Terrible (if expected) news this morning, with the BBC confirming that it’s pandering to the bullying - sorry, lobbying of Rupert Murdoch and his paid underlings in the Tory party, and making drastic cuts. The most notable casualties will be 6 Music and the Asian Network.

To be fair, the response of many people, even fans of the BBC, has been along the lines of “You can’t cut 6 Music! You should cut (X) instead” - X being something they don’t particularly like, be it 5 Live because they’re not into sport, Radio 3 because they’re not into classical music, or Top Gear because they’re not into watching the tragic results of a mad scientist’s experiment 50-odd years ago to cross-breed a human being with an arsehole.

So the perception that BBC expenditure needs to be cut is pretty pervasive, even amongst its allies; however, I think that ditching entire channels is a terrible shame, unless they’re clearly total rubbish, which 6 Music clearly isn’t (I know nothing about the Asian Network). Money should be saved elsewhere - trimming bureaucracy / fewer expensive imported programmes / reduction in output (e.g. turning some channels off at night).

Cutting whole channels will be like a red rag to the bull(shitters) in the red-top rags: soon they’ll be after more. Modern-day Whitehouses at the Sun and Mail will complain that BBC3 is “too sweary”, Times readers will moan that BBC4 is “too intelligent” etc, and soon the corporation will find itself having to justify its existence on a channel-by-channel basis.

The BBC may not be perfect, but it’s still excellent value for money. The overwhelming majority who love it should be careful of complacency; Murdoch has his eyes on forcing its sale (bit by bit if necessary) or dismantling it altogether, and he has a lot of friends in what is likely to be our next government. Killing off 6 Music and the Asian Network sets a dangerous precedent.

A (yet again long overdue; mind you, until last week’s tame effort, I don’t think I’d changed the poll at all in 2010) new TTOTDOWOHOHCBATCI for y’all; a cover of Hank Williams’ country staple “Jambalaya” by The Carpenters.

Synonymous for many with saccharine over-produced mawkishness, I actually love the Carpenters - admittedly they sometimes crossed the line into barf-o-rama territory (e.g. their horrible cover of “Ticket to Ride”), but their best stuff is brilliant. I’ll even go so far as to say that Karen Carpenter had one of the finest voices of any female singer in popular music ever, and I’m including all yer Franklins / Fitzgeralds / other soul / jazz divas in that assessment (John Lennon apparently agreed with me). It’s a fantastically pure yet rounded sound; never forced, always completely natural-sounding through an impressive 3 octave range (Mariah Carey allegedly has 6 octaves, but the top bit of that is audible only to bats and the rest is only useful for dispersing teenagers). Carpenter’s vocal skill was all the more impressive for the fact that she was initially a (very good) drummer by trade, and only left the drum stool to stand behind the mic 6 or 7 years into her musical career.

I actually find it difficult to listen to some of their stuff (e.g. “Yesterday Once More”, “Goodbye to Love”) without getting a significant lump in my throat - this is partly because I’m susceptible to what others might describe as schmaltz when it’s of the highest quality, and partly because of the tragic circumstances of Karen’s death, but mostly because of her utterly wonderful voice.

“Jambalaya” is hardly a tearjerker though; it’s good harmless fun. Infectious rhymes, semi-incomprehensible lyrics (unless you happen to be rattlin’ my Cajun), slick production which presages a lot of modern country-rock crossover stuff, and some excellent harmonies, mostly in sixths (my favourite interval). Old timers’ cheesy listening perhaps, but then I AM nearly 40…

Another gem from the bastion of hard-hitting investigative journalism that is the Folkestone “Kentish Express”. Not, sadly, from our friend Chris “Pulitzer” Denham, the man who can link a now-defunct Victorian water-balance lift on the Kentish coast to - well, anything he wants with only three degrees of separation; instead, from the Stelling Minnis section of the “Village Guide” announcements. Check dis -

“Disgusting behaviour: Someone is relieving themselves on the Minnis [heath] on a regular basis. MCSMDW, the Moving Conference of Stelling Minnis Dog Walkers, have independently verified these unsavoury phenomena. Also noted is that dogs are rolling in and eating the substance mentioned. This isn’t nice, especially if you are the one worrying about the sort of health problems this may be passing on to your family members. It would be appreciated if that person would stop what they are doing. If a problem exists in this respect, perhaps another solution could be sought?”

Absolutely fantastic. Only in an English local paper. I really don’t know where to start, but I especially love the last sentence. Not “stop shitting on our heath, you dirty git!”, but “perhaps another solution could be sought?”.

One slightly serious point; presumably the members of the MCSMDW looked up and noticed this “phenomenon” whilst pausing in their walk to let their dogs take a shit on the Minnis. Of course, because it’s DOG shit, there’s no problem - dog shit is a lovely, fragrant addition to the verdant canvas of traditional English heathland, and is well-known for its healthy and restorative properties. And in any case, I’m sure that every member of the MCSMDW picks up, without fail, every single tubelette of brown stinky shoe-friendly joy that their mutt ever deposits on the “Minnis”.

Other than that, (sh)it’s clear that there’s a problem, but what turd do? The residents have to faece up to things, keep a log of further instances, then (s)tool up, confront the perpetrator, poo-ever it is, and make him get de-fec-ate (the feck out? No?) of their village. The guy’s probably an immigrant, perhaps from a Greek island. An ex-Crete-er, maybe?

(OK, that’s plenty.)

Isn’t it remarkable how unlike themselves some people have looked recently? Firstly E-toe(nian)rag David Cameron…

… and then this shiny spherical orange blob, whoever / whatever he / she / it is…

(This advert has been mercilessly, endlessly, and very amusingly ripped to shreds here…)

Secondly, our glorious no-hair-apparent to the throne as he used to look:

… compared to whatever the hell this Berlusconi-esque-but-without-needing-to-wear-a-bandana-for-weeks madman’s folly-cular re-creation reckons itself to be -

Poor Billy-boy; up to the age of 18, he was the spit of his (undeniably beautiful) mother and pretty much the best-looking young man in the entire world. Then the recessive inbred Saxe-Coburg-und-Gotha, sorry, Windsor gene kicked in, and now he looks like his idiot uncle Edward, and ever more like his gurning donkey of a father.

Funny thing is, the slap-headed Windsor male gene seems mysteriously to have passed Prince Harry by* somehow… hmmm…. (author scratches head in faux curiosity - or rather makes to do so and then stops himself for fear that more of his own rapidly-thinning hair should fall out.)

(* - I guess there’s no way to predict who it will affect and Hewitt won’t.)

Was slightly exasperated by this request from a potential eBay buyer -

“I take it you’ve listened to the CD you’re listing. I was wanting to know which version of “come follow me” was on it. One version is the “radio mix” and the other is the original album version, both noticably different sounding. If you have their album “Rise”, it should be easy to tell if the ep version and the one on Rise are exactly same or not (or if you don’t have it, you can find both Rise and that ep on the uk itunes store and see the sound difference). Also, does the song on the ep sound a little quiet and has to be turned up a bit louder to be heard a bit better or is it regular volume like any song? And do you have their Rise album? i’m not looking to buy it cuz i already have it.”

So essentially, what he wants me to do is listen to my CD, then purchase one, possibly two more versions of the same song (by a band I’ve never heard of) from iTunes, and to compare and contrast the three for audio similarities - costing half an hour or so of my time and at least £1.60. And then answer a completely redundant question as an encore.

The price of the CD in question? £2.99. With free postage.

You’ve had it easy since 3rd Jan….

Q - Why would you want to consult a former Arsenal / Germany goalkeeper if you needed to get your head around difficult concepts?
A - Because he could explain them in Lehmann’s terms.

David Cameron has today unveiled a new Conservative policy whereby public online petitions which garner 100,000 votes (some reports give the figure as 50,000) will automatically be debated in parliament; any which succeed in getting more than a million will enable the organisers to propose legislation which MPs must vote on.

The privileged photoshopped prat must think he’s spanking fags back in the jolly old debating society at Eton or something, because this is the dumbest idea I’ve heard from any politician for a LONG time. For a start, any online petition is rife with multiple and frivolous signatories (I.P. Freely, Hugh Jarse etc). For seconds, it lays open the possibility of politicians being forced to waste valuable time debating frivolous subjects (Jeremy Clarkson for Prime Minister, Jedi to be adopted as the state religion etc etc). Finally, in a more sinister vein, it would be incredibly easy to push unsavoury right-wing populist topics up the agenda; bringing back hanging, deportation of immigrants, discrimination against Muslims / homosexuals, leaving the EU etc etc. 100,000 signatures is absolutely nothing; UKIP have already stated that they could get that many with ease, and there’s no reason not to believe them.

We’ve seen in the last few years how easy it is for snotrags like the Mail to use the internet to goad their credulous and unintelligent readership into frenzies of meaningless outrage - to the point where outrage seems to be the default response of the British public to pretty much any story going. Surely the WHOLE POINT of parliament is to provide an insulating layer between the legislature / executive of power and the easily-manipulated vigilante lusts of the seething, prejudiced, ill-informed masses below - why would you want to weaken that layer?

OK, that’s a slightly snobby and apocalyptic view of the situation. I’m not saying that greater public involvement in the agenda of politics is a bad thing per se - in fact, it’s vital if trust in the political system is to be restored - but in all seriousness, this would be a REALLY stupid way of going about it.

(* - Sorry about the title; best I could think of at short notice.)

Oooooh, it’s a tough choice this week; is it…

a) Atrocious leather-kicking multi-millionaire chav thug with the IQ of a rock sleeps with money-hungry tart allowing the tabloids to manipulate half the country into paroxysms of hypocritical moral outrage?

b)  Ghastly barking transsexual-looking she-chav with huge lumps of silly putty bizarrely sewn into her skin cynically marries money-hungry lunk-head to gain maximum publicity for her ex-husband business partner who just happens to be releasing a book on the same day?

Or is it…

c) Evil manipulative bastard with weird centre-parting singlehandedly responsible for the death of music figures out that a neat way to increase his public standing and get some lovely free(ish) publicity for him, Beryl Coles and his other “star” proteges, would be to subject everyone to a shit-ridden saccharine version of a lyrically-inappropriate REM song about suicide which, having previously had a serviceable melody, is now punctuated by said celebri-twats trying to outdo each other by fitting in as many unnecessary extra notes as possible, climaxing with Mariah “I’m pretending I” Care-y bracing herself, gurning and yodelling “Eeeeoooowwwweeveryyyboooowooodyyy Huaaaaoooooeeeeeuuurrrts” at the top of her incredibly fucking annoying squeaky voice.

Fairly evidently, it’s a) and b) - I give quite a big shit about c) - any high-profile “charidee” single always gets me contemplating. Whilst the bottom line is that the money raised will do some good on the ground in Haiti, it’s arguable that the publicity garnered by Cowell and his acolytes in aid of the furtherance of their crappy careers is worth far, far more (to them alone, obviously. Because I can’t see Cowell giving any of the nicely-boosted profits from his subsequent single - which will reportedly be a reworking of “The Girl is Mine” performed by SuBo and the reanimated corpse of Michael Jackson* - to charities in Haiti or anywhere else.)

Furthermore, the showbizification of disaster-relief is such a well-worn path now that it risks beguiling people into the mistaken belief that they just need to buy the single and everything’ll be OK. TM envisaged the typical consumer’s purchasing decision process thus** -

“I’m feeling beneficent today … I know, I’ll buy that Cowell / REM song from iTunes to help the people in Haiti…. ooh, look The Hills … OMG I can’t believe Heidi said that to LC … and hello! - when is she going to get rid of Spencer? Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, Haiti. It’s, like, terrible what’s happened out there and stuff?… maybe I should assuage the nascent sense of guilt that I think I should be feeling… but how? Oh yeah! The Cowell single … click click, done - that should make everything OK. Now where’s the remote, I LOVE The Hills…”

So personally, I won’t be buying “Everybody Hurts”. I may or may not give some money via another conduit, but I figure that if my elected representatives have £20 billion of my money to spunk on Trident and another £5 billion to jazz-wank on a ludicrous idea like identity cards (next to a mere £20 million so far allocated to Haiti), my efforts would probably be better spent lobbying them to up the foreign aid budget (although I’ll almost certainly end up not doing that either).

Still, better callous than Cowell-ous.

(* - No it won’t.)
(** - Quite possibly whilst watching “The Hills”.)

The “No! For God’s sake! Too soon! Oh, the humanity!” deeply inappropriate lookey-likey of the week:

Jigsaw Killer Stephen Marshall:

… and wooden actor Neil Morrissey:

So, Tony Blair is giving his long-awaited evidence to the Chilcot enquiry about the lead-up to the Iraq war today - I’ve just finished listening to the morning session and, pretty much as expected, Teflon Tony is giving a robust account of himself in the face of some technically indepth, if not always particularly awkward, questioning.

What saddens me is the unholy alliance of screechers on either side accompanying this important event; on the one hand, you have the extreme end of the anti-war protestors imagining every possible US / UK blood-for-oil conspiracy in the world and calling Blair names like “war criminal”. Now I’m no fan of war, and there are serious questions to ask about the role of the “special relationship” in the decisions which were taken - but a war criminal? War criminals are people like Josef Mengele or Adolf Eichmann, who were personally responsible for the cruellest acts imaginible under the protective cloak of warfare. To use a highly-charged term so loosely and disproportionately and apply it to a prime minister who (whether you agree with it or not) did nothing more than make a difficult decision is demeaning to the phrase “war criminal”, and by extension massively insults the victims of history’s truly evil men.

And, on the other side, you have yer usual Murdoch / Mail mob; it doesn’t matter so much what these people really think about the Iraq war and its consequences, because they’re only ever interested in hurling childish insults at the Labour government. Yet and at the same time, they’re the types who are always caterwauling about our “brave boys” and their lack of equipment (etc). Now I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that pretty much every member of the armed forces who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan would agree that the Army’s (and the UK’s) interests would be much better served by a public which understood, or at least took an active interest in, what is going on on the ground, what has been achieved, and what the aims of our presence are, than by the current incessant hysterical politically-motivated name-calling stoked up by a shameless gutter press, which profits by, and delights in, feeding ignorance.

And me? I think that some very serious mistakes were made, and I’m certainly not absolving Tony Blair - but the situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan were and remain extremely complicated, and call for very careful consideration - not pre-school posturing. As I said, I’m no fan of war or killing, but there are several legitimate reasons for Western countries to be involved in these two and indeed many other countries around the world; mostly to do with cleaning up messes which we left in the first place.