It was a Bank Holiday yesterday and the BBC News at 10 commenced proceedings with a feature on the American and Iranian talks over the future of Iraq. A main stumbling block appears to be that America is not happy about Iran having nuclear weapons and furthermore, accuses Iran of supplying bombs to the insurgents in Iraq.
We saw the usual images of war, photgraphs of parts to make bombs etc etc. The conclusion seemed to be that the Americans want a change of attitude and behaviour from Iran. Iran meanwhile, believe Bush/America to be Satan and I feel it unlikely they will sell their soul.
To me, it looks like America are simply going through a process of appearing to be diplomatic, before resorting to their favoured tactic of military action.
How long before we have an "atrocity" that can be linked directly to Iran ?
Moving on, another UK soldier killed in Afghanistan.
On to another devil, this time the demon drink. We were told that legislation is going to be introduced in order that the "alcoholic value" of a drink, in terms of units, will now be displayed in a similar format on all bottles and cans etc. This is apparantly so that we know how much we are actually drinking . CCTV Images of drunk young men in the city centre were shown so we could see what drunk people look like. We were advised that "only a small minority monitor their drinking". We saw some members of the public asked if they knew what a unit was. We closed with an image of crates of Teachers whisky.
Does anyone actually believe that advising the alcohol unit value on a container will actually help our national drink culture. Whole TV shows are dedicated to showing drunken young adults, fighting and vomiting on their holidays. The reason drink is such a problem is because our society is now a state and people need to escape. Drink has probably halved in real cost over the last 20 years. As a teenager newspaceman collected golf balls, which he would sell on. The proceeds were used for bevy. Even at this tender age, newspacemans preferred option was a half bottle of smirnoff and two bottles of mixer, one coke, one pineapple. Newspaceman recalls that the half bottle was £4.00 or so back then, in the early eighties. Now a full bottle of Grants is £7.99. Nowadays, your writer rarely drinks but sees the attraction.
If one wants to really know who "runs" the global alcohol industry, simply look at the older whisky brands and their advertising. Jonnie Walker - Always on the Square, for example.
Staying with drink, Princess Diana and her untimely death, caused, apparantly, by a drunk driver. Channel 4 intend to show a documentary next week about this matter and will include images of the dead princess in the car. We were told that the "paparazzi were at the scene within seconds", where a doctor was already on the scene. We were told that this would "be insensitive to the princes". Obviously. However, this documentary will "lay to rest some of the inaccuracies".
Personally, I find it a bit off that Channel 4 intends to show this now. After all, the inquest should be relatively soon now, especially if taken in context with the long delay that has already been experienced. I am slightly concerned about the outcome of any inquest on the collective public mentality. We saw the media fueled outpouring of grief for her death and I found it slightly disturbing. In a similar manner to the missing girl Madeleine, they channel the already disturbed emotions in our heads (perhaps caused by media/television) and focus them on one individual.
If for example, it is "proved" to be the fault of the paparazzi, then how will the media report that. What if indeed it was the work of sinister forces, perhaps establishment based. One thing is for certain though, the young princes will be held the true victims of this, it was them that lost their mother for whatever reason and this has dragged on for far too long, for whatever reason.
Over the McCann circus where a giant billboard (sponsored by those paragons of virtue, the News of the World) has been constructed on the beach and the family have been granted an audience with the Pope. Curiously, when first reported, it appeared that the Pope had asked to see the McCanns but subsequently it emerged that the McCanns had asked to see him or at least thats how it seems. One wonders whether the media have somehow coordinated this meeting, perhaps on behalf of the McCanns. What I have said before though is about the strong religious connections being focused on by the media and their potential nefarious purposes for this focus.
On the subject of the News of the World, I rarely read it but when I do, it generally contains photographs of naked young girls, normally printed in connection with a paedophile case or similar. Normally, the girls eyes have a black rectangle printed across them, to obscure identification.
Why do they print these images. Could they not perhaps titillate someone with unnatural desires, or at least, allow them to believe that their desires are in fact not unnatural, indeed almost acceptable, in todays culture. What has also just come to be is the fact that we saw countless images of Madeleines eyes, set in a rectangle.
A short report on the armed robbery and the "have a go hero". There seems to be a lot of focus on this case, it was a lady security guard and that seems to be the main difference to other similar cases as far as I can see.
More on the Russian poisoning, we saw the images again of Mr Lugovoi with his handgun at a shooting rank. The Goverment have formally requested extradition.
Bird Flu, it's migrated back in, a case in Wales. Schoolchildren have been innoculated with Tamiflu. We were told its not as serious as it might look as images of white coated scientists with protective masks etc were shown. Again we were told that anyone in close contact with poultry is at risk. However, this is not the H5 virus, this is the H7 they told us at the end so we should not confuse it with the February outbreak. Just in case we were starting to forget.
We then saw a bizarre feature on the fact that we appear to be growing too many "fuel crops" and not enough food crops. We were told this was the new oil rush as we saw fields of yellow rape. We were told that this could affect "the poor people in cities, those who dont grow their food, but buy it". Mention was made of "the only way to avoid widespread starvation". We have "siezed on bio fuels as a cure for our gas guzzling addiction". Something, I am not sure what was again "the size of Britain". Our children suffer from low levels of excercise and spent an average of 4hrs on a pc.
Over to the Japan and the taste for whale meat. This is "a bitter struggle" over whale killing, basically most of the Japanese feel sorry about whales being killed to be eaten but the problem is they dont like being told what to do (and they like whale meat). We saw some Japanese people, one in particular, who appeared highly excitable as he waved his machete at the camera whilst extoling the benefits of whale meat. The translation seemed to be somewhat lacking though. We ended by seeing images of "whale slices" in the fishmongers window.
Football, wembley, worlds apart, football is all about glory. Feature about the boat, Gypsy Moth 1V, 40 years to the day, in 1967, since Francis Chichester returned in GM after circumnavigating the world. This one was crewed by disadvantaged youngsters. Another resurrection.
What next ?
cheers
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