Celebrity Big Brother

I have to say this is the funniest CBB I have seen. Right from day one it has been hilarious. Many people dismiss it as claptrap but on a psychological level it is intriguing to watch the ‘celebrities’ disintegrate so massively in such a short period of time. It always starts so positively with the contestants vowing to just enjoy the experience and have a good time, but within days many become mortal enemies and begin behaving in ever more bizarre ways. Even though they know it is a gameshow and that every whisper is recorded, they simply can’t help themselves. The establishment of interest groups, cliques, defensive and offensive alliances takes place quickly and with absolute predictability on every occasion. The ploys with which contestants try to manipulate their housemates and the voting public are fascinating to observe. In this year’s show the relationship development between Denise Welch and Michael Madsen has been hilarious to watch and yes the signals indicate that Denise has a huge crush on Michael, who plainly is not interested and resents the fact that Denise invades his space. Denise does not take the rejection well and tries even harder to establish a relationship which in turn invades Michael’s space even more and makes him even angrier. So the cycle continues!

Everyone wants to ………………………….

Everyone wants to lose weight or so it seems, especially at this time of year. Isn’t it amazing how many ‘celebrities’ suddenly hit the press with stories of their dramatic weight loss regimes. Usually they (by mere coincidence) just happen to have a new weight-loss or keep-fit video out on the shelves at the same time.

However this is a really good time to lose weight for several reasons:-

the excesses of Christmas are over

a new year means a new start so we are motivated

daylight hours are beginning to increase, so it’s easier to find time to start ‘doing’ things

we can set target dates such as holidays by which time we want to look our adonis-like best.

I hopped on a scales for the first time for many a month and it registered that I was about a stone and a half above my summer ideal weight, so I will be using my own techniques on myself, in order to rectify this. I will let you know how I get on!

Riots, spin and judicial systems

It was almost a certainty that after freely encouraging riots in other countries ie North Africa and the Middle East, and telling the these nations’ leaders what they must do, that riots would then occur in the government’s own backyard. Admittedly the movements in these other countries seemed to be politically motivated but our government was ill-advised to be seen to be openly encouraging civil disorder no matter what the pretext. The subliminal message being beamed into people’s homes day after day was that rioters were good and rioting was good and should be supported. I am totally amazed that Colonel Gaddafi didn’t find a way of giving Mr Cameron public advice through the media about what he must do to bring order back, or even tell him that he must hand over control of the country to the rioters. The temptation must have been great in many of the countries that have been on the receiving end of Mr Cameron’s lectures.

One of the biggest unanswered questions about the recent riots, was the whereabouts of justice secretary Ken Clarke. Where was he? No speeches! No photo ops! No pearls of wisdom! He became the invisible man! The arena of British politics was deafened by his silence! Even more mystifying was why the British media allowed him to simply disappear without question. This was the politician openly reneging on his party’s opposition pledge to get tough on crime. This was the man telling us that prison should not be an option for most criminals. This was a great opportunity for the media to do their job and put Ken Clarke on the spot. Typically they failed abysmally. Mr Clarke was allowed to be the invisible man until it was all over and the dust had settled somewhat.

Why did Ken Clarke hide?

Quite likely because his political stance had become untenable. The public were furious about the scenes of violence, disorder, arson and looting taking place in their country and they wanted the rioters to be stopped and punished. In some places citizens were banding together to form vigilante groups because they had no faith in the authorities’ ability to deal with the problems, so they decided to physically defend their own communities. The press were showing daily images of rioters literally doing just as they pleased. The public backlash was the kind of thing that could topple governments. Ken Clarke pontificating on why criminals should not be sent to prison, could have seen the end of the Coalition Government. Clarke had to be kept out of sight and away from the media. This was no accident. This was damage limitation time.

How politicians react to riots

Usually during riot situations they will talk tough, make totally unenforceable statements about how all rioters will be brought before the courts – feel the full weight of the law etc. This is especially true especially of the the parties in power, because the riots are a challenge to their government. They feel the need to be seen to make the right noises. In the past in this country it has been commonplace to appoint a geriatric member of the aristocracy ( paying said person a small fortune) to undertake a lengthy public enquiry into the ’causes ‘ of the riots. When this happens it is usually guaranteed that everyone and everything will be blamed except the rioters. The result will give politicians the chance to say that they listened to the people, looked at the evidence and took actions to prevent such riots in future. Actions might be more funds for ‘disadvantaged’ areas, softer touch policing of those areas, youth initiatives or even changes to the law. In these cases the rioters often feel even more empowered and important in that their behaviour made the government change something. For once however that does not seem to be the case as the government as yet show no signs of setting up such an enquiry. If they do then no doubt the usual process will follow.

The usual retreat

During the riots ministers will make very tough statements. Once the riots are over and calm has returned then they will begin to backtrack and return to the usual middle-class ‘liberal’ arguments about crime and punishment. (Sending people to prison is expensive.) You will notice Ken Ckarke has finally come out of hiding and is trying to put a spin on the riots to justify his ‘soft sentencing’ stance. He is claiming that a a high percentage of rioters over 18 years of age that were convicted, were repeat offenders ie have been in prison but are stil offending, therefore prison doesn’t work. The truth of the matter is that huge numbers of the rioters were under 18 ( many of them under 15) and have not been to prison at all. Additionally the vast majority of the rioters have not actually been caught, therefore he has no factual information on them, other than what everyone saw on their tv screens. He is also conveniently ignoring the fact that the riots petered out after the courts started imprisoning and remanding in custody anyone found having any connection with the riots even for receiving small amounts of stolen. This and government statements about authorising the use of plastic bullets plus increased police numbers brought the riots to an end. Threats about doing community service would have just caused raucous laughter. Clarke has become the unspeakable advocating the indefensible and he has betrayed his own history. Deterrents ended the riots, not soft sentencing, but like all politicians he has to put his spin on events and the media seem to be allowing him to get away with it. Nothing really changes in our wonderful liberal democracy, does it?

The Pigeons Come Home to Roost

Blog readers will know that I have repeatedly criticised the British press over the last year and the News of the World has regularly featured in this criticism, not least for applying different standards to investigating itself and enlightening the public as to its own wrongdoings as it has done to  other targets who have been mercilessly hounded and vilified. I must admit I did not see the closure of the paper coming even though I regularly commented on its policy of using distraction techniques to direct attention away from the ever-growing army of hacking victims who were seeking compensation through the courts. Its comical in a kind of pathetic way that the rest of the British press kept off its back until its closure was announced, then felt collectively brave enough to wade in with the boot. No doubt partly fuelled by the desire to get their hands on millions of readers who would be looking for a new paper to buy. As I have reported previously the press seem to have an unwritten law that they don’t attack each other. So whilst they are generally free to behave in a totally amoral way, they vilify others deemed to have failed to meet their own pseudo-standards. Interestingly the press focussed their attacks on group owner Rupert Murdoch rather than the actual journalists responsible for encouraging and paying for the hacking. Well I suppose Murdoch is not British, he’s an Australian with lots of money and businesses in different areas of the world and already a bit of a bogey man to the anti-multinationalists. Therefore he is seen to be an acceptable target whilst their fellow journalists are spared the unwelcome attention. There is little doubt that it was generally known in the corridors of power that the phone hacking was not just restricted to one or two isolated cases but was in fact endemic, as the ever growing number of costly pay-outs was clearly indicating. I am sure that the newspaper was closed in part because of the financial implications of thousands more victims being unearthed in the re-opened investigation with the costs now possibly going over the billion mark as opposed to the 15 million that the newspaper put aside to pay its first known victims. So what lit the blue touch paper?

Undoubtedly the revelation that they hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler blew the ship out of the water. Suddenly those in the know in the corridors of power could no longer be seen as part of any cover-up or in any way associated with anything that might be seen to link them with this repulsive act. It would be political suicide! Further revelations about hacking the phones and email accounts of fallen soldiers made an intolerable situation even worse. The scramble to distance themselves began big style and the rodents began deserting the sinking ship, the resignations began and the politicians desperately sought to run for moral high ground by demanding public enquiries etc.

Why wasn’t the NOTW brought to book earlier? The evidence was clearly there!

Quite simply because the press in the Uk has too much power. It can decide who succeeds and who fails; who becomes prime minister and who doesn’t! It decides who gets slaughtered for their indiscretions and who is spared etc. The press has lived above the law because those who make the law are afraid of upsetting it because it can destroy them with impunity, so they seek to court it, flatter it and get on its ‘good’ side. Those who should be kicking the press’s proverbial ‘ass’ become its lapdogs instead and seek to prosper from its patronage.

Having said all this I am not happy for the  NOTW to  be closed down. It was a very entertaining paper with lots of light-hearted stuff to read and plenty of sports coverage to pass away lazy Sunday mornings. It also exposed a good deal of criminal activity and that was of  benefit to the public good. But it went too far and ignored the effects of its houndings on the children and families of its victims. People who wish to be famous for being famous, tip off the press pack as to their every appearance and go to any lengths to be in the public eye are fair game and deserve what they get, but most of the NOTW’s victims did not fit into this category, they were simply people who were well-known for being good at sport etc.

Super-injunctions, the press and slimy politicians

The media have been creating a firestorm recently over super-injunctions because  a number of ‘famous’ people have taken out these injunctions to prevent the press from printing stories ie kiss-and-tells, about their private lives. Ironically it turns out that one of these famous people is a journalist! You just couldn’t make it up, could you? However the journalist involved has quickly been dropped out of the limelight because the press never defecate on their own, not for long anyway. The truth is not as important when they are being investigated.

The excuse that the press often give for their intrusions into private lives is that these people make a living out of their family image and therefore the public have a right to see it exposed. This is nonsense of course because the target of their intrusion makes a living as a footballer and a very good one, who largely keeps his family out of the limelight. The press particularly the redtops simply want to increase circulation by writing sleazy stories about famous people’s private lives. Everything else they say, ie freedom of expression, freedom of speech, the right to the truth etc is simply justifying their lack of ethics and basic morality. The British press and British politicians are very big on human rights ( when it suits them), but the The European Convention of Human Rights, enshrines a right to privacy. This is of course ignored when it suits. Unfortunately parliament is full of members of the legal profession. The legal profession makes a fortune out of human rights cases. Therefore controversy like this is great for judges, barristers and law firms et al who are provided with lucrative work.

Liberal MP John Fleming has used the ancient ‘right’ of parliamentary privilege in order to name the footballer concerned. Mr Hemmings’ reason was that he was preventing ordinary people being sued after the footballer’s lawyers targeted twitter. Oh really Mr. Hemmings? Well because of his obviously well-intentioned act, the obese, balding Mr Hemmings has suddenly changed from a grey man nobody had heard of, into the man everyone was talking about. His name and face in every newspaper, on every news bulletin. Not a bad bonus for  a hitherto anonymous politician! Mr Hemmings has now become famous! He will probably be appearing in chat programmes in the future, be featured in interviews, possibly end up on I’m a celebrity Get Me Outta Here. He has made his mark! He will now doubt already be the subject of a question on pub quizzes throughout the land! Oh and the ‘ordinary people’ he is protecting on Twitter? Isn’t one of them none other than Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror who published fake pictures of British troops torturing Iraqis in the Gulf War. An act wich doubtless led to the death of British service personnel in that country. Journalistic  Mr Morgan is one of the people being rumoured to be at the forefront of the Twitter campaign to smash the super-injunction protecting the footballer’s privacy! Of dear! One could easily see a journalistic connection here if one had that kind of mind! The redtop tabloids being aided to break a super-injunction by former redtop editor! Conspiracy theories please! Send them to the letters page of any redtop tabloid. They will never be published of course. (The redtops don’t print stories about themselves.)

The reason that people take out such super-injuctions in the first place to protect their families and children from the fallout arising from the stories. So that children are not subject to being taunted at school etc. In other words to prevent the innocent from being hurt! Preventing the innocent from being hurt, that should be the job of our political representatives, shouldn’t it? People like Liberal MP John Hemmings perhaps? This would be a noble cause! Much more noble than seeking self-publicity by abusing parliamentary privilege!

If the media believe that the rich and famous should have no right to privacy, why do they not print stories concerning the foibles and affairs of newspaper editors and journalists?

Why do they not print how much they have paid for their kiss-and-tell stories and to whom the money went? Perhaps we would then find out who are the real love rats! Comically they keep this information private whilst denying that their victims have a right to privacy! I believe that it is virtually certain that one or more redtops have already paid or have agreed to pay money for the exposee of the footballer and this is one reason why they went to such great lengths to keep the pot boiling. This has subquently turned into a campaign to get around injunctions using social networking sites and possibly stooges or accomplices. This will mean that people in future won’t bother to take out injunctions leaving the media free to carry on with its dirty work.

People may say well its the fault of the rich and famous for not being squeaky clean. I would say that everyone makes mistakes it is part of the human condition. Kings, queens, princes, princesses, presidents and deputy prime ministers. All have human frailties and all can be brought down by them and regularly are and always will be.

9 Million People Can’t be Wrong! Or can they?

When I was a child growing up, I saw an advert on the tv that promoted buying a particular breakfast cereal. It’s selling line was that 9 million people ate it in Britain therefore we should buy it because 9 million people just couldn’t be wrong! ( It may have even been 19 million, I can’t be sure now, but the precise number doesn’t really matter, because it is the principle that counts!) I remember thinking , ‘ Well there are about 55 million people in this country that means 46 million people don’t eat it. So why not say 46 million people don’t eat xflakes and 46 million people can’t be wrong, therefore don’t eat xflakes!’

The point I am making is that the number of people who believe something has got nothing to do with whether it is true or not!

In years gone by the majority of people believed that the world was flat and that if you sailed out to sea eventually you would fall off the edge! Millions of people in different belief systems believed that the sun was a god! If you had believed or said differently you may have been perceived as mad or evil and probably would have been victimised and ostracised or even worse!

The history books are of full of brilliant people and geniuses who were persecuted, mocked, bullied, ridiculed and even killed for their beliefs or their works at the time but were subsequently found to be correct or visionary with great insight. Many great writers, dramatists and poets spent time in prison. Van Gogh couldn’t sell a painting in his lifetime and Socrates spent much of his later life under arrest, eventually being forced to commit suicide. Newton and Darwin were derided as heretics and Walt Disney was sacked as a journalist because he had ‘no imagination!’

The moral of tale is that if you have a considered belief or point of view, do not abandon it because of the hostility or criticism of others, because you may be right and the others wrong! Remember that at one time everyone thought that the world was flat and that it was impossible for people to fly!

It is my serious, considered point of view that people who are really, genuinely talented, original, intelligent or good at something will inspire derision and mockery from others not capable of seeing the light. Brilliant or perceptive minds will look at things in a different way, from a different perspective; they will see trains of logic in places that others don’t notice; they will see different ways of solving problems or managing issues. They will often see complicated scenarios in very simple terms and they will have their own way of achieving their ends that are mocked by others. These qualities are common to talented people in all walks of life including:- artists, writers, scientists, teachers, politicians, musicians, managers, healers, sportspeople, engineers, technicians, philosophers and thinkers generally.

Equally it is no coincidence that so many really talented people seem to be followed by controversy and exhibit behaviour that is often condemned and ridiculed by society at the time. Look at Oscar Wilde, Wordsworth, Shelley, Van Gogh for example and more recently well-known figures such as George Best, Freddie Mercury, Jose Mourinho, Kenny Everett, Maradonna etc. The list goes on and on. Having real genius or talent often has other manifestations that don’t fit into the core behavior patterns of their peers.

Review

I just thought I’d do a brief review of previous posts before moving on.

Bill Murray has now stopped claiming to be a lawyer in the featured  legal ad.

The News of the World has finally mentioned its own scandal (phonehacking) – it did so in order to gain some control and mitigation, with regard to the ever-increasing number of people taking out legal cases against them and suing for damages. However the apology and admissions of guilt were very limited and very carefully worded and of course given nothing like the splash that this newspaper gives to others when it deems them guilty of wrong-doing. I had to read the paper twice to actually find the apology.

The Mentalist programme continues to entertain, with some new twists in the search for Red John.

As predicted the British govt have virtually given up any pretence of claiming that the bombing of Libya is to provide a no-fly zone. Only yesterday missiles were used to strike leader Gaddafi’s compound, presumably in an attempt to kill him. There are strong signs that the conflict is escalating on tribal lines, the refugee crisis has grown massively, oil prices have hit record high levels, Libyan infrastructure has been terribly damaged, many people have been unnecessarily killed, including some by allied air strikes. Cameron has claimed that the allies won’t leave until Gaddafi has gone, thereby confirming that his actions are more concerned with regime-change than with civilian safety. Cameron has deceived the British people every bit as much as Tony Blair did over the Iraq invasion. He is also clearly exceeding the UN mandate. Does this make him a war criminal? Should he stand trial in the International Court of Justice? It would seem that Western leaders are exempt from this for some reason!

I have so far declined to ask the obvious question as to how we as a nation are able to afford such costly military action at a time when savage spending cuts, affecting pensions, police service, local authority service etc are being sold as absolutely necessary by the government.

On another tack it is incredibly ironic that the News of the World which has consistently delighted in the persecution and harassment of Wayne Rooney, would now appear to be implicated in illegally tapping his phone. ( According to latest news reports anyway.) If this proves to be the case I hope that his lawyers pursue this newspaper the same amount of  ruthlessness that it pursues its own victims. This would promise to be very entertaining! The hunter becomes the hunted!

Why bomb Libya?

In my previous blog I commented with some detail on current events in North Africa, but events have moved on and perhaps require further comment, particularly with regard to the British Government, its actions and how it is portraying itself to the people  and the world.  Typically,  the British Prime Minister David Cameron, couldn’t wait to get involved militarily and was the prime mover in a UN resolution for setting up a no-fly zone over Libya. Mr Cameron has used this resolution as proof that the entire world backs his judgement in interfering in Libya. The truth however is far different because the majority of the big names in the security council actually abstained in the vote. Russia, China, India, Germany and Brazil all refused to back Cameron’s desire for military intervention and abstained. Presumably none of them thought it was a great idea! However Cameron  conveniently overlooks this when pontificating on the subject as do the mass of the British media. Out of the world’s major players, only the USA ( presumably in return for the UK backing them in Iraq and Afghanistan) and France backed Cameron’s plans, and the USA quickly distanced themselves, once the military action began.

Why was Cameron so determined to push through his plans to bomb Libya? Well we can only guess as to his true intentions, but there are plenty of possible motives. One of the main ones would be power and status in world politics, involving claiming a place in the history books. The fact that Cameron became prime minister in itself denotes someone who seeks power and authority, however internal politics is one level of power, international politics ie becoming a ‘world leader’ is a totally higher level of ballgame. Getting a militaristic motion passed by the UN and then persuading other people to help you act on it, so that you are then directly influencing the fate of another world leader and his country is sky high! This is the kind of heaven of which power seekers dream. To top this, he may well dream about being known as the man who exported ‘liberal democracy’ to North Africa and the Middle East, thereby cementing his place in the history of world politics.

Even though, the resolution called for a no-fly zone, it is already clear that this was simply a ruse to get involved and dictate events on the ground. We already see pictures of tanks and military hardare destroyed by ‘UN’ ( British, French and American) bombers. What have such things got to do with a no-fly zone? Very little! Already Libyan infrastructure and administrative centres have been bombed. Which means a greater likelihood of suffering, instability and chaos when the fighting is over. Cameron is undoubtedly trying to effect a change of government in Libya, not merely enforcing a no-fly zone. ( This something for which he has no mandate of course.) The whole thing reminds of Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq, which originally was to find the non-existent ‘weapons of mass destruction’ but quickly changed to ‘regime-change’ once the invasion had begun.

Mr Cameron is largely supported by the British media, who are using all manner of propaganda to justify these actions. The gutter press are already referring to Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi as Mad Dog Gaddafi etc. They are showing burnt out  Libyan Government military equipment as if it some kind of revered prize.

The truth of the matter is that Libya was no threat to Britain or anyone else and its internal politics are none of our business. Libyan military forces are under-equipped and out of date and are no match for cruise missiles and Western fighter planes. You will notice that the media used the term ‘demonstrators’ just a few weeks ago, but now the term being used is ‘rebels.’  Britain is in effect, taking sides in a civil war. President Obama has received so much stick in the USA for joining in this phoney war that he immediately distanced himself from the mission’s command and dropped it like hot potato, now being forced to admit that they should not aim to take out Gaddafi.

This is Cameron’s war and all the deaths that are resulting from it now and that will do so in the future for many years to come are on his head.

Having said this I am not anti Cameron as such, more anti British interference in affairs that do not concern us and are none of our business. I have the greatest respect for the British armed forces who have to go in and risk their lives cleaning up the mess made by politicians – Lions Led by Donkeys was one famous quote. Perhaps it should be Lions Led By Weasels! Would any of these political leaders be so eager to engage in warfare if either they or their children had to go and do the fighting?

democracy, demonstrations and double standards

It has never ceased to amaze me! The complete arrogance with which British and American leaders ( Blair and Bush typify) peddle ‘liberal’ democracy as a cure for the world’s ills. Historically it reminds me of the peddling of Christianity around the world in the age of discovery. The idea of ‘Yes we know you have your own religions and belief systems but we know what is good for you.’ Follow our system it is better!

 The western powers were diametrically opposed to the Soviet Union and China advancing their ideological communism around the world and fought it with great loss of life on occasion, eg Vietnam. There is a similar  arrogance inbuilt into the current fad of exporting our ‘liberal’ democracy. It doesn’t matter how many people die, we know better, our system is worth killing and dying for! The fact that our liberal democracies are far from perfect and are greatly flawed doesn’t seem to bear a second’s thought.

The unrest in northern African nations has perhaps rightly, for once, been attracting the media’s attention in recent weeks. Demonstrations that seemed to begin in Tunisia, with people protesting about high unemployment, rising prices etc took hold and evolved into an anti-government movement. This process was then duplicated in other largely  muslim, Arab, north African and middle eastern countries. If people in other countries wish to demonstrate against, oppose, depose their own governments then that is the business of that particular country and its people. All countries evolve politically over time. European democracies have evolved over hundreds of years of wars, civil wars and strife etc; liberal democracy was not an overnight creation.

There are many problems with trying to impose ‘democracy’ upon nations! One of which is tribalism ie people simply vote for their own tribe rather parties presenting the best policies. This has happened throughout Africa and is how Zimbabwe came to get saddled with Robert Mugabe for 40 years after our government gave ‘democracy’ to Rhodesia. Another problem is that people think it’s a great idea until their party or candidate isn’t elected and then they accuse the other side of cheating and demand new elections. The defeated elements often become the dissident or rebel groups and take to armed resistance, often leading to civil war and countless deaths and suffering. British, US and European people are largely used to losing elections and will just accept it, many other peoples will not, partly because it is alien to them and it is the part of ‘democracy’ that they weren’t prepared for.

Going back to the present situation, I was just praying for our government to keep their noses out of events in N Africa and Bahrain. Unfotunately they simply could not resist the temptation to be telling to start pontificating, posturing and interfering telling these countries what they MUST do, yes MUST do! William Haigh who I respect considerably could not stop himself publicly telling Hosni Mubarak what he MUST do in response to the demonstrations ie hand over power. ( Can you imagine the response of the British people if a foreign leader started telling us what we MUST do in order to resolve our internal political politics?) Mubarak has been a ‘friend’ of Britain and the West for decades and we gave him and his country support and aid. Yet as soon as the going got tough our government immediately sided with his opponents and hung him out to dry! This will not have gone unnoticed in places like Saudi Arabia who are also our ‘friends’ and allies yet don’t have western-style governments. Unfortunately our beloved leader David Cameron has felt compelled to jump on the bandwagon and has already been in Tahir Square making pronouncements, no doubt looking for photoshoots.

Whatever happens politically in these countries is their business and not ours and our representatives should not be so condescending and arrogant as to tell them what they MUST do. However I do predict that oil prices will face massive rises as new governments realise that they need extra cash to fund any new policies. These massive oil price increases will have a huge probably negative effect on the global economy including the UK’s.

This will probably result in higher prices and more unemployment which will in turn cause more unrest etc. (Isn’t this where it all started?) There will be more refugees and emigrants, extremist groups will be alrerady planning how to take advantage of these new conditions and will now mushroom and flourish in places where they were until recently held in check. Crime and disorder will rise alarmingly in these countries and will soon become entrenched.

I suspect that in a few years time many of the protesters will be saying it was better before  western democracy came their way.

These are only some of my thoughts, but let us see! I would be happy to be wrong on many issues.

‘Skygate’ and dark forces!

It is just over a week now since the furore erupted at Sky TV over its sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys. Andy Gray was sacked and Keys resigned over off-air comments about a female linesman in a football match. Seldom has so much controversy been caused by a few idle words. They suggested that the lineslady in question probably wouldn’t know the offside rule. For the uninitiated it has been a long held assertion/observation in many quarters that that girls/women don’t understand the offside rule in football. Not a malicious assertion more like the  ’humorous’ declaration that men don’t get colds, they get manflu! How many times have I heard a female presenter say that on TV or radio, without any comeback or any criticism? Well I am not sure but it is a lot of times! Of course the media jumped on the bandwagon and hypocritically began calling for their heads. Another bit of off-air footage was dug up which showed both men apparently making suggestive or lewd remarks in what they saw as ‘fun.’ As a consequence Gray was Sacked and Keys resigned in sympathy.

The written media are of course revelling in their demise, falling over each other n a scramble to dig out any possible lurid sories or bad publicity for the doomed pair.

Let’s begin by saying that the lady linesman did a good job and was complimented by the Sky commentators for getting a very difficult offside decision absolutely right in the same game.

Do women understand the offside rule? I suspect that few do, but many men don’t understand it either including some highly paid pundits! Was it a malicious comment? I doubt it. Skysports and its sister programme Soccer AM, is full of such banter and is often near the knuckle both ways. Helen Chamberlain certainly gives as good as she gets and seems to revel in it!

What amazes me is that the media are completely ignoring the main moral issue ie. Is it right that someone should secretly record private conversations and then broadcast them to the public? What happened to the right to privacy? As Keys said, if you are going to sack people for what they say in private conversations then not many people will have a job for long! More importantly, why has there been no attempt to identify and expose the Sky Sports crew member who is secretly recording his/her colleagues and then leaking it out to the public via u-tube etc.

There are rumours of dark forces at work! The News of the World is currently getting hammered financially by paying  out-of-court settlements to people claiming that their phones were hacked in the great phone-hacking scandal that resulted in the paper’s editor resigning. In addition the police are re-opening the case, which can only spell bad news for the NOTW. The problem lies in that Andy Gray is rumoured to be one of the people whose phone was hacked and was taking legal action against the newspaper, but the owner of the group that owns the NOTW is none other than the same person who largely owns Sky TV. So Andy Gray was in effect taking out action against his own boss!

Could this be the reason that the mole remains undiscovered?

Right now Gray and Keys will be reeling not only from losing their jobs and being systematically vilified by the press, but by the sad procession of former colleagues and ‘friends’ queuing up to stick the boot in, in exchange for cheap publicity and lucre from the press, including the same ones associated with the phone-hacking scandal. It was really timely for NOTW that this story broke just as the police were announcing that they were going to re-open the investigation into the phone hacking scandal, thereby directing the public’s attention away from their own dirty deeds. It is quite amazing but you’ll be lucky to find any reference to the phone-hacking scandal anywhere in the NOTW!