spEak You're bRanes

Thanks to James for this response to the current Private Eye cover.

Sir,
I was outraged to spot this month’s Private Eye magazine cover this morning!
I used to think Private Eye was a little funny!
However you have sunk to the depths of Nu-Liebour and associate a democratic political party with nearly a million voters and two MEPs with an evil and murderous, racist dictatorship.
Make no mistake, I will bring your filthy rag to the attention of every internet media outlet possible and every news channel (There is also bound to be at least one non-Marxist/left wing bigot at the the BBC who will be interested in legal ramifications of your printed material!)
Defamation, incitement?
Yours,
Robert Everett
Via email

I’m not sure what I find funniest about this. I mean, he thinks Hitler comparisons actually cause Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons offence rather than, say, spontaneous erections. He thinks Private Eye might actually worry about lawsuits before doing a print run. But best of all, he’s elevated whining about shite on the internet from “boring person’s hobby”, straight past “revolutionary activity” and all the way to “serious and potentially destructive threat”. Grab that keyboard and fight the power Robert!

Will dumpy-looking Ninja-women turn the Swiss flag into a big hedgehog? This is the question on everyone’s lips as the Schweizerische Volkspartei gets the green light for this inflammatory anti-minaret poster in Zurich.

Anyone who is not against one of these noise blaring things must be deaf. Many of them use loudspeakers and the racket is horrible.

- jo, Canada

Some might say just ban or limit the loudspeakers, but they don’t realise how much that picture would look like bagpipes if the Swiss flag was tartan.

They are spot on.
Why should we have their mosques..Would they have our Churches Synagogues.?
I think not.

- Richard widmark, Newcastle uk

Trying to parse “Churches Synagogues”. Maybe “Churches Synagogues” are special Synagogues that are really churchesy. Has he missed an apostrophe? Does the Church have some Synagogues in reserve, just in case Jesus was shitting us all along? Or perhaps, more likely, Richard Widmark was typing in his best orator’s voice, and the deep breath and pregnant pause between the two didn’t come across in print. You also miss out on the earnest hand-gestures, and the bit where he leans menacingly on his keyboard-podium for “I think not”.

Zurich followed Lucerne and Geneva in arguing that the posters, which also feature a veiled woman with ‘menacing eyes’, were protected by free speech.

How ironic that in this country the BNP are slated for using the Union Jack as it is offensive to people!!! More power to the people of Zurich for standing up to the PC brigade that is blighting this world!! I want freedom!! Not just for the ‘alledged minorities’ but for ALL!!!!

- trevor, Perth

Well, except the minorities of course. At first I couldn’t see what was so ironic about all this, until I remembered the other sense of the word which just means ‘mildly inconvenient to the BNP’.

They have a perfect right to fight this type of alien, non European architectural intrusion.

- G. Forshaw, Preston UK

I agree. It sounds very uncomfortable. I’m clenching just thinking about it.

What do you think of Obama’s Nobel Prize?

He doesn’t deserve it—at least not yet. He should have politely and thankfully turned it down and asked people to check back with him in a few years.
Brian W

Yeah, after he’s taught Israel and Palestine that it’s fun to share, and persuaded Iran to manufacture cake instead of enriched uranium. Maybe then he could say, “hey, you know that big, fuck-off, once-in-about-a-thousand-lifetimes Jesus prize that I rejected a few years ago? Would you mind offering it to me again?”

I found Bruce Grant happily blathering away in every thread ever.

Should patent theft be criminalised?

Methinks plagiarism should be a criminal offence, let alone inventions. After all, stories are personal ideas and inventions akin to scientific ones. What say you?
Cuger Brant
Bruce Grant

Bruce says “methinks” a lot. He also says “QED” at the end of quite a lot of his posts. You might start to wonder whether he’s some kind of insufferably pompous wanker but, rest assured, there’s another explanation: Bruce is actually better known as the author “Cuger Brant”! Like all great authors, Bruce cannot help but sprinkle his prose with shit like “dear reader” and “what say you?”.

Bruce is more than just an author though, he’s also a publisher and has published several works by the author “Cuger Brant”! I urge you to go check them out on Amazon. You can even do the “Look Inside” thing and read a few pages. They’re mainly about the environment and technology and are bursting with prophetic warnings.

I think my favourite is “Something Wicked This Way Comes” which features a terrifying vision of what can happen when nanotech goes horribly, horribly wrong. Bruce rejects the usual “grey goo” scenario and imagines medical nanobots taking over the body of a man called David. They start off in his leg but soon they take over his brain! The new entity calls itself “The David”. Then a bit of The David’s nanotech jiz goes right up his girlfriend and converts her into a nanotech thingy too. Then they make loads more clones and they all get jobs (“mostly clerical IT-oriented”) and The David decides they need a bigger house. Seriously. It’s fucking brilliant.

I’ll leave the last word to Bruce. Have you got anything really useful you can tell us, Bruce? Life-changing advice that you’ve picked up over the years? Another thought-provoking vision of a dystopian future? Or, if you’re a bit busy, how about the sort of generic Esther Rantzen-style advice that you might get from a fucking vending machine?

So there may be a postal strike. OK lets use this to our advantage. Instead of sending those christmas cards because you feel guilty about not contacting friends or family, ring them. Have a chat, talk about old times, communicate, wish them a merry christmas with sincerity. Both you and they, will be all the better for it.
Bruce Grant

Yeah, man. Them’s the goods right there. Thanks Bruce. Methinks.

Thanks to Lizzie for this important find.

I remember Woolworths had mobile phone masts on all its roofs.

I wonder if the signal was negative as to the static in the building.

As the company suffered from lack of sales it is quite possible it did.

I wonder if it is possible that the static from a mast would deter people from entering a building and most of all buying goods,, in Woolworths case it definetly had plenty of stock, so one could not say they did not have the items people wanted. I even remeber journalists complaining it had to much stock on offer.

I hope someone investiges whether this is correct.

But one thing is for certain Woolworths had molile masts on nearly all of its stores, and it folded into bankrupcy
Nicholas Iles

Nah, I think it’s because Woolworths was shit.

When is racism not racism? Brucie’s defence of Anton du Beke – who may not necessarily be a racist, but is definitely a fucking idiot – prompted this cock-fingered attempt at a debate on semantics. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, punch the wall repeatedly until my fist became a thick paste of blood and shattered bone, or simply drop to the floor and lay there motionless until I died.

I’m totally fed up with how PC this country is! I have friends of the race in question who say unless it’s said in a hateful way, they couldn’t care less. Just like Laila Rouass accepeted his apology and understood he meant nothing by it. GET OVER IT!

Laura, Preston, UK

Laura opens here with the classic Kuntz Defence, basically, “some of my best friends are (insert minority in question), and they tolerate my ignorant nonsense because, for some reason, they have to”. And stop whining, for God’s sake! So you grew up terrified of your own neighbours? We all have shit to deal with. Laura, for instance, has an anus for a mouth.

If someone is offended, so what? Go ahead, be offended.

It isn’t YET illegal to call someone a Paki, a Limey a Jock, Paddy or Taff, but if people take offence, take offence. No problem, just go around in your own little offended bubble.

Pathetic.

Mike, Southend UK

Mike, meanwhile, weighs in with his interesting, if extremely lazy, argument for letting legislation define moral law. Anything goes with him, as long as it’s legal. Which is just as well, since I hear his wife has been sleeping with his dad.

What you have to look at here is what context it is used in. Calling a person by the abbreviated term is not, itself a racist comment, using it to call them names is not a racist comment. As far as I know the racist element is when you decry the religion. We are brits and proud of it. To use the word Chink for chinese is not a racist comment. Its the abbreviated word. So many people have made money on the back of this. Get a grip open your eyes and move on.

Jim, Yorkshire

Jim at least has the good grace to admit ignorance through use of the phrase ‘as far as I know’, which leaves open for discussion the possibility that he doesn’t know very far at all. Although he does know something the rest of us don’t – he knows of a lucrative political-correctness industry. Please, Jim, enlighten us.

In this country we have always taken the P*** out of one another and we also have learnt to laugh at ourselves. We have accepted a multi cultural society here probably as well if not better than anywhere else in the world and adapted our society to suit. In a lot of countries the immigrants have to adapt to the way of life in that country (Saudi etc) and that’s not always very popular but it’s accepted. So either accept that 99% of ‘Brits’ mean no offense and we’ll all get along better or accept this type of hype only stirs up racial hatred on BOTH sides. If people carry on like this Enoch Powell may appear to be prophetic, now we don’t want that do we?

Life is full of acromyms and Paki, Limey, Pom, Kurd etc are examples, simple as that. No offense. I for one don’t see why we have to continually pay for the errrors of our grand parents generation. We have given all of those countries free rule and a home to those nationals as well. It really is time to call a truce.

Timbo, Essex, UK

It’d be nice to be Timbo. Where most of us see racial abuse, he sees evidence of a happy post-racial utopia. A precarious one, mind, where everyone had better behave, play nicely and not make Timbo angry. Because when Timbo gets angry the River Tiber flows with much blood…

Thanks to Glenn who points out that this one “works really well if you read it in the style of Saruman just before he duffs Gandalf up”.

Eire – how sad! It’s hopeless – having sold its sovereignty for a few pieces of silver.

And the UK? How is it a former great nation is allowing itself to be subsumed and has lost the will to stand alone and yet take a lead and be distinctive? Of course, a kingdom divided against itself (by “Devolution”) is ruined! And its laws, Mr Megrahi, are in tatters.

In the “plurality” of Europe there is no “common sense” – no sense held in common! It will take a millennium to come to an accommodation.
[incandescere], Barnsley, United Kingdom

I proudly present “Gainsbourg”, our newest SYB author. Hopefully he’ll inject a bit of life into this place and stop me wanting to stab myself in the eye. Either that or he’ll get bored and fuck off, leaving Alex and me alone once again, trudging our bleary way through this blizzard of terrifying wank.
- Nelson

Thanks to Sheldon The Mighty for bringing to our attention this twathammer, who breathed the following, almost unbearably poignant sigh of soft, furry humanity after reading about the death of a 19-year-old man at a freshers’ event.

Is there anyone left in this country who knuckles down to hard work,graft and toil rather than this Sodom and Gomorrah attitude towards everything?

Nobody wishes to be a killjoy but surely social events and celebrations should be at the end of an academic year not at the beginning?

Who is it who runs these establishments? Don’t they have tutorials and curriculae and deadlines anymore? What has happened to competition?No wonder we are the laughing stock of the world and all and sundry are queueing up to get into the country.How can a a student possibly have the spare cash for a drunken orgy? It’s all this lending which creates a louche atmosphere. I even overheard a student recently saying he was going to swap courses because the gown and hood on the other course was better.

In my day you never discussed whether you would get a degree and nobody ever talked about a graduation ceremony. You were just grateful to be there and worried sick about staying the course.
james allen, manchester england

Aye, your day, when a university student had neither the time nor resources to indulge in anything beyond dehumanising toil and sleep. When, robed in sackcloths, he lived his life in terrified silence, never looking his fellow students in the eye, never dwelling for a moment on his privilege, lest it all slip through his desperate, clutching fingers, like a rope made of farts. Upon graduation, he would emerge, blinking, from his first few gloomy years of adulthood, a dead-eyed, unfeeling automaton.

University of Glasgow, class of 1752, yeah?

Occasionally you get a post that seems reasonably normal, only to serve up a surprise left hook at the end. Like an unexpectedly spicy burp following a bland curry. Like this one from Mark Easton’s blog.

This can only have been an option dreamt up by a committee.

No individual would come up with such a scheme, or be prepared to receive the flak of public outrage.

Removing The Thames from the underground map would be an act of criminal vandalism.

I write this response as a person who has only been in the London area twice, and has no wish to return.
MacScroggie

Comments on a blog are fine but really the BBC should provide a place where people who aren’t affected by an issue can rant about it anyway. All we need to come up with is a name…

I’m back from my holiday and feeling all refreshed and good about shit. Going to stop taking the piss out of people and try and find positive answers to their questions. This is a whole new beginning.

Will televised debates affect the election?

I live in France and have a postal vote. I won’t be able to watch the political debates because UK channels can’t be received outside the UK and I am unable to watch iPlayer on an overseas computer. There are a lot of voters like me and we will make an uninformed decision. My vote will be based on my reasons for leaving the UK (I feel less foreign in France than in the UK) and the fact that my pension incurs less income tax in France than it did in the UK. Will the parties ignore ex-pats?
[Diana_P], France

Yes!