Asino, the blogging donkey…
I shared Gildas’ rage yesterday; he fared better than I, he was actually able to articulate his rage. PMQs left me quite speechless and I abandoned the effort to write.
PMQs has become a monotonously unfolding pantomime of crude jokes, and repetitive rhetoric – is it mandatory to include the phrase ‘out of touch’ in every reference to the Prime Minister? Which focus group told them that? The snarling faces of the ‘children’ in the crowd hiss and boo at each other, the monotone dwarf in the Speaker’s chair reassures himself every ten minutes that he can shut someone up, if not his wife – and we learn absolutely nothing, except that we have contrived to avoid voting in sufficient numbers to allow the ‘posh boy’ recipients – on both sides of the house – of Politics, Philosophy and Economics degrees to continue living at taxpayers expense as they once did as students.
It would be more instructive if Leveson examined the relationship between politicians and voters rather than politicians and the media. I fondly remember the days when Harold Wilson addressed us, pipe in mouth, from his Downing Street desk; ditto Margaret Thatcher (without pipe). They might have been lying through their teeth, but at least they kept up a semblance of appearing to think that the voter was part of the process of government, that we did matter a tad.
I quite believe that Rupert Murdoch ‘has never asked a Prime Minister for anything’. He didn’t need to. He didn’t need to be a ‘Machiavellian monster’. All he had to do was sit still and wait for them to come begging, crawling, whining, to his feet. Our politicians have long since abdicated responsibility for appealing to the voters to the media, so much cheaper than printing leaflets – let the voter pay for his propaganda! Murdoch owned the largest newspaper business – of course they fell over themselves to be in his good books, all of them, every last miserable one of them. They reaped their reward; as newspaper sales declined, so did voting numbers.
They are a complete irrelevance now, they gave their power away to Brussels. We have even less connection with the politicians in Brussels, can scarcely pronounce the names of most of them. Britons ‘never, never shall be slaves’ – what one earth do you think we are now? Rather than congratulate ourselves on having landed that £24,000 a year job, we would be better admitting that we have a £12,000 a year job. Near enough 50%, to make no difference to the argument, of what we work for, is funnelled through a variety of undeserving causes to those in power to fritter away as the whim takes them.
I was reminded this morning of the tale of Asino, the blogging donkey. €7 million Euros those ass-holes spent on Asino. Sending it round Europe with an 0h-so-green solar panel strapped to its back, blogging its way through €7 million Euros that we worked for. Yes, that last link is to a New Zealand horsey site – for apart from a sole British blogger, congratulations Donald Clark, I can find no British blogger who was even remotely interested in this ridiculous waste of our money. The British are so concentrated on ‘getting out of Europe’ that no one is watching to see what is happening in Europe. Including myself. And I live in Europe.
Given that the pantomime dames in the House of Commons are utterly and deservingly irrelevant, starting today, I shall be concentrating more heavily on our European Masters, particularly the British ones. It won’t be dry and dusty, full of EU acronyms and unreadable reference numbers. It will be the same attention to detail and piss taking that we are used to applying to Gordon Brown and his ilk. I want to bring European politics alive and make them readable – others can concentrate on ‘getting us out of Europe’, I shall be concentrating on which murky hole the real power is throwing our money down…
Now, who is my MEP? I do believe it is Philip Bradbourn MEP – one of the iniquities of European voting, is that although I have lost my vote for a national parliament in both the UK and France, my MEP in my last residence in Britain retains responsibility for me. So lets be having you, Philip my lad, out that dusty closet in Brussels, lets see what you are made of…
Back tomorrow.
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April 26, 2012 at 13:30 -
Is it just possible that we are really ruled by half-a-dozen PPE lecturers in Oxbridge?
They churn out our marxist ‘fast-stream’ civil servants straight in the PUS’s outer offices and our identikit ‘professional’ politicians.
The civil servants feed the EU ‘commission’ their daft ideas that are eagerly accepted then fed back to the ‘nation states’ (ha!) as ‘directives’.
Our politicians then hold up their hands in pretend horror, “it’s not me gov!”, as every new law, ever fresh imposition, is locked in place by the ‘euro-ratchet’.
To the barricades! Go get them girl!
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April 26, 2012 at 14:44 -
Perhaps you could start with this €67,000 an hour monstrosity.
http://www.europarltv.europa.eu/en/home.aspx
Serving at last count 830 people…
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April 26, 2012 at 15:13
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April 26, 2012 at 14:51 -
I found it hard to believe that anyone could find a way to spend seven million euros sending a donkey around Europe. You couldn’t make it up!
Well, actually, yes, you could.
Normally, I don’t check stories I read in the media, they’re 95% fiction, I think. Journalists don’t have the time, or incentive, to get any facts correct. I made an exception for this one, because I tend to think that Anna Raccoon is worth reading, and did a bit of googling.
First, Anna’s links. The donkeypedia site says that the donkey went round the Netherlands (it was a pilot of Europe, there’s no sign that the full European journey happened). The blogs cannot be read (server down), so I can’t tell.
The New Zealand site that Anna gives says “Donkeypedia is an art education project, run as part of the EU’s €7 million “Year of Intercultural Dialogue””.
So the donkey didn’t cost 7 million, it was one part of a 7 million project. So I googled that project. http://www.interculturaldialogue2008.eu/
Go look. The donkey was one of *dozens* of art and culture projects organised that year, and if we got all that for 7 million, then that’s a *lot* cheaper than the various arts projects subsidised by the UK (and other) states.
Donald Clark made the initial blunder. His site says “Donkeypedia is my favourite ‘crap’ European project” and makes the mistake of saying that it cost 7 million. Later on in his article, he says “In one Spanish village, the locals wanted to throw it off the church tower and it was almost eaten (as a delicacy) in Romania.” If you consult common sense for a moment, you won’t believe either of those. A) it’s inherently unlikely and B) how would he have discovered this information? I’m trying to imagine how (or why) you would get a donkey up a church tower. Imagination boggles.
Then “in the UK, it was mistakenly rescued by NEDDI (New European Distressed Donkey Initiative). Yes folks, this organisation also exists” Indeed it does – it’s a private charity, and it’s not the only donkey sanctuary in the country; a lot of people like donkeys and want to help give them sanctuaries. Not only is it a private charity, as far as I can see it isn’t a registered charity – you can’t use “Gift aid”, which means that it’s entire funding is from donkey-lovers, not from the state. Good for them!
But I don’t see how you can “mistakenly rescue” a donkey.
And Donald finishes off with “This has led to a separate organisation being set up (REDFIST) Rescuing European Donkeys From International Sex Trafficking.”
Uh. No. No such thing, or at least, that’s what my common sense tells me, and Googles agrees.
The last comment (by Anonymous) on Donald’s blog was “It’s funny how this misunderstanding got into the world. The Donkey project didn’t get 7 million. It got their subsidy out of a 7 million budget which probably went to dozens of projects.”
Indeed. I don’t think anyone took any notice of that.
As usual, then, checking facts is fairly easy … and rarely done.
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April 26, 2012 at 17:14 -
The donkey isn’t thrown off a church tower in Villanueve de la Vera on Shrove Tuesday, it’s just beaten and bullied for a couple of hours. It’s a goat that’s thrown off the bell tower into a blanket fifty feet below in Manganeses de la Polyorosa. on 23 January.
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April 26, 2012 at 16:23 -
I think that those living in the UK (and those like yourself who can still vote for UK MEPs) have several MEPs, due to the peculiar voting system. I can’t remember who my MEPs are because none of them ever communicate with me – the only MEP who does is Martin Callanan who represents the North-East where I was born (some time before he was – so if I “go home to die” he’ll get one well-earned vote).
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April 26, 2012 at 20:28 -
sorry, wrong thread
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April 26, 2012 at 16:30 -
@ drsolly
Good research; however try reading “Jingo” by Terry Pratchett, where Vetinari solves the problems of a donkey that walked up the Klatchian equivalent of a minaret. In the formerly Moorish regions of Spain several towers can be walked up by donkeys. -
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April 26, 2012 at 18:16 -
Excellent idea, perhaps you should use the much-vaunted Europaeon search engine Quaero, you remember the one, that was to displace Google-I think they pissed away Euro 250 million before abandoning it.
A mere pittance when you consider some other puEurile projects such as Eurofighter and various Airbus fiascos.
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April 26, 2012 at 18:51 -
This kind of thing makes me so angry I can’t even joke about it any more.
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April 26, 2012 at 19:34 -
The Torygraph highlights another EU spending joke.
They’ve spent £300k on a new logo – one that’s exactly the same as the old logo but has a few extra squiggles.
In EU speak, it’s actually “a saving ” mugs are told, because ” ….it would replace 400 departmental logos within the commission….that had cost £3.7 million over recent years.”
So now, logoitus has cost taxpayers £4 million, rather than £3.7 million to retain the original logos.
It’s a bit like f@cking, for virginity.
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April 26, 2012 at 20:16 -
“Given that the pantomime dames in the House of Commons are utterly and deservingly irrelevant, starting today, I shall be concentrating more heavily on our European Masters, particularly the British ones. It won’t be dry and dusty, full of EU acronyms and unreadable reference numbers. It will be the same attention to detail and piss taking that we are used to applying to Gordon Brown and his ilk. I want to bring European politics alive and make them readable – others can concentrate on ‘getting us out of Europe’, I shall be concentrating on which murky hole the real power is throwing our money down…”
I think that I’ll have a go at that as well. Be interesting to see what can be dug up.
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April 26, 2012 at 22:48 -
So The Landlady lives in France for the better weather?
I moved to France because Micky Mouse Land, aka UKGov.org was too much to put up with.
From the view of distance and time, I realise that the UK has an overweening sense of it’s own “greatness” – as has of course the government of France et al.
Were does the UK think it is? In the caribbean?
I’m content to live with “small government” – me and my family, no other thing bothers me. The UK News is now dubbed “comedy hour” and I’m glad to be out of it.
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April 26, 2012 at 20:49 -
As some of you may know, I’ve worked for the European Commission for quite while [and am still recovering …]. You do NOT want to know how many times how many DGs changed their logos and the costs concerned …
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April 26, 2012 at 22:41 -
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April 27, 2012 at 22:05
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