Falling into fountains

It’s a Sunday night and I have nothing to do so I will write for the nice people that read this shit. There is not a great deal of current affairs stuff going on but I’ll talk about some of it anyhow. I did want to move into the region of talking about sillier stories like me and Dave did on the RRP because that’s always fun.

There appears to be some trouble politically in Ireland at the moment. By this, I mean the country is screwed anyway. We all saw the public collapse of its economy and the subsequent bail-out. Just as a side point, it was quite entertaining but frustrating to see the response to that and the fact that the UK would be helping them out. Generally speaking it was “how can we afford to bail out another country when we are making cuts at home?” which is a good point to a certain degree. However one element which clearly had been forgotten about is that if the UK stood by and watched Ireland and its economy crumble then the economy here would have suffered as a result. I’d imagine that there are a few economic partnerships between the UK and Ireland which would have been too valuable to lose, so spending the money to bail them out in the short term would have made the money back in the long term. Anyway, the Irish coalition government has received a bucket-load of shit hurled at them over the state of the economy and in the last week, the PM there has won a vote of confidence and then resigned. That was a bit strange, especially as he hasn’t resigned as PM but he has resigned as the leader of his party, which FYI is called “Fianna Fail” (well if you are going to be pessimistic from the off...). I don’t understand how a politician can resign as the governing party’s leader but remain Prime Minister in a republic country. Now, if he had said he intends to resign as both straight away then fair enough – but he didn’t and that is a bit strange. Also, if you are going to resign, why hold on to power until an election where the result will be you losing power, even if Fianna Fail wins. I don’t understand it myself.

One issue which appears to be dominating our front pages is relating to a phone hacking scandal. It would appear that a former editor of a Sunday tabloid isn’t always honest and acts in ways which might label him as a scrotum. Actually before I go and get myself sued, he has claimed that he knew nothing of the accusations but a captain must go down with his ship and all. Anyway, he resigned as editor at the time it was first in the press and he has been forced to resign from his position as communications director at Downing Street for the current government as more stuff about this scandal has made it in the papers – some three years later. Now, don’t get me wrong, he could have done nothing legally wrong and I would have still thought he was a scrotum (working for a tabloid in a senior position isn’t in my eyes a good job). However there are two things which I wanted to say about this. The first is that he was accused of something which went down in 2007. Now, he wasn’t actually accused of doing anything other than not stopping the phone hacking going on if memory serves. More importantly than that, he resigned in 2007. He took a bullet for something which he claimed he didn’t do or didn’t know about. Now, ignorance is not a valid argument when it comes to law but he took his punishment by resigning from what I can only assume is a fairly well paid job. Why this has cost him another job I do not know. I’m sure David Cameron was well aware of his past when hiring him so this is very peculiar. The second thing is that Ed Milliband has proven himself over this issue to be both 1) a fantastic leader of the opposition but someone who’d likely be a very poor PM and 2) a scrotum. “Labour leader Ed Milliband said the row raised ‘real questions about David Cameron's judgement that he hung on to Andy Coulson for so long’.” – Oh do fuck off! If any employer hires someone with a criminal record or a firing on their record, they will think harder about that decision than most others when it comes to hiring so to suggest that it smacks of something which lacks judgment is ridiculous. I really am growing to dislike Ed Milliband but then I guess I would, considering his political persuasion and the fact that I don’t know him.

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to talk about a silly story. Now, the way this worked on the show for anyone who didn’t listen to the RRP or has forgotten is that the story was read, and then we would comment on it. Now, this would either be with jokes or with a rant – generally speaking. As this format is a written format then there really is no reason for the story summary as you people all have eyes and therefore you can read the story yourselves. In fact for this in particular story, if you were to say CLICK THIS BIT OF TEXT RIGHT HERE WHERE THE TEXT IS RANDOMLY LARGER, then you might find yourself on the page where the story is. I’ll give you a moment to read and then we’ll carry on.

I presume you wouldn’t have reached this stage without having read the story so let us press on. I accept that as a Brit, I will never understand the suing culture in America fully. It seems to be the way work-shy/stupid Americans get their money. In this case though, I don’t see how on earth she can sue. The security guard in question probably shouldn’t have put the footage online and he suffered for doing so by losing his job. He did something he shouldn’t have done at work and as a result, lost his job. He has been punished, so I don’t see the scope for her to sue. Yes, he did make her look like a tit online but I imagine she did that all by herself - by not looking where she was walking while texting and falling face first INTO A FOUNTAIN! Furthermore, what is the sodding point of suing someone who’s just lost their job and, without wishing to be offensive, probably wasn’t in a wonderfully paying job in the first place?! Is she going to sue the security firm? They’ve done all they can by getting rid of the guy who upset her. This is just ridiculous. I hope she sues and gets into court and the judge turns round to her and says “You get nothing, you lose, good day sir!”

50 Word Review: Whole Lotta Led were good earlier this month. The “best of” set at the beginning could have been better but they could also play for 5 hours. Led Zeppelin 4 was performed awesomely and the encore after was just win. Go see them (assuming you like Led Zeppelin of course!)

Well anyway that’s all I’ve got for this one. As an update to the 2011 blog, I have made moves on changing jobs to start a career by applying for other jobs within Portsmouth University. Well, applying for one but that will become plural by the end of the week. I am excited and hopeful that I will hear news relating to one of these jobs soon. I did notice that the one I’ve applied for has entered the public domain as well. We shall see what happens there. One last thing before calling it quits, I have just downloaded an app called Audio Boo for the iPhone. When the chance arises, I might record an audio boo to accompany the blog. That is something to look forward to...well, maybe. The next post will be an in-depth preview of Wacken, which will likely be the first one of many before actually departing. You stay classy and don’t fall into fountains.