Out-of-touch, privileged, cosseted from the real world, little or no interest in what goes on beyond their bubble, imbued with an arrogant born-to-rule sense of their own importance; sons, daughters, nephews and nieces of former occupants, inheriting
Continue reading →Our Sweet Lords
When is A Woman not A Woman?
…when she has a vagina, apparently. Germaine Greer is a woman, but not one at the top of Cardiff University’s Student Union Christmas card list. Why? Because she dares to mention the unmentionable, that transsexuals aren’t actually
Continue reading →‘This Septic Isle’ – full of elderly Paedophiles.
Just how do you rehabilitate a society where two thirds of the adult males have been jailed for sexual offences? Where more than half the population are dependant pensioners, and where, within the
Continue reading →Rutting Rutlands, Hapless Hipsters, and Follicle Oracles.
The last Duke of Rutland’s Mother in law fell down a lift shaft, suffering a head injury which left her ‘sexually voracious’. Her divorce featured a photograph of the naked Duchess, bar a
Continue reading →That’s Settled.
DCI Paul Settle’s evidence to the Home Affairs Committee yesterday has been fascinating. A solid, old fashioned Police Officer, standing his ground in the face of his senior officers and an array of
Continue reading →Oh! Revoir!
Paul Revoir is a journalist. At least, he’s portrayed as such on Journalisted. He grubbed around in the bowels of the Daily Mail for years, delivering earth shattering opera to his Editor:
Continue reading →Collateral Damage.
I woke last Sunday morning with a particular image in my mind, that could be aptly described as ‘collateral damage’ to the continuing #CSA saga. Within an hour, I had dismissed the thought
Continue reading →The Pied Pipers of Paedo Panic.
In times of yore, Kelvin MacKenzie, then at the helm of the great ship ‘Sun’, was of the opinion that the
Continue reading →For Rosa.
When Clive James wrote a few months ago of being ‘stuck with the embarrassment of still being alive’, it struck a particular chord with me – as a number of people thought it might, judging by the
Continue reading →Slack Narcissus
Cate Blanchett is an intriguing actress – interesting-looking, androgynous, a touch of Garbo about her. She climbed higher in my estimation last week when expressing her exasperation at her peers indulging in endless selfies when attending a
Continue reading →For Rosa.
When Clive James wrote a few months ago of being ‘stuck with the embarrassment of still being alive’, it struck a particular chord with me – as a number of people thought it
Continue reading →Jeremy the Gardener.
Fellow geriatrics will have sympathised. When a man reaches the age at which he remembers to wear a vest when he goes out, he also sends off to the Daily Express for one of those
Continue reading →Watson Tide
If we were to think of those who voted for the 2003 Allied invasion of Iraq and did their utmost to block any investigation into the affair, certain obvious names would leap forward; it’s significant that these
Continue reading →The Spying Game
It is 1972 in a sepia coloured England. Everything is black and white, or beige. In a Lancastrian mill town there is an infant school built by the Victorians; all granite and high ceilings and heavy
Continue reading →Portuguese Enfranchisees.
There’s been a coup in Portugal! That is according to the newly trending hashtag #PortugalCoup .
Exciting stuff a coup. Jackbooted men marching around,
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Thoroughly Modern Morals
A long-time commentator on here pointed me in the direction of a Channel 4 programme looking back at TV from the 60s the other week; I was tempted solely by the fact that an ageing Peter Wyngarde
Continue reading →Jeremy the Gardener.
Fellow geriatrics will have sympathised. When a man reaches the age at which he remembers to wear a vest when he goes out, he also sends off to the Daily Express for one
Continue reading →Angels with Dirty Faces
An 11-year-old in Jefferson County, Tennessee this week shot dead his 8-year-old neighbour because she wouldn’t let him play with her puppy; the shotgun belonged to his father. Across the Atlantic almost fifteen years earlier, Bristol
Continue reading →The Ring Cycle
Back in the 1980s, I was an avid reader of the music press, and my favourite weekly was ‘Melody Maker’. Within a few months of purchasing my first issue, I became familiar with the different writers on
Continue reading →Exaro digging ever deeper.
It is not the first time in Mark Watts’ chequered career that he has been accused of being ‘McCarthyite’ or instigating a witch hunt.
Continue reading →Good Evans?
John Leslie, one-time ‘Blue Peter’ presenter and 1990s mainstream TV mainstay, has recently spoken of the accusation that effectively ended his high-profile, £350,000-a-year career. The story that emerged into the public domain in 2002 appeared in
Continue reading →The Walton Hop and Operation Ravine.
When the Walton Hop opened its doors in the Surrey countryside of 1958 it would scarcely have been described as a ‘teen disco’ – too few people would have understood the meaning. ‘Teenagers’ had barely been discovered,
Continue reading →Forever Autumn
“The world has changed. I feel in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.”
Thus spoke Arwen, the “Evenstar” as she was also referred to
Continue reading →Asda’s Got a Brand New Bag
From this Monday, the whole might of the law will prevent supermarkets from giving free carrier bags to consenting adults. Not really a proper law, but an Order made under the Climate Change Act, which allows extra
Continue reading →Anyone for Denis?
When Tony Benn died last year, the obituaries tended to focus on the radical old uncle of the elder statesman years rather than the belligerent troublemaker of the turbulent early 80s. Benn successfully reshaped his public perception
Continue reading →The Walton Hop and Operation Ravine.
When the Walton Hop opened its doors in the Surrey countryside of 1958 it would scarcely have been described as a ‘teen disco’ – too few people would have understood the meaning. ‘Teenagers’
Continue reading →Who’s The Daddy Now?
Excuse me while I light up. I smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink a lot of black coffee whilst writing; my teeth bear the scars, but it could be worse, I suppose. At least I’m not
Continue reading →Predictive Policing and ‘Allegator’ Algorithms.
Traditional Policing has always paid attention to crime ‘hot spots’. Keeping an eye on the ATM machine where several muggings have occurred over the previous few weeks; Making a regular ‘drive by’ a park where a rapist
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