22nd July 2002

Just one week to go! The prospect of life without BB3 is deeply grim for me and millions of others. I started out a total cynic but the drama and the rawness of the emotions on display have completely won me over.
That's not to say that I don't think the producers are exploitative beyond belief. They picked Jade because of her thickness. They knew the public would rip her to shreds, and they knew that she would be an easy sexual plaything for anyone who fancied it in the house. The fact she's actually lasted so long is quite an achievement, and a good thing. Without her, there wouldn't have been even a quarter as many arguments/ major incidents. Big Brother has been the ever-turbulent story of Alex and of Jade, and I think it would be a shame if Kate or Jonny - the safe bets - went and won. My vote's on Alex...

ARE WE ANTI-AMERICAN?:

There's a lot of talk at present about whether England is becoming anti-American. Speaking for myself, I have always found Americans to be the most friendly and helpful hosts over there. I also never met a bad one whilst travelling. But on the other hand...
Well there is the fact the idiot puppet president is in the pocket of the oil-men, leading to an absolute disregard for environmental issues. There's the way that politicians in America have been superceded by big business. There's the fact that America's foreign policy in the Middle East is parroting that of Ariel Sharon. There's the bombing of innocent civilians. There's the absolute diseregard for the views of the entire rest of the world, or for the treaties they've signed. There's the violations of human rights and the trigger-happy pursual of the death penalty wherever possible. There's the unshakeable superiority complex. The condemnation of dissenters as un-American. The crooked electoral process. The ludicrously lopsided distribution of wealth. The apparent need for fire-arms in abundance. The obsession with big hair, big food, big make-up. etc. etc.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COXY:

Hope your 24th year is a good'un...

18th July 2002

Don't think for a minute that I'll bother to do this every day. In fact, I'm about to play football so I can't be bothered to do this now. However, I would just like to say that Red Hot Chilli Peppers have surpassed themselves with their new album 'By the Way'. 'Californication' means a lot to me as it was the album of choice whilst driving all round Australia (half the songs are about roadtripping after all), but the new one is better, partly because the guitarist (found homeless and heroin-addicted shortly prior to the last album) has now re-learned how to really play. As if to keep up, the rest of the band seem to be making a whole lot more effort too. This is the first disc they've done with no filler all killer, and there's even strings and brass. Good stuff.

NUTTER ALERT:

If you have spare time, check out the frightening delusions of David Icke on www.davidicke.com. At first its funny; he does think all world leaders are reptilian shape-shifters after all; then its kind of scary when you realise he also thinks they are paedophiles and into human sacrifice. And he REALLY believes it.

THE NEW RONALDO:

Well done to AFC Wimbledon for finally scoring their first ever goal last night. The scorer: Trigger. Does he have any real name? I don't know. At the first game, he was introduced to the crowd in the following manner: 'Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard of Ronaldo (cheer), you've heard of Juninho (cheer), you've heard of Ronaldhino (cheer), now here's... Trigger!' The team still lost by the way...

17th July 2002

A FRANCHISE OF LIES:

Over 4,600! That’s how many people turned up at Sutton last Wednesday to see the inaugural game of AFC Wimbledon. Unbelievable! What an atmosphere and what a kick in the teeth for Koppel. Is he admitting with good grace a worthy contender for the local vote? What do you think? On the official Wimbledon website, he (or one of his minions) has claimed that ‘The support and enthusiasm for a temporary solution in Milton Keynes has been overwhelming’, whilst claiming that demand for season tickets has apparently been higher than last season. Bearing in mind that the aforementioned crowd at Sutton was higher than some Premiership Wimbledon crowds, and that their attendance, to a man, represented a rejection of Franchise FC, it is hard to see who could have been ordering all these tickets. On both counts, there is no response other than to state that the Wimbledon administration is blatantly lying its ass off.

WEEP FOR OUR COUNTRY… IF THEY FALL FOR THIS:

On Tuesday, The Sun appealed to us to ‘weep for her, weep for our country’. The ‘her' in question was Jade Slack, a 10 year old girl who had tragically died after taking 5 ecstacy tablets. The piece came complete with a quote from Leah Betts’ mother stating that this ‘sums up our society’. I thought I’d better take a look, and I braced myself for the unimaginably evil act that had caused all this soul-searching. I assumed that someone must have given or sold drugs to this child or, even worse, that the child was a pre-pubescent drug-addict. What did I find? That the girl had gone upstairs in someone else’s house, found the drugs, and had presumably mistaken them for sweets. This was a terrible occurrence, but it was an ACCIDENT. Nobody did anything evil to anybody else. It could have been a legal drug. It could have been paracetamol if this girl was in the habit of eating any pills she came across… Would we be weeping for our country then? Would we be weeping for our country if the girl had drunk bottled bleach? Of course we wouldn’t. The fact that this case happened to involve drugs means that The Sun can use the accidental death of a child as a political football, hitching it to the bandwagon of moral outrage. This lurid agenda-fuelled sensationalism makes me sick. Plus which, I would respect Mrs Betts a whole lot more if she’d stop letting herself become a rent-a-quote for the right-wing press.

TRAWLING THE NET:

This is an actual Christian album cover!