2007 January | Liberal Burblings

Archive for January, 2007

Hillary borrows the John Kerry Joke book

January 31st, 2007 | Author: Paul

In Iowa, Hillary Clinton tried to make a joke about her experience in dealing with ‘evil and bad men’ which would help her as president.

She seems to be learning comedic skills from John Kerry.

Oh dear.

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New Home Secretary resigns after 37 minutes – DeadBrain.co.uk

January 31st, 2007 | Author: Paul

During a recent spate of “stickie” sticking, I found a “stickie” from DeadBrain.co.uk to put on my sidebar. It updates the “news headlines” which are, the astute will notice, spoof “news headlines”. For example:

Kidnapped chancellor “free to come and go”
Democrats propose “cap and trade” scheme for Iraq troop levels
Jails empty as judges urged to be lenient
Big Brother Latest: Video of Jade Goody’s hanging leaked.
Jade Goody gets Oscar nomination for apology
Compulsive gamblers to be given classes to win on NHS
Prescott’s visit to Burger King overshadowed by race row
Teachers ‘could lead schools’ says report

At first, I wasn’t too sure about this “stickie“, but gave it a whirl anyway. However, on studying a few of the “news stories” over the last couple of weeks, I have begun to fall in love with the “DeadBrain” sense of humour. It provides an excellent release, and a sideways look at political news.

There is one particular story on there at the moment entitled: “New Home Secretary resigns after 37 minutes“. It is what some younger work colleagues of mine excitedly call “Quality!”:

The new Home Secretary was dramatically forced to resign today just 37 minutes after replacing John Reid. As DeadBrain went to press, tabloid editors up and down the land were rejoicing at the quick-fire dismissal.

The story continues:

The drama happened as the fiery Scotsman’s successor was being unveiled at a press conference…Within twenty minutes, the Daily Mail had released the following statement:”In admitting that he won’t be able to put all criminals behind bars, the new Home Secretary has shown such a lack of concern about the paedophiles, terrorists, rapists and feral children in our midst that he is arguably worse than the lot of them. If he has any decency at all he should apologise personally to all future victims of crime and resign immediately.”

…and then climaxes with this:

After facing calls to resign at his inaugural press conference, it wasn’t long until the new Home Secretary caved in. In an emotional resignation speech he said: “The first five minutes were a great challenge but after that I began to see why people say this job is the worst in the world. I can only hope that my successor is less incompetent than me and my predecessor John Reid, his predecessor Charles Clarke, his predecessor David Blunkett and his predecessor, whose name I forget.”

So, I shall leave the DeadBrain “stickie” as a permanent feature of my sidebar. I see they are looking for contributory satirists, by the way.

And you should see what they said about our Ming during the leadership contest:

Liberal Democrat leadership contender Sir Menzies Campbell admitted today that he is straight and apologised for misleading people.

…Sir Menzies revealed on Radio 2 that the situation had become “unmanageable” as allegations of a 30-year relationship with a 58-year-old woman were due to appear in this Sunday’s News of the World.

…Privately, though, a party insider told DeadBrain that Sir Menzies had “*******d his chances”.

Come on, laugh!

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Goodbye old floppy friend!

January 30th, 2007 | Author: Paul

The death knell has sounded for the floppy disk!

PC World are stopping selling them. Later this year none of the machines they sell will have a floppy drive.

That makes me feel old.

It seems only yesterday when the first consignment of RX02 8″ floppy disks arrived at the computer parts warehouse where I worked in the eighties. And there was some considerable excitement when the 5.25″ RX50 floppies started arriving – customers lapped them up.

But nowadays the CD, memory card and USB stick have made the poor old floppy redundant.

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Woman in underwear to be projected onto Newbury Town Hall – approved

January 30th, 2007 | Author: Paul

…but it won’t happen.

There has been considerable excitement in the corridors of Newbury Town Council this last week. We probably all need to sit down and have a cup of tea with lots of sugar in it (or bromide in my case).

Maverick Television contacted us to ask if they could project the image of a local woman in only “bra and knickers” onto the Town Hall building. This is for the Channel 4 programme, “How to look good naked“. It aims to make people feel good about themselves.

It was decided that the Town Councillors themselves had to decide whether to give permission for this use of the Town Hall. So a virtual meeting of the Town Council Urgency Sub-committee was duly convened with the discreet title: “To decide on a particular use of the Town Hall”. The committee decided to give the go-ahead to the proposal. (“We’re not prudes” said the Mayor)

However, we then heard from the television company that our building is the wrong colour. It’s too dark. So they are tyring to find a lighter building. Newbury Telephone Exchange (infamous local white elephant) was suggested (“the only time anyone has found a decent use for it” was one quip).

I enjoyed the announcement of the minutes of the Urgency sub-committee at our full council meeting last night. The lady from the “Newbury Weekly News” was gazing into the near-distance, pen un-exercised, when the Mayor read out “blah blah…minutes of urgency sub-committee..blah…. held to consider particular use of town hall…Maverick television..blah…image to be projected..blah blah”. However, when the Mayor mentioned “woman naked except for her underwear” suddenly the Newbury Weekly News pen flew into frenzied action!

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Historic day for Northern Ireland

January 28th, 2007 | Author: Paul

Well, that’s been said before. But the 90% vote by Sinn Fein delegates to support policing in Northern Ireland really is a milestone.

Quite incredibly, Gerry Adams actually had a good word to say about Ian Paisley in the Observer today: “he believed Ian Paisley was genuine in wanting to build a better future for everyone in the North of Ireland.” Blimey.

All something you could not have imagined a few years ago.

At last reason for some hope. Thank goodness and well done to the people of Northern Ireland for sticking in there.

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Letterboxes fighting back? There’s a song there somewhere….

January 28th, 2007 | Author: Paul

At the risk of craven me-tooery, accompanied by multiple hat-tippery, I would just point out that this Number Ten petition about letterboxes ought not to pass without mention of that wonderful song in the Liberator Song book called “Letterboxes”, which was written by Chris Young and goes (to the tune of “Little Boxes”),in part:

Letterboxes on the doorfronts,
Letterboxes going snippy-snappy;
Letterboxes on the doorfronts
-Letterboxes hurt and maim.
There’s a high one and a low one,
And a small one and a narrow one;
And they all stick or go snipy-snappy,
And they all hurt just the same.

The complete words are here – scroll half way down the page.

Mulitple hat tips to:
Tim Roll-Pickering
Stephen Tall
Liberal Action

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