The Papers

Reading the Sunday Papers in bed used to be one of the great pleasures of Sunday mornings. Still is really, it's just that now I read them online. I honestly don't even know if we have such a thing as Sunday Papers here, nor whether there is any kind of delivery service. I also haven't yet discovered National Dailies, but I'm sure they must exist. No matter, we haven't got a letter box in any case.

But this morning's read just struck me as particularly whingey-whiny. This week we have been appalled at the story of the mother who forced her toddlers to fight and then filmed it. Somehow this is mitigated by the background histories of all the women involved. What bollocks that is. They took pleasure in this horror. None of them are fit to breed.

Then today, we have a load of rubbish about ASBOs. And haven't we heard it all before? No responsibility taken for the most unbelievable anti-social behaviour, instead, the oft-heard whine of
'They're picking on us!' Well imagine how the neighbours of these yobs must feel.
The writer, Louise France says,

'All too often we hear about these people without hearing from them.'

Wrong! By the time they have an ASBO, everyone in an entire city has heard far too much from these louts, not to mention the fact that we are sick to death of the mendaciousness that spews from them every time they open their stupid mouths.

The kids I knew from Mayhem that went on to get ASBOs were kids who had already tainted the air and space around them for far too long.

Then there's all the bizarre whining about Prince Harry going to Iraq.

'.....senior military officers could never have predicted the sheer scale of and nature of the threats lying in wait...'

Of course they bloody could have, of course they bloody did. Senior military officers in the British Army unable to predict the scale of the risk, are you kidding me? Who writes this stuff? They know exactly what the risk is. This is journalism at its most feeble and in the OBSERVER for pity's sake !

Oh well. At least last night we saw the most stonkingly good film I've seen for a while.
'The Illusionist' was a most excellent story well-told. Ed Norton in the lead role had a Gary Oldman-esque quality to his portrayal of the ultimate illusionist. Rufus Sewell was every bit the mad prince Leopold. Jessica Biel was superb as was Paul Giamatti. The film had us unsure, wondering, thinking maybe, but not quite, a treat from first frame to last. It even had me yet again kicking myself for not listening intently enough in class when we studied the Austro-Hungarian empire in history.
Of course there's the internet, but nothing has the same stamp of absolute authority as every word that drops from your history teacher's lips.