Speaking to the BBC, David Beckham says:
“It’s impossible to trust people for me. And I don’t like it being like that, I’m not that sort of person. But I’ve been made into that sort of person because there’s been so many things and so many people, not let me down but just sold lies on me, and I think that’s the tough part to do.”
Say no more, David, say no more.
Amazing that no-one has yet noticed the crassness of David Beckham’s pre-World Cup party, where the RAF will stage a fly past of … three WWII military planes. What a way to see the team off to Germany! Remember, lads, it’s an invasion of hostile Europe. Stick one to the Hun! What in the name of God are the RAF doing pandering to the stupid jingoism and WWII fixation of the Daily Mail brigade?
I guess we can be grateful it wasn’t ten German bombers.
Update: Even non-Brits just can’t seem to get over it. Terry Wogan has just referred to a German TV presenter, as Lord Haw-Haw on a horse. Ho, ho, Terry. Very witty.
Update 2: Apparently the fly-past is now not going to happen, at the Beckhams’ request.
Eric Forth, the right-wing MP for Bromley & Chislehurst has died. I didn’t follow his politics, but his performances in the House of Commons were always very witty and vigorous.
Euro-MP Cecilia Malmstroem has launched a petition to keep the European Parliament in one place, rather than have it move for its plenary sessions to Strasbourg. An eminently sensible aim, and if you agree you can sign the petition here.
An interesting article in the NYT Magazine about the spread of the anti-abortion movement into anti-contraception.
Well, the honour roll of the British media just got one name longer with the withdrawal of Luis Felipe Scolari from the England manager job. Reason? The British press.
It’s win-win for the Daily Mail, though – they get to chase off one of those ghastly foreigners with their unEnglish ‘skills’ and ‘talent’, and they get to beat up the new England manager when he fails to win the World Cup.
The US Senate debates the rises in petrol prices there, and the
“I think what the American consumer is saying is that filling up your gas tank shouldn’t empty your wallet” I don’t doubt that that’s what the American consumer is saying to Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, but what is the environment saying? My guess? “Hey, get all these f**king American cars off me!”
Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker discusses the Administration’s plans for Iran.
An interview with Chris Patten in le Monde discusses the French economy and Europe’s prospects for the future.
There’s a fairly interesting article in today’s Guardian about the benefits or otherwise of organic food. It would have been a very good article, but for two pieces of lazy journalism.
The first is the ‘spurious confession’ spin – common in political writing – where a perfectly ordinary statement is spun as a shocking inconsistency. In this article the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (an independent Government group) admits that he eats organic food sometimes. Admits? One can see Leo Hickman (the writer) battering the helpless professor with question after question till, unable to hold up against the onslaught, he finally whimpers for mercy and confesses that … yes … he … he … eats … organic food. But then, why shouldn’t he? Just because he is something to do with pesticides doesn’t mean that he has to eat nothing that hasn’t been dipped in Weedol. He doesn’t say he ONLY eats organic, just that he does sometimes if it’s not too expensive. But by portraying him as a hypocrite or in some way unfaithful to ‘his cause’, Mr Hickman can do some double spin – himself as valiant investigative journalist, and Prof. Ayres as the slightly shady scientist who doesn’t believe the lies that the industry pay him to spout.
The second bit of lazy journalism is the modern-day “things will never be the same again”:
Well I’m baffled that the onus seems to be on us, the receiving public, to beg our public-health agencies to find out whether pesticide residues could be unhealthy, as opposed to the manufacturers being made to go through more hoops to dispel, once and for all, the public’s evident anxieties – especially as there seems to be a genuine danger of those unable to afford organic moving away from fresh fruit and veg as a result of these concerns.
Or, in summary, “if some people are uncertain, there must be more research”. It’s a popular approach with three types of people – first, the tobacco companies and oil lobbies excoriated earlier in the article; second, creationists who pressure people to “teach the (artificial) controversy”; and third, journalists who are too lazy to reach a conclusion for themselves.
But I can’t hang around, I’ve got to go and check whether the Earth goes round the sun. Apparently, some people still aren’t sure.