And here’s why:

Marriage is for babies!

One stick people often use to beat the body of gay marriage with is the fact that marriage purely for the purpose of providing children to raise. One rather major problem with this: where does this leave couples who can’t (or don’t want to) have children? Do couples now have to provide yearly fertility tests to prove the worthiness of their marriage? And secondly, if you ask 100 people to list 100 problems with the world right now I am willing to bet my CD collection that not a single one of them will say “there’s not enough people in this world”.

It will make people gay

This is the theory that one hundred per cent straight people will see gay people getting married and think “You know what, darling? I’m going to be gay”. Human sexuality is a complex system that takes years to fully develop, women don’t decide they want a bride when they see their female friends with one, lesbians are not new shoes.

Gay kids

Apparently gay parents will raise gay children. In much the same way that every child of straight parents are straight. Refer to my previous point about the complexity of human sexuality.

It’s not natural

Neither’s Capri Sun but nobody is calling for a ban on that.

Bible beliefs

Now this is a lot more complicated, but also a lot easier to disprove. It’s also the most common one, not so much in this country but particularly in America. Apparently the Bible (pronounced bibb-ell in my head for my own personal amusement) specifically bans gay marriage and the bible definition of marriage is the only valid meaning. So what would “traditional” marriage entail?

• If it can be proven that the bride is not a virgin at the time of marriage she must be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21)
• All the woman’s property belongs to the husband. (Genesis)
• Men can take many Wives and concubines. (pretty much all over the bible)
• I’m going to put this one in full so I don’t get accused of quoting out of context: “If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels[c] of silver. He must marry the young woman.” Obviously she doesn’t get a choice in it.

So in summary that’s every argument against gay marriage knocked down like the flimsy excuses they are. I didn’t count the “it’s immoral” one as morality isn’t a fixed concept, also we get most of our morals from the ancient Greeks who saw homosexuality not as something to be despised but celebrated as the purest form of love there is, so unless you have a specific moral argument against it your point is invalid.

But what do I know? I’m just someone who’s actually researched this and looked into it, I lack the requisite anger and hatred to be considered an expert by the news media.

Thou Shall Not Follow lostprophets

Like a lot of people I was disgusted when the full details of lostprophets singer Ian Watkins erm, “misdemeanours” were mentioned in the news. I shall try not to mention them because it’s kind of disgusting to think about. So shocking in fact that members of the jury are to be given counselling. The details of his arrest were first leaked in December last year, so the press have had enough time to dig up dirt and gather character testimonies about him. Plus the crimes are pretty horrific so this is basically a crime so heinous it makes people vomit, where you have enough time to gather information about them, and you’re almost certain he’s guilty; there is no way at all the papers can fuck this up.

Oh for fucks sake, seriously? They dated for a short while over half a decade ago. They didn’t get married, they didn’t have kids together, and they’ve both dated other people since then. There is literally NO NEED at all to mention her at all. “rock star raped children” is a big enough headline on it’s own. It’s not as though people are sitting about thinking “hmmmm, I would read that article about that singer, but I simply refuse to read any news that doesn’t involve someone who once presented The One Show“.

“i simply cannot understand the news unless it somehow relates to a man who looks like a Toby Jug”

There’s no need to link a celebrity into every single piece of news. If a woman get’s brutally murdered make that the headline, don’t make “Kate Beagley was murdered just yards from model Jerry Hall’s £10m mansion.” the headline (again). When a terrorist attack happens I don’t give a flying fuck what the members of fucking Oasis have got to say about it. There are only four legitimate reasons to have a quote from a celebrity after a terrorist attack:

1. They were there.
2. They know someone who died because of it.
3. They’re linked to the place  that was attacked (for example;asking Woody Allen if something happened in New York )
4. They planned it (weirder things have happened).

Under that hair lies the worlds largest collection of WMD’S, and a small elf

So that’s printed news disappointing me, I had lower hopes for online news. My standards were set low. Basically all any online news source needed to do was get a monkey to hit keys and hope they fall in order to talk about the case, and put a picture of Ian Watkins, the lead singer of lostprophets up.

Pictured here

So let’s see how E!Online did.

You had one job!

Quick, everyone turn away I have a message I need to pass on to E! *whispers* “that’s the wrong guy”

Easy mistake to make right? I mean, that’s just a guy from Steps, who only had a few number 1 singles and albums. not as though anyone would be able to tell the difference right? And yeah, you could google it but that would take up precious seconds which these “journalists” need to make sure the soul they sold is being kept in good condition. I mean if you type “ian watkins” into google images you see this:

“hmmm, do you think it’s the guy in all these pictures in the top 3 rows, one of which is a court drawing?”
“nah, is the guy with a singular picture on the fourth row”

As soon as the page went up they were inundated with people telling them that’s the one Ian Watkins. So E! did the sensible thing and changed the picture; hours and hours later. Good job guys!

Now before you point out that whilst journalists may be stupid, that’s just because of the intense pressure they’re under, so mistakes will be made; normal people won’t make that mistakes. If you do say that, you’re wrong. If you need proof of this: I saw the following tweet earlier:

@ianwatkins you’re a sick pervert. Even if you’re not the guy from lostprophets you deserve to die for having the same name

Basically what we all need to do is calm the fuck down. One person convinced other people to do a lot of bad shit. This does not mean everyone else in the band supported them (and you have to wonder whether they’ll ever be able to record music ever again), or everyone involved in rock music is at it, and it certainly doesn’t mean that everybody named “Ian” is the same; just use some common sense. And lastly; don’t get unjustly annoyed at a situation that hasn’t happened yet. Basically; don’ t be this guy:

Whilst not commenting on news articles, this guy can often be found crying and wanking whilst eating wotsits

 

Health Tourism (or why people should shut up and use facts)

A lot of people seem to be complaining about so called “health tourists” lately; with reports coming in that they cost the UK up to £2billion a year.

Now, to bring this into context 3 facts have to be brought to light:

1. Tourism is worth £115billion yearly, supporting 2.6million jobs and is responsible for about 10 percent of our GDP.
2. When people talk about “health tourism” they mean “people who come over here for hospital treatment then go home”. Yet when people talk about costs and numbers they include “anybody who is foreign and has had treatment here”. That includes students, actual tourists, and people who have live and work here (most footballers for example)
3. Obesity costs about £6billion.

Perhaps most importantly of all: that figure isn’t accurate. At all. The issue was first mentioned way way way back in March (pre-storm times; if any of you can remember such a time). Jeremy Hunt was asked how much health tourists cost yearly and replied:

“we don’t want to speculate but it could be £200million”

No reasoning, no data to back it up, just a figure pulled out of his ministerial anus. But let’s assume this is correct: how much of the NHS budget does it take up? A whopping 0.18 percent.

Shocking i know

So do we have any official figures? The closest we have are the figures from 2011-2012 for treating foreign nationals: £33million. Sounds a lot, but £21million of that was repaid by the patient or their home nation; bringing the figure down to £10million; which is slightly less than the £2billion that’s being claimed by newspapers.

Not relevent at all; but it made me giggle

So how would we deal with this? Do we really want a situation where a man comes into hospital having been mugged, and the doctors stand there going:

“hang on, is he one of ours?”

I don’t carry ID around with me so I have no way of proving I’m British: the only way they’d know is if they offered me tea or asked me to queue; and if I’m bleeding to death I’d be a bit too pre-occupied to drink tea. And what about students? People who live and work here for 3 years minimum. Are you saying if they get hit by a drunk driver and need emergency medical care they should be sent back home?

More importantly, if a foreign national is here and gets infected with TB or the Ebola virus, would you rather they get treated or just walk around with the disease?

Ralph Miliband

Now stay calm and steady yourself, because I am about to do something that I very rarely do; I, a political cynic, am about to do something peculiar: Defend the leader of the Labour Party.

Of course I’m defending Ed Miliband against something even more ghastly than he is: Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail; who recently published an article about how Ed Miliband’s father hated Britain and all it stood for. Their basis for this: a diary entry he wrote when he was seventeen. Apparently in this diary Ralph Miliband showed disdain for Eton, Harrow, House Of Lords, and ugly nationalism. Apparently by hating these “British institutions” he is an evil human being, so evil that it leaked down to his son.

Now there’s four major points to make about this whole thing:

1. If you attack a person by attacking their relatives, you’ve lost the argument (subsection: Leave the dead alone you f’ing vultures)

This is surely one of the most obvious things I’ve ever said. You cannot judge somebody by the actions of others. By saying “this person is this because his father was” you’re entering a very odd area. For example: if “he’s an evil communist, so his son is an evil communist” then logic dictates “he killed a child, so his son must also be a child killer” must exist too; in which case, all the dad did was kill a child killer. Yes I know that is one of the stupidest things anyone has ever said; but it’s the same logic.

Also; insulting someone’s parents is a really despicable thing to do anyway. You’re journalists (allegedly), you cannot call for people to respect the dead when you’re insulting them.

2. You’re actually kind of doing Ed a favour.

It has to be said that Ed Miliband has come out of this very well. He attacked the newspaper and told them they were out of line. This shows a passion and loyalty that is missing from a lot of modern politics. I doubt this whole thing has lost him a single vote as Mail readers aren’t likely to vote for him anyway; all you’re doing is making him seem like a fine outstanding person who’s respecting the memory of his deceased father, and you seem like pricks.

3. You are aware of his war history?

Let’s assume the paper is right; that Ralph did hate this country. He hated it with every fibre of his being. He hated it so much he had to wake up early in the morning just to fit all his hate in. Let’s say all of that is true, then answer me this: why the hell did he then join the Navy? If you hate a country you don’t then go fight for it; it’s a rather poor strategy.

Then again I’m sure that Paul Dacre’s father was very important during the way. What was he, infantry, out there on the front line every day putting his life on the line to defend this sacred isle? Or maybe a strategist, meticulously planning out attacks that would leave the enemies helpless whilst causing minimal damage to our boys? A showbiz editor who refused to defend this country in it’s hour of need and instead write articles about celebrities? (i’ll give you a clue, it’s not the first two).

Yes, whilst Ralph Miliband was out risking his life for a country he apparently hated, Peter Dacre was taking the 1940’s equivalent of crotch shot photo’s (ankle pictures?)

And I’m not even going to mention the paper’s official stance during the war (I’ll give you a clue, they hated Jews)

4. Hating British institutions does not mean you hate Britain.

Again, very very simple point to make. It’s on the “did you know that pissing on Freddy Krueger is not a good idea?” level of obviousness. Hating the House Of Lords doesn’t mean you hate Britain any more than disliking 50 Cent means you hate all music.

But then again; let’s say it does. That the instant you hate a British institution you’ve basically committed treason and should be executed. Surely the two most famous British institutions (and two which make me immensely proud to be British) are the NHS and the BBC. Yet the Mail wants to shut both of them down.

Quick note: Paul Dacre was asked to appear on Newsnight to defend himself and his paper, instead he sent an assistant. Showing just how brave and spirited he really is. You can hate The Sun all you want, but if the news were a football team then David Dinsmore would be the elder goalkeeper, watching everything from the back line and defending his team when he got a chance, Paul Dacre would be carted off with an “injury” as soon as things looked bad.

There, I’ve not only defended a politician, I also just complimented the editor of The Sun, go fuck yourself Paul Dacre, you insensitive inhuman shit

Boohoo I’m Offended

Towards the end of this year Channel 4 partook in their annual tradition and aired Big Fat Quiz Of The Year. During the course of the show they made numerous jokes which wouldn’t be suitable for a young audience. But that’s fine; it was on after the watershed, so that’s not a problem right?

Think again

Now surely it doesn’t matter if something is “a few seconds” or “an hour” after the watershed, as long as it is after the watershed? But still; they wouldn’t do an article over nothing would they? Surely lots of people complained? Well, no. According to OFCOM only one show received more than 10 complaints that week; and Big Fat Quiz Of The Year was not one of them. Since the original article The Mail have published FOUR ARTICLES about the show. It just seems like a desperate attempt to rile controversy. All it seems to have done however is cause more people to watch the show.

The latest article is the best one however. They admit to harassing the chairman of channel 4 on the phone and turning up at his house. It also constantly references Sachsgate and Mock The Week, just to shoehorn criticisms of the BBC in. The Mail were actually SO OFFENDED by the jokes in the show that they felt compelled to repeat them at least 5 times on the website, and link to a video of it. Because the ideal thing to do if you find something offensive is to share it with as many people as possible.

Doing this would actually be more useful

It’s for this reason I don’t think they’re actually offended. They’re just pretending to be to cause outrage. If you’re truly offended by something then you just call the person who made the joke a fool, and then move on. You don’t repeat the joke. It’s like if someone accuses you of being racist you don’t use the word “fucking nigger” in your response to them.

Even John Terry knows this, now

But let’s say they did find this show offensive. That whilst watching this show they were so angered and offended they just broke down into a weeping, angry mess; does it matter? You know the best cure for being offended; changing the channel. It’s cheap, easy to do, and it’s a lot less annoying than walking about crying and whining “waaaa, I’m offended, everything must be changed to suit my personal tastes”. And please stop with all this “won’t somebody please think of the children?” BS. If you don’t want your kids watching “offensive” tv then just don’t have a tv in their room. Is that really that complicated to do?

Surprisingly; not the greatest babysitter

It basically all boils down to a mix of two beliefs:

1. “Just placing your kids in front of a tv and leaving them there on their own for hours” constitutes as parenting.
2. Everybody has the right to walk through life without ever hearing something they don’t like.

Both of these are wrong, very very wrong. But I can’t phrase it as well as Stephen fry can; so here goes:

2012; The year the world went full retard

“2011 has been like one big end-of-season finale; a climactic episode in which multiple story arcs come to a head. It’s used up far too much news for one year. How can 2012 possibly compete?” well the answer to that turned out to be; stupidity. An almost endless cycle of stupidity. In the yearbook photo of life 2012 will be the one with a terrible mullet, spinach stuck in his teeth, and crying.

Costa Conf*ckup

Making the segue between the almost apocalyptic 2011 and the downright idiotic 2012 was the Costa Concordia, which sank near Tuscany at the start of the year. It was an event which would only be remembered as a massive tragedy if it wasn’t for two things;

1. The captain; Captain Schettino, who was responsible for the crash. He claims he wasn’t to blame but the general consensus is that if you turn off the navigation system alarms, change the ships route to sail closer to land, sit and eat dinner before making the order to begin evacuating passengers, get in a lifeboat and sail away before anyone finds out; it is kind of your fault. This did lead to an excellent phone call however, when one of the coast guards told the captain to “get the fuck back on board”
2. Some news outlets referring to it as “a real life Titanic”. Perhaps not understanding that the real life Titanic, WAS the Titanic. If a US president got assassinated would they refer to it as like “a real life JFK”?

“OMG she’s like a real life Queen”

Mitt-igating circumstances

US politician Mitt Romney was criticized after it was discovered that he put his pet dog on his car roof and drove for hours. His defence was basically; my dog likes fresh air. Good thing he didn’t win the election otherwise he might have celebrated by dropping a piano on someone because they like music.

Legitimate rape

Still in US politics; Todd Akin (Republican representative for Missouri) made a bid for “stupidest comment of all time” when he said the following in regards to pregnancies from rape:

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”

So whenever somebody gets raped; they secretly wanted it, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. That is GENUINELY what he thinks. The weirdest part of that sentence is the “doctors” part. Which doctors is he going to and what are they showing him?

Stupid comments about rape seemed to be the general theme for US politicians this year. Tom Smith (Republican representative for Pennsylvania) compared rape pregnancies to pregnancies out of wedlock (a thought which has so many things wrong with it it’s amazing somebody would be stupid enough to say it).

Roger Rivard (Republican; Wisconsin) claimed that “Some women rape easily”. He claims he meant “some women get pregnant and then lie and say they were raped”. Yet to me it sounds more like “it’s very easy to rape some women; so try and find them”. I don’t really believe his side of the story; because if he truly meant what he says he meant; there are a thousand different ways to phrase it, and none would be as stupid.

Now since it was election year there were a lot of very stupid comments made; my favourite is people criticising Obama for encouraging people to go to college (it’s apparently snobbish). Although the advert saying “don’t vote for Romney; he speaks French” comes a close second.

A member of the Catholic church must have felt that “stupid comments about rape” were the Church’s domain and wrote a newsletter where he came up with a theory of the people who are really to blame for the sexual abuse taking place in churches; the children. They’re all seducing the priests apparently. So to summarise; kids are too sexy to not get abused.

It wasn’t just politicians and priests who made stupid comments about it; a 28 year old man who raped a woman at knifepoint (after forcing her to an abandoned warehouse) claimed he did it in self defence. Try, just try to see the logic in that. Cuz I got nothing.

PC Pleb

Whilst US politicians went about eating kittens and making ill-informed comments about rape, the main political scandal in England was a bit more subdued; an MP called a policeman a “Pleb” (or didn’t; depending who you ask). I stopped being able to pay attention to this story after the first week; it all seemed so childish and stupid. Plus; there’s so many better words than “pleb” to insult someone with. I suppose pastygate would also count; when the government decided that a pasty counted as a luxury item.

Jim; please stop fixing it.

Whilst we didn’t have a political scandal to match the US, we did have a scandal the likes of which US news media can only dream of; the Jimmy Savile scandal. A scandal which took up most of the spaces for the top twitter trends (if only because it seemed like everybody had their own way of spelling “Savile”). Nobody came out of this looking good; the BBC looked incompetent, the press looked like vultures, and Philip Schofield looked a prat when he decided to “accidentally” show a list of suspected paedophiles to a camera on live tv. I say “accidentally” because he has been working in TV for a very very long time, as such he surely knows how to hand over objects so the other side of them is not visible. So either he doesn’t know basic presenting skills (so should be sacked), or he purposely performed an action which slandered innocent people (in which case he should be prosecuted). It seemed like everybody had an opinion on this; a senior MP said it was disgusting that Savile was allowed access to patients at a hospital, but has stayed silent since it’s emerged that she was one of the people who ran the hospital at the time.

The weirdest reactions to this have been from the people who have targeted his families homes, spray painting the walls and damaging the doors. These people are aware that Savile no longer lives with his family aren’t they? It’s just mindless violence, lashing out against innocent people. Even if Savile was the most evil, vile paedophile to ever walk the face of the earth; his family should not have to shoulder the burden of his actions. They were his, and his alone.

Jesus fresco

Cecilia Gimenez achieved worldwide fame after attempting to restore a painting of Jesus in a church in Spain.

Now I not gonna call her stupid; she did something with the best of  intentions. I am going to criticize the church though; her “restoration” brought in so many people to the church that they started charging people to see it. They then got very annoyed when she asked them to donate the money to charity. As did other people; saying she should not receive any money and should instead be sued for damages and arrested. Let’s get it straight; she didn’t purposely destroy it and then demand money, she tried to improve it and only asked for money once the church started charging people. And she wasn’t asking for the money to go to her; she wanted it to all go to charity; and the church refused her request. Which isn’t very Christian is it?

Samantha Brick

Samantha Brick is a writer for The Daily Mail, and she wrote one of the most self centered, ridiculous articles of the year; in which she complained that the rest of the planet hates her for no reason than her beauty. She claims that she didn’t get promotions at work because her female bosses were intimidated by her beauty, and many of her friends have screamed at her in jealousy. The thought that maybe, just maybe, it’s something to do with her personality or work ethic doesn’t seem to enter her head. The reactions ranged from pure vitriol to outright pity. The worst part of it was the fact that these reactions just convinced her she was right. Instead of convincing her to actually think before speaking. But maybe she was right; maybe she is the most beautifully stunning person on the planet

Ah okay maybe not

Kony Ice Cream

Not much to say here as I’ve already covered the important bits

• A video was made of Joseph Kony saying he employs child soldiers in Uganda and should be stopped. It didn’t mention how he should be stopped.
• The video because world famous
• It was then discovered that Kony actually hadn’t been in Uganda for over 8 years.
• People found out that almost all of the money donated to the people who made the video spent it on advertising instead of, you know, actually doing something useful.

Oddly enough this last little tidbit didn’t stop people taking the video seriously. People kept on taking it seriously until the creator of the video masturbated in public. The lesson here is; you can lie, deceive millions of people and exploit people for your own ends; but you can’t wank.

Essex Lion

A lion was spotted in Essex on 26^th August, sparking widespread fear and panic. After 31 officers and £3,600 worth of helicopters were sent out to deal with the situation they discovered;

it was just a cat.

Helpful note

#Susanalbumparty

If you don’t see why that’s silly; you are more mature than me.

It’s not the end of the world as we know it

A small selection of people believed the world would end this year; and no amount of proof and scientific evidence would prove them wrong. Nobody was sure how it would end; just that it would. Which was the best indication that they were all wrong. My best ones were the ones who (even the day before the world was going to end) were saying “a giant asteroid is going to hit the planet tomorrow”, as if scientists aren’t watching out for this type of thing. Plus, if it was going to crash into the planet; I think we’d see it.

“london seems slightly different today. Not sure how”

This story stops becoming laughable and starts becoming quite tragic once you realize that some people committed suicide because they didn’t want to die in the apocalypse; which is the equivalent of quitting your job before you’re sacked then finding out you were actually going to get a raise.

See, no apocalypse

Fuel-crisis

It had been a while since the last fuel crisis so Cabinet Minister Francis Maude decided it would be a good idea to start one by saying there’s going to be a strike by the transport union so people should start storing lots of fuel in jerrycans. After going on google to find out what a jerrycan was people decided it would be a good idea to panic-buy fuel. Because the strike was obviously going to last for years and years and people would end up needing to kill for petrol so they could go on with their important deeds (such as going to debenhams to buy curtains). I’ve never understood people who panic buy fuel. They queue for hours and hours “in case a fuel crisis occurs” (meanwhile creating the crisis) to fill up buckets, then drive home and put it all in their garage and go “I’m safe”. You’re not safe; you’ve got buckets of petrol in your garage.

They called me crazy when i stored flammable liquids in my garage, WELL WHO’S CRAZY NOW????

So that was 2012; here’s hoping 2013 has a lot less stupidity.

News For Past Week (12-18 November)

A woman in Ireland died after doctors refused to give her an abortion whilst she was in the process of miscarrying; saying it would be illegal to kill the baby. So now there’s two dead bodies instead of one; nice going. The deceased woman had moved to Ireland from India in 2008, so obviously the Daily Mail reader response is pretty much “f*cking foreigners; they wouldn’t like it if we went over there and did things”. It’s almost as if they think she moved to Ireland 4 years ago with the intention of aborting a child. And surely it’s logical to think that doctors would save the life of someone who will die instead of risking both dying?

The Taliban accidently leaked their e-mail addresses this week when they sent out a press release but forgot to delete the previous addresses. Not sure what’s weirder; that they forgot to delete them, or that their is actually a Taliban mailing list.

Death the infidels: oh and don’t forget to come to the bake sale this friday. They’ll be fairy cakes and funyuns

Top chefs from around the world united this week against James Isherwood. What did James do to earn the wrath of seemingly a whole group of professionals? Gave a restaurant 3 out of 5 stars online. Seriously, that is all he did. And in return he got this:

“i think you’re a cunt”

“not welcome in any restaurant”

“smash him in”

Now normally news stories prompt questions,  but the only question this story prompts is; why aren’t their more serial killer chefs? They seem unbalanced enough.

Scientists in the US have announced they’ve developed edible deodorants. Great, now eating will replace washing. Sadly, no details are available on the calorific content so I have no idea whether people will end up saying “I would smell nice today but I on a diet”

The clocks changing does lead to some brilliant random events every so often; in the 90’s for example it led to terrorists setting off a bomb too early (these people are plainly idiots; yet we’re still scared of them?). This year it led to something even funnier. What can be funnier than stupid terrorists you ask? Simple; a drunk driver getting arrested twice at technically the same time in two different areas. Now I hope he was so drunk he forgot what happened; so he’ll wake up, look at the arrest details, and assume he’s a time lord.

US election news next. We know what happened; the evil white guy lost and the mildly evil black guy won. The best news however came from Georgia (the US state, not the small European country) where 4,000 people ignored all the candidates available and instead voted for Charles Darwin. There’s something quite brilliant about a figurehead for atheists kind of rising from the dead.

Scientists in Japan have invented a 3d photo printing booth. My first thought when I heard this; “Finally I can make an action figure of myself. One step closer to being a superhero”

A farmer in China has claimed that diving helps pigs improve their immune system. Now I’m not going to make the obvious “the price of bacon will go down” joke; that’s below me. Instead I’m just going to hypothesise that footballers don’t dive to cheat, they use it as healthcare.

4 out of 10 women apparently have an uneasy relationship with their mother in law. So really the only problem with those “my mother in law so x” jokes is that it should be women telling them.

Jimmy Savile

Ok so I haven’t written anything in a while; I lost use of internet for a month and then when I got it back I couldn’t write. I tried doing something about the Jimmy Savile scandal but where do you start?

This story is the perfect story for newspapers though as it provides everything they want; innocent white blonde girls being abused, celebrities, a constant stream of nonfermation (stuff that seems like information but actually isn’t useful to anybody at all; yeah I invented a word; what of it?), and excuses to slander the BBC. Now I don’t wish to be unnecessarily crude here but it’s worth pointing out one vital piece of information; the BBC didn’t fuck any children. They hired someone who did but that doesn’t mean they themselves are responsible. It’s easy to say things like “well there were rumours so they should’ve sacked him”. Because we all know if it’s a rumour then it is definitely true.

Ok let’s pretend for a moment that everybody at the BBC was aware of what was happening and kept it all a secret since the 70’s; are we really supposed to believe that not a single newspaper journalist knew about it? Let’s face it; the press have a vested interest in this story. A lot of them want to see the end of the BBC. Especially The Sun and The Times. The more they go on about how it’s a failure of the BBC the better they look by comparison and the more likely we are to forget all the awful things they do, have done, and will continue to do.

Who can forget their take on Jews escaping Nazi Germany?

Now obviously if he did do what he is accused of then he was a vile evil human being who should’ve been chemically castrated. But some of the comments people are making seem a little harsh and presumptuous. Comments like

“well I always knew he was a paedophile”

Did you, now? Well good for you. That means you must be some kind of brilliantly wonderful genius. And I’m so proud that you managed to keep your knowledge hidden until everybody else knew too. Well done.

This was genuinely the least creepy picture I could find

“well of course he was a paedo; look how weird he looked”

Because as we all know; if you look weird you MUST be evil. That kind of attitude is why I find it hard to enjoy Roald Dahl books; he wrote in The Twits that people get ugly because they think ugly thoughts. Now as an, erm, “not aesthetically pleasing” child this kind of annoyed me. But it’s just a children’s book so you’d hope nobody would think like that in real life, yet they do. And this Jimmy Savile case proves it. In many people’s eyes if you look like a thug, stupid, etc; then you must be. People still cling to the notion that you can judge the character of a person by the way they look. It’s easy to see why; if you think somebody looks like a criminal and judge them as such then you feel free to insult them and you feel better about yourself. Now, occasionally this is useful. For example, if you see somebody holding a knife, standing above a dead body and they’re covered in blood and have a disembodied finger in their mouth it’s fair to say it would be acceptable to not let them look after your kids.

 

“I know it looks bad, but at least she’s cleaning up after herself”

Now that last sentence was so poorly constructed I should probably leave it there.