The Slap Yes, Downton Abbey No!

Highly recommended is the eight-part production of The Slap being shown here in the UK  Thursday nights on BBC Four.  It's far better than the overrated, predictable and cliché ridden, glorified soap Downton Abbey II.  Maybe it's so popular because it presents a long lost sense of Englishness, a reminder of a time when Brittania ruled the waves and people knew their places.  Ah, the good old days!   

James Murdoch - Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy

Pete Townsend of the Who once wrote a song about James Murdoch, a deaf dumb and blind boy who doesn't know what's going on.  Murdoch Jr must be the most inept and incompetent CEO ever, as he would have us believe he had no idea of the widespread criminal and unethical practices going on right under his nose.  See no evil, hear no evil, and so on, but you're fooling no one, James.  They used to transport sleazebags like you – or simply string 'em up!  Anyone got a rope handy?

RIP Gentleman Joe

He was called Smokin’ Joe Frazier but he could just as easily been nicknamed Gentleman Joe, because that’s what he was, unlike his arch rival Muhammad Ali.  Ali may have been the better fighter (though he wasn’t the best ever as some maintain – that honour goes to Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano), but in my book (or blog) Frazier was the better man.  Ali had a sadistic streak to him, as evidenced by his bout with Floyd Patterson (another true gentleman who always had time to chat to a fan) in which where Ali abused him verbally in the ring as well as physically.  Ali was also needlessly rude to Frazier, who was a class act, and that's one thing Ali can never buy.  Rest in peace, Joe, you'll be missed.

If I was carrying the Olympic Torch I'd Dump it in the River

At a time when fuel, food, and petrol prices are the highest they've ever been and people are struggling to get by for any number of reasons, at least £13 billion is being spent on what amounts to little more than a glorified three week street party in which a bunch of wannabes take performance enhancing drugs and run around a few stadiums.  And now we're told that not only will the olympics not help encourage tourism as we were told by Tony Bliar and his cronies, but in fact it will actually hurt tourism as visitors will be put off by the high hotel prices and crowds.  And what is the Great Olympic Legacy we hear so much about?  A shopping centre.  As that astute prophet J Lydon once sang, "Your future dream is a shopping scheme"!  It's too late to stop it now, but if I was carrying the Olympic Torch...

Twat of the Week: Rupert Murdoch

This man evidently likes to think of himself as a newspaperman, but anyone who has ever seen one of his absurd rags like The Sun or the late, unlamented News of the World knows how ridiculous this claim is.  At best these papers were salacious scandal sheets out to dish the dirt on celebrities, overpaid footballers and anyone else anyone might have heard of.  Headlines like "Gotcha!" and "Freddy Starr Ate my Hamster" and countless others are a disgrace and embarrassment if not to himself then to the UK and the publishing industry and only good for lining my cat litter basket or using when I run out of toilet paper.  Murdoch has desperately tried to buy respectability by purchasing papers like The Wall Street Journal and The Sunday Times, but I'm sorry Rupert, respectability is one thing you'll never have - decent people can smell you coming a mile away! 

the Archbishop of Canterbury - a moral coward of the first degree who leads from the rear

By waiting until it was clear that the church's unsympathetic response to the St Paul's protesters was a massive PR disaster before finally speaking out, the the Archbishop of Canterbury has shown himself to be a moral coward of the first degree who leads from the rear.  And does anyone other than the idiotic Ann Widdecombe and her Conservative cronies really think Jesus would have sided with the City of London and the financiers against people calling for a fairer and better world?  It's a no-brainer!