In the glamorous world of international diplomacy, a posting to Kyrgyzstan is, Sordel would guess, not the most contested of vacancies. Still, ambassador is ambassador, and Tatiana Gfoeller-Volkoff was presumably delighted when she was appointed by President George W. Bush as part of his initiative to get "all things that are difficult to spell" into the same file. Shortly after her arrival, she attended a brunch in the capitol, Bishkek (you knew that, right?), little guessing that her moment of Destiny had arrived.
When one is born with the accurate transcription of a sneeze where a surname should be, one has to try that little bit harder, so it is hardly surprising that Gfoeller attempted to spice up her reports back to the State Department: not least when the opportunity arose to venture a sketch of Prince Andrew. What is remarkable about this storm in a teacup, however, is not that she took exception to him, but that she took exception to things which seems so very unexceptional.
Among the comments recorded are his declaration that the investigation into Britain's Al-Yamama deal with Saudi-Arabia was a bad thing. The British government clearly thought so too, since it intervened to prevent the investigation. The Duke of York was hardly off-message in voicing his criticism.
Other titbits thought worthwhile for addition to the State Department's file include the Prince's referring to the current adventure in Central Asia as "The Great Game" which, one would have thought, is neither controversial nor novel.
And that the U.S. has no sense of Geography, which - given that it blithely invaded two countries which together have an area of over a million square kilometres using an army more suited in size to the occupation of Cornwall - is an assertion voiced and proven in the space of two sentences.
So the question that arises is not whether Prince Andrew has demonstrated a shocking lack of delicacy, but whether the Diplomatic Corps is really worth its cost if the intelligence data that it is providing is really of this extraordinarily low quality. It seems that the U.S. is gloating over the possession of a hoard of international secrets that even Hello magazine would consign unpublished to the editorial shredder.
As for Prince Andrew ... well, given that he is the former husband of Sarah, Duchess of York, he must be used to public revelations a good deal more embarrassing than these.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Alas Woolas
Generally speaking, a party in opposition has little opportunity to demonstrate its suicidal lack of political judgement.
Even, however, where little opportunity exists, Labour MPs will heed its gentle knock, which is perhaps why they are lining up to voice their support for disgraced former ballot-swindler Phil Woolas.
Phil, who has only appeared in these pages or the public imagination once previously - whilst being verbally spanked to universal delight and approbation by renowned Gurkhaphile Joanna Lumley - has again been the victim of public matriarchal chastisement. This time it was at the gloved hand of Harriet Harman, who told the Resident Intellectual that while a judicial review might reinstate the mendacious Phil, it could not exonerate him of the accusation that he knowingly lied in order to win an election, and he would therefore not be reinstated as a Labour MP under any circumstances.
By any sane standard, this should have seen an end to the story, but seemingly not so, and for reasons that may point to a deeper schism in Labour ranks.
Harman, bug-eyed sophomore grandee of the Labour rump, has also become its Cassandra: universally vilified despite doing the obviously right thing. Having presided over a leadership election process that delivered the "wrong" Miliband as leader, she was marked for death when the loser, David, visibly reproached her for applauding his brother at the Labour Party Conference.
If Harman, however, is regarded as an Ediband loyalist, then her antagonist is a doyenne of the Daviband insurgency. When Daviband needed someone to run his sleazy leadership campaign, he turned to Phil, who proceeded to bring to national politics the approach that had worked so well at Oldham East and Saddleworth. Although the wholly negative campaign, which depicted Ediband as a raving Marxist, has Phil's grubby fingerprints all over it, he actually nominated Diane Abbott, in what he termed "an act of pluralism" (a.k.a. "an attempt to dilute the left-wing vote").
The man whom the rest of us regard as a festering canker on British politics is, to the Davibandians, a poster-boy for political effectiveness.
Of course, this cheers Sordel as a rotting pear does the fruitfly. What could be better for the cynical onlooker than the hyenas of Millbank angrily contesting the last bone of political power?
It is worth acknowledging, however, that for Elwyn Watkins, the Liberal Democrat candidate mercilessly defamed by Woolas, the smear campaign was perhaps less entertaining. A sober account of the judgement in the Saddleworth News reminds us that the thrust of the lies was to imply that Watkins was pro-Islamist in a constituency with racial tensions, which goes rather beyond the rough-and-tumble of regular politics.
There is only one group of people in the world who will question the severity of Phil's punishment, and they all take tea with David Miliband.
Even, however, where little opportunity exists, Labour MPs will heed its gentle knock, which is perhaps why they are lining up to voice their support for disgraced former ballot-swindler Phil Woolas.
Phil, who has only appeared in these pages or the public imagination once previously - whilst being verbally spanked to universal delight and approbation by renowned Gurkhaphile Joanna Lumley - has again been the victim of public matriarchal chastisement. This time it was at the gloved hand of Harriet Harman, who told the Resident Intellectual that while a judicial review might reinstate the mendacious Phil, it could not exonerate him of the accusation that he knowingly lied in order to win an election, and he would therefore not be reinstated as a Labour MP under any circumstances.
By any sane standard, this should have seen an end to the story, but seemingly not so, and for reasons that may point to a deeper schism in Labour ranks.
Harman, bug-eyed sophomore grandee of the Labour rump, has also become its Cassandra: universally vilified despite doing the obviously right thing. Having presided over a leadership election process that delivered the "wrong" Miliband as leader, she was marked for death when the loser, David, visibly reproached her for applauding his brother at the Labour Party Conference.
If Harman, however, is regarded as an Ediband loyalist, then her antagonist is a doyenne of the Daviband insurgency. When Daviband needed someone to run his sleazy leadership campaign, he turned to Phil, who proceeded to bring to national politics the approach that had worked so well at Oldham East and Saddleworth. Although the wholly negative campaign, which depicted Ediband as a raving Marxist, has Phil's grubby fingerprints all over it, he actually nominated Diane Abbott, in what he termed "an act of pluralism" (a.k.a. "an attempt to dilute the left-wing vote").
The man whom the rest of us regard as a festering canker on British politics is, to the Davibandians, a poster-boy for political effectiveness.
Of course, this cheers Sordel as a rotting pear does the fruitfly. What could be better for the cynical onlooker than the hyenas of Millbank angrily contesting the last bone of political power?
It is worth acknowledging, however, that for Elwyn Watkins, the Liberal Democrat candidate mercilessly defamed by Woolas, the smear campaign was perhaps less entertaining. A sober account of the judgement in the Saddleworth News reminds us that the thrust of the lies was to imply that Watkins was pro-Islamist in a constituency with racial tensions, which goes rather beyond the rough-and-tumble of regular politics.
There is only one group of people in the world who will question the severity of Phil's punishment, and they all take tea with David Miliband.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Inevitably, Margate
In the absence of anything untoward happening this week at Harrow or the Derby County F. C., it is to the BBC's Resident Intellectual that we must turn for the latest in our occasional but ever-popular series "Serendipitously Geographical Scandals of Our Times."
Andrew Marr (for it is he) has caused the entire blogosponge to seep & reek menacingly in his direction for some unguarded remarks he made recently dissing the Nerd Collective and accusing (what I am forced to refer to as) us for living in our parents' basement and suffering from acne.
Much of the considered response to this has been of the who-you-calling-ugly-Jugears? variety, which does sort of cede the high ground, but if blogs were written with pencils then a rainforest would by now have been thrown away as they were whittled to an ever-more-lethal sharpness for the purpose of bursting the R. I.'s balloon.
Yet the contrarian Sordel suspects that the hidden purpose of Marr's attack may have been missed. In 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev wished to repudiate Stalin, he did so in closed session of Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When Ed Murrow sought to denounce the U.S. Television industry in 1958., he did so directly to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago.
The Resident Intellectual, noted historian that he is (despite actually being an English graduate), could scarcely have overlooked these precedents. One braves the lions not from behind the bars of their cage, but in their very den.
Presumably this is why he excoriated us not on his Sunday television show, but at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, where you can hardly throw a shoe without hitting full in the face someone who has been nursing a modest commentary on Google.
(After all, The Times is virtually the patron saint of writers of unsolicited opinions.)
There they were, suckling at the teat of literary wisdom, composing quietly in their heads the Cheltenham Festival installment at which they would doubtless issue a stinging rebuke to Melvyn Bragg and pass a cruel but apposite comment on Mark Kermode's leather jacket when - Bingo! - the probing searchlight of the Resident Intellectual pinned them to their seats.
In a moment of Brechtian alienation, the audience was suddenly upon the metaphorical stage, lampooned and vilified like the celebrated men & women of letters that we all so long to be.
Yet once the Great Magician had pulled this rabbit from the hat, he had one more elegant trick to play upon us all. He looked us tenderly in the collective eye and gently, reassuringly, told us: "not you, constant reader ... not you, middle aged office clerk raging against the dying of the light."
"I do not inflict this cruelty upon you, but upon the spotty teenager drinking cider in his parents' basement."
Whew, for a minute there I was feeling wounded.
Andrew Marr (for it is he) has caused the entire blogosponge to seep & reek menacingly in his direction for some unguarded remarks he made recently dissing the Nerd Collective and accusing (what I am forced to refer to as) us for living in our parents' basement and suffering from acne.
Much of the considered response to this has been of the who-you-calling-ugly-Jugears? variety, which does sort of cede the high ground, but if blogs were written with pencils then a rainforest would by now have been thrown away as they were whittled to an ever-more-lethal sharpness for the purpose of bursting the R. I.'s balloon.
Yet the contrarian Sordel suspects that the hidden purpose of Marr's attack may have been missed. In 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev wished to repudiate Stalin, he did so in closed session of Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When Ed Murrow sought to denounce the U.S. Television industry in 1958., he did so directly to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago.
The Resident Intellectual, noted historian that he is (despite actually being an English graduate), could scarcely have overlooked these precedents. One braves the lions not from behind the bars of their cage, but in their very den.
Presumably this is why he excoriated us not on his Sunday television show, but at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, where you can hardly throw a shoe without hitting full in the face someone who has been nursing a modest commentary on Google.
(After all, The Times is virtually the patron saint of writers of unsolicited opinions.)
There they were, suckling at the teat of literary wisdom, composing quietly in their heads the Cheltenham Festival installment at which they would doubtless issue a stinging rebuke to Melvyn Bragg and pass a cruel but apposite comment on Mark Kermode's leather jacket when - Bingo! - the probing searchlight of the Resident Intellectual pinned them to their seats.
In a moment of Brechtian alienation, the audience was suddenly upon the metaphorical stage, lampooned and vilified like the celebrated men & women of letters that we all so long to be.
Yet once the Great Magician had pulled this rabbit from the hat, he had one more elegant trick to play upon us all. He looked us tenderly in the collective eye and gently, reassuringly, told us: "not you, constant reader ... not you, middle aged office clerk raging against the dying of the light."
"I do not inflict this cruelty upon you, but upon the spotty teenager drinking cider in his parents' basement."
Whew, for a minute there I was feeling wounded.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
After You, Cecil
Other than encouraging the media to discover the word psychodrama and turn it into the new vuvuzela, the catastrophe that befell David Miliband is most notable for bringing to further light a distressing new phenomenon in British Politics: Buggins's Turn.
It began with Mrs. Brown's Little Boy who (for those who cannot remember a time when he was anything other than an object of hissing and derision) was pictured as a sad-faced child looking on in a bereft manner while that nasty Tony boy from next door hogged the Nintendo and crowed about his High Score. "Let Gordy have a turn," encouraged the Great British Public from the doorway while greasing up a cake tin in preparation for High Tea.
Well, the position of Prime Minister is not like your fifteen minutes of fame ... not everyone gets a go.
David Miliband (latest example of the Pod People generation into which our current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were hatched in a damp basement some years ago) seems to have thought that letting the sour Scot have a few more moments steering Mario repeatedly off the high cliff and into the rapacious man-eating vegetation below was somehow "the decent thing to do". I suppose with his foot almost upon the stirrup of power, David felt that exquisite pleasure that can be derived from patient expectation.
Quite possibly David was an able Foreign Secretary, although that would be difficult to establish during an era when international detente is actually being conducted by the Ministry of Defence. Like the hare, however, he rather overestimated his supposed lead in this particular race and was to be found napping as his steady reptilian sibling crawled past him and across the Finishing Line.
So now Labour MPs are affronted. Clutching small pieces of coloured paper with numbers written on them and shaking their fists like shoppers at a cheese counter, they turn their fury upon the vuvuzela Ed Miliband.
(The word vuvuzela in my last sentence can (and will) be replaced by ruthless if you are a BBC Political Correspondent.)
Amusing though it was to see David pipped at, and to, the post, for sheer callousness Ed falls well short of the standards of Stalin and Hitler. Unless he actually hangs his brother from a meat hook (something that he might be well-advised to consider) I think that his victory only qualifies for the description "business as usual".
Still, the whole sorry mess has made work for lip-readers who assure us that the comment passed by bad-loser David to Harriet Harman was: "Why are you clapping? You voted for it."
Rarely has the word it been more readily replacable by the word me.
It began with Mrs. Brown's Little Boy who (for those who cannot remember a time when he was anything other than an object of hissing and derision) was pictured as a sad-faced child looking on in a bereft manner while that nasty Tony boy from next door hogged the Nintendo and crowed about his High Score. "Let Gordy have a turn," encouraged the Great British Public from the doorway while greasing up a cake tin in preparation for High Tea.
Well, the position of Prime Minister is not like your fifteen minutes of fame ... not everyone gets a go.
David Miliband (latest example of the Pod People generation into which our current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were hatched in a damp basement some years ago) seems to have thought that letting the sour Scot have a few more moments steering Mario repeatedly off the high cliff and into the rapacious man-eating vegetation below was somehow "the decent thing to do". I suppose with his foot almost upon the stirrup of power, David felt that exquisite pleasure that can be derived from patient expectation.
Quite possibly David was an able Foreign Secretary, although that would be difficult to establish during an era when international detente is actually being conducted by the Ministry of Defence. Like the hare, however, he rather overestimated his supposed lead in this particular race and was to be found napping as his steady reptilian sibling crawled past him and across the Finishing Line.
So now Labour MPs are affronted. Clutching small pieces of coloured paper with numbers written on them and shaking their fists like shoppers at a cheese counter, they turn their fury upon the vuvuzela Ed Miliband.
(The word vuvuzela in my last sentence can (and will) be replaced by ruthless if you are a BBC Political Correspondent.)
Amusing though it was to see David pipped at, and to, the post, for sheer callousness Ed falls well short of the standards of Stalin and Hitler. Unless he actually hangs his brother from a meat hook (something that he might be well-advised to consider) I think that his victory only qualifies for the description "business as usual".
Still, the whole sorry mess has made work for lip-readers who assure us that the comment passed by bad-loser David to Harriet Harman was: "Why are you clapping? You voted for it."
Rarely has the word it been more readily replacable by the word me.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Such Sweet Sorrow
For a genuinely crass explanation of the news, Sordel is usually a one-stop-shopper: generally, the BBC will be good enough. In order to illustrate the mind-numbing crassness of today's news, however, I must quote from The Belfast Telegraph.
The report of this particular "news" story actually appears in The Telegraph online, where the first paragraph reads "One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, new research has shown."
Like a smaller brother copying homework from his nerdish sibling, however, The Belfast Telegraph sexes up this paragraph with an extra thought: "One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, research has shown – although the event described in the Book of Exodus was more likely caused by freak weather conditions than the hand of Jehovah."
Evidently quoting from one source is plagiarism but quoting from one source and then adding an oafish commentary of your own passes for journalism.
The scientific research in question (on the off-chance that you are too busy to click through those links) creates a scenario where, at a particular point close the the Red Sea, an Easterly wind blowing for 63mph for 12 hours could have created a temporary land bridge. The story of the Israelites' escape into the wilderness (well, the part that isn't about a rain of frogs, plague of boils and the Angel of Death slaying the First Born of Egypt) might therefore be literally true.
As The Belfast Telegraph kindly demonstrates, however, this story is not about how one small portion of The Bible could be literally true, but how every other part of it might be literally false.
Because, if Science can explain the parting of the Red Sea can be explained in scientific terms, then clearly "the hand of Jehovah" had very little part to play.
So, let's take a look at this story in the light of this bombshell.
Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and the Egyptians give chase. Oddly - and in a display of leadership not equalled until the days of Mrs. Brown's Little Boy - he chooses an escape route that leads to an impassable body of water.
Now, if you could establish that fishermen of the area knew full well that, say, a sandbank in the area was generally revealed during low tide or something, so Moses might have been talking things over with them in the preceding days and discovered this, then - fair enough - the escape doesn't seem like much of a miracle.
But - according to the latest scientific conjecture - what now happened is that an Easterly wind of 63 mph sprang up and was sustained for 12 hours.
(What's more, this isn't a regular occurrence. If it were, in the succeeding several thousand years someone would have seen this happen and said "hey, that looks a bit like the parting of the Red Sea!")
Now, if something that has never apparently happened again happens at the one time when it would be essential to allow passage for the Israelites ... wouldn't that count as a miracle?
And, if not, what would?
The report of this particular "news" story actually appears in The Telegraph online, where the first paragraph reads "One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, new research has shown."
Like a smaller brother copying homework from his nerdish sibling, however, The Belfast Telegraph sexes up this paragraph with an extra thought: "One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, research has shown – although the event described in the Book of Exodus was more likely caused by freak weather conditions than the hand of Jehovah."
Evidently quoting from one source is plagiarism but quoting from one source and then adding an oafish commentary of your own passes for journalism.
The scientific research in question (on the off-chance that you are too busy to click through those links) creates a scenario where, at a particular point close the the Red Sea, an Easterly wind blowing for 63mph for 12 hours could have created a temporary land bridge. The story of the Israelites' escape into the wilderness (well, the part that isn't about a rain of frogs, plague of boils and the Angel of Death slaying the First Born of Egypt) might therefore be literally true.
As The Belfast Telegraph kindly demonstrates, however, this story is not about how one small portion of The Bible could be literally true, but how every other part of it might be literally false.
Because, if Science can explain the parting of the Red Sea can be explained in scientific terms, then clearly "the hand of Jehovah" had very little part to play.
So, let's take a look at this story in the light of this bombshell.
Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and the Egyptians give chase. Oddly - and in a display of leadership not equalled until the days of Mrs. Brown's Little Boy - he chooses an escape route that leads to an impassable body of water.
Now, if you could establish that fishermen of the area knew full well that, say, a sandbank in the area was generally revealed during low tide or something, so Moses might have been talking things over with them in the preceding days and discovered this, then - fair enough - the escape doesn't seem like much of a miracle.
But - according to the latest scientific conjecture - what now happened is that an Easterly wind of 63 mph sprang up and was sustained for 12 hours.
(What's more, this isn't a regular occurrence. If it were, in the succeeding several thousand years someone would have seen this happen and said "hey, that looks a bit like the parting of the Red Sea!")
Now, if something that has never apparently happened again happens at the one time when it would be essential to allow passage for the Israelites ... wouldn't that count as a miracle?
And, if not, what would?
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Proverbs 15:1, Fahrenheit 451
Sordel was surprised to hear that Terry Jones, infamous Python and driving force behind blasphemous satire The Life of Brian, is at it again with his plans to burn the Qur'an.
Except it's a different Terry Jones: a Terry Jones hitherto occluded by the heavy shadow of his irreverent namesake, and now crawling from beneath it with a packet of matches and the desire to be martyred.
This Terry Jones believes in keeping up with The (other) Joneses. In this case Jim Jones, whose inventive marketing campaign for Kool Aid came at the expense of his followers in the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. That all occurred in some hellhole in Guyana. Terry, however, has established his church in a city in humid subtropical Florida. The city is called Gainesville, and has presumably been popping up with unusual frequency on Google Maps for users throughout the Middle East and Asia.
Oh yes, the Dove World Outreach Center (or the Dove World Trade Center Outrage, as it will surely be rechristened) is indeed reaching out to the world with its message of peace, reconciliation and lighter fuel accelerant.
The real question that is prompted by this folly is not, however, to wonder why this is being done (given the number of nutcases in the world I'm surprised that it isn't done every day) but to wonder how. Sordel is a cultured fellow, but never owned a Qur'an until well along in years.
Back in what we will term for the sake of argument were the Good Old Days, when women decided to burn their bras, there were bras enough to burn. When the American flag is burnt, or draft cards, or Beatles albums, there is a presumption that someone in possession of the combustible material already had it to hand before settling on this means of disposal.
Do we really believe that Christians of this rabid hue have been hoarding multiple copies of the Qur'an prior to determining upon this process? Or that sympathetic devotees of The Prophet, alternatively, have been supplying their third and fourth best copies for charitable disposal?
No, surely Qur'an sales have rocketed in Florida in recent weeks, as Terry takes delivery of large cartons of books paid for by his extremist donors.
Because when you're out to save souls, saving the forests comes a distant second.
"Where they burn books they will soon burn people", wrote Heine. It may surprise you to discover that the occasion for that famous quotation was the burning of the Qur'an.
Except it's a different Terry Jones: a Terry Jones hitherto occluded by the heavy shadow of his irreverent namesake, and now crawling from beneath it with a packet of matches and the desire to be martyred.
This Terry Jones believes in keeping up with The (other) Joneses. In this case Jim Jones, whose inventive marketing campaign for Kool Aid came at the expense of his followers in the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. That all occurred in some hellhole in Guyana. Terry, however, has established his church in a city in humid subtropical Florida. The city is called Gainesville, and has presumably been popping up with unusual frequency on Google Maps for users throughout the Middle East and Asia.
Oh yes, the Dove World Outreach Center (or the Dove World Trade Center Outrage, as it will surely be rechristened) is indeed reaching out to the world with its message of peace, reconciliation and lighter fuel accelerant.
The real question that is prompted by this folly is not, however, to wonder why this is being done (given the number of nutcases in the world I'm surprised that it isn't done every day) but to wonder how. Sordel is a cultured fellow, but never owned a Qur'an until well along in years.
Back in what we will term for the sake of argument were the Good Old Days, when women decided to burn their bras, there were bras enough to burn. When the American flag is burnt, or draft cards, or Beatles albums, there is a presumption that someone in possession of the combustible material already had it to hand before settling on this means of disposal.
Do we really believe that Christians of this rabid hue have been hoarding multiple copies of the Qur'an prior to determining upon this process? Or that sympathetic devotees of The Prophet, alternatively, have been supplying their third and fourth best copies for charitable disposal?
No, surely Qur'an sales have rocketed in Florida in recent weeks, as Terry takes delivery of large cartons of books paid for by his extremist donors.
Because when you're out to save souls, saving the forests comes a distant second.
"Where they burn books they will soon burn people", wrote Heine. It may surprise you to discover that the occasion for that famous quotation was the burning of the Qur'an.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Land of Plenty
Who would have thought that Kevin MacKenzie was so keen on chocolate?
Kevin (no, that isn't a typo: I'm docking him an L for evident stupidity) appeared last week on the BBC's flagship outlet for hot air and vapidity, Question Time. (QT may be the flagship, but the fleet is now so populous that even the Israeli navy would struggle to stop every vessel in its course.)
Anyway, Kev is no stranger to nautical strategy, having been editor of The Sun at the time of the infamous "Gotcha!" headline that announced to the world the sinking of the Belgrano. So one awaited with breathless anticipation his comments on the worst maritime catastrophe since BP left the cap off the toothpaste tube.
A catastrophe that befell, not only those who died on the ship, but Israeli foreign policy.
The water had been somewhat muddied previous to Kev's contribution by Matthew Parris, the disarmingly charming and diffident columnist who had begun by announcing his complete boredom with the Middle East and intention to steer well clear of discussing it.
(Nice chap, Mr. Parris ... Sordel would have him to dinner. Both him and his deeply untroubled conscience.)
Kev, however, is not one to charm, to disarm, to equivocate. No shirker of opinion, Kev.
So, he advanced the familiar arguments on Israel's behalf, and then added this:
It seems that we have been overstating the hardship experienced by Gazans. Because there is surplus supply of Snickers.
Chocoholic Kev has a list of essentials that stops with one, and he bears an abiding grudge against Kraft for acquiring Cadbury. No Dairy Milk man, he. It's Snickers that delights the Mackenzie palate, and any aid agency that can ship him a box can rest, its humanitarian task complete.
Praise God and pass the peanut. Monkeys love them.
(Whether Mr. Parris also partakes of a quiet snicker is dubious, since he has grown tired of endless debates as to confectionery preference and is keeping his own counsel.)
Interestingly, the Snickers bar is a taste that Kev shares with the Israeli spokespersons who had used this same factoid on News 24 earlier in the day. Clearly they are of one mind with him that a nation has nothing to fear that has been visited by deliveries of what Wikipedia informs Sordel is the biggest-selling chocolate bar of all time.
It turns out that - just as economists use the price of a Big Mac & fries as a universal standard of parity for cost of living - so the ubiquity of Snickers is a barometer for international human rights. In Iran and North Korea, the snicker is seldom seen but often dreamt of.
Personally, Sordel is partial to Whole Nut, and is grateful that he lives in a country where the choice is not made on his behalf at the border.
Kevin (no, that isn't a typo: I'm docking him an L for evident stupidity) appeared last week on the BBC's flagship outlet for hot air and vapidity, Question Time. (QT may be the flagship, but the fleet is now so populous that even the Israeli navy would struggle to stop every vessel in its course.)
Anyway, Kev is no stranger to nautical strategy, having been editor of The Sun at the time of the infamous "Gotcha!" headline that announced to the world the sinking of the Belgrano. So one awaited with breathless anticipation his comments on the worst maritime catastrophe since BP left the cap off the toothpaste tube.
A catastrophe that befell, not only those who died on the ship, but Israeli foreign policy.
The water had been somewhat muddied previous to Kev's contribution by Matthew Parris, the disarmingly charming and diffident columnist who had begun by announcing his complete boredom with the Middle East and intention to steer well clear of discussing it.
(Nice chap, Mr. Parris ... Sordel would have him to dinner. Both him and his deeply untroubled conscience.)
Kev, however, is not one to charm, to disarm, to equivocate. No shirker of opinion, Kev.
So, he advanced the familiar arguments on Israel's behalf, and then added this:
It seems that we have been overstating the hardship experienced by Gazans. Because there is surplus supply of Snickers.
Chocoholic Kev has a list of essentials that stops with one, and he bears an abiding grudge against Kraft for acquiring Cadbury. No Dairy Milk man, he. It's Snickers that delights the Mackenzie palate, and any aid agency that can ship him a box can rest, its humanitarian task complete.
Praise God and pass the peanut. Monkeys love them.
(Whether Mr. Parris also partakes of a quiet snicker is dubious, since he has grown tired of endless debates as to confectionery preference and is keeping his own counsel.)
Interestingly, the Snickers bar is a taste that Kev shares with the Israeli spokespersons who had used this same factoid on News 24 earlier in the day. Clearly they are of one mind with him that a nation has nothing to fear that has been visited by deliveries of what Wikipedia informs Sordel is the biggest-selling chocolate bar of all time.
It turns out that - just as economists use the price of a Big Mac & fries as a universal standard of parity for cost of living - so the ubiquity of Snickers is a barometer for international human rights. In Iran and North Korea, the snicker is seldom seen but often dreamt of.
Personally, Sordel is partial to Whole Nut, and is grateful that he lives in a country where the choice is not made on his behalf at the border.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
From Eton to Beaten?
There has always been a trace of the Asian knock-off about David Cameron. The kid down the street was making all the running with its New Labour logo, and the Conservatives wanted one too, but there was always the suspicion that you'd get a hundred yards down the track and the stitching would come out. With the climax of the Ashcroft debacle, the Nike Heir-to-Blair label is definitely starting to peel off.
This fiasco is hardly a -gate or a scandal, but it has certainly been a running sore. For months, Tory politicians straying unwarily in front of the cameras have repeatedly been forced to squirm miserably at the name of Michael "I-can-get-that-honour-for-you-wholesale" Ashcroft. Indeed, it is arguable that the value to Labour of this constant emasculation of Conservative speakers has been worth more to it than the final revelation: that Ashcroft did what any other businessman in his position would have done and protected his income from the Inland Revenue.
Quite frankly, if there's a businessman who cheerfully foregoes the tax loophole, I'm not sure I want him at the shoulder of political power, whispering and advising.
The problem is not what Ashcroft did or did not do. It's Cameron.
For months he and Hague have seemingly been hanging their heads and mumbling in a corner, hoping to God that they would never have to be forced to admit that Ashcroft was diddling the British taxpayer. Sordel cares little that the Conservatives have been so spineless, but it is terrible that they have been so unprepared. Like the MPs whose last vestige of protection - the wisp of lawn on their marble nudity - was the hope that their expenses would never be published, Cameron and co. appear to have been sleepwalking towards their doom.
Where was the bold counterattack that Cameron should have had in his back pocket, ready for this situation?
Instead, he simpered about his delight that Lord Ashcroft had decided, voluntarily (and the people at the Oxford English Dictionary will be examining this new definition for future validity), to 'fess up to his private tax arrangements. Yes, Cameron looked delighted. (Delighted, adj., experiencing the sensation of dejection appropriate to one unrepentant yet discovered in wrongdoing).
So, now Gordon Brown is in possession of a retort that will be crafted by his speechwriters for the live debates. Here are some he can have for free:
"Where was his concern for our brave fighting men and women in Afghanistan when he took for his political campaigns money that ought to have been paid to equip them?"
"Let him lecture me on the good stewardship of the public finances once he has control over the money flowing, unscrutinised, into the coffers of his own party."
"His only clear policy is to maintain a system of honours that he has shown himself all too ready to manipulate to his party's financial ends."
"It is a strange campaigner for Education whose own knowledge of Geography led him to believe that Belize was in the British Isles."
And so on.
Haplessness is an unattractive quality in a politician. This is a very bad time for Cameron to make it his most prominent quality.
This fiasco is hardly a -gate or a scandal, but it has certainly been a running sore. For months, Tory politicians straying unwarily in front of the cameras have repeatedly been forced to squirm miserably at the name of Michael "I-can-get-that-honour-for-you-wholesale" Ashcroft. Indeed, it is arguable that the value to Labour of this constant emasculation of Conservative speakers has been worth more to it than the final revelation: that Ashcroft did what any other businessman in his position would have done and protected his income from the Inland Revenue.
Quite frankly, if there's a businessman who cheerfully foregoes the tax loophole, I'm not sure I want him at the shoulder of political power, whispering and advising.
The problem is not what Ashcroft did or did not do. It's Cameron.
For months he and Hague have seemingly been hanging their heads and mumbling in a corner, hoping to God that they would never have to be forced to admit that Ashcroft was diddling the British taxpayer. Sordel cares little that the Conservatives have been so spineless, but it is terrible that they have been so unprepared. Like the MPs whose last vestige of protection - the wisp of lawn on their marble nudity - was the hope that their expenses would never be published, Cameron and co. appear to have been sleepwalking towards their doom.
Where was the bold counterattack that Cameron should have had in his back pocket, ready for this situation?
Instead, he simpered about his delight that Lord Ashcroft had decided, voluntarily (and the people at the Oxford English Dictionary will be examining this new definition for future validity), to 'fess up to his private tax arrangements. Yes, Cameron looked delighted. (Delighted, adj., experiencing the sensation of dejection appropriate to one unrepentant yet discovered in wrongdoing).
So, now Gordon Brown is in possession of a retort that will be crafted by his speechwriters for the live debates. Here are some he can have for free:
"Where was his concern for our brave fighting men and women in Afghanistan when he took for his political campaigns money that ought to have been paid to equip them?"
"Let him lecture me on the good stewardship of the public finances once he has control over the money flowing, unscrutinised, into the coffers of his own party."
"His only clear policy is to maintain a system of honours that he has shown himself all too ready to manipulate to his party's financial ends."
"It is a strange campaigner for Education whose own knowledge of Geography led him to believe that Belize was in the British Isles."
And so on.
Haplessness is an unattractive quality in a politician. This is a very bad time for Cameron to make it his most prominent quality.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Snow News Day
Much to the surprise of BBC editors, they have had to shelve their customary plans to drum up interest in obscure social and overseas stories during the sleepy New Year period. B-roll reports on the condition of women, animals or possibly agriculture in countries hitherto unknown to Thomas Cook were returned to their hard drives unplayed. Tales of marital discord, credit card fraud and the drinking habits of feral teenagers were held over until the stars (or at least, the heavens) were propitious.
Instead, it has been all hands to the pump as the necessity arose to cover something rarely dreamt of in their philosophy. News.
As in, something actually happening.
Admittedly, what was happening was only weather, which happens all day every day whether it is covered by the BBC or not. Nevertheless, weather in general is to be distinguished from photogenic weather, and what can be more visually appealing than the sight of every regional news reporter in Britain shivering in a snowfall for hour after pitiless hour? ("Let's go back to Amanda, who is going to tell us about school closures while standing outside some gates in Cheshire ..." smirked the presenters, probably squirming their feet joyfully in Christmas's fleecy slippers.)
News 24 has come of age ... as a blood sport. No wonder Sordel was hooked.
As it turns out, however, not only does bad news come in threes, but news in general seems to as well, for today was also the opening of the hunting season, a.k.a. the first PMQs of the parliamentary New Year. Undesked from his office, shot full of that most bracing of stimulants (Fear) and determined to shake off his seasonal disappointment at being named GQ's Worst Dressed Man of the Year, Gordon was brimming with vim as he tackled Cincinnati Kid Cameron.
Cameron got in one exquisite dig (approximately: "At least when lean over to say "I love you, Darling" I can do it with sincerity") but Gordon was back at him in a flash. If wordplay can be likened to the experimental rough-and-tumble of a pair of Labrador puppies, they were all wagging tails and bitten ears for five minutes before coming, panting, to a halt. A good day for both and every expectation that their respective party faithful would bear them shoulder-height to greatness.
Sadly (well, for one of our protagonists) the third piece of news hit just before 1pm and scattered even snowshowers before it. Geoff Whoon? and Patricia Who-it? - two minor Labour bulbs who must be grateful that anonymity, like virginity, never quite grows back - launched what was rather optimistically described as a "coup".
Given that Whoon? is actually a former Defence Secretary, it is saddening to note the lack of military planning that went into this insurgency. By the evening most of those micturating out of the cabinet had disappointed the hopes of those micturating in the complementary direction by swearing blood oaths in Gordon's favour. Wet shoes were certainly experienced by all parties - not least the shoes of David Milliband, who demonstrates himself to be sodden through and invertebrate at every opportunity - but once Mrs Brown's little boy is tucked up in bed tonight he can take great comfort that the snow seems to have more sticking power than his opponents.
BBC news reporters and cabinet ministers seem to be of one mind one the subject: it's cold outside.
Instead, it has been all hands to the pump as the necessity arose to cover something rarely dreamt of in their philosophy. News.
As in, something actually happening.
Admittedly, what was happening was only weather, which happens all day every day whether it is covered by the BBC or not. Nevertheless, weather in general is to be distinguished from photogenic weather, and what can be more visually appealing than the sight of every regional news reporter in Britain shivering in a snowfall for hour after pitiless hour? ("Let's go back to Amanda, who is going to tell us about school closures while standing outside some gates in Cheshire ..." smirked the presenters, probably squirming their feet joyfully in Christmas's fleecy slippers.)
News 24 has come of age ... as a blood sport. No wonder Sordel was hooked.
As it turns out, however, not only does bad news come in threes, but news in general seems to as well, for today was also the opening of the hunting season, a.k.a. the first PMQs of the parliamentary New Year. Undesked from his office, shot full of that most bracing of stimulants (Fear) and determined to shake off his seasonal disappointment at being named GQ's Worst Dressed Man of the Year, Gordon was brimming with vim as he tackled Cincinnati Kid Cameron.
Cameron got in one exquisite dig (approximately: "At least when lean over to say "I love you, Darling" I can do it with sincerity") but Gordon was back at him in a flash. If wordplay can be likened to the experimental rough-and-tumble of a pair of Labrador puppies, they were all wagging tails and bitten ears for five minutes before coming, panting, to a halt. A good day for both and every expectation that their respective party faithful would bear them shoulder-height to greatness.
Sadly (well, for one of our protagonists) the third piece of news hit just before 1pm and scattered even snowshowers before it. Geoff Whoon? and Patricia Who-it? - two minor Labour bulbs who must be grateful that anonymity, like virginity, never quite grows back - launched what was rather optimistically described as a "coup".
Given that Whoon? is actually a former Defence Secretary, it is saddening to note the lack of military planning that went into this insurgency. By the evening most of those micturating out of the cabinet had disappointed the hopes of those micturating in the complementary direction by swearing blood oaths in Gordon's favour. Wet shoes were certainly experienced by all parties - not least the shoes of David Milliband, who demonstrates himself to be sodden through and invertebrate at every opportunity - but once Mrs Brown's little boy is tucked up in bed tonight he can take great comfort that the snow seems to have more sticking power than his opponents.
BBC news reporters and cabinet ministers seem to be of one mind one the subject: it's cold outside.
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