IT’S money for old rope – but somebody has to put their thoughts into print and get paid very handsomely into the bargain. So what have our newspaper columnists being saying this week . . . ? (visit Ragged Right for the full archive)
Some columnists do humour well. Others don’t. Here’s Fraser Nelson in the News of the World, February 13, 2011:
RUSSIAN astronomers have warned that an asteroid called Apophis will hit the earth on April 13, 2036. Two reasons not to worry. One: The ex-MP Lembit Opik once claimed the same. Two: Russian astronomers use empty vodka bottles as telescopes.
Is this funny? No it is not. Have another go . . .
IT’S Gordon Brown’s 60th birthday next Sunday. I imagine that Labour intends to celebrate by throwing huge parties, and then leaving the bill for the Tories to pay.
Is this funny? No it is not. Have another go . . . Er, no. Don’t.
The charming Lucy Jones is having trouble making plans for the royal wedding – too much red tape apparently – in the Daily Telegraph, February 11, 2011:
If you haven’t already started planning your royal wedding street party, then I suggest you get cracking.
Right-o Lucy. I’ll just put the kettle on first. Have you run into a spot of bother?
The Kate ’n’ Wills salt and pepper shakers were on order along with the tablecloths. I could sit back and relax. Until, that is, I read about the council in Essex which this week banned a royal wedding street party because it was going to be on a bus route.
Honestly. Surely they could have moved the tables to let the buses through. The jobsworths.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, February 11, 2011:
Camilla has been spotted handing out advice to Kate Middleton over lunch at a swanky London restaurant. Wouldn’t you just love to have been a fly on the wall?
Not particularly. And if you’re going to launch into one of your desperately unfunny make-believe conversations we’ll stop this right now. You’re not, are you? Oh . . .
Leo McKinstry’s Friday rant. This week he tells us why there are so many young thugs on our streets, in the Daily Express, February 11, 2011:
The justice system has become so soft because of a malign cocktail of sentimentality and Marxism.
Those judges with their Che Guevara T-shirts and raffia sandals, spouting off about the oppression of the proletariat – why don’t they just sod off to Moscow, or Islington, or wherever it is they sod off to these days? Doncaster perhaps.
Virginia Blackburn on Birgit Cunningham, the single mother who has “done the dirty with the very married Lord Strathclyde” (who appears to be an innocent bystander as opposed to the bloke who jumped willingly and regularly into her bed), in the Daily Express, February 10, 2011:
You wouldn’t expect much else from Birgit – this is, after all, the woman who shoved a chocolate éclair in the face of a government minister in front of many dozens of waiting cameras.
That’s just too much. A slice of Little Venice Cake Company Valentine Heart perhaps, but a chocolate éclair is so very Marks and Spencer.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, February 8, 2011:
A woman on the wireless yesterday was complaining that the music industry discriminates against the blind. I take it she’s never heard of Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder — or Blind Lemon Jefferson.
In the countless hundreds of thousands of musicians who’ve entertained the world between Blind Lemon Jefferson’s birth in 1893 and now, Dickie’s managed to name three blind ones. Keep counting.
Max Hastings on the Government’s plan to sell off the nation’s forests, in the Daily Mail, February 7, 2011:
I do not believe anyone in their right mind, including David Cameron, seriously intends to allow Britain’s woodlands to be despoiled.
As an exercise to illustrate a track record, replace the word “woodlands” with any of the following: aircraft carrier capability; Harrier jump jets; flood defences; healthcare system; university education; school refurbishment programme; library services; culture; and any one of a number of nationally important issues back to coal industry, steelmaking and shipbuilding.
Melanie Phillips remonstrates against moving BBC’s Question Time to Glasgow and the problem of finding a replacement for the editor, who has resigned in protest, in the Daily Mail, February 7, 2011:
The prospect of the BBC finding a replacement who is as able and experienced in national political programming – and crucially, who will also want to live in Glasgow – is remote, frankly.
I see what she means. Nothing but stovies and white pudding to eat. And those shipyard hooters going off just when someone’s making a crucial point about the influence of Islam in the Pony Club. And then there’s the inevitable problem of drunks in the audience. Not to mention the fact no one speaks English.
Visit Ragged Right for the full archive.
