Peter Mullen

Radio Narcissism

There are serious events taking place today: abroad, the return of Bhutto to Karachi; at home, a 16 year old boy shot dead in a playground in Sheffield; in politics the summit in Portugal to ratify the European Constitution. So the BBC's PM news programme leads off with a full twenty minutes of news and interviews (bleating) about staff cuts in the BBC. It reminds me of the wall-to-wall coverage they supplied on the news of the death of the disc-jockey, that mediocrity John Peel - again one of their own.

Do they actually think we are interested? I hope they carry out their threat to go on strike in protest at the cuts. Silence is better than the trivialisation of news and current affairs

Happy junkies make clean water

Wonderful to hear that the social services are rewarding junkies who provide them with a "clean" urine sample with the drug of their choice. Heroin addicts may be given methadone or antidepressants - or even diamorphine (prescription heroin)

I should like to see this arrangement extended. If I supply a sample of clean wee wee may I claim my free case of Chateau Margaux please?

And the scheme has even wider possibilities: why not reward successful slimmers with cheeseburgers and Black Forest gateau; smokers who've managed to quit with 200 packs of Capstan Full Strength; fill the swag sacks of unsuccessful burglars with pieces of household silver etc etc?

Fatties can't help it

A huge and costly "scientific" report has concluded that that it's not my fault if I get fat. Obesity is, according to this report, not the fault of the individual for eating too much instant, packaged food and slumping in front of the computer or TV all day; rather it is all due to societal changes. This is nonsense: it is not possible for something called "society" or "the nation" to go to the gym and to eat sensibly. Whether a person gets fat or not is all down to the personal decisions he makes about eating and exercise. I am no more obliged to slob around and eat junk food than I am forced to listen to the sickening pop music on all media twenty-four hours a day. Of course the food, the slobbishness and the rotten music are all signs of the way we society has degenerated: but no one is forced to become degenerate

Actually, we should not be surprised at the tone of this report: it is just the latest in a long line of reposrts and policy studies which remove individual responsibility and corporatise it. Essentially this method is statism, nascent totalitarianism

Annual Seafarers' Service

Nigel Essenhigh, the former First Sea Lord, invited Lynne and me to St Paul's for the Annual Service for Seafarers. The cathedral was full, packed with the great and the good, the high and the mighty. The hymns were marvellous including "I Vow To Thee My Country". The cathedral clergy sat either side of the ludicrous nave altar, facing the congregation in what looked like a colossal act of self-advertisement - "O do look at us!" There was a green and white squared cover over the altar looking like a kitchen table cloth. Perhaps the canons employ it for playing draughts?

Among them were Canon Lucy Winkett, our first lady bishop-in-waiting, and the Marxist Canon Ed Newell. You could see from their faces that they didn't like the hymns at all, and the wonderful military band even less. Fancy having to put up with all these awful military types, worse even than those "awkward people" (And that is an accurate quote) the Royal Family who insist on the King James Bible when they attend. Of course the lessons were read from some godforsaken version - the NIV or The Bad News Bible, perhaps? In the story of Our Lord's' stilling of the storm, the disciples are made to say, "Lord save us! We are perishing!"  To which Jesus must have been tempted to reply, "Cup of of Bovril's the only remedy, chaps!"

However, the mawkish canons got their reward: the preacher was Bishop James Jones of Liverpool - famous for his many "Thoughtless Today" appearances on Radio Four. He preached the only sermon I have ever heard which mentioned John Prescott once and God not at all. It was about global warming.

He compared the fight against global warming with the abolition of the slave trade and hoped that in this new struggle, as in the old one, two people might emerge - "one black and one white" - to achieve the cutbacks in carbon emission required to "save the harvests of the African people." He ended with a parable about class warfare which must have pleased Ed Newell no end: "We are like people on the "A" deck on a luxury cruise while the hold is packed with people drinking stagnant water."

After that we sang the National Anthem. And nobody laughed...

Royal night-clubbing

After a complaint from Clarence House, the Daily Mail has withdrawn a picture of Prince William and his girlfriend coming out of a nightclub it had intended to publish. I'd like to know what the heir to the throne is doing slumming it with the drunken oiks and posh yobs in such a decadent place anyhow. What sort of recreation is noise and binge drinking - to say nothing of other "substances" - for a Prince of the realm?

He should be socialising with other members of the aristocracy in private mansions, away from the cameras. Here he could pursue appropriate princely activities: discuss the form of his horses, learn to drink claret and play Canasta.  He might attend the opera or a symphony concert or a Shakespeare play. Honestly - could you seriously picture any of our right royal yoofful oiks showing the slightest interest in anything beyond a pop concert? 

The enormity of David Blunkett

David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, who brought in police community support officers, was interviewed on Rado Four following the death by drowning of young boy. Controversially the two PCOs did nothing to try to rescue the boy. Blunkett said that the drowned boy should receive a posthumous medal for his bravery - "for the enormity of what he did."

"Enormity"? That's what he said. Let us remind ourselves that Blunkett used also to be Secretary of State for Education

Tory party link

Amid the overnight influx of "spam" I was offered a new link to the Tory party. I think I have more confidence in the penis enlargement ads

Radio Trash

The Today Programme excelled itself this morning. First The Bishop of Southwark - "I'm a bishop it's what I do" - contrasting firm religious believers with the more sceptical sort. And of course the firm believers were "less altruistic" than the sceptics. How does he know? In any case this sloppy remark conceals a profound ignorance as to the character of belief: I, for instance, have firm religious convictions and deep scepticism at the same time. How else does the bishop imagine anyone ever produces any serious theological work?

Then the nasty shouter Carolyn Quinn slurs Ming Campbell. First she tells him, "You said you'd hammered so and so..." He denied this. So she said, "Well you were reported as saying..."

Ming tried to intervene, "Ah well, if you're going to say...."

She came back shouting him down, "Oh well, we won't debate that!"

Which means that, having first slurred him, twice, she denies him the chance of reply

What a gorgon she is!

global hot air

All three main political parties in Britain have declared that climate change is their priority. Can anyone think of anything more senseless, less rooted? Global warming is a politically-motivated myth put forward by the anti-capitalist brigade, associated nihilists who want to drag us back to the stone age: people who actually hate humanity and dress up their malignity in phoney idealism. Green is the new Red. And of course it's a great funding bonanaza for research departments

There have always been groups of misanthropic loonies, but that supposedly mainstream political parties could behave as if there is any truth in their lurid apoclayticisms is absurd and shows the paucity of political thought in Britain today

There is always climate change. It's only thirty years since "authority" was telling us we were overdue a new ice age. Give us another twenty years and that view will come back.

Ramadan at Sandhurst

There's only one religion in the calendar at Sandhurst Military Academy. Yes, it's the bottoms-up chaps' religion again. Ramadan is highlighted in the Academy's calendar. Christian festivals don't get a look in