Man finds a lot of money, hands it to the police, gets shafted.
…and the police station’s Christmas party is off to a good start. Noël! Noël!
“Mr Justice Lewis said the careful sorting of the notes into bundles of one denomination meant they were ‘unlikely to be the profits of legitimate cash trading’.”
Are these people for real? Has this guy never seen a cash till before? What on earth does he think his Coutts bank manager does with his savings?
Traveller arseholes live up to their reputation yet again
Poor thing. And as for the poor sod who got his car totalled, well it’s all part of Ireland’s rich cultural tapestry, right?
The thing is, those inbred bastards always swear up and down they “love” their horses, that having horses is their ancestral tradition, blah blah bullshit. You just have to look at pics of travellers riding or driving their pony and traps: ill-fitting (and therefore painful) bits and tack everywhere, not to mention zero riding/driving skills and a complete disregard for horse welfare.
They know fuck all about horses and care even less but it’s so picturesque, isn’t it? Bring on the next C4 documentary on the Appleby horse fair!
I also do not FUCKING BELIEVE the video in this article. DO. NOT. BELIEVE. I’m still shaking.
And this is allowed to happen because…? Oh yes,the tapestry. I forgot.
Dear British Museum,
Don’t get me wrong, your exhibition Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum was excellent. It is quite impressive to see these hugely famous artefacts for real at last.
(love the snake!)
Although I wonder whether you were a tiny little bit unprepared for just how rib-crushingly popular it would turn out to be. Because that’s certainly the impression I got.
This is how the day went: first we queued outside the Reading Room (tickets already booked and paid for, of course). Groups of people were let in every ten minutes – our tickets were for 11.40am. Someone checked our names against their list and let us in, waving us without a word towards another queue inside the building. So we queued some more, without quite knowing why.
It soon became clear that this was the queue for the audio guides, which would have been fine except that they cost £4.50 per person! I find this extra expense a bit steep, not to mention the inconvenience of having to queue twice on the day. When we went to the Harry Potter studio tour, I was able to book the audio guide online as part of my ticket and only had to present the ticket at the counter to be given the guide (it was also nowhere near £4.50).
Even the app had to be paid for: £1.99 for smartphones, £3.99 for the iPad. God forbid that something should be included in the ticket price.
Having bypassed any and all attempts to part us with even more of our money (temporarily, since I was acutely aware that the gift shop was awaiting us at the other end), we finally entered the Reading Room.
They had erected dozens of partitions to create rooms and the whole place was pitch black, apart from the brightly lit display cases, statues and mosaics. As soon as we went through the doors we had to go up a flight of stairs, at the top of which was the first display window on a small landing and the accompanying text panels on the wall, at hip level. Guess what happened next..
We all gathered around it like wasps around strawberry jam, trying to see the exhibits between the heads of the 11.30am group who were still there, whilst attempting to read the text on the wall between their arses. We then got sandwiched between them and the 11.50am group who turned up not long after.
Since most people had bought an audio guide (indispensable for most foreign visitors as the text was in English only), they stood right in front of the exhibits blocking the view until all the relevant information had been disgorged into their ears, which meant the bottleneck never eased up. This happened throughout the exhibition and got very annoying.
We finally moved on to the next bits, which turned out to be a little film followed by a timeline of the disaster on the wall. Both of these were interesting and, more to the point, easy to see. Then it was room after room full of fascinating stuff and even more full of people. Since all the little text panels next to the display cases were at hip level, it was very difficult to read them. How on earth did the organisers not anticipate this?
Also, no attempt was made to guide the visitors through the rooms so as to make the crowds flow a bit better. Some people were going clockwise, others anti-clockwise. This caused more chaos as we all stopped to see the same things and then tried to move on into oncoming traffic.
There was one irritating man who clearly thought he had VIP status and constantly tried to hurry everyone up by saying “Excuse me! Excuse me!” in increasingly exasperated tones, as if we should all make room for him. I don’t think so, muppet.
It was so busy we plain missed a room! They were not numbered and without the audio guide to alert us, it was very easy to walk straight past a doorway without noticing. So we never saw the carbonised crib:
How incredibly modern is the design, by the way? I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I saw it in IKEA.
The jewellery was also to die for; those Romans certainly loved their snakes! How refreshing. I also fell in love with every single mosaic/fresco/clay oil lamp/etc… honestly, I was born way too late.
I spotted a slight obsession with phalluses too. They were pretty much everywhere, like Hello Kitty today (and yet, strangely enough, no phallus-themed souvenirs were available in the shop).
And then we turned a corner and hit the plaster casts of dying people, which was pretty sobering.
The contrast with the gift shop was a bit jarring, to say the least. Speaking of which, how come half of this stuff wasn’t available in the shop?! My wallet is very thankful though.
I did get this:
So, all in all, it was a fantastic exhibition. Well done, BM. Only next time, how about some decent crowd control, huh?
And Hufflepuff worked very hard for this one so it’s fully deserved. Well done Puffs!
Although we didn’t do so badly ourselves…
Why am I still reading this sad, miserable, squashed rag?
*sigh* here we go again. Point-by-point rebuttal alert! This is your last chance to turn around and run for the hills!
“But some gays, it seems, still feel they are the victims of discrimination.”
Oh, they feel that, do they? What an unfortunate statement to make today, of all days. And that’s only a very mild discrimination story, I could find much worse ones without looking too hard.
“Meanwhile Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, has circulated an email in which he announces a new series of training events for staff in primary and secondary schools this autumn ‘to equip teachers with the tools and confidence to tackle homosexual bullying’.
In fact, there’s no evidence of any homosexuals being bullied at any of these schools.”
You poor, naive man. Most bullying is invisible and/or ignored, even when the school has a self-proclaimed “anti-bullying policy”. There have been many cases of parents having to take their bullied child (for whatever reason) out of school, either because no one cared or because addressing the problem would have made the school look bad. The last thing an anti-bullying policy is supposed to do is unearth some bullying, because that would be awkward.
So please don’t say smugly “there’s no evidence, therefore it’s not happening” as this statement is truly laughable. An ostrich would be proud.
“None of these schools appears to be demonising homosexuals. Grace Academy, which runs schools with a Christian ethos in Coventry, Solihull and Darlaston in the West Midlands, is quoted by The Independent newspaper as saying: ‘The governing body will not permit the promotion of homosexuality.’”
Has anyone noticed that none of those people who go on about ‘promoting homosexuality’ ever explain what the hell that means? Because I for one would love to know.
Is it acknowledging that there are gay people in the world?
Is it mentioning homosexuality, in so many words, in public places?
Is it telling young people that no, they won’t go to hell for being gay, don’t be silly?
Is it allowing gay people to do, y’know, gay things, without putting them in jail?
What?
Because all these things seem pretty normal to me. Replace the word ‘gay’ with ‘straight’ and ‘homosexuality’ with ‘heterosexuality’ in the above sentences and tell me, who would bat an eyelid?
“Not one school cited by campaigners denounces homosexuality, or suggests that gays are in any way reprehensible. They simply do not want to promote it on an equal basis with heterosexuality.”
Right. And yet he says…
“Most of us, I think, would abhor any educational establishment that encouraged its pupils to discriminate against homosexuals, or any other social group. Apart from being morally objectionable, such an approach would break a number of laws.”
So the overall message, I think, is “Listen, gay people: there’s nothing wrong with being gay – nothing whatsoever – but it’s still not as good as being straight.”
I am distinctly unimpressed. That’s what happens when you try to make an illogical argument sound logical: a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
“But shouldn’t parents who have reservations about the promotion of homosexuality on equal terms with heterosexuality be free to send their children to schools where their views are reflected, as well as respected?”
Is this a genuine question? Because my answer is a resounding NO. Parents should be prevented from filling their children’s heads with bullshit as much as possible. At worst it might stop the child from growing into an balanced, open-minded adult and at best, for all the unpleasantness it causes, it’s often a total waste of time and energy.
Case in point: I had a Catholic upbringing and a strongly homophobic father.
I know, right? I’m still wiping tears of laughter myself.
“Nonetheless, all things being equal, they would probably be happier if their children turned to be straight rather than gay.”
Then they are morons who don’t deserve their children. It’s that simple. Of course there are people out there who openly say “I hope my unborn kid isn’t ginger”, so never underestimate just how stupid mankind can be.
Out of interest, what is the point of starting this sentence with “All things being equal” when, according to you, they patently are not? Might as well have started with “I’m not a bigot, but…”
“Don’t such people have a right to influence their children’s values according to their own beliefs and consciences (…)?”
No! Absolutely not! I vomit on people who think it’s their right to indoctrinate their children!
Look, it’s very simple: either a kid turns out to be straight, or they turns out to be gay. There is nothing parents can do about it. There is nothing to promote.
If your kid is straight, gay people and things have no relevance whatsoever to their life, so why bother teach them to hate those people and things? You might as well teach them to hate Uzbek underwater basket-weaving.
If your kid is gay, you’ve just taught them to hate themselves. And you’ve also taught them that you hate them. Result. Be proud. One family ruined. Check!
“Gays should be free to live and work and play just as non-gays are (…)”
Why thank you, kind sir. You’re too good, you really are. I’m sure ‘gays’ (nobody says ‘straights’, do they?) are queueing up to kiss your feet as I speak, just look out of the window and see if I’m wrong.
“(…) and it is a credit to our society that at last they are able to do so.”
That’s no thanks to you though, is it? Please don’t take credit for what was achieved by people you despise and almost certainly opposed at every turn. It makes you look pathetic.
“They have been abominably treated in the past, and perhaps a few of them still are.”
I bet typing this was a real struggle. Did you have to go and lie down afterwards?
“But those gays and non-gays who believe in freedom of conscience should defend the rights of their fellow citizens so long as their own rights are not threatened.”
Oh wait, wrong country.
“But prejudice and intolerance live on. And they have a strange propensity to flourish among the people who were once their victims.”
Hello kettle, my name is pot. My, how black you are!
Some boyband member is bankrupt. Let’s discover what this means to him.
“Shane, 34, recalled the heart-breaking moment when his son Patrick saw a Spiderman toy in a shop window and told him it was too expensive and he couldn’t have it.
‘I remember my little fella Patrick looking in a shop window and going: ‘Daddy, look at that Spider-Man toy! Can I get that?’
I looked and it was £29.99. I was like: ‘That’s really expensive. We can’t get that now.”
Wrong answer Shane. The correct answer was “It’s not your birthday or Christmas, so NO. And next time, try saying please.”
It’s suddenly very clear why he’s bankrupt, isn’t it?
Stephen Fry thinks the French are a better-educated race than the British.
First of all, the French are not a race. Neither are the British. It never ceases to amaze me how much Lefties love that word. But never mind.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, Stephen Fry knows next to nothing about the French education system. He was educated in England and has no child currently at school in France. He’s only basing his remarks on one study, which is hazardous at best – but knowing nothing about a topic has never stopped Stephen from inflicting his opinion on us in the past, so why should he start now?
He may have a point about French primary schoolchildren knowing more than their British counterparts, but what he’s missing is that this state of affairs is all due to relentless rote learning, one-size-fits-all teaching methods and much stricter discipline than in British schools. Sadly, it appears nothing has changed since I was at school.
He says
“A lot of it is at the right age, somehow getting that gear, that cog fitting that excites a child, that makes them feel pleased with themselves for achieving and for knowing.”
Yes, that would be nice but that’s not the way they go about it in France. I don’t remember feeling pleased with myself for “achieving and knowing”, but for not getting detention at school and a bollocking at home if I got a bad mark. French kids have no interest in learning anything that isn’t marked by the teacher, because it’s worth nothing to them and is a waste of brainpower.
He’s also not realising that all this knowledge is acquired at the expense of creativity and self-expression. No one cares what pupils think or what they are capable of creating. They’re at school to fill their heads with other people’s thoughts then regurgitate them at exam time, and that’s it. It’s the same at primary school, secondary school and even higher education level.
If Fry had gone through the French education system himself, he could never have learned to act by joining the Footlights at university as there would have been no Footlights to join. In order to write his novels, he would have had to learn writing techniques on his own, as an adult, as there would have been no Creative Writing classes to attend. And so on and so forth.
Yes, the French education system produces people with a good smattering of general knowledge, but it doesn’t produce good all-rounders. Anything physical is neglected at best and despised at worst and woe betide the pupil who has different learning needs, as streaming is banned in the name of equality. As I said earlier, one size fits all and if it doesn’t fit you, you are made to feel a failure.
Since Stephen has spoken at length about how much of a gifted outcast he was at his English public school, I wonder how he would have fared in the strict French system where individuals matter even less. Not too well, I suspect.
The inevitable US remake of the excellent French series The Returned (Les Revenants) is upon us.
Right.
Oh dear.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Where do I start?
Cute kid syndrome! Tell the whole story in the trailer syndrome! Get rid of all the mystery and make it all glossy and Hollywood syndrome! Obligatory Christian twist syndrome! Give one character another character’s story syndrome! Hire an actor previously seen in House syndrome! (wait, is that a syndrome? At least it’s not lupus).
As some hilarious person said in the comments: “Victor from Les Revenants would terrorise that little shit.”
Honestly, same-sex marriage rights are wasted on some people.
Two Canadian brides had the nerve to criticise and insult a guest for their choice of wedding present (a food hamper).
The Daily Mail kindly provided a picture of the offending hamper:
Now, it does look a bit cheap for a wedding (I would expect pretty jars, not sweets and crisp packets) but this is Canada. They don’t have Harrods or Fortnum and Mason’s there, poor lambs. Not the point though – you don’t complain about a gift!! And you certainly don’t ask for a lot of money instead!!!
Those bints are “of Italian and Croatian descent” apparently and say things like “I’m European and in my culture blah blah blah”, which real Europeans would never say since ‘European’ is not a nationality and there are dozens of wildly different cultures within Europe. That kind of crap annoys me more than anything. You want Italian or Croatian wedding gifts, go have your gay wedding there!
Oh wait… you can’t. Duh.
As for the mysterious gluten intolerance that comes and goes when it’s convenient to the ‘sufferer’ and allows them to be massively rude to others, all I can say is I’ve been there, only with asthma instead. As somebody once said, you want sympathy? It’s in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.