Have you ever asked yourself what the meaning of news really is?
It’s like the meaning of life, isn’t it? Or the meaning of God, or love, or digestive biscuits. Maybe there isn’t any, I mean.
Anyway, whether there is any meaning to life, ABBA revival tours or news, I think we can all agree that there is a Hell of a lot of it. News, that is. (I try not to notice or count ABBA revival tours.)
So, each and every day, there are millions of stories, big and small, that make it into the world’s many news outlets. From Washington Post to Huffington Post, from the Tel Aviv Telegraph to the Jihadist Journal, from the Inuit Examiner to the Papua Express, from… Well, you catch my drift.
Lots of stuff out there - and I’ve been writing a daily column about various news stories, for over two years now.
No, this is not a farewell post but I’m going on a holiday and I won’t have access to the Internet, for a week. Which will be a mother of a cold turkey, I’m sure. So, I won’t be able to follow the news or write about it - but I will leave you with some links to older, strange and sometimes wonderful news stories. I’ve built up quite an archive, over these two years…
Here’s the first instalment, called, ‘It’s all about sex’. Enjoy:
Today’s broadcast is sponsored by hair colour brand Clairol Perfect 10, which is running a new campaign, with the somewhat surprising and more than a bit dubious slogan, ‘Over the hill and far away.’
Anyway, as I’ve stated a few times before, I like scientists. Not just the humble white coats who merely slog on, in pursuit of a better type of throw-away pen, a more convincing-looking toupee or a cure for AIDS but also - and maybe especially - the kind of scientist that has his or her eyes firmly on tomorrow’s headlines, like a heat-seeking missile in, well, in heat, I suppose.
Of course, the downside of trying to make the news with such religious fervour is that, occasionally, it makes you look like an utter prat:
“Researchers discovered women feel most confident and happywith their love life and body shape shortly before they reach 30. It is also the period in their life when they enjoy the best sex – but the happiness is relatively shortlived. Because by the time they have turned 30 they start worrying about growing old and developing grey hair and wrinkles.”
Yes, that great time just before you hit thirty. When everything is going ever so well for you…
(Just what we need: More boring Canterbury Tales…)
I admit that it’s almost petty and certainly silly to get upset about a few thousand pounds of tax payers’ money being wasted, while billions are being spent to bail out failed and corrupt companies and banks - or the many millions effectively stolen from same tax payers to hand out as bonuses to those incompetent greedheads that got us into this mess in the first place.
Silly, yes, perhaps, but I still find it hard not to curse out loud when reading stupid shite like this: “One of Britain’s most historic cities, Canterbury, has been told it is sufficiently gay – after a complaint sparked a two-month investigation costing thousands of pounds. A government watchdog decided that Canterbury in Kent does enough to promote homosexual culture, rejecting a complaint by local activists. As part of the investigation, the council had to prove its inclusiveness by giving details of “touring plays and musicals, for example, which would be of interest to the LGBT community”. And it had to show that it had “put forward suggestions for small events that it might help fund, as well as proposals for other events such as exhibitions”. “
I can’t remember who it was who said that the love that did not dare to speak its name these days did not know how to shut the fuck up already but I tend to agree with that assessment.
I’m not saying all is cool in the world, when it comes to the casual acceptance of the obvious fact that there are more ways to love your neighbour than within a traditional heterosexual marriage. That day will probably have to wait till a future Pope, chief Rabbi or Mullah will introduce his or her gay partner to a world that will treat this bit of news with the same, rather bored consideration that it bestows on the daily weather forecast.
So, yes, there’s still discrimination against gays. We know that. It’s part of human nature to discriminate against groups and individuals. We are a tribal lot and tribes tend to define themselves partly by what they are not - and by what they won’t tolerate. In effect, this means that there has always been a tendency to discriminate against people, on the basis of religion, skin colour, sexuality, class, age, income, diet, hair colour, length, weight and what have you…
… and if we wouldn’t have any of those markers left, we would discriminate against people on the basis of their eye colour.
Anyway, back to this latest Canterbury tale. So, I would suggest that these stupid activists get a life, or, at the very least, a less self-obsessed life style. There are far more serious issues to consider than the way city councils do or don’t do enough to promote ‘homosexual culture’ - whatever the fuck that is, precisely. It reeks of the kind of ghettoish nonsense we should all try to get away from but that’s a topic for another day.
No, when various schools throughout England have stopped teaching about the Holocaust, in order not to offend Muslims, where the law mostly turns a blind eye to forced marriages and where the rise in attacks on gay men remain underreported for those same, politically correct reasons, we have much bigger issues than a city council’s readiness to spread flyers for the next ‘Romeo and Julius’ production.
In fact, demanding these lengthy investigations, to find out whether a city council X or Y does enough to promote homosexual culture, is just the kind of hysterical crap that will annoy the majority of right-thinking and mostly tolerant people and energise all those who push various anti-gay agendas. As I said, there are far more serious issues that do need our attention and this kind of nonsense can only distract from those.
In other words, these idiots only manage to harm the LGBT community they say they represent.
(Some things really are less helpful to the cause than others…)
Am I a big admirer of the veil, or the niqab, or the burka?
Well, I was raised in a family that believed feminism was not so much a cause as the only sane way to live – so, the answer is, “No, not really.”
I believe that the many women who claim that wearing the veil is, in a way, empowering and liberating for them are probably quite sincere.
I also happen to believe that they are in denial about the misogynistic roots of the culture that first designed these clothes – and, if I’m honest, I find these claims about the liberating qualities of this type of dress more than a bit distasteful, in a world where God knows how many women per year are still being stoned to death for proven crimes against some perverted moral code, or the victims of honour killings for merely being suspected of said crimes.
I mean, isn’t it ever so nice that these liberated Muslim women choose to adopt the type of dress millions of their sisters must wear, if they want to avoid mental & physical abuse, ostracism or even a most gruesome death?
So, here’s a simple question for you: What would you call a bunch of liberated black women who would wear ‘empowering’ silver designer chains round their necks, while 90% of their sisters would still be forced to wear the original iron ones…?
In other words, was I pleased then, when I read the following news article?
People do many silly things. Modern Muslimas wearing a ‘liberating’ or ‘empowering’ burka aren’t that much dafter than a certain type of Western woman who claims that a pole dancing course is all about discovering your inner power and, really, quite the feminist thing to do.
Would I be in favour of a total ban on pole dancing, because it’s as offensive to women as a burka is? Again, not really. Whatever I might think of both activities, as long as women aren’t forced to do either, I don’t think it’s the state’s business to interfere.
(The model of sexual tolerance: Little boys with fingers in dykes…)
You know, it used to be that, here in Holland, we could boast about our tulips, our windmills, our dyke fingering little boys and our much touted tolerance. Whether it was legalizing soft drugs, prostitution, gay marriage, abortion or the freedom to worship in the Church of the Recombined Sprout (or something), we would do it or be happy to introduce it the moment of asking.
For a few decades, it felt kind of nice to be that small, insignificant and decidedly geekish runt at any UN party who was widely known to be easy.
It’s kind of hard though to hang on to certain monopolies. Look at the realm of politics, for instance: It’s so much like the world of fashion. One moment you’re the only kid on the block to wear an Arafat scarf and the next, the whole world and its hawkish little Likud brother join in:
“JERUSALEM, June 14 — Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he is willing to support the creation of a Palestinian state, for the first time making a commitment that the United States, Europe and the Arab nations have pushed for since he took office.”
Okay, he immediately added a few conditions to this support, which, added up, translated into the Likud’s more traditional ‘When Hell freezes over’ message – but still: If even the likes of Bibi feel the need to express a certain type of tolerance towards ideas they find utterly distasteful, you know that your tolerance franchise might soon be facing any number of hostile takeovers.
It’s not just in the political power game though, that people have been gorging themselves on these tolerance stimulants. If it were, you could dismiss it as yet another Obama effect. No, it must be feared that the rot is much deeper.
Remember how socially conservative Spain used to be? For centuries, the Catholic church had the kind of stranglehold on Spanish society that led from the famed Spanish Inquisition to the Church blessed public stranglings of convicts in General Franco’s days. Those happy repressive times seem to be over, alas:
“As niche package tours go it is one of the most original and precisely targeted.As of this week, British lesbians are being invited to dig into their pockets, catch a flight to the Spanish costas and come back either pregnant, married or both. The offer comes from a fertility clinic and a gay and lesbian travel agency, which have launched joint package tours to what has now become one of the most socially tolerant countries in Europe.”
In other words, we now have Israeli hawks, crooning ‘Don’t cry for me, Palestina’, while the Spanish tourist board has turned the country’s various costas into one gigantic Lesbos style Smörgåsbord.
So, where does that leave Holland, when it come to its old tolerance patent?
That’s an easy one. It leaves us well and truly buggered and half-drowning in shit creek, with a paddle stuck up our collective little orange butt…
… and no, I’m not exaggerating. Look at what they’re up to in New Zealand these days, for God’s sake:
“In Dunedin, New Zealand,every year two Rugby teams of sevens go to battle fully starkers. The nude rugby international, which started as a celebration of New Zealand’s national nude day, was held yesterday as a warm-up to the forthcoming match between the All Blacks and France.”
Nice. So, Bibi’s opening up to Palestinians, Spain welcomes lesbians and New Zealand has turned into one huge freaking streaking show…
No wonder some people in Holland are starting to rethink this whole tolerance game. We are a nation of traders, after all, so we do know about markets – and if everyone is trying to flog the same kind of shit, it’s better to try and seek out pastures new.
Which is why it came to pass that a certain new political party in Holland decided to give up on tolerance and to take another road instead.
Enter Geert Wilders and his Post Tolerance Party, as reported on this lovely, if slightly bilious blog:
“Mr. Wilders appeared on Danish television yesterday.After being pressed by the interviewer, he acknowledged that millions of Muslims — those who support jihad and shariah, and oppose the democratic societies that they live in — will have to be deported from Europe.
He says, “There’s only one solution.””
Okay, it may not be exactly a new road…
Still, I’m sure it has more potential for profit than the boring old tolerance market.
(To paraphrase Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’: What has tolerance ever done for us…?)
So, there’s this nobleman, who goes to the restaurant and has just placed his order. Says the waiter:
“How do you want your steak, sir?”
“Preferably, not through my heart,” says the count.
Anyway, there are some stories that, like the count, simply refuse to die. So, on a slow news day, you can always dig up some newspaper article about the Roman Catholic Church’s entertaining views about sex – and if it’s not the Pope or his officials going on about this oldest of subjects, it’s weird lay persons, like Christopher West, who’s made a career out of trying to channel the spirit of former Pope, John Paul ll:
“West’s approach to human sexuality is, well, unique. In seminars, he has blessed women’s ovaries and recommends that couples pray over each other’s genitalia as a means of overcoming shame. The recent focus on West stems from a May Nightline story about him and his work. Among other gems, West said, “I actually see very profound historical connections between Hugh Hefner and John Paul II.” West argues that Victorian prudishness and its antecedent Puritanism caused Christians to see sexuality as a source of shame. He believes that, in different ways, both Hefner and the pope challenged this attitude. Hefner’s career needs no elaboration, but Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” is still permeating its way into Catholic consciousness.”
Yes, Hugh Hefner and the Pope…
I can so see the Pope, riding his bunny through Vatican city, crying, “In Hugh Hefner’s house are many mansions…”
… or something.
Mind you, if you want to hear people saying really silly stuff about sex you don’t necessarily need to turn to Rome.
Like call centres, outrageously outdated & outré views about sex are now being outsourced to India as well:
“Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college,” Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls’ college in Kanpur city told AFP. “This is the only way to stop crime against women.”
So true, that.
Like ripping out a smoker’s lungs is the only way really to stop him from getting lung cancer.
(Now, this is kinky beyond the wildest wet dream of any pontificating prelate…)
Anyway, so, when a woman promises fireworks in bed, it is NOT enough to be merely polite and say, “Of course, dear.”
What you should do is smile, slowly back off and then run like Hell:
“WHEN faced with the news her boyfriend was going to leave her, a Russian woman took the extreme action. She blasted his penis off during his sleep. The woman, named as Kira V, had suggested a farewell dinner after hearing the news she was about to be dumped. During the meal she plied her lover with alcohol in order to ensure he wouldn’t wake up as she tied several firecrackers to his appendage.”
(Here’s another woman you really shouldn’t mess with…)
(Come on, daddy, you can always make an expense claim…)
Now, here’s a truly Biblical story for you. Well, Biblical in the sense that I can throw in an old Bible quote. John 15:13, to be precise:
‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’
Or, in the following case:
‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man find a lay for his son’:
“A father tried to hire a prostitute to initiate his 14-year-old son in the “ways of sex” but ended up propositioning an undercover police officer, a court heard. The Polish man took the boy out in his car and allowed him to pick the prostitute, who was standing at the side of the road of a red-light district. But the teenager chose an undercover police officer and the 42-year-old father was arrested, the court was told. Judge Jonathan Teare said he was not sending the defendant to prison because of his excellent character.”
Yesss…
An excellent character, of course.
Setting your 14-year-old son up with a street hooker is, as we all know, indeed a sign of excellent parenting.
You know, sometimes I do worry a Hell of a lot more about the character of the average English judge than about the people being hauled in front of a jury of their peers.
Mind you, it must have taken some doing and some serious police time to find such a jury. I mean, how long must those poor undercover policewomen have worked the street before they found twelve men, good and true, who were looking for a hooker to deflower their 14-year-old sons?
If you follow the news a bit it’s obvious that it would be much easier to fill Wembley stadium with expenses fiddling politicians (or sexually perverted judges, obviously) than to round up twelve other curb crawlers of the same excellent character as our Polish superdad.
So, yes, we’re sending rockets into space to repair the Hubble telescope, almost a billion people, simultaneously, watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games and your average supermarket sells more brands of cat food than there are species of cats.
We’ve come quite a way, since we first climbed (or were thrown) out of that tree, like so many pieces of forbidding fruit, spoiling for a fight.
In other words, we may have evolved to the point that we now can mass produce (and, sometimes, even operate) the most complex electronic toys but, when it comes to male hormones, we haven’t really moved (or fallen) all that far from that ancestral tree.
Ah oui, ‘Plus ça change’ and all of that:
“A remarkable ivory carving is arguably the oldest sculptureof a human figure yet found, scientists say. The distorted object, which portrays a woman with huge breasts, big buttocks and exaggerated genitals, is thought to be at least 35,000 years old. The 6cm-tall figurine, reported in the journal Nature, is the latest find to come from Hohle Fels Cave in Germany. Previous discoveries have included exquisite carvings of animals, and an object that could be a stone “sex toy”.”
I wonder if, when she was first produced, the little figurine could say “Papi”
(’When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ indeed…)
(Pope Benedict and Sharon Stone: Only their mother can tell them apart…)
You’ve got to hand it to the Pope: He does know how to give good headline.
If it’s not condoms causing AIDS, it’s reintroducing the prayer that asks God to make the Jews repent of their crimes, or saying homosexuals are as big a threat as Global Warming, or embracing Holocaust denying bishops, or…
… well, you know his rep.
So, you might say that his approach to trying to make the papers seems to be the one shared by most of our celebs when they feel that the world should pay more attention to them – mostly, by showing their pubes to the paparazzi or releasing yet another sex tape.
Of course, the Pope isn’t really dressed for upskirt shots and even Jesus’ official stand-in realizes he would need some truly miraculous make-over (or a very well hung, hunky body double) to pull off even a half-decent sex tape. So, most of the time, he tries to emulate Sharon Stone.
No, not the earlier Sharon Stone: As I said, the Pope isn’t dressed (or, we trust, built) for your better beaver shot. It’s the older Stone he tries to follow.
The one telling the world that all those thousands of Chinese school children who died in that earth quake did so because of their government’s actions in Tibet.
Or, more to the point, in this instance, her announcing that she would kiss everyone within a few square Hiroshima miles for Middle East peace:
“Pope Benedict XVI today expressed deep respect for Islam and said he hoped the Catholic church could play a role in Middle East peace as he began his first trip to the region, where he hopes to improve frayed ties with Muslims. The pope offended many in the Muslim world with a speech in 2006 in which he quoted a medieval text that characterised some of the prophet Muhammad’s teachings as “evil and inhuman”, particularly “his command to spread by the sword the faith”.
The pope later said he was “deeply sorry” over the reaction to his speech.”
Quite.
I have to admit it’s almost cute, how he’s even saying sorry in the Sharon Stone manner, as when she petulantly tried to get out of her own Chinese quakemire.
(Getting ready to throw some knickers for Christ…)
