The yacht of Paul and Rachel Chandler, currently being held hostage by Somali pirates, the Lynn Rival has been returned to the UK. The 38ft boat has been brought back onboard the Royal Navy vessel that witnessed the Chandlers ordeal. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Wave Night said they did not act, as they did not want to endanger them. First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope said that criticism that the sailors onboard did not do enough to rescue the couple did a “disservice” to the crew. However in a report published in the Mail on Sunday it was reported that a source onboard said there were actually 20 Royal Marines who were equipped and ready to go. Though the marines mobilised twice on the deck of the ship, they were given the order to stand down. The pirates holding Mr and Mrs Chandler are demanding £4 million ($7 million) in ransom. Last week the couple were seen on film asking for help and saying they could be killed within a week if the ransom is not paid. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have repeated, “It does not make substantive concessions to hostage takers, including ransoms.” I continue to hope that the Chandlers ordeal ends soon and they are reunited with their families. Thanks for reading.

You magazine in the Mail on Sunday today had a slightly bizarre feature on Christmas gadgets.

We say bizarre, because it seems that the word “gadget” has a slightly different meaning in Mail-world than in ours.

The OED says that “gadget” refers to a “knick-knack”; we would argue that in common parlance, it now means some piece of technological wizardry that makes people’s lives more exciting or interesting.

But the Mail’s interpretation of the word “gadget” is somewhat more prosaic, even though it described its list – on pages 76-77 of the magazine as comprising “fun-and-functional festive gadgets”.

One of these “fun” gadgets was:

Tinfoil.

Another was:

A toilet brush.

And the third was…

Toilet paper.

That’s right. The Mail on Sunday thinks that the common or garden bog roll is a gadget. Not only that, but a “fun-and-functional” gadget. Because it had a Christmas motif on the paper.

We can just imagine our friends’ delight when we tell them we’ve bought them all fun gadgets for Christmas, and then they open their packets of Andrex! How hilarious!

We sense that someone on You’s staff was bloomin’ fed-up of the festive period already when they had to assemble this list. Either that, or they don’t get out very much.

This weekend I’ve had my parents to stay – which is why I’ve not had any chance to indulge in my habit of blogging the weekend away.

However no weekend with my parents would be complete without a disagreement about their chosen reading material (“I only get it for the crossword” says my Mum – a likely story ! (to use one of her favourite expressions) )

So this morning I got to actually peruse the Mail on Sunday for real – ie. with a paper copy, rather than via the internet.

I abandoned it part way through, already despairing of the will to live (but also incidentally curiously baffled as to why such a pro-tory media outlet, has such a definite ‘anti-Cameron’ vein running through it – believe me Tories , if you lose Cameron – you lose the election). Before giving up though I read Liz Jone’s column You want BA to soar again, Willie? Then get Thora Hird out of the loo which is what i’m guessing passes for humour in the strange world that Mail readers inhabit (I’ve visited this world – my parents live there remember !).

Well anyway  – no dissections and critiques – no meta analysis and deconstruction – just this little snippet for you to savour  (this in relation to British Airways practices designed to make the airline more effective and profitable)

“When you call passengers for their flight, do not summon people with small children first. They shouldn’t be travelling anyway”

I mean what ?  what ?

Is this for real ? – hopefully not – hopefully it’s a joke.

But if this is a joke – what ?

Is this the kind of humour they have ?

What is wrong with these people ?

Those who work with me will know one of my pet hates is dodgy science dressed up as news. There might be some who question how I can work in PR, an industry that has also been guilty of such practices.  I believe there is a difference between presenting information it a positive light to promote a product or service and actively looking for validation for a story or myth that has no scientific or statistically backing. Which brings me on to this request from the Mail on Sunday:

I might be wrong but how can this be anything but a story designed to scare and misinform people? Surely the request should be for anyone experts with new research on the link between mobile phones and brain tumours? I hope I’m wrong (It’s the Mail so maybe not) but await Sunday to see exactly what ‘expert’ has been put forward and what the latest claim will be.

Jack Straw and Tony Blair ‘dishonestly’ concealed a plan to allow in more immigrants and make Britain more multi-cultural because they feared a public backlash if it was made public, it has been claimed.

The allegation was made after a former Labour adviser said  the Government opened up UK borders partly to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration.

Andrew Neather, who worked for Mr Straw when he was Home Secretary, and as a speech writer for Mr Blair, claimed a secret Government report in 2000 called for mass immigration to change Britain’s cultural make-up forever.

Blair and Straw discussing changing the face of English culture forever by Opening the borders to more immigrants.

Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1222769/Dishonest-Blair-Straw-accused-secret-plan-multicultural-UK.html#ixzz0Uwuc3ZQQ

The truth is finally out, New Labour had plans all along to change the face of this country for good and without asking the population what they wanted, New Labour have stabbed the people’s of this country in the back and sold them down the river, Blair was always a liar and never to be trusted, he was too slick, too polished a personality, he fooled many people.

As I have said before the generation of politicians in power today have no understanding of the mindset of the people of this Island, they think we are stupid and that If we are fed enough shit for long enough we will eat it, well, the liars have been well and truly caught out this time.

Under New Labour this country and it’s working class people’s have sunk to new depths of poverty and unfairness, the rich have got richer the poor have gotten poorer, Blair and Straw have tried to socially engineer a new bunch of future New Labour supporters by opening the doors to mass immigration as all new migrants are likely to vote for the party that allowed them entry, it is a callous attempt at changing an entire culture by changing the face of it’s population, at least the Nazis attempts at social engineering were done in the open, New Labours hatred of all things white and working class will see them enter years in the political shadows, untill they can accept they need to ask the people/voters what they want and not tell us what we need then they will never be trusted again, they have betrayed this country, all politicians do to some extent but New Labour take the biscuit, all they have done since coming into power is to fill their pockets with cash and goodies and laughed at the people they are meant to have been serving, maybe it’s time for such an extreme party to come to the fore just to wake the sleeping idiots in Westminster once and for all.

So there was a post here of pictures from the 100th Anniversary Gathering of the American Clan Gregor Society.  Mail On Sunday chose one of the pictures to use in Fiona Armstrong’s story which ran in the October 24th, 2009 edition.  It was most thrilling to see one of my pictures.  Here is the story and a link to the actual site.

Life in the tartan army: We Armstrongs could start a fight in a phonebox…but not with MacGregor of MacGregor

By Fiona Armstrong
Last updated at 10:16 PM on 24th October 2009

But there is no doubt that those whose forebears left Celtic shores to make a new life in the New World love the whole piping, caber-tossing, Burns-reciting, haggis-hunting thing.

Yes, the Americans are big on Scotland. And just like the old days, there are thousands of clansmen and women who will follow – and even offer to die for – their chief.

America is a young country and membership of a Scottish clan offers an unbroken heritage stretching back a thousand years, a real link to the MacGregors’ battles with the Campbells, to Rob Roy and the Jacobite uprising.

Every year there are 400 Highland Games in the USA and Canada and for those in the Clan Gregor, my husband is the living, breathing embodiment of all that their Scottishness means to them.

Of course, I didn’t start out as a MacGregor and my interest in Scottish history and the ancient clans far predate my links to Clan Gregor. My own Clan, Armstrong, a lowland tribe from the border country, does not have a chief.

He was hanged by the English in 1611. I have pored long and hard over the history books in the hunt for a living descendant of the chiefly line, but no one has come forward to claim the title.

The Armstrongs were to the Scottish Borders what the troublesome MacGregors were to the Highlands – ‘unruly and very ill tae tame’ – is an old description. A more modern saying is that the Armstrongs could start a fight in a phone box.

That’s one reason I think that I’ve met the right man. We don’t fight (not yet anyway!) but our two clans have the same story.

Both were persecuted and eventually forced out of their country. We Armstrongs were shipped to Northern Ireland. I also think it is fitting that we met on the banks of a salmon river – though not by the Spey, Tweed or Tay, but in Alaska – where I was fishing for monster salmon and Malcolm, a landscape photographer with an international reputation, was working.

MacGregor the Younger, as he was when I met him, is a handsome, if at times eccentric man.

He frequently disappears into the desert or mountains, tells me that ammunition is not my concern, and always puts sherry in his soup. Irritating as these traits may be, they are not grounds for divorce.

When his father died in 2003, Malcolm became the 7th Baronet of Lanrick and Balquhidder and 24th Chief of Clan Gregor. The title of clan chief is more important, for it goes back centuries to the ancient Kings of Scotland.

The baronetcy came much later to an ancestor who devised an accounting system for the Indian army that saved the exchequer millions of pounds.

Given the history of Clan Gregor, whose members include the infamous Rob Roy MacGregor, it is a miracle that the chiefly line survived. Outlawed in 1603, members of the family had been forced to flee to the hills.

Their men folk were hunted down with bloodhounds and their women branded on the face with hot irons.

But survive it did, which is why I flew to Washington DC with my husband earlier this month to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American Clan Gregor Society, one of the oldest of hundreds of clan societies in the USA.

The society was formed in Virginia in 1909 by a Dr Magruder. Don’t be confused: many MacGregors changed their names to escape persecution.

These offshoots – Gregg, White, Black, MacAlpine and, yes, MacGruders or Magruders – are known as ‘septs’.

In a black-and-white picture taken of the founders they all look very serious. It is interesting that there is very little tartan in evidence, just a small square on jackets.

Our 21st Century snaps with their seas of colour show an almost Hollywood vision of a Highland Gathering.

Remarkably it was my husband’s ancestor Sir Evan MacGregor of MacGregor who helped spread the craze for tartan.

The fabric had been banned after the Jacobite uprising of 1745, but when George IV came to Scotland in 1822 in full Highland dress, it suddenly became de rigeur.

During the visit, Sir Evan was asked to raise a party of men to escort the Crown Jewels up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. He kitted out all the men with fancy kilts and silver dirks and in the process nearly bankrupted the family.

Centuries ago, the trade-off of belonging to the clan was that you fought for the chief and he saw you clothed and fed.

These days we can hardly run to keeping ourselves, never mind providing for the hundreds of thousands of MacGregors around the globe. But my husband takes his job seriously; his role is to be an authority on clan history and the wider Scottish story and an active figurehead for the name.

And in crossing the Atlantic, we were keeping up a family tradition. My husband’s parents were there in 1959 for the 50th anniversary. Mind you, times were different then.

My husband’s father waltzed through customs carrying a small armoury of ceremonial metalwork – highland broadswords and dirks – while his mother carried the family tiara wrapped in a brown paper bag to fool would-be thieves.

Nowadays even the skean dhu – a tiny dagger – is impossible to take through American customs. As for our passports, they really confuse the immigration officials. We get ‘MacGregor – Lady – now that’s a real nice name,’ or ‘Hey, Lord, my brother’s called Earl.’

This time my husband’s weaponry was strictly limited and confined to hold-baggage alongside the belts, buckles and brooches and an ancient sporran found on the field of Culloden.

Any smuggling was confined to three eagle feathers. A clan chief needs three eagle’s feathers for his bonnet and strictly speaking they violate international agreements on importing endangered species.

When we arrived at our destination – the delightful colonial town of Charlottesville – I wished I had brought the tiara. It would not have been out of place among 300 MacGregors in silk and satin tartan, their sashes carefully tied.

There were the odd exceptions; someone wore a ballgown with a pair of cowboy boots, for example. But the manners were impeccable.

I felt that I stepped back into the deep south and half expected the ladies to have to retire when the after-dinner whisky came round. The drams, by the way, were supplied courtesy of Clan MacGregor Scotch Whisky. The occasional case or two is another chiefly perk.

We stayed to watch the extraordinary sight of a ballroom full of men singing Sir Walter Scott’s MacGregor’s Gathering, a poem which tells of the nameless clan who will not be kept down – ‘While there’s leaves in the forest and foam on the river, MacGregor despite them shall flourish forever!’

At this point, with much hollering, the gentlemen stand on their chairs, put one foot on the table and brandish their weaponry. Many of those who join clan societies have been in the forces, and their chests are covered with medals. I wouldn’t be surprised if their sporrans contain small guns.

Dress is everything at these events. When MacGregor of MacGregor wore the red and black ‘Rob Roy’ tartan, so would I; ditto with the red and green.

In Scotland, no one bats an eyelid when they see a piece of tartan but the Americans are mad keen to touch it. I was told I am ‘just like’ Princess Diana (I wish).

My husband was informed that, after Prince Charles, he was the world’s best-dressed Highlander (he wishes that, too).

‘I love your kilt stockings. Where can I buy those?’ one admirer asked my husband. It was explained that these knee-high socks, in a chunky red and black diamond pattern, were 100 years old and irreplaceable, having being knitted by his great-grandmother.

‘Gee, that’s great – will she knit me some, too?’, came the answer. The bonnet was also noted.

‘God dammit, he’s got chicken feathers in his head,’ someone shouted. But anyone daring to ask MacGregor of MacGregor what he wears under his kilt will get short shrift.

There is, of course, a correct way to wear the kilt, but Americans pay scant attention. We saw them teamed with leather jackets and kiss-me-quick T-shirts, worn back to front and, shock horror, even ladies wearing them.

Of course these clan societies may not be the most accurate reflection of Scottish traditions, but they do spread the Scottish story and bring people together in fellowship.

What’s more, they do wonders for tourism and Americans will put their hands in their pockets to make sure the story continues.

It was an American MacDonald who funded the fabulous clan research centre on Skye and the American MacGregors who offer scholarships to needy students and donate tens of thousands of pounds to help preserve the ancient clan burial stones at Dalmally in Argyll.

Though I asked myself, in Chattanooga, what on earth I was doing there, I know the answer. We may be separated by thousands of miles, but we are linked by shared history. As one American MacGregor told me: ‘How do you know where you are going if you don’t know where you come from?’

I was featured in Mail On Sunday’s Finance section today in a article regarding issues around the proposed Royal Mail strike.

Mail On Sunday 18th October

As a nutritionist, we can do the majority of our work either in person or online (one to one consultations can be held over the phone or skype as well as in person). However, when prescibing supplements this is where we are at the mercy of the postal system. We use specialised supplement companies, most of which do not have a retail presence – if they do then it will only be at the likes of high-end healthfood shops such as Nutricentre who have outlets in some of the Tesco Extra stores or in their flagship store in London’s Hale Clinic.

Of course, as a nutritional therapist, it is important that my clients do not run out of the supplements that they are using. Whilst it is a annoying situation, rather than moan about the looming strike, I have decided to be proactive and have created a strike-crisis strategy so avert any issues. With anything, preparation is really key to helping avoid unexpected pitfalls, of course life will always throw in the odd curve ball for good measure, but in a service-led industry such as mine, it is incredibly important to ensure that your clients needs and wants are met.

If you are under the care of a nutritional therapist (or any other alternative practitioner who prescribes supplements) then ask them tactics they have in mind for circumventing the proposed strikes. Keep your health at the forefront of your mind at all times.

The Belfast Newsletter published a story highlighting the creation of a Department of Education master database containing records of all school children.

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/39Government-building-big-brother-database39.5730304.jp

Ms Ruane’s Department of Education has developed the multi-million pound eSchools Data project which is currently being phased in across the Province.

It allows each school to view details of their own pupils, parents and staff — but some officials at the Department of Education will be able to access information about any entry.

The DENI said in a statement:

“Access to the data warehouse and its reports is strictly controlled. Users are obliged to obey acceptable use policies and sign up to a statement of responsibility.”

PACE members wonder if this is the same level of responsibility exercised by the Education Minister applied to post-primary arrangements and the numeracy and literacy failures of the primary schools?

In a statement Mr Allister said:-

“ESA and the Department under Ruane will, at the touch of a button, have not just educational data on every child, but highly sensitive personal data, including the religion of every child, the home and work address of every child’s contact, normally their parents. To this I object. At this time of increased terrorist threat and given the history in Northern Ireland of republican terrorists targeting security personnel, it is madness to collate information of this sensitivity and make it available within a Department where it only takes one mole to feed the IRA with security-compromising information and we will have murder on our hands.”

The entire statement is available here. http://www.tuv.org.uk/press-releases/view/354/allister-objects-to-�big-brother�-data-collection-by-ruane�s-department

While not a word of concern has been raised by Northern Ireland MPs or MLAs on this subject teachers in Kent have expressed fury over a census which asked them about what car they drive. Source: Mail on Sunday. Glen Owen Political Corespondent.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1219595/Teachers-fury-Big-Brother-census-asks-car-drive.html

Examples of the data collection tool

George Orwell couldn’t have anticipated this unintended consequence when he wrote 1984. It took a Northern Ireland Education Minister linked to the IRA’s  Columbia Three to find a back door entry into intelligence gathering methods.

It’s a bit unnerving when something that’s a bugbear becomes front page news, but that’s what happened a couple of days back when the Mail on Sunday splashed with the farrago surrounding Radio 1 Newsbeat’s embarrassingly soft interview with two BNP members, including criticism from senior Conservatives Jeremy Hunt and John Whittingdale.

The attack by the Mail, which is, let’s be honest, a sworn enemy of the BBC, gave the other papers licence to run a story which hadn’t progressed much further than online discussions, and by Sunday night it emerged that Welsh secretary Peter Hain – a dedicated anti-apartheid campaigner in his youth – had also piled in against the BBC in a comment piece for The Guardian.

If the content were not distasteful enough – descriptions of the London-born England footballer Ashley Cole as “not ethnically British” and “coming to this country” passed without proper challenge – even more worrying is the revelation that these members, still introduced simply as Joey and Mark on the BBC website, are key members of the BNP hierarchy. One, Mark Collett, is the BNP’s director of publicity. Would the BBC allow any other party’s spin doctors to appear anonymously? The interview was in clear breach of basic journalistic practice, and of official BBC and National Union of Journalists guidelines.

Where does it all go from here, though? As I mentioned in my first post on this, I e-mailed a complaint about the web feature, only to get a standard reply from Newsbeat editor Rod MacKenzie referring to the radio broadcast. I replied to that, and later got a reply from another member of the Newsbeat team, who rather awkwardly for this, I know personally from my time working for the BBC. I explained I’d take the complaint as far as I could, we politely agreed to disagree on most points, although a line was inserted into the intro to the piece clarifying that Ashley Cole was born in the UK. Last week, I submitted a formal complaint about the web feature and the way my initial complaint was handled by Rod MacKenzie, and I’m waiting to hear back about it.

One other thing happened last week – BBC chief political adviser Ric Bailey appeared on Radio 4’s The Media Show to discuss the incident. He wasn’t particularly impressive on it – as Sarah Ditum wrote last week: “Ultimately, Bailey largely repeated what was fallacious in Rod McKenzie’s answer: he defended the need to report on the BNP, without acknowledging the ways in which a specific instance of that reporting can be flawed.”

When I used to work at the BBC, I’d rant on about the sort of people who made such clueless judgements that it’d give ammunition to the BBC’s enemies. I’d bend anyone’s ear about it, because it was simply maddening. The teeth-grindingly tedious Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross fiasco was a prime example; that wasn’t about morality, this was about one radio station catching a complacent culture where the talent was in charge and nobody was given the power to stand up to them. Being inside the BBC that week, and having to report on it, was like being in a slow-moving car crash. It seemed everybody except the corporation’s management could see what was coming. As Charlie Brooker put it on Saturday over lavish ads for Radio 1: “It’s all quite depressing. At a time when repugnant vested-interest newspaper scumbags are circling the BBC peevishly seeking any opportunity to kick it hard in the arse, the corporation has bent down and painted a lavish target right on the seat of its trousers in high-gloss paint.”

And so it is with this Newsbeat fiasco. It’s a lamentable journalistic failure. Someone high up – and this stuff about something as controversial as the BNP should have been vetted at the highest level – should have spotted this, and seen the potential for trouble. But they didn’t. I feel sorry for the Newsbeat journalists, because they’re left exposed by their bosses’ complacency. As for the bosses… hopefully they’ll be forced to give an explanation as to what they think they were playing at soon. Like the Brand/Ross affair, this will drag on forever now, because nobody thought to take decisive action at the time. It’s a crying shame.

More: Ms Kitton, Newspaster, Paperhouse (again), Roy Greenslade, Pickled Politics, Unreal Abstractions.

LATER: The film-maker behind a Channel 4 documentary on one of the “young BNP members” criticises the radio interview: “The BNP’s heritage of neo-nazism and position in the ‘white supremacist’ movement is often not understood by poorly briefed reporters, who conduct interviews in a format designed for credible politicians”.

The penalty of being older, is that you can remember how things were and sometimes can’t actually work out why things have changed to how they are now.

Today’s timeshift experience was down to an accidental sight of the local newspaper delivery person. We were going to the Car Boot Sale in Crossford near Lanark and so were up really early on Sunday morning – about 6.30. Why so early? Ask any car booter and they will tell you that first thing is when you can get anything that’s worth having. After 8am all of the real “bargains” are gone. I’m not talking here about second hand toys and books, I’m talking about collectibles, decent jewellery and so on, stuff that can be resold on Ebay at a profit.

Anyway, I was puzzled when this car drew up at the house opposite and out jumped young girl carrying something under her arm – the newspaper delivery person – you see it’s no longer just the boys who do this job. She delivered first one paper and then another then hopped back into the car which then whizzed her off to the next destination 3 or 4 doors up.

Maybe there are some reasons for this hi-tech approach to delivery. Maybe it’s because Sunday newspapers are now so enormous that you would need to have the strength of an ox to carry them – all of them – round your delivery route whereas in the past newspapers were comparatively lighter. In Glasgow when I was growing up the staple Sunday morning newspaper pack was The Sunday Post and The Sunday Mail (nothing to do with the Mail on Sunday) and they were each of them manageable in terms of weight (literary AND physical). The English papers (Sunday Times, Telegraph etc) were few and far between as far as I remember anyway.

Maybe her parent who had clearly volunteered to help her earn some pocket-money decided that it wasn’t safe for her to be out on her own so early in the morning and so decided to spend cash on the fuel and vehicle wear and tear. Thereby falsely helping her feel self-sufficient but still feeling as if “they” were being a good parent (sorry about the grammar).

Maybe she couldn’t ride a bike or maybe she didn’t possess one. Maybe she or her parent felt that even if she had a bike and could ride one, that with all of that heavy load, she would have become unbalanced and unsafe.

I’m pleased to say that she had both legs and was in full possession of the ability to walk, hop and jump. Why the hell didn’t she just walk? The exercise would have done her good, she would indirectly have contributed single-handedly to reducing global warming, she would have been able to appreciate nature and breathe in good old fashioned fresh air.

I’m sure even the Americans don’t deliver papers by Auto!

JohnF

Alcohol has been banned from Nato’s headquarters in Afghanistan in the wake of an airstrike that killed up to 70 civilians.

US General Stanley McChrystal, head of the International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), decided to bar boozing after launching an investigation into the bombing in northern Afghanistan.

Staff at the Kabul headquarters were ‘either drunk or too hungover’ to answer his questions.

He slammed forces for ‘partying it up’ as German Chancellor Angela Merkel also found herself under attack for the strike.

The command to drop two 500lb bombs on two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban came from Germany, while American pilots carried it out.

A preliminary investigation found that the bombs were dropped in breach of Nato guidelines, on intelligence from a single source who claimed all present were members of the Taliban. [MailOnline]

Liz Jones.

What more do we need to say? The fashion journo and mistress of the confessional article has reached new heights of oddity recently with her move to the wilds of the south-west and subsequent articles slagging off everything about the south-west (OK, mostly the people).

We vaguely keep up with her life (as it appears in print) as we would keep monitoring an unusual species of animal – because her way of looking at the world is so completely alien to how we live our lives that we find her quite addictive. 

One of Journopig One’s favourite novels is EF Benson’s Lucia In London, where the eponymous heroine, an arch-snob in 1920s England, moves to London to try and climb her way up the social ladder. The people she meets form the Luciaphiles – a group who despise Lucia’s attempts to impress with her outlook on life, but who, at the same time, are secretly rather fascinated with her oddity.

And that’s our take on Liz Jones. We are Lizophiles, if you will. The odder her stories, the more snobby she appears in print, the more we have to read. When we finish an article, it’s with a,

“She CAN’T really be like that, surely?” 

Or a,

“You WHAT?!”

Today’s Liz Jones’s Diary, in the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine, is a classic. Entitled:

“In Which I Am Officially A Mad Cat Lady”

- which, by the way, is uncannily appropriate, because she is increasingly looking like the Mad Old Cat Lady who used to live in our home town in the late 1970s and early 1980s – it is about, unsurprisingly, Liz’s new obsession with feral cats.

That’s right. She wants to convince us all that she is no longer a fashion-obsessed Londoner; she takes in waifs and strays (via another celeb’s cat charity, natch) to stay in her enormous barn.

Only she has to remind us of her style credentials – oh, and remind us of how rich she is.

So we have a classic quote, comparing her own tame cat Susie to her new abused  (not abused by her, we have to add) cat, Gracie:

“I can only imagine the life my Susie, who has her own cushion from Nicole Farhi, who likes her M&S organic prawns at room temperature, would have had…”

It’s another world, really, isn’t it? But you have to admire her supreme self-confidence in thinking this is a perfectly normal way to treat your cat. There’s famine and war in today’s world, but our Liz is content feeding M&S meals to her moggies.

We just wish EF Benson was alive today to get some good quotes. He wouldn’t need to make it up.

MAJOR British newspapers have taken a circulation hit after an ABC inquiry revealed their bulk drop figures were inaccurate.

The affected mastheads are The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, The London Evening Standard, and the Financial Times, according to The Guardian.

The ABC launched an investigation into the bulk sales of newspapers to airports and hotels earlier this year after a spot-check uncovered a discrepancy.

A distributor, not the newspapers, has been blamed for the incorrect reporting, but the newspapers still face the burden of a significant circulation drop – 324,000 copies or 6.5% in the case of The Daily Telegraph – which is an untimely blow in a market where overall circulation is already on the slide.

Hello once again dear readers. I haven’t posted for a while but this week’s furore over the NHS drew me back to the keyboard. Essentially many right wing politicians in the US who clearly don’t understand Obama’s health reforms have been scaremongering by pointing out the terrible state of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Many of the comparisons they have made between US Healthcare and the NHS are at best inaccurate and at worst outright fabrication! The argument was then compounded by a complete twat (copyright Dave Cameron) of a Tory MEP garnering himself an appearance on US TV to criticise the NHS. Before you wade into this debate from an American point of view I would suggest that you complete just a modicum of research. Firstly read this article from the Guardian which answers a number of the points raised by Republican politicians, click here to read it.

You should also watch Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” which offers a brilliant comparison of US versus European Healthcare. But then if you’re a right wing politician in the US you certainly won’t watch anything from Michael Moore will you? Wasn’t the best right wing criticism of Moore a couple of years ago that he was a rich, fat, white man? Hold on a cotton picking minute here, that description could apply to many Republican politicians as well surely.

Also for those of you who fell for the argument that Stephen Hawking would not have survived if he had not been American. He is British, his voice box happens to have an American accent! He himself has said that he would not be here if it wasn’t for the NHS.

In my opinion the NHS does a fantastic job. If I were to fall ill in the UK I know I would be treated regardless of whether I have health insurance. That would not be the case in the US. Millions of people in the US are unable to afford private healthcare. If we consider ourselves part of a caring society we should not even consider leaving these people outside the system!

The doctors and nurses from the NHS that treated my father before he died from Lung Cancer back in 2001 did a fantastic job. I have a friend who is an A & E nurse in the north, you would be hard pressed to find a more dedicated healthcare professional. The NHS like any large organisation is not perfect, however before you jump to conclusions get your facts right!

OK rant over, this is essentially a music blog after all and I thought I’d link to a few medical related songs to tie in. I hope you like them! Oh and as usual there is a tidbit of trivia for each one!

“Doctor Doctor” – Thompson Twins. Did you know that no one in the band was called Thompson? In fact they took their name from the two detectives in Herge’s Adventures Of Tin Tin. I’m looking forward to the movie adaptation of that, are you? Is it true that along with Poirot, Tin Tin is the only other famous Belgian ever? If any Belgians are reading this please add a comment to put me right, name some famous Belgians that aren’t fictional characters

Belgian? This looks like two British MPs on holiday to me

“The Medicine Song” – Stephanie Mills. Stephanie was married to Jeffrey Daniel off of Shalamar for a short period. Jeffrey is the man who taught Michael Jackson to Moonwalk and Stephanie was also romantically linked to Jacko when they appeared together in the late 70s adaptation of the Wizard of Oz called the Wiz! Now that’s what I call a link!

See Jacko really did used to be just an ordinary black kid (with an extraordinary talent though!)

“Night Nurse” – Gregory Isaacs. The Cool Ruler in my opinion had the potential to be a third world superstar along the lines of Bob Marley. However it was the lines that put paid to it, Gregory had a serious cocaine addiction which badly affected his voice at times and also caused the loss of most of his teeth.

Gregory wears a hat like that and looks cool, if I wore a hat like that I'd look like a twat (copyright Dangerous Dave Cameron)

“Knocking On Heaven’s Door” – Bob Dylan. Mr Zimmerman wrote this song for the soundtrack of the 1973 film ‘Pat Garrett an Billy the Kid” and it is one of his most covered songs. Perhaps the best known covers are from Eric Clapton and Guns ‘N’ Roses although let’s not forget that Ruth Lorenzo also covered it on X Factor. On second thoughts let’s forget! 

Bob seems to have taken Johnny Cash's advice and is trying to steal a car one piece at a time

“Sexual Healing” – Marvin Gaye. Following my earlier comments about Belgium I should point out that this song was in fact recorded in Ostend in Belgium! It has also been covered by many people from Phish to Kate Bush. Click here to hear Kate’s wonderful version.

Marvin auditions for the Village People with the YMCA dance

“The Drugs Don’t Work” – The Verve. This song gave the band their first UK number one single. At various times Richard Ashcroft has said that the song is about his addiction, the death of his father or his love for his wife.

The drugs don't work? Indeed boys, indeed!

“Heal The Pain” – George Michael. My favourite George Michael album is ‘Patience’ (I guess that kind of fits with the medical theme too…………. think about it!) One of the tracks from the album caused a great deal of controversy when the video was released. The track was “Shoot The Dog” and it showed Tony Blair as George W Bush’s poodle. Hmmmmmm so what’s wrong with that then, it was true wasn’t it? Click on the song title to check out the video and make up your own mind. Incidentally there might be a prize for the first person to tell me which song George samples on the track

George heals the pain (well I think that's what he's doing) of the other bloke off of Wham

“Doctor My Eyes” – Jackson Browne. This song has been covered a few times, most notably by the Jackson 5 in 1973, click here to hear their version. Jackson Browne himself recently won his case against John McCain and the Republican party for using his song “Running On Empty” without his permission.

So no chance of John McCain getting through that door then, thankfully!

“Bad Medicine” – Bon Jovi. Jon BonJovi played in a band called Raze at school and later he went on to play in a covers band called Atlantic City Expressway. Also when he first left school he worked in a women’s shoe shop. Is that a fetish thing maybe?

Jon's hair transplant was a moderate success, he had wanted more on his head really. Oh nad please, no searches for naked Jon BonJovi as a result of this picture ok?

“Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors” – Editors. The video was shot around Prague in the Czech Republic. The band were once named as the second biggest band of the decade by the Mail On Sunday. Actually I’m not sure that’s an accolade I’d want! Incidentally those cheeky chappies from Sheffield, the Arctic Monkeys were first

The band just before they were eaten by Triffids

Rejection. Never something to relish but, sadly, a necessary part of working in PR… you write an article or opinion piece and try to syndicate it to relevant publications to gain profile for your client, or for yourself. Sometimes, despite you feeling all zeitgeisty and flooding with confidence, the product of your tapping digits is rejected or, if it’s done nicely, not considered ‘relevant’ for the readership. It all amounts to the same thing – a big fat NO that sends you scurrying back to that little safe place where you try and persuade yourself that it’s not you, it’s them and they’ll be crying into their decaf rooibush when they see it placed elsewhere and realise with crushing clarity that they’ve just done the literary equivalent of Simon Cowell turning down the Spice Girls.

It happened to me this week, I’d just finished writing a piece about ‘The Female Future – a New Business Model’. My focus was on the Print industry, which is where I spend a good chunk of my time, but the points raised had a much wider application. I had fun writing this, it was factual, well researched and pertinent (if I say so myself) and more than that I was excited by it. “This is it” I thought to myself as I sent it off to the the publishing editor, “this is going to start a progressive discussion that might actually bring about positive change.” “Ha-de-Ha-Ha” any cynical onlookers would have thought, “here comes a living illustration of the fabled fall following the pride.”

They were right. The (very polite) publishing editor said some nice things that nevertheless amounted to a no and I shuffled away feeling slighted. Which brings me to a very important lesson…. My finger may feel like it’s on the pulse but it’s my pulse with a different rhythm to someone else’s pulse and it’s the someone else’s pulse that’s important. That’s a very protracted way of saying it’s important to look without rather than within, move the satellite away from your own orbit and focus on the distance. (Wow, it’s clear that it’s late and I’m babbling but I hope you’re getting the gist!)

So, after tending to my sensitive ego, I set about trying to place the piece in a more ‘relevant’ publication and the search continues. (This time next week this blog may be the most relevant platform but we’ll wait and see). Feeling more respectful and considered I escaped for a few days away from the chaos that is the school summer holidays and relaxing in my parent’s living room I picked up the Mail on Sunday’s ‘You’ magazine, (I wasn’t looking for intellectual enlightenment). Enjoying a low-maintenance flick through the problem pages and recipe ideas my supine state was whiplashed as my eyes settled on the Page 43 headline “The Future is Female – ….the benefits of the female way of working.”

….I may need to see a therapist…..

Way back in April, we had some trials and tribulations with our volunteer project arranged by Frontier at Mokolodi Nature Reserve.

Nothing wrong with Mokolodi at all, merely an issue with Frontier who misrepresented the Botswana volunteer placement to us – which ultimately led us to engaging with them and the placement in Botswana.

We left the project at the end of April and received no follow-up from Frontier, perhaps understandable given the extent of their wrongdoing. However, they didn’t even provide us with a formal apology for misrepresenting the project, despite admitting liability in a very legalese email to us.

So, we carefully considered what the best next steps would be for us. The options seemed to be a small claims court claim or some sort of exposure in the UK press. After much debate, we concluded it was less about the money and more about ensuring other volunteers were aware of the issues we experienced.

After some effort from ourselves and a good friend in the UK PR industry, the UK journalist Mark Foxwell picked up and ran with the story for the Mail on Sunday. After some detailed investigation, it seemed that our predicament became a catalyst for a far larger story, exposing some serious financial irregularities between two ‘Frontier’ companies, owned by the same two directors.

The story “Not-for-profit gap year firm Frontier shares its fees…and its directors” was published online last night (Saturday 8th August) and will hopefully be in the Mail on Sunday today.

Needless to say, Caroline and I are satisfied with the result, and hope that future volunteers read the article and others published out there, before deciding who to hand their hard earned cash to before heading away on a volunteer project.

I really do hope that this is just a Departmental Head or a Junior Minister floating an idea. A very very bad idea. This story even as a proposal should earn that proponent a place on Keith Olbermann’s Worst “Person in the World” slot.

According to the Mail on Sunday , some complete bastard in this “no cuts” Labour Government wants to cut serious criminal injuries compensation payments for those convicted of minor offences, to include speeding.

The image links back to the Mail on Sunday article.

The Mail On Sunday goes on to report

In 2006, 857,000 fines averaging £142 were imposed in magistrates courts for driving offences.

They included 152,461 for speeding (average fine £121), 26,043 for failing to obey traffic directions (£95), 23,374 for careless driving (£159), 5,820 for parking offences (£65), 5,009 for lighting offences (£60) and 666 for noise nuisance (£66).

In the cases of murder victims, the rule applies to the deceased and any applicant for compensation.

So the amount paid to the parent of a murdered child will be reduced if the parent has been fined for a motoring offence in the past five years.

If the murder victim had been fined for a motoring offence, the amount payable to his children would also be reduced by the same proportion.

That reduction would be between £1,100 and £1,650, depending on how long had passed since the conviction, with a further deduction of between ten and 15 per cent from the sum paid to cover the victim’s funeral expenses.

Whichever idiot the so called Ministry of Justice got to speak on behalf of the Government just made it sound even worse.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman confirmed that the changes in compensation payments would affect motorists convicted of minor offences – but denied it was unfair and insisted the budget was not being cut.

‘The UK’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is one of the most generous and comprehensive in the world. Each application will continue to be judged on a case-by-case basis,’ he said.

‘We need to recognise that compensation is paid with taxpayers’ money and this has always been taken into account when compensating those who have already cost the public purse.’

Even on the best reading of this, that it does not just affect motorists, but also those slapped with one of Blair’s stupid on the spot fines, it is a slap in the face for those raped or who have had a family member murdered. It is the Government saying to the victim, well you are a bit of a chav, or you do speed – so you kind of deserve it.

Again, if this is true, I would not suggest a Government minister deserved to be punched in the head, or worse, for this but if they were, perhaps they too would be less deserving of compensation. This person deserves the mad PUMAs set on them. The crazy ones and the not so crazy ones. Rape victims are no less a victim because they happened to be speeding within the past however many years.

h/t Timothy Wallace.

One week after Los Angeles police confirmed that investigators had not ruled out homicide in the death of Michael Jackson, the late singer’s older sister, La Toya Jackson, reveals that she suspects he was murdered, the U.K.’s Mail On Sunday reports.

“I believe Michael was murdered,” she said. “I felt that from the start. Not just one person was involved, rather it was a conspiracy of people. He was surrounded by a bad circle. Michael was a very meek, quiet, loving person. People took advantage of that. People fought to be close to him, people who weren’t always on his side.”

See 32 photos from Michael Jackson’s memorial.

She blamed this “shadowy entourage” for supplying him with prescription drugs.
“They got him hooked on drugs,” she said. “He was pure and clean and then drugs came back into his system. I think it shocked his system so much it killed him.”

Although results from toxicology tests will take a few more weeks to reveal a definitive cause of death, La Toya — who signed Michael’s death certificate on June 25 after he suffered a cardiac arrest at the age of 50 — is certain the investigation will reveal her worst fears.

See Michael Jackson’s most unforgettable moments.

“He had needle marks on his neck and on his arms and more about those will emerge in the next few weeks,” she said. ” I cannot discuss that any further as I may jeopardise the investigation. I can, however, say that I have not changed my mind about my feeling that Michael was murdered.”
She added: “It will all come out. You will be shocked.”

La Toya, 53, also asserts that Michael — whom she said “was the loneliest man in the world” — was forced into doing 50 concerts in London and was kept away from his family as he went to rehearsals, costume fittings and vocal lessons at all hours.

“It’s impossible even for a healthy person to do that many shows,” she said. “Michael was fragile. He always wanted to believe the best of people. But he was meek. In the last few months, he became isolated. I believe the staff were given strict instructions that if any of the family called, not to tell him. And if any of the family came by, not to let them in.”

Look back at the life of Michael Jackson.

She said that throughout her and her family’s mourning, they plan to file a civil lawsuit against anyone — which could potentially include Michael’s personal doctor, Conrad Murray, whom La Toya said “disappeared” after she sought answers from him — they believe responsible, as well as pushing for police to serve criminal charges.

“I am going to get down to the bottom of this,” she said. “I am not going to stop until I find out who is responsible. Why did they keep the family away? It’s not about money. I want justice for Michael. I won’t rest until I find out what — and who — killed my brother.”

La Toya is equally determined to resolve the custody battle between Katherine Jackson and Debbie Rowe over Michael’s two eldest children, Prince, 12, and Paris, 11 (La Toya confirms that Blanket, 7, was conceived with a donor egg and donated sperm and that his biological parents are unknown).
Look back at photos of Michael Jackson and his children through the years.

“These are not Debbie’s kids,” she said. “They don’t even know she’s their mother. Like everyone else in his life, she was motivated by money. She has always said she’s not their mother. My understanding is that she will now go after the kids. I know a few things about Debbie, and I will prevent that from happening.”

In the end, La Toya — the sibling her family said had “a special bond” with the star — said she won’t rest until she finds out the truth about the King of Pop’s death.

“I’m doing what I can to find out how he died. If he died of a drug overdose, then I want to find who supplied him the drugs and who first introduced him to them,” she said. “We’ve still not had a chance to speak to Dr. Murray about Michael’s final days. I need to know what he may have seen or heard.”

She added: “Michael didn’t have to die. We are all mourning his loss, more than anyone can ever know. But we are also determined to get to the bottom of what happened to him.”

The Mail on Sunday had a great scoop yesterday – the wife of the head of MI6 had posted family picture on Facebook which, said the Mail, made it possible to identify his family and his London address. It shows how far we’ve come from the days when the head of MI6 would be unnamed, presumably ‘in case the Russians found out’.

This might be really good public interest journalism. If the head of MI6 and his immediate family are indiscreet, the public should know and the relevant disciplinary action should be taken. Without a newspaper to commit the resources to finding out these issues, the story may never have been revealed.

Alternatively, it could be overblown hype, as the Foreign Secretary suggested to the BBC yesterday morning. Yes, the Mail on Sunday managed to find a Conservative MP to support its story, but opposition MPs usually do (of any party, on any issue). The Guardian editorial thinks it is overblown: “the revelations of Lady Shelley surely contain very little that those in search of such information could not find somewhere else in the course of an afternoon.” And it would surely be a matter of some surprise if foreign intelligence agencies were not already aware of his family and London address.

There have been many stories in the past that have come from social networking sites. Prince Harry may have been dumped via Facebook and may now be flirting with a Sky News presenter via the social networking site. If nothing else, these stories are a useful reminder to social networks of the need for a little self-regulation.

But is the Mail’s scoop an invasion of privacy? According to the Mail, his wife had “put virtually no restrictions on her account” but the page is now deleted so we can’t find out what restrictions there may have been. Is it reasonable to have an expectation of privacy for content on social networking sites?

According to research commissioned by the Press Complaints Commission 42% of web users aged 16-24 know someone who has been embarrassed by information uploaded on to the internet without their consent. And 78% of the entire adult online population would change information they publish about themselves online if they thought the material would later be reproduced in the mainstream media.

At the time, then chairman Sir Christopher Meyer said: “That is why I expect our current Code of Practice to be able to handle complaints in this area; and in the process to enable the Commission over the coming months and years to define through its decisions the boundary between the private and the public.”

Since then, the PCC has ruled on three cases regarding Facebook. Twice it did not uphold a complaint about a journalist contacting family members through a Facebook profile page. On one other occasion a newspaper apologised and made a charitable donation for reprinting condolences left by friends and a photograph on a Facebook profile page. So there is still little case law for the PCC to draw upon when investigating stories such as this.

If the story is not an invasion of privacy, justified on public interest grounds, then it is not a great piece of investigative journalism. But it is still better to have the issue out in the open. The alternative may be a world in which newspapers were not allowed to report such a story but it was common currency on internet messageboards.

UPDATE: the PCC has published a further adjudication about the use of material from Facebook. Essentially it says that if the person wasn ‘t in the public eye, or their actions have not brought them into the public eye, then they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, regardless of their privacy settings.

Personal details about the next chief of MI6, Sir John Sawers have been taken off his wife’s Facebook for security reasons. 

According to the Mail on Sunday newspaper, his wife had posted details about their children, location of their home and pictures of the family on holiday.

Lady Shelley Sawers also posted information about his parent’s home on the social networking site, according to the paper.

The page was taken down after the Mail on Sunday informed the Foreign Office.  According to the newspaper, it included the couple’s friendships with senior diplomats and actors.

Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke told Sky News he “very much doubted” national security was jeopardised. And believes it has been “blown out of proportion.”

“I expect the enemies of this country do not wholly rely on the Mail on Sunday and Facebook for their information so I personally would get a little more calm,” he added.

Security Breaches

Shelley Sawers had no privacy protection on her Facebook account, which meant that 200 million users from the London networks had access to the information.

MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of the counter-terrorism sub committee expressed his concerns to the BBC.

“It’s distressing and worrying that these sorts of details should be appearing in the public domain.  I would have hoped these sorts of mistakes would not have been made by people like that.”

The Liberal Democrats insist Prime Minister Gordon Brown should call an inquiry and Sawers should step down from his new post.

Foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said: “Normally, I would welcome greater openness in Government for officials or politicians but this type of exposure verges on the reckless.”

Secret Speedos

But Foreign Secretary, David Miliband dismissed this, on BBC Andrew Marr show and said it was “no state secret” that Sir John wore Speedos on family holidays.  He told the BBC: “For goodness sake let’s grow up.

“He was appointed 10 days ago to be the head of MI6; he’s an outstanding professional who will do a really good job in an outstanding organisation that does a huge amount for this country.”

However, Facebook is used to recruit new MI6 officers.   The Secret Intelligence Service used to target elite universities for recruits.  But it launched a series of online adverts in September 2008 to attract people from different backgrounds.

There has been no confirmed news that Sawers will not be able to take up his new job.

Mercer told the BBC all members of the Armed Forces, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are not banned from social network sites.

But Mercer admits they need to be cautious of what information is given.  A new document is to be published later next week outlining the issue to prevent security lapses.

This website.

I like it because it exposes the lies, the hypocrisy, the stupidity, the small-minded intolerance and the general wide-spectrum nastiness of the Daily Mail on an almost daily basis.

And saves me the bother of having to read the damn thing and get all cross about it.

The Lovely Melanie and I are doing our level best to bring our children up as decent human beings, but lies, hypocrisy, stupidity, small-minded intolerance and general wide-spectrum nastiness really do not help with that.

I really want to ask Mail readers: why do you want to read a newspaper that day after day does its best to make you feel afraid and inadequate?  That paints the rest of humanity as somehow out to get you?  That makes you envious of those with more money than you, but contemptuous and uncaring of those with less?

Why do you want to read a publication like that?