Spann's Blog

Gone Fishin'.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:44:00 +0000

So I decided to buy a domain name. As such, all blogging activity has shifted to here.

Au revoir, Monsieur Blogspot.

I Only Look At The Pictures.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:31:00 +0000

This story is not about Big Brother.

So what picture did the Mail Use on it's homepage?

This one. Which is to do with Big Brother, as you can tell. A cycnical mind might think: "Hmm, Big Brother is quite a popular subject, and this story is tangentially related. Clicky clicky linky linky...." - Which would also go some way to explaining why the headline is also so vague if you don't know what the story's about.

I'll say it now: Daily Mail, you are a bunch of lazy clickbaiting turds. STOP IT YOU SHITBAGS.

Desperately Seeking Something.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:58:00 +0000

This man is 'desperately seeking attention' because of his choice of jewelery.

But when Katy Perry does this:

Then that's fine.

Why? Who the fuck knows. Maybe it's because pictures of a young woman in a rubber dress get more clicks than pictures of domestic abusers wearing video game themed jewelry.

And anyway, he might be desperate for attention, but you've fucking given it him, haven't you? "Look how desperate he is for attention, everyone! Here's another picture begging us for validation! Look, and another one! And a few hundred words about him! Look, he really wants attention but we're not going to gi-Oh, shit. Best write nasty shit about him instead, pass it off as that 'Reporter' account..."

Don't Miss.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:50:00 +0000

Nah, I reckon I'll be alright if I do miss it, cheers.

What Do Flying Ants Look Like?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:46:00 +0000

Cheers, Metro.

OUTRAAAAAAAAAGE.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:43:00 +0000

Uh-oh.

There's more OUTRAGE coming.

I hope you're ready.

[Jeremy Clarkson] provoked a flurry of complaints after telling viewers of Top Gear on Sunday night that he had seen a Muslim woman wearing saucy underwear beneath her gown...

...By yesterday morning, seven viewers had already contacted the BBC to complain, while singer Lily Allen labelled the comment 'distasteful' on her Twitter site.

That's seven. Seven people complained about the most watched show on BBC 2.

And this is 'outrage'.

It's a good thing that the Daily mail have never published anything objectionable that might cause offence, an- OH HANG ON:

The Press Complaints Commission has received a record 22,000 complaints about Jan Moir's article about Stephen Gately since Friday – more complaints in a single weekend than the regulator has received in total in the past five years.

We haven't fucking forgotten about this you know, chaps. People still remember that you published the most complained about article in UK publishing history, and continue to employ the author of it so she can vomit her outdated, outmoded ways all over the internet for reactionary idiots across the country to read, then strip to the waist while running around the garden bellowing about immigrants eating the Queen's swans while wearing a monocle and smoking a pipe while the wife plays an old 45 of 'God Save the Queen'.

Anyway.

Thinking about it, if the Daily Mail were a robot, Clarkson would be the thing that you could use to make it short circuit and explode. He works for the BBC (Boo socialist lefty scum!), but he seems to have a general disdain for the Labour Party, and as a rule holds some rather right-wing views (Whether he believes them or not is a different story).

What's even more confusing is when (like in the comments of this story) Mail readers say that he's just being deliberately shocking, in a paper that prints the myopic and bigoted scribblings of one Richard Littlejohn - a man who writes deliberately hackneyed and controversial views of the world because he knows it will help his image as a man who 'pulls no punches'... Sound like anybody else (With curly hair and a programme about cars) that you know?

To be fair, the top rated comments disagree with the Mail's painfully obvious anti-BBC bias, and I think that quite often the most interesting information you can gleam from the Mail is when the stories and the commenters have differing opinions of the matter. If Clarkson were on any channel other than the BBC, the Mail would laud him as a non-PC hero for the Chipping Norton, big car, middle England, I've-never-seen-a-black-man-but-I've-read-about-them-and-they-sound-horrible set, but because he dare to be employed by an organisation that the Mail almost literally doesn't have a nice word for, he's damned to hell and back.

It's also worth mentioning that while half the story criticises Clarkson for saying what he did, then explaining (With the glee of a pig in shit) that he's been in trouble before, the rest of the article is filled with anti-Burka and Niqab sentiment that is a staple of the Mail. I mean for fuck's sake, if you're going to be a dick and pretend to be mortally offended at someone, don't go disagreeing with them a hundred words later, Christ.

Oh, just to put those seven complaints in perspective:

Top Gear had 5,800,000 viewers on Sunday. That's one complaint per 828,571 people. The Mail has a circulation of around 2,000,000, and received 22,000 complaints for the Gately article. That's one complaint for every 90 people.

Irresponsible Fear Farming.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:25:00 +0000

Read this.

Right, now you've read the whole thing, hands up who thinks that the headline should be "EURO POLICE COULD SOON BE ALLOWED TO INVESTIGATE BRITONS IN UK, ASSUMING THE GOVERNMENT OPTS IN TO A SCHEME THAT WOULD ALSO ALLOW BRITISH POLICE TO TRACK FOREIGN SUSPECTS - ALTHOUGH WE DON'T KNOW TO WHAT EXTENT THE LAW WILL STRETCH YET"?

Scaremongering over a non story that contains far too many 'could's, 'might's and 'in theories', of course; but it's about Europe, so where did it appear in another one of the UK's papers today?

Ah. Yeah.

Outrage. OUTRAGE.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:11:00 +0000

There's outrage brewing again.

There fucking is, it's coming. It's rumbling towards us like a giant bastard of a fuckcloud, ready to rain down tedious, middle England hatred.

It's coming...

Here it comes...

It's not a particularly helpful phrase...

BOOM! There's some real fucking rage right there, huh? I'm telling you, the person who said that must have been fucking fuming:- I can only assume the person quoted screamed that as their eyes burst in anger and their head split, snot blood and tears all congealing as they ooze onto the floor...

You can probably guess the score; The Mail have created themselves a bit of faux-outrage again (This time over a couple of ill-chosen words appearing in the background of a scene in Emmerdale), which they struggle to back up in the story and then unravels completely when the readers get their best crayons out to scribble their thoughts on the bottom of the page. The Mail talks of the aforementioned 'outrage', 'criticism' and 'slamming', and they demonstrate just how angry THE ENTIRE WORLD is with quotes from two people:- Namely mothers who were appalled that their children were exposed to such filth, and they didn't want to have to explain to their children what a 'jam rag' was.

Fair Enough.

Now, I'd like to interrupt this post to quickly post a few Emmerdale Spoilers and recaps here:

Leaving Zak alone, Sam hurries after Alfie in the grounds of Home Farm, only to be hit by an awful stench.

He's horrified to find that Alfie has dug up what appears to be a body.

Unfortunately while Shadrach was walking over the river he half collapsed from his liver disease and dropped his cans of beer in to the lake, upon retrieving them he was unable to hold his balance, from both the heavy drinking he'd done that day along with another sharp pain from his liver disease and he collapsed in to the river and drowned.

So, tasteful, family friendly entertainment all round then.

According to the Mail, Mediawatch also slammed the programme, although the actual quote doesn't seem to indicate quite the level of rage they imply:

It's not a particularly helpful phrase to refer to sanitary towels as "jam rags" , and it is unnecessary.

'It didn't need to be there at all.'

I'll give you a moment to regain your breath after reading that spewing torrent of offence, and then I want to look at the comments on the page:

When even the readers of the Daily fucking Mail aren't too bothered, it's fair to say that any outrage has been made up by the author (Who, in this case, is that busy little bee the Daily Mail Reporter). In fact, do a Google search for the story, and try and find some 'outrage'.

Go on, I'll wait.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...Find any? No, I didn't bloody think you would, because there's nothing to be offended about. If you don't want to have to explain it to your kids but haven't got a problem with explaining a bloke wearing just a hard hat on his cock, then you've got some fucked up priorities and I never ever want to come round to your house for tea; and if you genuinely don't find it funny, that's fine, but in the scheme of things, is it worth getting that worked up about, really?

Look at the Stabwounds on Her.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:38:00 +0000

Two things immediately strike me about this:

1: It's safe to assume that the above picture sn't the first picture of her whatsoever. As a human being living in this digital age, there are probably more than one pictures of her somewhere in the world.

2: What kind of murder porn is this?

"Look!" Screams the Mail. "Come and look at the dead woman! Come and see a picture of what she looked like before she was brutally STABBED to death! We hear she might have had her throat slit, but still, come and gawp at a photo of her! Tell your friends!"

The rest of the story deals with unnamed sources, unconfirmed information and hearsay, including speculation that the woman had her throat cut, which is nothing but using Chinese whispers in order to pad out copy.

Seriously, there's very little actual fact in this story:

Police believe the 26-year-old mother's attacker, who may have been on a bicycle, was known to her.

The victim, named locally as Jane Clough, was ambushed as she left Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where she is thought to have worked.

A source named her former lover as Jonathan Vass...

It is understood Mr Vass was charged with three alleged rapes in December 2009 and was suspended from duty.

A source told the Daily Mail Mr Vass had left his wife, who was also a nurse at the hospital, for Miss Clough.

He and Miss Clough are said to have had a one-year-old child together.

And it goes on and on, all the way through the article.

Once again, the Mail is simply posting the assertions of sources to capitalise on a horrible story, not letting things like fact checking get in the way of being first to splurge this tat on their websites - And we all know how well that went for the Star recently...

Yeah, What She Said.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:03:00 +0000

The other day, I read This.

In that post is the following line:

Reporting [a person's] assertions as if they are absolute fact is not journalism.

Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely surprising to see this in the Mail today - a story which is basically identical to the last one. A company is having trouble employing staff, and as a result it's all the fault of benefits culture because the person doing the employing says so; end of story.

Interestingly, owner Diane Bayes refused two staff because "they had earrings and lots of tattoos", which as far as I remember, is against employment laws. Plenty of people have piercings and/or tattoos, and neither of those things stop them from being a good, hard working member of staff.

Ah, but did they know anything about fabrics?

I asked them what they knew about fabrics and they said they knew nothing but they had to come for the interview or they'd get in trouble with the Job Centre.

Oh, well, I suppose that's fair enough. I mean, you couldn't just employ someone who didn't know abou-

We would have trained the right person up and given them full help and back-up.

Well howabout you stop judging people based on how they look then?

It's also worth mentioning that in 2009, Selby had a lower than average rate of employment, and a search for 'Jobs in Selby', 'Selby jobs fabric' 'Malins Selby Jobs' and other such terms brought up absolutely no results whatsoever apart from the Daily Mail story.

These two pieces of information give rise to two alternate theories just as valid as Mrs Bayes':

Number 1: There aren't many people unemployed in the area, and as their online presence was seemingly quite weak (I will admit that the postings may have since been removed, but usually jobs stay around for some time - in my experience of applying for already filled vacancies at least), not many people knew about the vacancy, and if they did, thought "Well, I know fuck all about fabric, it's not for me".

Number 2: "How can we get some free advertising for our vacancies? Quickly, Diane, get the Mail on the phone and blame it on ZaNuLieBore!"

Actually, I'm going to throw in another, based on just as much solid evidence as the other two:

Number 3: The shop (and indeed, the entire universe) exist only in the mind of a sleeping cat curled around an immersion heater, and the cat simply cannot be arsed dreaming up another identikit middle aged Northern woman to go and work in a fabric shop in Yorkshire.

Use whichever one you like; I'm sticking with the last one.

Daily Star: 'News' Paper.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Do the Star really think that little of their own content?

Grand Theft Apology.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:20:00 +0000

Some background: A few days ago, someone on the internets made a mock-up of a video game based on the Raoul Moat story.

It looked a bit like this:

Which as you can see, is a quick 'n' dirty photoshop job that achieves nothing more than making a joke. It's obviously an amateur job, and completely different to Rockstar's art style.

So, obviously, the Star did this:

Now, that story has since been taken off the site (understandably, because it's all complete and utter hogwash), and many bloggers and gaming sites have already torn the Daily Star a new one.

Today, however, the Daily Star have published an apology.

And what an apology it is.

I think it's fair to say that Rockstar Games have some fucking impressive lawyers, judging by the smackdown they've laid on the Star here, but it raises a couple of bigger questions:

-What would have happened if Rockstar had gone through the PCC? A square inch on page 24, apologising for anything they 'implied', at best, most likely.

-Did the Star ever believe it was real? The image is very crudely done, and I can't believe that anyone would ever consider it to be real - One has to wonder whether The Star found the picture, considered the implications of posting it, and just thought "Fuck it."

It must be refreshing for Rockstar to be on the moral majority's side for a change as well, after the banning of Manhunt 2 and the furore over EVERY SINGLE GRAND THEFT AUTO GAME EVER, and it shows a patent lack of understanding of the gaming industry from the Daily Star. Rockstar's games aren't gritty dramas set in oppressive cityscapes, with great writing and characterisation, no: They're games where you murder people, avoid the police, and nothing else. This, in turn, raises questions about the legitimacy of the 'outrage' the papers stir up every so often with gaming:- surely if they bothered their arses to play these games, they'd know that they aren't just 'murder simulators' or 'rape games', they're good games that both engage and entertain the player, and to dismiss them as anything less is... well, frankly, appalling journalism.

The Star has been well and truly demolished on this, but it's sad that it took one of the world's richest video games developers and what I'd imagine is an army of lawyers to get a decent apology out of the Desmond owned, bottom feeding scumbags that are the Daily Star.

Bring on the Wall.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:29:00 +0000

From The Graun:

The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show.

And aren't they happy about it.

What follows is some back-of-an-envelope maths including lots of 'if's and 'assuming's, which by the end of the article makes the paper sound like your mate in the pub who works out that if everyone paid a penny more in tax then we'd all be riding in crystal plated hoverlimos by next Wednesday.

Bad form.

Self Awareness is a Beautiful Thing.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:49:00 +0000

Good point.

Oh.

It's worth pointing out that these two screencaps are of the same page in this story.

The article on Nasir demonstrates what sort of society we live in by publishing comments like this:

We all know what the Mail are like when it comes to the weight of female celebrities - They're too fat, too thin, 'stocky', 'skinny', 'saggy'... Basically unless your surname is Kardashian, you don't stand a shit's chance in a stormdrain* -although handwringing and moralising about how the Mail views women has been done countless times before by people more ennunciative than I like Anton Vowl, Upon Nothing and Tabloid Watch, and that's a can of worms I'm not prepared to delve into either way.

What annoys me is that there's somewhat of a continuity error on behalf of the Mail when it comes to the story: In the most recent article, it is said that "she had to wait six weeks until she could exercise" and "she couldn’t shift the extra weight after Bobby’s birth"; quotes that are accompanied by a clearly non-airbrushed, non made-up, poorly lit photo of Jennifer just after the birth.

But then in this story, just four weeks after giving birth, it's said that:

Looking slim but curvaceous, it’s impossible to tell Jennifer Ellison gave birth just four weeks ago.
The new mother, who has already lost most of her baby weight, bared all for her new role in Calendar Girls.

So make your fucking mind up, eh, Mail? Now I admit, for a change this actually seems to be a case of the Mail being overly nice to somebody, but the fact is, somewhere along the line, they were factually wrong.

Oh, and those "cruel comments" Ellison mentions?

The Daily Mail, a simmering cesspit where sympathy and civility go to die.

*Funnily enough, Kardashian's in the Mail at the moment as well, in a story about... Erm... The fact she's been wearing a bikini recently.

The Media and Raoul.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:38:00 +0000

I type this having just found out that the standoff between Raoul Moat and the police has ended with what seems to be a nonlethal gunshot.

I watched the BBCs live coverage for a few hours, and I can honestly say that at about 10pm someone in their editing team must have got bored.

I mean, look at him. With his pan on his head and that look on his face, what else can you think?

(Alternative final sentence: I didn't realise you could buy band branded helmets now.)

EDIT: Of course, we now know that gunshot was fatal, and Martin Robbins did a far better job of covering it than I did here.

Why I've Never Won a Caption Competition.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:57:00 +0000

In the dystopian future of 3045, King Kill-o-Tron 8000 surveys the scene at his Moscow Death Square while a woman's head explodes next to him. "Good..." his circuits whisper.

(Anyone who can do better than that, feel free to leave it in the comments)

A Few Short Annoyances for a Friday.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:52:00 +0000

Con Air - Specifically its slow degredation from gritty, intense drama into a run 'n' gun musclefest.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Con Air, I did. But I can't help but think that if it ran for another half an hour there'd be robots and space ships and that in it, Or Nicolas Cage would spend the last twenty minutes parachuting through an exploding universe while God himself played a rockin' guitar solo as Hulk Hogan scored a triple backflip slamdunk in a basket ball hoop seven trillion miles into another universe. What starts off as interesting meeting of minds and agendas in a stolen plane quickly turns into a film that Arnie would've turned down in his heyday, saying "Thur is tew much shooting in eet". I don't mind mindless action films, but when a film starts off so cleverly (And John Malkovich is fucking brilliant as criminally insane genius Cyrus), it's sad to see it resolve with OH MY GOD WE'RE GOING TO CRASH INTO VEGAS THEN DRIVE A FIRE ENGINE THROUGH A TUNNEL AAAAAAARGH BANGBANG BANG THERE'S THE CHILD KILLER PLAYING CARDS. The film suddenly shits out any pretention of being a serious film for grownups when they end up in the plane graveyard (The moment they remember the plane is absolutely packed to the fucking gills with guns and other weapons, and then just proceeds to degrade itself more and more with each passing minute, like a hooker who's not had a punter in a few weeks and has got to the point where she'll put anything anywhere for a few bob. I know you don't care about it anywhere near as much as I do.

Children of about 13 who have been allowed to your local city unsupervised for the first time.

Who's idea of 'common courtesy' is standing by the shop assistant they've decided they want to shorten the life of, who is already in mid conversation with someone, and going "Excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me" Continuously at half a million decibels until you're forced to either appease them, or use the most potentially damaging piece of stationery you can find on their head.

People who "know their rights"

No you fucking don't. You know that you're going to go home and ring some head office and complain to some spotty sixteen year old who gives less of a shit than the people in the shop, and you'll be back in the store next week, regardless of your claims otherwise, you spineless cunt.

British Telecom

BT are absolutely, irrefutably, fucking shit at their job. Their job, for those of you who presume it's promising to ring you back and then not, not providing you with the service you are paying for while sending you to every department in their network along the way (then finally giving you the number for the department you need, which you ring, to find it closed, and closed since 1972 at that), is actually to provide you with various differing forms of telecommunication. As you probably know, however, they aren't very good at this. In fact, they are about as good at it as I am at having periods (which I'm frankly rubbish at, I've never even managed one, unless you count the time I sat on a pencil and bled like a motherfucker all over Wrexham). And this annoys me. BT essentially have the monopoly when it comes to phone lines (they own the fucking things), so even if someone else is your service provider, BT still have their manky little paws in your business somewhere. And after years and years of being the only telecommunications company there was in Britain, you'd think they'd have more practice at not being complete and utter shitstick at being a cunting telecommunications company. A quick list of the problems Ceri and I have suffered with BT:

Didn't cancel the previous account here three times

Called us "Miss Savvy" continuously, even when I was on the phone and it's neither of our fucking names

Took 45 minutes of our lives filling in an account form, then losing it.

A pitched battle while we tried to convince them NOT to send us another fucking homehub

Not connecting the line because they'd lost our details again

Promising us seven trillion Mb, and then essentially strapping a hamster in a wheel to our connection.

Giving us their 'Broadband sales' number, which turned out to be BT World Business. (You don't half feel like a prize prick phoning them up. Especially when they give you the right number, which it turns out is the one you rang yesterday, but because you couldn't succesfully find your way through BT's push button dial tone labyrinth, you pressed 6 instead of 7 and got put through to their All Year Round April fucking Fool's Department)

Not knowing when our account was due to close.

Closing that account without telling us.

Ringing me up and asking why we were leaving, then not accepting my answer of "You are bunch of fuckwits who I wouldn't trust with a cup and string."

Bollocks to them. British Telecom? British Phone Cunts, more like.

People who are "Welsh and Proud"to an almost militant standard, but don't speak a word of the language.

Your hypocrisy astounds me. I'm not a particularly patriotic person, so I speak English because a) It's the language I was taght and b) It's more widely used than the old Cymraeg. However, when I'm in a pub and I see you in your Welsh Rugby Jersey, your Woad, your dragon trousers and Daffodil hat stomping about the place, bawling about how much the English are a great big bunch of oppressive twats and how you fucking hate everything about them, stop yourself for a second and ask what fucking language you're speaking, you gigantic clutterfuck.

Vuvuzelas.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:32:00 +0000

So, FIFA want to ban the Vuvuzela, because it can offend and annoy a few people who don't appreciate it.

In defence, pro-Vuvuzela parties have stated that it is part of their country's heritage and tradition, and as such should not be banned and should remain in stadiums. Just because foreigners don't like it, there's no reason not to have the Vuvuzela, they say, and they're right. They say they'll continue bringing the Vuvuzela with them, and they'll carry it proudly

People from all over the world, however, have decided that the Vuvuzela must be banned, as they don't like it, and won't listen to reason.

Now relpace the world 'Vuvuzela' with 'English Flag', and weep huge tears of shame that we live in such a fucking hypocritical country. You shit yourselves in defiance every time some rag spits out a story about banning a piece of our heritage and culture, but you've got no problem sitting at home and demanding that people aren't allowed to have theirs. You insufferable, hypocritical cunts. If you had a shred of self awareness in you, your own morality would have strangled you to death by now.

Fuck.

Dog Gives Birth To Puppy, Newspaper Considers it News.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:58:00 +0000

Well done Mariah Carey...'s dog.

ChaCha, the Jack Russell owned by the aforementioned diva, has had a puppy.

Do you care?

Well, the Mail do, evidently: Not only has somebody wasted two hundred words on this complete and utter non-story, it's currently listed in the 'Don't Miss' section of the website, along with the terrifying news that Natalie Imbruglia wore the same dress two days running. OH FUCKING NO.

Elsewhere, some horrendous people call Konnie Huq fat, some more twats say Nadine Coyle looks better now she's put weight on, and there's an article about how hard it is to be a woman but not have a man (even the pro-single woman talks about how "There are times, particularly on a long winter's night, when the familiar ache of loneliness creeps in", like she's a fucking Disney princess or something).

So, everything's normal in Daily Mail world today.

Seriously, what's the fucking point?

Self Awareness.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:30:00 +0000

This is an oldie, but a goody.

Here is a brief – and terrifying - glimpse into the world of those people who spend time commentating on the Daily Mail’s website.

This morning the paper posted a story about a paedophile who is to be beheaded and then crucified in Saudi Arabia under the country’s Sharia law (not normally a Mail favourite).

So far the story has attracted nearly 300 comments. To gauge the tone of the debate we decided to look at the top rated comments and then the worst rated.

Very instructive.

Here they are:

TOP RATED

A good punishment for a sick peado. Why can''t we hand out this very appropriate sentence to UK offenders? Put it this way, he won't re-offend, or cost the taxpayer anything in the future.

- MARTIN CANE, CLITHEROE, 4/11/2009 8:47

well that is certainly a punishment that fits the crime, pity we can't have a few in our courts.

- Jane, UK, 3/11/2009 20:02

fair punishment for a terrible crime against children ... should be the other way round crcify him, castrate him too for good measure and then behead him just before he dies.

- Nick, Chatham Kent, 4/11/2009 8:47

Let's see what the do gooders say about this decision.

- KDINSYDNEY, Sydney, Australia, 3/11/2009 19:59

It strikes me that if Sharia Law was called "Big Billy British's Bulldogs, Pie, Chips and Football Law Who-are-ya who-are-ya who-are-ya", it would be far more popular.

The fact that people will bellow "Muslims are animals, they still stone people" in the same breath as "Paedophiles want bloody stringing up" without a hint of irony astonishes me.

A Welshman's take on #ABE.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:51:00 +0000

This morning, my attention was drawn to an article in the Telegraph entitled 'Exploring the Anyone But England Phenomenon'. Now, I could tear the article to bits for not so much exploring the situation as just stating a few blindingly obvious points while seemingly not asking anyone about it (how you can explore without doing any investigating I don't know), I just thought I would offer my own personal opinion on it as a Welshman - I don't claim to speak for anyone else in this post.

Which actually, brings me on to my first point. English people, you are not 'representing' Great Britain, you are representing England. The TV adverts, the newspapers, the patriotic sweet wrappers simply serve two purposes: One, to remind the rest of us Non-English Brits that our teams didn't succeed in qualifying, and two, it implies a certain assumption that we are going to follow you purely because we happen to share borders with you. Imagine if your next door neighbour came banging on your door, demanding you supported their child in their sports event, despite the fact that your child's team had failed to qualify. Whilst you'd be happy for them had they just kept schtum, the fact that they had constantly bombarded you with hats, flags, songs and Christ knows what else in the weeks beforehand, while assuming you're going to go all out in your support for them purely because they invited you to a barbecue last year (Which you had to bring your own beer to) is likely to breed more than a little contempt. What makes it worse is that we know that if Wales were against England, we'd still be bombarded with the same blanket gibbering about something that happened 44 years ago and how that somehow means that it could happen this year, coupled with a Derby game style competitiveness when the game was taking place.

Secondly, the England team quite often contains men of strong Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish heritage - Or in the case of some players (Michael Owen is a good example), men who grew up and live in our country. Owen actually went to school a few miles from me, and so far as I know, still lives in Wales - but stood on pitches around the world as an Englishman. Treachery is probably too strong a word, but the general feeling is that men like this have been drawn in by the relative glamour of the prospect of playing for the bigger, more successful team, and have used what could be seen as a loophole in the rules in order to do so. To use my previous analogy, imagine the people who moved into your old house came into money one day, and your child decided that because you used to live there, they were part of that family now; a family who once again, would bombard you with information about how fantastic the child that was once yours is, whilst strongly suggesting that you still cheered him on in his endeavours.

Thirdly (And this may be more relevant to myself than anyone else), Hearing fellow Welshmen refer to the England side as 'us' simply winds me up. I'm not some nationalist nutter, don't get me wrong, but the simple fact is that if Wales were still in the competition, England would be anything but 'us'. Thinking about it, this is sort of an extension of my second point; when there's a chance Wales will do it (See: Rugby), the English are the Enemy and are there to be beaten, but when Wales aren't even in the running, 'we' are England.

Of course, some people just have that local competition mindset - An Everton fan will love hearing about Liverpool losing, and in many ways the same applies at an international level. This can manifest itself at a number of different levels, from friendly ribbing all the way up to borderline militaristic racism, although the people who fit the latter category are probably twats that no-one would want to speak to in the first place - They're usually the ones who claim to 'fucking hate the English', but don't know a word of the language of the land they claim to love.

How do I feel about it? At a sporting level, I couldn't give one whether England win or lose. However, the quicker England sink out of the competition the sooner I won't have to hear about it every fucking day, and if they win I'm going to spend the next 44 years of my life listening to how it 'could happen again'.

In-ger-lund.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:54:00 +0000

The World Cup can fuck off.

Actually no, that's a little harsh.

The cartwheeling, bellowing, air-punching excitement over the World Cup can fuck off, to be specific. At time of writing, the bloody thing hasn't even started and yet everyone in my office is talking about the Argentinian defence and how England should be attacking - for a while this morning I thought the Falklands was back on. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy to let the world cup happen, I'm not that much of a curmudgeon - But just leave me the fuck alone if I don't want to watch it please.

The World Cup brings with it this immediate assumption that you are a) Interested in football and b) Hoping England will win, which as a Welshman living in Wales, I find a little unusual. Truthfully, I couldn't give less of a shit who wins, and I'm not going to be one of those turds who complains about it being on TV - I understand that it's a big event that is obviously more important than everything else that's going on on telly - If only there were special sports channels where they could broadcast this sort of stuff... Obviously that's utopian future stuff that you and I won't be alive for, but-

What, you mean they already exist?

Well why the fuck do they poison the normal people's airwaves with this shit then?

It's not just the airwaves, either. The shop near where I work (In Wales, it should be said) is full of white and red tat, and the only time I want to see that much plastic with a red cross on it is if I were to stumble across Girls Aloud trying on PVC nurse's outfits. I don't want the flag banned, I just don't understand how buying England earrings will help our lads romp to victory in a competition they haven't won in forty-four pissing years.

Nor do I understand why people assume you like football come World Cup season, or even want to join in - I don't want to join your fantasy football leage, I'm not partaking in your fucking sweepstake, and I don't want to dress up like a country or have a penalty shootout against the management. I want to go home and pick my nose, eat Pringles and cry, and I'd appreciate it if you'd just leave me to it, thanks very much.

IMPORTANT NEWS STORY.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:57:00 +0000

From The Mail:

Baywatch's Pamela Anderson is back on the beach... but what a difference 18 years makes

Look! look! someone looks older now than they did in 1992! Quickly, tell your friends, they'll miss it! Don't look over there! Look here! For the love of God, look at this!

In other news, some milk left on the side three days ago has gone off.

For fuck's sake. Any excuse for the Mail to print a picture of a woman in a swimsuit.

The Times Paywall.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:39:00 +0000

From The Guardian:

"What we are trying to say is we are not going to show you all the news, [like] going to Google News and seeing 4,000 articles, we are going to give our take," [Sunday Times executive editor, Tristan Davies] said.

So yeah, rather than getting a balanced view of the world from all the papers, now you have to pay to read the version of the news approved by an insane millionaire who knows fuck all about the modern world. That sounds really good.

What I've Witnessed.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Spann) — Tue, 04 May 2010 18:11:00 +0000

Ah yes, this Blog thing. I should update this more often.

Anyhow, with the election coming up, it's obviously been a hot topic in pubs and various other social establishments across the country - And it's interesting to see what people think of politicians.

After being part of a few conversations on the topic, and overhearing a few more, I decided to collate my findings somehow.

Aroundabout this point, I discovered Scroobius Pip, and that's why this blog entry has an audio element to it. I feel I should shut up and let the audio tell the rest of the story - Just remember that these aren't neccesarily my opinions, just what I've heard from friends, family and the general public.

What I've witnessed by Spann