… suck.
That is all.
Seriously though, they do. It was bad enough having to try and write about myself for my CV, now I have to paraphrase that for individual applications. I go red just thinking about what to write.
Bastard.
Anyway, back to the grind.
RantsFebruary 15, 2008
No Comment
Original Items:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7110758.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7112480.stm
Spotted the first of these a couple of days ago, but didn’t get around to passing comment, so figured I’d do it now after spotting the follow-up article.
Whilst I have to admit it’s not a topic I want to spend a long time writing on, the short story is that I think the Union is right (or, at least, not wrong) to invite the two people mentioned, judging by what I’ve read about the event.
I can understand perfectly well why so many people would not think it right for such an organisation as the Oxford Union to invite such speakers, but a couple of comments I spotted just didn’t tally in my head.
Stephen Altmann-Richer, co-president of the Oxford University Jewish Society, said that while freedom of speech was important it was “overshadowed in this instance”.
“I don’t think these people should be invited to the Oxford Union, by having them speak, it legitimises their views,” he said.
Sorry, but no, it doesn’t. Giving them the platform to speak specifically about Holocaust denial, for example, or any other number of ‘interesting’ topics the BNP tends to bring up, legitimizes their views. Giving them the paltform as part of a larger event incorporating many different speakers with different viewpoints does not. If anything, it encourages the debate. I simply can’t see how it can be viewed as legitimizing their views by view of the fact that they are able to speak at an event “…to talk about the limits for free speech”.
I can say that because, for me at least, if I hear such people bringing up ideas that I don’t believe in or, put more simply, are wrong, I don’t suddenly change that opinion because of the venue in which they are making such points. Similarly, their presence at such an event does not transform it into a ‘rally’ or any such nonsense. If anything the event has the potential to humiliate them, in as much as it is a free speech event, incorporating some very intelligent speakers and based in what is arguably the hub of academic and intellectual excellence in the UK (sorry, Cambridge… 
). No matter how much trash the speakers may (or may not) speak, they are doing so in an environment where even if they disagree with their opposition, they will be outclassed and defeated by simple logic. If anything, I’d love to go to the event just to see the responses if either of them were foolish enough to start extolling their views.
It. Simply. Does. Not. Legitimize. Anything.
Like I said earlier, I can accept why this has caused such controversy, but in my mind we just have to step back and take a look at the bigger picture.
I’m not a fan of the BNP or their views, nor do I believe the various theories put forward by Holocausts deniers, but – in these circumstances – I do not think it is unreasonable for such speakers to be invited. Controversial, yes, but that’s why it’s a debate.
I think we just have to be very careful in how quick otherwise ‘liberal’ people jump up to shout for bans on people with differing viewpoints. At the end of the day, the BNP still exists as a political party, legitimizing their views many more times than allowing Nick Griffin to speak at an Oxford Union debate. Trying to stop him from being invited to the event, whilst such viewpoints exist and are scarily prevalent just strikes me as being comparable to sticking your fingers in your ears whilst saying “No! No! La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!”.
The worst part of all this furore? The fact that a BNP spokesman can come out and say this:
Simon Darby, BNP spokesman, described the expected protests as “very misguided”.
“It is ironic you have got people shouting ‘fascism’ while campaigning in the face of the process of democracy,” he said.
in response to the situation and I find it hard to disagree with the sentiment, however much I might want to, and however much I might know it to be bullshit seizing-the-moment propaganda.
Original Item:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/7081346.stm
Now, I have to confess, I’ve never been the most ardent supporter of the whole London 2012 Olympics idea, not because I don’t think England should host the Olympics, but because, unlike those wise political schemers, I believe there are other cities in England besides London.
Apparently, I’m wrong.
There was never any realistic chance that anywhere other than London would receive the option to host the Olympics, because people seem so damn adamant to reinforce the outsider’s opinion that anywhere except London is backwards and inaccessible to the wider world.
It doesn’t matter that Manchester already has the vast majority of the Olympic-standard infrastructure in place. It doesn’t matter that even Birmingham is more central in terms of its location in the country (allowing the home population greater opportunities to get there and see the events easily). No, it doesn’t matter, because London is the be-all-and-end-all. Apparently.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against London as such, but the whole decision-making process seems to lack real logic, by which I mean the kind of logic that would say ‘If we’re going to build everything from scratch anyway, why not build it somewhere central and factor in adequate transport to that central location’, or the kind of logic that would say ‘You know, our Public Services kind of suck, why not spend less on improving facilities that are already at a decent level and let the rest of the money go back into Public Service, rather than the sort of logic that says ‘Nobody knows where anything is except London, so they won’t come’. Right…
Anyway, that’s not the reason I started this little rant.
The article I linked to goes on about the costs of the ‘new stadium’ design that the London 2012 Planners have recently unveiled. Happy days. It also goes on to say that the original stadium projections were for it to cost £280 Million, not an insignificant sum.
However, it also says that the actual current projections are for it to cost £496 Million. Let me repeat that figure slowly and clearly in case you didn’t catch it first time:
FOUR HUNDRED and NINETY-SIX MILLION ENGLISH POUNDS
That’s 496 followed by six 0’s.
Or, for those US browsers: nearly 1 BILLION of your American Dollars.
That’s a lot of cash. And they haven’t even started building yet.
I don’t like to be pessimistic, but usually in the UK, when a government-related projected actually starts to build things, they get considerably more expensive.
According to the article, David Higgins, chief executive of the ODA (Olympic Delivery Authority) claims that most of this perceived increase is due “inflation and VAT”.
I’m no financial whizz-kid, but my estimations at what I know about such thinks (working on 5% Inflation followed by 17.5% VAT, since work starts next year) would land this at £345 Million, some £150 Million short of the latest projection. Sorry, Mr. Higgins, but that simply doesn’t equate to them being the main culprit of a £215 Million culprit. [I'm more than happy to be corrected on my inflation figures, but I'm pretty sure the VAT is correct...]
Now, the thing that irritates most about all of this, besides the obscene amount of money being spent on something which, as the article goes onto explain, is largely made up of temporary seating, is that it is designed by HOK Sport, which, according to the article:
… has been responsible for such projects as Wembley Stadium, the Millennium Stadium, the O2 Arena, the Emirates Stadium and Ascot Racecourse
Now, I’m not doubting that all those stadiums were nicely finished etc etc, but what irritates me is, if they knew they were going to run for the Olympic bid, why the hell didn’t they just make the new Wembley the national stadium, and design it to be capable of doing this job!? Does that no make more sense financially, and sustainably.
As it is now, they are already looking for a tenant club, be it Rugby, Football or whoever, to take over the stadium once they’ve finished and removed the 55 000 temporary seats. Surprisingly, as of yet, they’ve had no takers… Why instead did they not think of creating one super-impressive national stadium, where all the national teams could easily play, and where many Olympic events could easily be hosted. More than that, why did they not think that a stadium that is supposedly going to be the pride of London 2012 and the nation might not be nice to keep in active service long after the summer event? Is the tenant club going to pay the full cost for the stadium and repay the nation? Somehow, I doubt it.
I’m genuinely curious what people think though? Am I overreacting at this? Have I missed some glaring point that makes the whole project worthwhile and sensible? Or are we just, once more, going to look like a laughing stock?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6963499.stm
I won’t lie – this whole thing has pissed me off from start to end and for various reasons, many of which can be found under other people’s posts.
So far, I figured I wouldn’t even bother paying it lip-service, and just leave it to irritate me and only me, without inflicting my irritations upon the web.
But this news item really irritated me for a couple of reasons:
It just irritates me in the same way that so-called ‘celebrities’ bitch and moan about the media spotlight that gets them work in the first place.
I’m one of the last people who has any particular care for tabloid media at the best of times, but it still irritates me when fools try to blame it when it doesn’t work in their favour, yet love it like their parent when it does.
To take some quotes from the BBC Article (this irritated me enough to not care to look up other sources yet – if you want to nitpick then feel free, but I’m not going to comment on this again so don’t expect a reply )…
…that it was not necessary to “bombard people on a daily basis” with Madeleine’s image.
But it clearly was necessary to tour Europe wearing her image on T-Shirts in the media spotlight and visit the Pope…
Although he acknowledged that he and his wife Kate had initially sought publicity, there was now a “lack of control” in the coverage, he said.
Forgive me, but I never saw any kind of control in any of the coverage I have seen on the issue – just the usual tabloid, hyped-up crap, desperate to name a suspect and give the general masses a face to hate.
“The compromise has always been do we do something because it will help Madeleine,” he said.
“Unfortunately the human interest side of this is enormous now and that’s been very difficult.”
Whilst I can understand the difficulties posed by the first statement, the second one is simply absurd: the entire purpose of all the media managing they did was to ensure there was a large human interest side to this. To claim that that is unfortunate that it worked is to admit they were wrong.
Everything the family did was being scrutinised, he added, and this had become “very unpleasant”.
Welcome to the real world.
But Mr McCann said he now wanted the story to be “reported responsibly and only newsworthy material” used.
I’m not going to touch that one… the responsible reporting line is just too easy.
And that’s it, I’m done.
I’m not going to touch this subject again, and I’m a little bit ashamed that I’ve let myself touch it now.
I know a few people will think this is heartless and in places unnecessarily blunt – and it is – but at the end of the day, as sad as it is that this little girl has gone missing, I think it’s more sad that such obvious ‘extra effort’ has been plowed into it due to the media storm, bypassing the countless other young people who’ve gone missing since.
Whilst this isn’t the first such case to do this (every couple of years another one seems to crop up) – and I doubt it’ll be the last – it doesn’t stop it being irritating, and slightly disturbing as evidence of how media is god.
Please send hate mail to someone who gives a shit. I posted this under ‘Rants’ so it would be clear as to what it was. I never asked you to read this.
RantsAugust 25, 2007
No Comment
When I first signed up for Facebook I didn’t quite know what to expect. I’d come from starting off using MySpace and instantly getting frustrated with it – excessively heavy modifications by people who didn’t really know what they were doing meaning you’d open up a page to have 3 separate flash videos try to play, 2 songs, and a slideshow of pictures… blegh.
It was clumsy and got to be unusable, especially when trying to do anything with it on a system without flash installed. Everything took ages to load and it seemed to become more of a huge advert-fest than anything else. The only thing that kept me holding onto the account was the fact that it gave me the chance to actually download MP3s of the bands I liked from it – provided I had flash installed and working properly. In the end I gave up – the frustrations easily outweighing that one benefit.
At around the same time, Facebook ‘opened its doors’ to allow non-Uni types to sign up. Figured I’d give it a try seeing as I knew a lot of people who’d just started off to Uni and figured it would be an easy way to keep in touch with what people were upto. I half-expected to see a MySpace clone and was pleasantly surprised at the smooth layout, lack of customisation, and straight-forward approach to everything: All the information was where you want to find it. Photo Albums (while not strictly necessary) were easy to access but tucked out of the way, giving you the choice to access them if you want. Anything else you liked you could link to easily in the form of Posted Items, be they videos, news articles, external galleries, games, whatever. Again, it gave folks viewing your profile the opportunity to view these things if they want rather than just shoving it in their face all at one time. You could use it as your blog, or could import your blog posts from another site. It was simple. It was clean. And it worked.
Then Applications started to arrive. iLike, Movies, Grafitti, Fortune Cookies, god knows what else. The layout stayed the same and fairly clean, but already it starts to load slower and look overly clustered with things that can be described as little more than gimmicks. They don’t aid the application in any way and make the main page load up slower.
Perhaps they’ve got application, thinks like the grafitti segment could be really nice, but why not make it a separate page, like the photos with a big white board people can doodle on and the owner can wipe-free at will. That could be quiet fun and doesn’t clutter things up.
iLike, whilst I tried it, seemed a complete waste of time. And, again, pure gimmick.So far the only application I’ve seen that’s worthwhile (and perhaps this is because I am a Last.fm user already) is the Last.fm application, which can display latest information about who and what you’ve been listening to. However, this could be better tied in by being less flashy and simply replacing the music interests section of the profile, rather than basically adding an extra lump that effectively repeats the same thing again. Still, there’s time.
I don’t know, it just seems to me that with the introduction of all these Applications and the number of people jumping on to have these extra gimmicky sparkley bits to their profile, Facebook is transforming, day by day, into MySpace. And I’m not sure I like it.
Just my two cents.
RantsJune 17, 2007
No Comment
News Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6760927.stm
First of all, let me be undiplomatic: this is bollocks.
Besides the simple fact that the honours list is voted for by the public or expert organisations, and the fact that the guy is a gifted author, the claims made by the Iranians are just absurd.
Mohammad Ali-Hosseini, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman made the following claims:
“The measure that has taken place for paying tribute to this apostate and detested figure will definitely put British statesmen and officials at odds with Islamic societies, the emotions and sentiments of which have again been provoked.”
First of all, without sounding dismissive – what’s new? As far as I’ve seen, the select few Islamic communities that want to be at odds or cause problems with British statesmen and officials (and more besides) are already doing so. Secondly, what emotions and sentiments have actually been provoked? Many largely-Muslim countries banned the book when it was released, so how can emotions and sentiments be provoked, unless, of course, a select few people are telling the masses what they should be offended by…?
But that’s by the by. Because let’s just say that all these people who are told to be offended by it really did read it and really were offended (because they perceived a blasphemous depiction of the prophet in the novel…), let’s just say they were… is their faith really that weak that one fictional novel by a non-Muslim can really cause that much offence? Or put another way, is it so weak that you’re prepared to see some sort of twisted ‘logic’ in condemning this same non-believer to death, just to defend your peace-loving faith and appease your god… erm, check please.
“Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is… a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials,”
Erm, no it’s not. It’s a blatant example of giving credit where it’s due, regardless of race, creed, or religion – none of which are real dividing lines anyway.
Bravo Rushdie.
RantsJune 17, 2007
No Comment
Last time I looked at noise-makers underwater, such as rattles and horns, and how they irritate me and serve no purpose.
Now it’s the the turn of the trusty snorkel, and how it has no positive role to play in Scuba Diving.
I know it’s not a hugely popular one to pick on, given the number of organisations who swear by them, but to me they seem to be the perfect example of (yet another) crutch people take with them because:
The point is that none of the reasons are particularly valid.
Of course, everybody will come up with other reasons as to why they take their snorkel with them (’in case I’m stuck with a long surface swim’; ’so I don’t use my air on the surface’; ‘in case the weather’s rough and I need to swim back to the boat’ etc. etc.), but the point is that all are solutions to problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place, if everything is truly covered to an adequate level of safety.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Snorkels are for Snorkelling.
Snorkels only have any real application when you are within centimetres of the surface, which for 95% of my time in the water (if not more) is simply not the case. For all the added complexities a snorkel adds to gear configuration (dangling and dragging from the mask, causing confusion and irritation in a gas sharing situation, generally being an object that screams ‘entangle me!’ to any loose line or catchy bits) it doesn’t give enough in return to be worth taking. Even if you strap the thing to your leg, as some people do, it only serves to add an extra ‘hook point’ (however small) to your gear, and it does so in the one place you’d struggle to get to if entanglement occurred or if you needed to use it – if you don’t need it, don’t take it.
For all the arguments thrown above, there is a much simpler way to solve the initial problem.
1. Using Air on the Surface
Simply put using your air on the surface shouldn’t be a huge deal, provided you account for it in your gas planning, and your gas planning is correct. If you know that you use, on the surface, say 1 bar / minute from whatever tank configuration you are diving (which, by the way, is an easy calculation to learn and use regularly) and you know you have to swim 5 minutes to and from the site you want to do, then you can calculate that you should use 5 bar each way, and so you will need 10 bar for the two legs of the journey. Perhaps you want to factor in some reserve in case you have to work hard, in which case you can apply it appropriately (say another 10 bar in this example). That means you need to plan for using 20 bar to go to and come back from the dive. So you can simply take this figure off from the amount of Usable Gas you have (Starting Pressure – Minimum Gas) and see how it affects what you want to do (in most scenarios this will probably make the difference of 1 or 2 minutes over the course of your dive) – suddenly you realize that it’s not that huge a difference. Of course, if 1 or 2 minutes is too big a difference for you to handle (maybe because the dive site is going to disappear… ?:-/) then you’ve just told yourself that you should be diving a higher capacity backgas (be that doubles or a larger single tank). Taking a snorkel in this case simply does nothing but add confusion for, potentially, the sake of 1 or 2 minutes, although by using the snorkel and dealing with the water entering / having to be cleared during the swim, you may end up so tired at the start of the dive that you use this amount of gas anyway on descent. But what you have done is add an extra piece of gear that you don’t need.
2. So I don’t use my Air on the Surface
See above. Plan your gas properly…
3. Rough Weather
As alluded to in Point 1, this is also a completely counter-intuitive, but oft-mentioned reason for taking a snorkel, especially when diving from boats – “There are some big waves between the boat and the descent point so I can’t have nothing protecting my air way”.
While the reasoning is good – you certainly don’t want to be stuck on the surface in bad weather without a surefire way to be receiving air all the time – the choice of snorkel over regulator is insane. The regulator is simply the better choice, in all situations. The regulator is attached to your tank, and forms a sealed system to deliver air without water. The snorkel is an open tube to the environment. This means that whilst it is realistic to expect at least some water to get into the snorkel (especially true in bad weather, regardless of your snorkel technique), it is virtually impossible (barring opening your mouth, which would be dumb in any situation) to get water into the regulator feeding you your air. This in turn means that the regulator provides less hassle than the snorkel, which makes it both easier and more efficient… so why take the snorkel?
Again it would seem the reason comes down to being Point 1 again, and the issue of ‘wasting’ gas supply. See Point 1 for why this is (or should be) nonsense.
Again, it ultimately comes down to a matter of education, which is a reflection of the fact that diving is an ‘alien’ activity – it’s not something we were meant to do or designed to do. This means that anyone receiving instruction will be receiving (in most cases) completely fresh information. As I believe the phrase goes, Shit Sticks, and people are very hesitant to question what they hear first, and keep going through it until they are finally convinced that it’s wrong. As with most things in the dive industry, so many people have done it / been taught it so repetitively that they rarely have to question it, so it sticks. Equally, it’s not a huge safety issue in itself, and I doubt many (if any) people have died from it, so people ignore it. But the fact is that whether it is life-threatening or not, it is not as efficient as it could be, and is a very easy change to make. If you stop striving to make things more efficient and effective then you are making a backwards step – in any area / sport / technology. Some things just make more sense, even if they are telling you that you’re wrong. It can be a bitter medicine to swallow.
Just to reiterate though, this is not a dig at snorkels are general. Snorkels are great and suit their purpose fantastically, but:
Snorkels are for Snorkelling, not for Diving
I’ve mentioned this briefly before, but thought I’d best bring it up again for a proper mention.
A while ago, I wrote a post detailing how I was tired of being weak, giving in, and drinking what I consider to be shit beer (largely known as ‘lager’). I was sick of putting up with second best and opting for an alcoholic beverage I didn’t always particularly enjoy drinking and when I could have had a better option (albeit a stronger drink) but felt compelled by the ‘beer’ in the name. All on a sub-conscious level…
I also mentioned how I’m not entirely opposed to all lager outright, and would be willing to try ones that I haven’t already tasted, but on track record whilst some European / local lagers can be acceptable for a few drinks, they don’t quite make the grade in which I could consider lager acceptable across the board.
However, whilst in Slovakia skiing I had somewhat a personal revelation regarding lager. It didn’t involve lofty singing nor bright rays of light illuminating me in a moment of clarity, rather just thoughts and opinions that formed as the week progressed.
Before travelling there I had already heard a lot of positive things about the local popular beer there, called Zlaty Bzant (I think, although my spelling could be off) and, to be fair, I was quite excited at the prospect of trying it. I was also excited at the fact that there’s a decent vodka culture by all accounts in Slovakia, which would provide my main fuel.
As the week progressed I started off feeling quite ill so I figured instead of hitting the vodka I would just partake in a recreational ‘beer’ or two. No harm in that, and I occasionally extended that theory is the week went by. We all chipped in the first day to food and drinks and part of the drinks make up was tins of Budvar and tins of Zlaty Bzant. All fine. I had a tin of Budvar one night, tasted fine. I had a tin of Zlaty the next, that tasted fine. Occasionally I would have a tin and then go out for a draft and it would taste horrible, borderline undrinkable for me.
Odd to say the least. Oddest part about it was that it worked both ways.
If I was to have a pint on the way back from skiing with Mike and George etc it would taste pretty good (the way draft should taste) but if I was to follow it up with a can or another draft, I struggled.
Now, I don’t know if it was the generally lower temperatures that lager is considered to run at (I am not opposed to drinking my beer ‘piss-warm’) was a factor, or the sheer number of bubbles it contains that caused this weird effect, but I just couldn’t hack it.
And so it came to me: If I am to endure lager at all (occasionally it can serve as a refreshing drink, particularly in warmer climates) then I can only take 1. Anything more than this will remind me I am drinking lager by the fact that the taste becomes apparent and I ‘wake up and smell the bacon’. If there is a simple choice between only lager on the beer-front or decent vodka / whiskey / whatever on the ‘hard-side’ of the bar, I should be more of a man (grrr) about it and stick with what I know and enjoy, and can enjoy for the length of the evening / morning / afternoon / week, without having to swap drinks mid-flow.
If I’m going to have a ‘beer’ that is going to be lager, I need to make sure it is just that – a ‘beer’. A break should then be enforced during which time I could eat, have some recreational drinks (water, juice, teeth-rotters) and then after a set time frame (1 hour)? I can start to drink the truly enjoyable stuff.
It was an important lesson.
It will be interesting to see if I’ve actually learned from it and stick to it the next time such a situation arises. In the meantime though, consider this:
RantsFebruary 22, 2007
No Comment
I want to clarify something before I start – I don’t watch Big Brother. I don’t care to watch Big Brother and personally don’t think it should be classed as entertainment, nevermind be put on TV, but it does seem to serve its purpose well in dumbing down the audience whilst convincing them that it’s actually an ‘intellectual’ show in ’social study’… load of crap. But that’s just my opinion.
However, whatever my opinions of the ’show’ may be does not detract from the fact that this whole racism row that’s been flaring away in the tabloids and even made the BBC Website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6277301.stm) is a load of bollocks, and it frustrates me.
It frustrates me because it’s a typical PC response at trying to make a non-issue an issue. Trying to prove a point when all it really achieves is making yourselves look dumb.
The fact is that Big Brother makes its millions on the fact that it’s a ‘reality’ TV show, and a show in which you take x number of people, put them together and isolate them from the outside world (at least, that’s how it was meant to be, of course now people go on knowing that they’re being watched by millions of equally dumb people and play up to the fact). If something happens inside then it is not up to the producers, the presenters, or anybody to get involved, presumably the only exceptions being where the law is clearly broken, which in this case, as I understand it, it isn’t.
Personally, I’d prefer it if there was no external involvement at all until the people leave the house, at which case they can receive whatever punishment, legal or otherwise, that they are due. If the contestants started to actually kick the shit out of each other then I might start to watch.. what can be more entertaining than watching morons beat each other in a controlled environment and then hear their reasons for doing so afterwards.
In fact, fuck it, put swords in there and let’s see them make a proper job of it.
Who really cares if they call each other names? At the end of the day they’re not exactly inciting violence and if one person gets upset they can always choose to leave – who do you think will get the most positive response at the end of the show, the victim or the attacker? Hmmm, I just can’t work it out…
But calling pressures on the show or, even worse, getting politicians involved (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6269953.stm) is not just daft, it’s beyond the pale STUPID. Surely Gordon Brown should have some more important questions to be asked of his time in India than about a pissing TV Show!? How about, for starters, “Mr. Brown, are any talks ongoing to try and step down the buildup of nuclear deterrants..”.
Personally, and granted I’m biased seeing as I have a deep-rooted dislike of the show anyway, I find it humiliating and embarrassing that the goings-of a reality TV show as fundamentally dumb as this apparently affects a perception of the British in foreign countries.
Equally comical was the fact that the Carphone Warehouse is withdrawing it’s sponsorship of the programme on the basis of the recent rows. Clearly, sponsoring a show that encourages people to disgrace themselves and play dumb is fine until it even lightly brushes the racism boundary.
When are people going to learn that people from different backgrounds are allowed to take the piss, call each other names, and *shock, horror!* not like each other without being racist or elitist or whatever term you would like to use? It’s part of life.
By the same vein, maybe this is the prayer I’ve been holding out on and will spell the end
of this Big Brother phenomenon. Although, presumably, if that were to happen it wouldn’t be long until something equally dumb came up to take its place. Oh wait, there already are a bunch of clones out there already… sorry.
To my mind, the biggest irony of all this is that of all the housemates Shilpa Shetty probably has the most legitimate claim to being a celebrity. Not that I’m claiming to have heard of, or seen, any of her work before, but in terms of a fan base I would imagine she is probably more well known than the other ‘celebrities’ who are in the house, one of which (her opponent) is famous for… well, Jade’s famous for being on the show before and being a dumb, gobby bitch whilst she was there.
Harsh? Probably, but I don’t see what else she’s famous for.
Item Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B7063C05-62B2-4332-9A6B-EC0FA6EB1B93.htm
So, it appears that in comments made on Saturday, Nuri al-Maliki, the current Iraqi prime minister, has said that Iraq may well review relations with countries that have recently criticised Iraq’s execution of Saddam Hussein, and the footage that followed.
His comments follow on from recent comments made by various countries, including from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who commented the the execution of Saddam is likely to turn him into a ‘martyr’.