Fine Gael call for “something to be done, maybe, like in that Bruce Willis film” on volcano.

The Volcano: See at a Cairde fail dinner?

The Volcano: Seen at a Cairde Fail dinner?

Fine Gael has demanded that the government take immediate action to deal with the volcano crisis. “It’s a disgrace,” said Hurrinda Whipcrack TD (Dublin South Nice) ” that the government is not planning some sort of daring plan along the lines of that Bruce Willis film about the asteroid, or that lesser known one about the giant drilling machine starring Aaron Eckhart. It is quite obvious that the government don’t care, and I think the time has come for  a public inquiry into their relationship with the volcano. I wouldn’t be surprised if it emerged that Fianna Fail were in the pay of the volcano. I really wouldn’t.” 

Where was this filmed?

The Conservative party leader David Cameron

The background to David Cameron’s party political  last night seems very modest and middle class. Is it his back garden, I wonder? Or at least, isn’t that the impression given? That Dave is just an ordinary bloke getting by. Yet, and I admit I could be wrong, it all looks a bit too modest. After all, the Camerons aren’t short a few quid. So come clean Dave. Is it your garden, and if not, why not?

If you liked The Office or Only Fools and Horses, then don’t vote Tory.

The Tories have come along way from being the nasty party, on gay issues and social moralising generally. They are even getting ready to realise that in government, the European Union is a fact that has to be dealt with, not sulked about. However, there is still one good reason why they should be stopped.

Rupert Murdoch, for his own perfectly reasonable (for him) reasons, dislikes the BBC. He sees it as unfair competition, and so the Tories have effectively agreed to beat the crap out of the BBC on his behalf, including the very possible scrapping of BBC Three and Four. Whatever about BBC Three, BBC Four is one of the few channels around now that caters for grown ups, with thoughtful and provocative drama, history and current affairs programming. It is a model of what public service broadcasting is supposed to be, giving the public maybe not what they want (yet another f**king reality/talent show) but what they need. Getting rid of it would be yet another contribution from the so-called Conservatives to the coarsening of British life.

Remember, this is the party that broke up the old ITV monopolies and turned ITV from the channel that created The Jewel in the Crown and World in Action into the ITV of reality shows and home camera man-getting-kicked-in-nuts shows.  

But go one step further. Name the great comedies of the last 15/20 years. The Office, One Foot in the Grave, Only Fools and Horses, Little Britain, all were given a chance not by ITV, which seems to regard comedy as being too risky, but by the BBC. People forget that Only Fools and Horses was a flop when it was first transmitted, as was Blackadder, but the BBC had faith and gave them a chance. Think ITV would have done that? ITV cancelled Men Behaving Badly, BBC took in on, and made it a success.

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like that, and so his Tory puppets are going to put the boot in, and restrict the BBC’s funding and ability to create, in short, to sabotage one of the areas of culture that Britain has excelled in so that that Rupert Murdoch (An Australian-born US Citizen) can sell more US shows to British television.

Well done the Tories, the so-called patriotic party.  

An interesting book you should read: A Disturbance of Fate.

What if RFK had lived?

What if RFK had lived?

First, a warning. This is a a dense tome, and is written in the style of a detailed history book from a world radically different from out own. The basic premise is that Robert F. Kennedy survives an assasination attempt in 1968, and goes on to become President. “A Disturbance of Faith” is obviously a labour of love by its author, Mitchell J. Friedman, and requires a fair bit of knowledge of the state of US politics in the late 1960s, but for aficionados, it’s a fascinating read. It’s very much a liberal fantasy piece, although it is interesting how much more to the left US politics actually was in the past, compared to today, and if anything, highlights how the American Left pretty much walked off the pitch in the late 1970s.