Ant McPartlin’s drink driving conviction and record £86,000 fine in Monday gives me an excuse to finally publish a post that has been sitting in blog purgatory for eight years.
Ant’s car crash is the latest example of fabulously wealthy TV and sports stars behaving badly in vehicles. Yaya Touré was handed a record-at-the-time £54,000 fine for drink-driving in 2016. Further back in time, we may recall the former Chelsea defender Ashley Cole was clocked doing 104mph in his Lamborghini, and John Terry has a penchant for parking in disabled bays.
Continue reading “Social Exclusion at the Top”
The Needle Returns To The Start Of The Song And We All Sing Along Like Before
Hideous news from Las Vegas. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States.
Reading the coverage and the commentary, I’m reminded of the song ‘Nothing Ever Happens‘ by the Scottish band Del Amitri.
The song is 28 years old now. Some of the lyrics I find too simplistic, like a sixth former berating the world (“Ignorant people sleep in their beds, like the doped white mice in the college lab”). But in other ways it feels contemporary:
Nothing ever happens / Nothing happens at all / The needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before
Continue reading “The Needle Returns To The Start Of The Song And We All Sing Along Like Before”
Fashionista Philip: The Sartorial Choices of Mr May
Societal progress moves at a glacial pace. Sexism didn’t go away when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister and it’s still with us even though Teresa May now occupies Number 10 Downing Street.
Still, it’s interesting (to me, at least) to watch our societal attitudes change, even at the quantum level. In fact, I think it is particularly worthwhile to note the most granular changes in our discourse: in this case, how we talk about women and men.
Many people have shared this article by Nicole Morely in the Metro: ‘Theresa May’s husband steals the show in sexy navy suit as he starts new life as First Man‘.
Continue reading “Fashionista Philip: The Sartorial Choices of Mr May”
How Gay Marriage Persuaded Me To Get A Straight Marriage*
Hooray for five ninths of the Supreme Court of the United States of America! Today the Court ruled that bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional. Same-sex marriage, which was already legal in many states, is now legal throughout the USA.
Blogger and gay marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan has returned to blogging to welcome the news. He’s been agitating for this since 1989.
Opponents of same sex marriage often claim that it will somehow undermine straight marriage. That’s nonsense. In fact, I think the opposite is true. Here’s why. Continue reading “How Gay Marriage Persuaded Me To Get A Straight Marriage*”
These jihadi brides are fully culpable victims
https://twitter.com/sarahwollaston/status/569496649413865473
Three schoolgirls from East London have left the UK to join ISIS, and everyone has an opinion. Some people say they are no better than Jihadi John, and that joining the fighters for Islamic state is tantamount to participating in the beheading of aid workers. they should be considered enemy combatants and we should not care one joy for their safety.
Other people say that these girls are victims: of brainwashing, of a culture that doesn’t value them, or of a society that offers the youth no aspirations. They’re essentially kidnap victims and we should mobilise to secure their safe return.
Here’s an idea: perhaps they’re both? Fully culpable genocide-enablers; and victims.
Continue reading “These jihadi brides are fully culpable victims”