Lie Back and Think of England

For as long as I can remember there’s been a News of the World. Not that I ever read it, or knew anyone else who did, it was just always there, mouldering in a corner, stinking of stale beer and cigarette smoke. When one bought cod and chips on the way home from the films on a Saturday night, as one doused them in vinegar and salt, the newsprint that came off on one’s hand was more often than not from News of the World. It fostered a working-class dream of upper-class scandals, exposing naughty debs and Lords cavorting with telly stars. It thrived on tits and bums, poofter vicars exposing themselves, MPs with a bit on the side, and sex-starved housewives luring innocent boys into their webs of shame. It came out every Sunday and, last I heard, cost two and six or, if you prefer, a half-crown.

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Anyway.  If you’re up watching this crap from Merrie Old, feel free to vent here.

I will say this: the quality of media coverage of this was not unexpected, yet is still shocking.  The buy-in is total.  Only with an event like this can you have somebody bringing trees inside a church for a wedding, and have talking heads come across and say that they were going for “sustainable” rather than “absurdly decadent.”

And yet the media are shoveling this into their mouths as if it were oatmeal on a cold, winter morn.  And so are the great unwashed masses, lining the Mall with fake plastic crap on their heads, and lining up at the buffets at street parties with fake plastic crap on their heads (perhaps with feathers sticking out or something).

Really. When the President rolls by (whoever it is, however you feel about the guy), we either wave and shout a little bit, or flip him off and shout a little louder.  When they see the Queen rolling (or, in this case, kids who won’t be King and Queen for at least 40 years), everybody acts like they’re back in the first grade.

No (more) official commentary from me.  Your observations, as events (finally) unfold, in the comments box, please.

The British scientific publication Royal Society Journal Biology Letters has published new research showing that female red squirrels have sex with up to 14 males a day because the male squirrels are “usually willing and available.”

One of the scientists noted the obvious drawbacks to “having multiple partners means more energy expended on mating, increased exposure to predators as well as increased potential for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.  Promiscuity also encourages harassment from male squirrels trying to coerce them into having sex.”

Happy Holidays!

[MSNBC: Promiscuous Squirrels Mate With Up to 14 Males a Day]

“President Obama and his wife Michelle will not be invited to Prince William’s wedding next year. Because Prince William is not yet heir to the throne, his wedding to Kate Middleton is not classed as a ‘state occasion’ — and the couple feel under no pressure to fill the 2,000-strong guest list with heads of state, the Mail understands.” [Daily Mail]

Prince’s limo paintballed on way to Palladium! 20,000 students and activists lay siege to Westminster!

This was the terrifying moment that a mob of anarchists attacked Prince Charles and Camilla’s car outside the London Palladium tonight.

The couple were due to attend the Royal Variety Performance, which was taking place very close to the epicentre of a day of violent protest in Parliament Square, when it was swarmed by people supposedly protesting against the rise in student tuition fees.

Protesters had thrown paintbombs at police throughout a day of protests and the burgundy 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI was hit by an explosion of white paint on Prince Charles’s side of the car. A window was smashed, two rear panels were dented and the aerial was broken.

Seriously: A tuition increase? While we can’t condone mob violence or desecrating a Rolls, we have to acknowledge that the American public has become a bunch of pansies after decades of oppression by Our Nation’s Plutocrats.

Terrifying moment Charles and Camilla were surrounded by a baying mob and their car attacked in tuition fees riot [Daily Mail UK]

The GF points out that the Japanese find our new sexual assault model for airport screening quite amusing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEeRD26hDDw

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg requests a pat-down instead of a body scan from a TSA agent at the airport, and learns he might soon prefer the other option:

“Yes, but starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area” — this is the word he used, “crotchal” — “and you’re not going to like it.”

“What am I not going to like?” I asked.

“We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance,” he explained.

“Resistance?” I asked.

“Your testicles,” he explained.

Later, on board, all the dudes swear he didn’t make it past the knees.

For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance [Atlantic]