Saturday, February 07, 2009
News from Stalingrad
On most days Stalingrad is the BBC, but sometimes it's the North Somerset Primary Care Trust. Meanwhile. Jeremy Clarkson has apologised for calling Gordon Brown 'a one-eyed Scottish idiot'. Hair-trigger offendees representing blind people had objected. (In fact, thinking about it, if all organizations had the wit to take on ranks of full time offendees, our present employment problems would be solved.) At the end of Channel 4 News Jon Snow apologised to anybody who had been offended by their reporting of Clarko's remarks. Amazing - the meta-offence has at last arrived. Anyway, let me advance a theory - and I have not spoken to the very tall Top Gear presenter with the shocking bad clothes and haircut (I'd like to apologise at once to all tall people, Top Gear presenters, clothes makers and barbers) so it is only a theory - let us say Clarko did this deliberately to take the piss out of the swivel-eyed offence goons at the BBC. (Obviously I'd like to issue a fulsome apology to all swivel-eyed goons who don't work in the offence industry or, indeed, to those who do and and whose swivelling eyes and mental deficiences are no fault of their own and should not in an way result in discrimination of any kind ever.) Just a thought. I watched Caroline Petrie last night. She was smart and gently amused at the whole thing, but also firm. All she did was offer to pray for an old lady. And someone, somewhere, some unspeakable anti-life jerk, had her suspended. What a tosser (and I'd like to apologise at once to masturbators everywhere). But the thing is that, in every age in every dispensation, however free it may be, there will always be petty chinovniki whose only ambition is to make the world worse. We should spit at them at every opportunity. (If you are offended by this post, please register your complaints at the usual place, then, of course, eff off and die.)
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
As someone who knows someone who knows a one-eyed Scottish idiot personally, I am offended at your reporting of Jon Snow's report about Clarkson's remarks about Gordon Brown. I am going to register my hyper-meta-offence in the strongest terms on various BBC websites.
ReplyDeleteI also look forward to Channel 4's forthcoming special, "The 100 Most Spurious Celebrity Apologies", presented by Jimmy Carr.
I am most offended that you should take so long to give me something to be offended about. Your lack of sensitivity to my desire, nay need, to have my daily dose of offence leading to a euphoric feeling of self-righteousness just shows that you are unfit ot be a blogger and should be barred from the Net forthwith. I shall report you to the appropriate Quango which I am sure must exist somewhere.
ReplyDeleteYours faithfully
Hyam Wright
Apologies accepted.
ReplyDelete(good rates, part-exchange deals considered. Call 0800 426 76779)
if Obama is as white as he is black (see previous), then it surely follows that Brown is as sighted as he is blind. Yet no one complained about this. On behalf of sighted people everywhere, I am deeply...etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteBryan, D Miliband has requested that I pass on the following comment "on behalf of the united league of cycloptic wankers (Westminster branch) I will, on this occasion accept your grovelling apology. I will point out however that should there be a recurrence of this heinous offence the matter will be handed over to the BBCs Einsatzgruppen (bint department)"
ReplyDeleteClarksons remark, whilst well meaning, is inaccurate, Brown is in fact a one eyed porridge scoffing git. The difference, whilst small, is significant
Here's a good-looking apology generator with a pleasing form for box-tickers. Never know when you might need one. Print out a few and leave them in likely places - surgeries, council offices, police stations, etc. No need to bother with ID cards. An official-looking preprinted apology may in future be just as valid as a driving licence or passport.
ReplyDeleteFantastic, I am speechless which is probably a good idea in our neo-totalitarian times.
ReplyDelete"if all organizations had the wit" ?
ReplyDeleteAn Americanism Bryan, Have you nothing to say for yourself?
I haven't seen Caroline Petrie on the telly. I'm glad she came across as smart and gently amused. I hope it's true of her at all times, even confronted with the inevitable swivel-eyed Scottish chinovnik. But I have another possible source of intelligence.
ReplyDeleteFor my sister is a senior manager in the North Somerset Primary Care Trust. My best friend in the world. (She might not say the same - but then she surely has more to choose from.)
The strangeness doesn't end there. I'd normally I'm sure have chatted to Pen about the Petrie affair by now, out of sheer curiosity. But this hasn't been an ordinary week. Or an ordinary last three months, come to that.
At the start of November Pen had a minor, routine op carried out by her GP. I won't go into details, except to say that the good doctor not only works with her in the PCT, he shares her family's evangelical Christian faith and is one of their closest friends. In return for all their kindnesses over many years he almost managed to kill her.
So much for God's existence, huh? Pen has been recuperating until this week. The snow meant that she only managed two days I think, from her latest Facebook message (she's spent much of the unwanted downtime getting up to speed with the cultural milieu of her teenage daughters). There have seemed more important things to talk about for a while now.
I thought I'd write this prior to asking the obvious questions down west, for two reasons.
1. It's very amusing. Or at least funny in the peculiar sense. I hope you agree. But then you never know how anybody's going to take anything there days. Meeting this doc for the first time at Pen's funeral might not have been so funny. But all's well that ends well.
2. It has gone through my mind - the same goes for Carol Thatcher, except there are so many, even on the left, prepared to say that she is not a racist that that seems to settle it - that Ms Petrie might be a little bit difficult. Or, as we would say in the evangelical Christian world, a pain in the arse. (The West country accent being really needed with the last word there.)
I thought I'd mention this possibility now, before asking my friend about it. Because, of course, it would make a difference to how any of us view the suspension. That I guess is why somebody said a long while back "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
The other reason for saying it now is that if I did gather, privately, that the person concerned is unhelpful as an employee or contractor I don't think I would go public about it. That private/public thing again. I was amazed that Iain Dale didn't immediately say to John Humphreys that of course what we say in a private context is different to what we say publicly. That is true of the best people. It was certainly true of Jesus.
And that reminds me, one more thing to say. Publicly. I am immensely grateful for the fervent prayers of all of Pen's church family during the crisis in November and their practical care in so many ways since. You may doubt the power - I sometimes do myself - but the love you cannot beat.
Clarkson waters down Brown apology
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. This blog is often a source of edification. However this post, and many of the comments supporting it, are the blogging equivalent of Ronnie Radford's goal against Newcastle in 1972. Glorious.
ReplyDeleteRight, now I'm off to find offence wherever I can from as many media outlets as possible. Keep up the good work chaps.
A PS to my previous post. The word from Weston is that Petrie is, as seen on the telly, a good person and a conscientious nurse. She is zealous and may have been a bit unwise. The suspension may also have been an overreaction. But it has now been reversed and all seems fine. Except for this. The increased security put in place for various of the trust's buildings, since this became a national media - and new media - issue. Because (my informant gathered, without she stressed being close to the story) of threats of physical violence against PCT staff. All in the name of keeping this country Christian! That I thought a salutary warning. The BNP approach to national religion needs to be distinguished from some real issues of freedom and diversity.
ReplyDeleteThe NHS tends to over-react to everything. The managers are so terrified of being sued for anything that the slightest thing provokes them to a frenzy of shoutings & hollerings & official memoranda & action plans & what not - one reason i'm quitting the damn place to become a Somalian pirate.
ReplyDelete"I don't agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
ReplyDelete