Words Dept.: category

I don’t really like Kelvin MacKenzie. He’s a loudmouthed, right-wing, rabble-rousing reactionary. He’s also someone who seems unwilling to recognise the universally accepted truth about the cause of the Hillsborough disaster which, as a Liverpool fan – and even simply as a football fan – I find both bizarre and abhorent. But regardless of all [...]

The growth of a beard obviously signifies a psychological problem within the wearer. Not my words, you understand, but those of former England football manager and beard expert Graham Taylor, who thinks people who “grow beards for no reason” are undergoing some kind of ongoing, possibly catastrophic, mood change. Taylor was talking about Roy Keane, [...]

There’s a new video that’s been produced to show what MediaCity in Salford is going to look like in 2011. As this is the year the BBC are due to move in, one can only conclude that the broadcaster is planning to employ a load of cartoon turtles and legions of weird flourescent blobs. The [...]

For all BBC middle managers thinking of moving up north, of which there really aren’t that many, please be aware of these facts, all verifiable on Wikipedia: The last known “art gallery” closed in 1987 The crime rate rose by 900% last year, driven by a shocking trade in aggravated pigeon theft Jack Duckworth reads [...]

This must surely rank as one of the most remarkable and ridiculous moments in the short history of 24-hour news channels. Carrie Gracie, a presenter about whom I’ve had my doubts for a while thanks to her uncomfortable flirting with fellow anchor Simon McCoy every morning, gets completely flummoxed during an interview and admits to [...]

I’ve just spotted Stephen Fry talking a load of arse, poo and widdle (bollocks, in other words) about the issue of MPs’ expenses on Newsnight (video clip here). According to Fry, MPs doing things like claiming £2,000 of public money to have the moats of their manor houses cleaned (Douglas Hogg), or £35,000 for a “second home” [...]

As Jonathan Ross returns to our screens later, both ITV and the BBC’s flagship current affairs programmes have scheduled timely and hard-hitting investigations into the issue of very rich famous people saying “he fucked your grand-daughter” and stuff. ITV’s timely attempt to tackle to hard-hitting subject, part of the Tonight strand, was on earlier and [...]

Just before going to sleep last night I attempted to have a US election-based multimedia experience, which involved taking the laptop to bed (my intentions were pure) and surfing various sites to do with the vote. This, I am led to believe, is the done thing among web-savvy news hunters of the 21st century. Twitter, [...]

One of the most enlightening pieces of journalism re the Russell Brand/Jonathan Toss incident was when the BBC’s David Sillito solicited the views of people queuing to watch the filming of the Alan Titchmarsh Show and compared them with the views of people queuing to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The former group (old people) [...]

Russell Brand and his pal Jonathan Toss have clearly touched a nerve over this whole “He fucked your granddaughter” business. But let’s get it into perspective. Why is Gordon Brown even thinking about this when real actual stuff is happening in the world? Aren’t we supposed to be on the verge of a global recession [...]