Consult the lists

We've all joked about the Mail's obsession with differentiating the world into "Cures-cancer" and "Causes-cancer" to the extent that there's numerous websites and a facebook group dedicated to documenting the newspaper's findings and Russell Howard has even written a song about it.

Thankfully after years of research the Mail themselves have finally gathered enough evidence to publish their definitive list.

This expert thinks he's in with
a chance with that expert.

Lists are brilliant. You know where you stand with a list, can't argue when it's there in black and white, it is what it is and you can base your opinions and actions on whereabouts in a list any issue sits. I imagine the newsroom walls are papered with flipchart sheets full of lists.

"Where do we stand on Leylandii trees in Hampshire?" 

"According to the suburbia list, they're better than 'Lithuanian bricklayers' but worse than 'Unseasonal showers'. They're tied for fourteenth place with 'Gary Lineker'.

It seems they were making full use of the "Horrific Events" list when reviewing a new episode of Family Guy. In the episode Stewie and Brian travel back and stop the horrible events of 9/11 only to find that this causes a nuclear apocalypse in the present. Horrified they duly use their time machine to go back and ensure that the terrorist atrocities occur and then, after averting a 'When the wind blows' future, they high five in a manner popular with happy Americans.

So let's take this to the list wall. Where does a Martini drinking dog and an evil baby high-fiving, after using their time travel machine to avert a nuclear winter by ensuring 9/11 happens, sit on the 'Horrific Events' list? Well the evidence put forward by the article seems to suggest it's worse than drink driving, abortion and the holocaust.

Thank god for lists helping us keep everything in perspective.

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Glutton for punishment

Sometimes, when I've exhausted poring over the Daily Mail for things that annoy me enough to bang on about them here, I like to see what other crazies in the world have to say.

I like to look at the BiasedBBC blog - they seem to think that as it's license payers money paying for Radio 4's Today programme it really should be a propaganda instrument for the Israeli army. I've no idea why a blog that should be angry about the wrong coloured ties being worn when monarchs drop dead is actually more concerned with god bothering nutters blowing each other up at the other end of the Mediterranean, but whatever makes them happy. It's good to get it off your chest.

However the gold medal for mentalness is reserved for Fox Nation. This is a chance to worship at the altar of Sarah Palin, complain that the Occupy protesters smell and kill puppies and prove how un-racist you are by liking Herman Caine. Aside from politics and justice and media and campus (Includes a story about Wisconsin Uni professors being banned from carrying concealed weapons) they have a section set aside for culture.

So what passes for culture in the Fox Nation?

Why bare naked ladies of course, and I've been paying no attention to culture previously as I thought it was all about dusty paintings, classical music not good enough for adverts and un-rhyming poetry.

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Remarkable new scientific method

The Mail's Science section is a kaleidoscope of wonder and nonsense that prove both how amazing the natural world can be and how little attention many wannabe journalists paid to science lessons at school.

Wednesdays are often a good day for misunderstood science stories as it's the day before New Scientist is published and the sneak previews offered to the press lead to many exaggerated claims about the health benefits or dangers of many a household object or how in just six months time we'll all be flying to the moon in a biscuit tin.

However it seems a new dawn is approaching. No longer content with nibbling at the scraps the scientific press throws from its table once a week it seems the Mail's leading a charge in expounding the merits of the new scientific method for the 21st century: Cartoonism.

This breakthrough, hinted at by Einstein in his twilight years and heralded by Stephen Hawkings as a god-send, opens the doors to a new century of discovery; a new renaissance; a better world for us all.

The method itself is so simple a journalist could grasp it. By visualising and then committing to paper  your hypothesis you bring it to life and thus prove it to be true.

A fine example in today's DM demonstrates that yes indeed the good people at Pixar know their archaeology and their nut chasing mammal Scrat really did exist. Look there's a cartoon!

Yes, proof indeed

Bolstered by this amazing piece of Crayola based research The Mail has undertaken more studies. The following discoveries are yet to be fully published in peer reviewed literature but their importance to mankind cannot be kept waiting.

Is this proof 

of cat loving 

aliens in our midst?

Using your car

does not cause

Global Warming 

evidence shows

By JAMES DELINGPOLE

New GPS system

will tell you where

your loved ones

are at any time.

Dolly the Sheep's

cloned offspring evolve

into her worst nightmare.

Proof.

Humans can survive

with fewer than six

organs medicine

discovers

Nearest stars closer

than scientists originally

thought

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My mate Peter

Got into an online 'discussion' about the merits of drug legalisation with Mr Hitchens on his blog.

Watch the fun here...

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/10/this-is-no-supercam-just-ted-heath-mk-2-complete-with-his-own-thought-police.html

and

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/10/black-labradors-bite-master-shock-.html

My view is that the criminalisation of drugs leads to more misery, through the violent supply chain, than would be caused by the subsequent public health issues legalisation brought.

Peter's argument is that if we legalised drugs civilisation would end and we'd be ruled by cruel Chinese masters. No really that's what he thinks.

And they say smoking weed makes you paranoid!

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Leave it, he's not worth it

Nick Clegg is probably one of the least liked politicians in the country - that's some achievement from a man who was so fantastically popular during the leader's debates, prior to the election, that queues of well-wishers used to form at his house with gifts and offers of domestic service. Now it's said he gets dog eggs delivered through his letterbox with aplomb envied by many a postman.

To be fair he has brought it on himself. If he hadn't been such a twat over admission fees perhaps his hallway wouldn't smell like a dirty protest and people wouldn't give the finger to the phone when they take his calls. So imagine if you had to spend five hours sat next to the man on a flight to Cairo. How much Business Class free booze would it take before you were telling him he's a grade A shit who sold out his principles for a sniff of power?

Did you drink my Buckfast?

Well according to the Mail it doesn't take any time at all. A fellow passenger was on him like a seagull on a saveloy, banging on about his party's reluctance to scrap the Human rights act. She was so wound up apparently that she had to be "physically restrained". Much as I don't like the man you've got to feel for someone who gets "verbally abused" for 5 hours by a, presumably, drunk mentalist.

Daniel Martin is acknowledged as the journalist who brought us this nearly story - in fact it's so lame as a story he ended up padding out the last third of the text with a totally bizarre un-related dig at Tony Blair's work and earnings since he left office. I imagine Daniel had been tasked to deliver 500 words about Clegg's traumatic flight got 300 words in and realised there was nothing else to say so he pasted in a few paragraphs from another story hoping no one would notice. Lazy get.

Eh?

He'd probably have been better off trying to find someone who was on the flight and getting a quote off of them to pad it out. That would appear to be easier than Daniel could have imagined too as the mountain came to Mohammed and a quote made its way onto the website unbidden.

There's a message in the comments section from Simon Windsor-Green, nestled among the usual retarded Hitler loving renta-quotes, who was on the plane and explains what actually went off. It seems it was actually very little.

I wonder if Daniel had known this before he submitted his half-arsed copy he'd have had to pad out the text even more. I like to think he'd have filled the space with a short tale of a man and his pet parrot who spoke of secrets and lies but then choked on a peanut, we'll never know and perhaps literature is poorer because of it.

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Hiding their light under a bushel

The fight for the Republican nomination for next year's US Presidential election is hotting up. Current darling of the GOP faithful is the batty pizza chef Herman Cain. His brand of quick fix, easy answer, low tax, ignore the rest of the world mentalness reminds them fondly of their previous slow-witted hero Dubya.

Cain's lack of interest in countries to the east or west of his country is best articulated with his pre-emptive tirade against journalists earlier this year;

"When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know?"


I don't know Herman.


However the rantings of Herman aren't my main concern at the minute. I was wondering if there was some way of finding out how the wing-nuts at the Mail feel about a second term for Obama. Unfortunately they're keeping their position on the matter quiet. I'll keep digging and if I find a chink in their armour and a glint of what their opinion might be come the election I'll let you know.

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My cousin's dog's aunt says

Richard Dawkins has been making some seemingly controversial remarks about blinkered religious Muslim beliefs in the Times Educational Supplement.

In his opinion of all the faith schools he's come across the Muslim ones are the worst for passing off their creation myths as hard fact. This is then carried onto university where the poor under-graduates are so shaken by evolutionary theory that they have to walk out of lectures.

Strong stuff, and worthy of a story. What would make a worthwhile article would be perhaps contacting the professor and asking him if he'd like to expand on his thoughts for the wider, and less niche, audience provided by the Mail.

Unless you're lazy arsed reporter Hugo Gye. In this case you'll copy and paste the raciest phrases from the TES and then quote the Daily Telegraph as either their take on the issue is key, or it happened to be nailed to the back of the door while he was ruminating in trap number three.

World class reporting that allows him to get his required copy in in-full whilst leaving plenty of time for buttock scratching and bacon sarnies. Keep up the good work Hugo.

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