Hell in a handcart
State-sponsored punching
Hurrah for Ealing Primary Care Trust, which has decided to liven up people’s cigarette breaks by providing people you can punch. At least, I think that’s the idea.
‘Smoking police’ will target people at betting shops, bus stops and shopping centres to shock them into giving up cigarettes… A team of 11 young people have been employed to approach smokers, in a similar way to charity fund-raisers - nicknamed ‘chuggers’ - who ask passers-by for donations.
Not to be outdone, it seems that the Scottish NHS wants to give fat people the opportunity to punch complete strangers too. As the inimitable Mr E puts it, responding to the story that “Armed with measuring tapes to check waists and equipment to test blood pressure, the “Street Nurses” are policing busy shopping centres, supermarkets and community centres. Any man with a paunch, or woman with an “apple-shaped” body whose waist measurement is higher than recommended limits is given diet and lifestyle advice or referred to local slimming classes”:
if there are people out there who honestly and genuinely believe that it is the role of government to walk the streets policing this shit, then we have a real fucking problem here.
God help us if there’s a war
For most people, losing out on the chance of a new job is not something you want to shout about. But rather than keep it quiet, Darren Mirren failed to show up for his interview and then sued the employer when he could not find his way to the office
The Evening Times picks up on the story.
The youngster said: “It wasn’t my fault.
“I was unable to get there because they didn’t give me any directions.
“I felt it was discrimination because of my age.”
Discrimination because you’re an idiot, more like.
There’s a serious point here, though. The firm was remarkably patient with the kid, the case was clearly groundless, and yet the employer still loses - because lawyers don’t work for free.
There’s something very wrong when someone who can’t find their own arse with both hands can shout “help! I’m being oppressed!” and cost a company a fortune, even when the company’s in the right.
The “let’s post stupid comments on the Mail website” movement is still going on, I see
The story: BAA will have to sell some airports.
The comment:
well said Kieth of Somerset, definetly should be a UK Ownership, but with Nu Labour and PC Brigade, probably sold to El QUADA
ASDA wants to edit your magazines
Asda has come under fire from independent magazine publishers for proposed alterations to distribution arrangements that include the supermarket being given editorial space in the publications it stocks…
Asda’s demands include a request for two pages of editorial or advertising space each month in titles of the company’s choosing.
And there’s an increase in the bribes - I can’t think of a better way of describing it - it demands to put magazines onto the shelves.
shop space given over to a distributor’s titles will be subject to a “space contribution” of £10,000 paid to the supermarket.
Asda is asking for a space contribution for each new Asda store opened of £2,500 per magazine title to be paid to the supermarket.
The supermarket company is also demanding that any new title distributed in its stores will be subject to an “item set up” charge of £2,464.
I know I keep saying this, but seriously: if you value a particular magazine, take out a subscription. It’ll save you money too.
Let’s just nuke the planet from orbit
OK, I know I’m talking about the Daily Mail here, but the comments on this story make me want to kill people. Story first:
When Suzanne Richards and Sarah Dobinson decided to sell their £650,000 home, they expected professional service from their estate agents.
Instead, they were left feeling ‘insulted and violated’ after a staff member outed them as a same-sex couple in a website advertisement.
Logging on to check how their period home was being marketed, they were horrified to find the word ‘lesbians’ in the space where prospective buyers would expect to see a reference number.
It’s a clear-cut case of an estate agent employee being an arsehole, and the firm has settled out of court for £5,000. Bring on the Mail readers!
But they don’t seem to be worried having their names and photographs in a national newspaper along with the “lesbian” comment.
Stating the truth is now is an offence in England.
Hypocrites .. they should be made to repay the money.
Anyone would think they were ashamed to be gay.
Oh, please, do me a favour. Are they lesbians or not? Are they afraid of what they are and therefore unwilling to admit it to others?
Is lesbians a derogatory term now? In this day and age they shouldn’t shy away from what they are.
Well at least they got a bit of money out of it. Can I claim money if someone calls me hetrosexual?
If the women are ashamed of their life style, why live it?
Am I missing something here - They Are lesbians - what’s the problem?
Five grand for stating the obvious.
“Shaking with disbelief” when they read the advert, but more than happy to give a statement and provide a nice piccy.
Absolutely ridiculous! If the advert had said the house was being sold by an architect and his wife, would this be discrimination against architects and heterosexual couples?
It’s not all bad, though. Beeper is clearly being forced to read the Mail against his or her will.
I can’t believe all the commenters who actually think that it wasn’t a big deal. This world is full of bigotry and hatred and these estate agents were intentionally adding to that. This was not done lightheartedly, but with malice. Maybe the commenters would like to have their addresses printed along with choice one word descriptors of them? The first one that springs to mind is “bigot”.
And Beeper isn’t alone. Hats off to Lucy:
We have no idea how this came to be in the paper - it is entirely possible that the press picked the story up from the courts or from the estate agents rather than that the women went to them. It may not be ‘discrimination’ as such but it was certainly no accident - you can’t accidentally insert the word ‘lesbian’ where a reference number should be. So clearly someone at the estate agents thought it would be funny to invade the privacy of two people who had hired them to provide a professional service, and found their sexuality to be a huge joke. The women made a private complaint first which was dismissed out of hand - as with so many situations, had the firm had the decency to offer a sincere apology that would probably have been an end to it. Good for the women for demanding to be treated with courtesy and respect.
Highway to Heck
O Noes! AC/DC The Musical!
Despicable rags
Obsolete has written a fantastic post about Robert Murat’s successful libel action against 11 - 11! - newspapers.
the truly unprecedented payout to Robert Murat by not just the Express papers but every single one of the daily tabloids with the exception of the Daily Sport, three of the Sunday tabloids and also the Scotsman is an indictment of a journalistic culture that regards the lives of those who are being written about as being of no concern whatsoever…
Murat may receive £550,000 damages; split that 11 ways and it adds up to just £50,000 a newspaper, which to the Daily Mail and Sun especially is absolute peanuts. They’ve had a year of fun, boosted their circulations, brought in far more than that through their race to the bottom, competing with each other as to who could print the more lurid stories, and at the end of it they have to cough up a whole £50,000? To spout a cliche, they literally must be laughing all the way to the bank.
Seven-word DVD review: Jesus Camp (documentary)
Makes you want to punch a nun.
Supplemental review: could do without the doomy music. What’s on-screen is scary enough, so the music’s just annoying.
“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours / but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour…”
Remember the attempts by Christian Voice to prosecute various people over Jerry Springer: The Opera? And the £90,000 costs awarded against CV’s Stephen Green? It seems Green is asking for some good old-fashioned Christian charity from the very people he tried to prosecute.
The money is due to be paid today, but Stephen Green doesn’t have it.
He has written to both Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday inviting them to waive their costs in the interests of goodwill and justice.
Apparently chasing him for legal costs would be “vindictive”. Media Watch Watch says:
Vindictive? Like Green’s relentless self-interested pursuit of the BBC and John Thoday, and his gloating over the dearth of royalties accruing to Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas as a result of his censorship campaign wasn’t vindictive?
While we hesitate to celebrate anyone’s financial ruin, it is hard to feel sympathy for the whingeing hypocrite as he begs Thompson and Thoday to waive their charges. And we seriously doubt it will shut him up.
Chicken Yoghurt is amused, while Richard Bartholomew points out that Green was solely responsible for the “adverse, grotesque costs” and that he targeted two individuals rather than a public body.
Green says:
It is outrageous that a public-spirited individual should be dissuaded from upholding standards of public decency in a public body because of the fear of adverse, grotesque costs orders.
Which is an interesting way of looking at it. As Bartholomew notes, there’s a reason why Green should pay up or face bankruptcy.
without the risk of losing money there would be many more enemies of free speech using the courts – and the very same threat of high costs – to silence ideas they didn’t like.
Because being a single mum with an autistic child isn’t hard enough
Being misanthropic isn’t fun, you know, and from time to time I do my very best to change my attitude. I read inspiring news stories about inspiring people doing inspiring things. I read sad stories about the sacrifices people make for others. I try to see the best in people, and take the Vonnegut attitude that we’re all here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.
And then I see a news story like this one, and I’m back to square one.
“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”
There’s more to the story than the psychic angle - the child was exhibiting signs of sexualised behaviour, which apparently isn’t unusual in autistic kids - but it does seem as if the psychic’s “vision” triggered the whole thing.
[Link via Fark]