Thursday 20th April 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[refitman]

Waiting for Duffield to be censured for absolutely anything

[frog222]

At 7.20 Tucker Carlson swallows the bait from Donbas Girl --



He really is dumb ! Perhaps 7 to 1 in the Ukrainians favour was high, but the opposite is ridiculous...

except to Tucker !

[gilsey]

[gilsey]

[refitman]

This is a hell of a thread

[Sky'sGoneOut]

This is absolutely shocking. Outright corruption and blatant, shameless pilfering of public land and money.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

This is a hell of a thread

It is, but it could be argued that a Russian defence minister lavishing millions on his bimbo wife is indicative of the corruption that has gutted the Russian armed forces resulting in them being forced to use tanks from the 1950's. So in a way it's a good thing...unless you happen to be a Russian soldier.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Wes Streeting. Oh joy.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

More on the Tory corruption in Teesside.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Wes Streeting is OK as long as he sticks to attacking the Tories, its when he goes elsewhere that the problems start.

[tinyclanger2]

Evening

[tinyclanger2]

Greece:

Within just a couple of notes of Victor's angst-ridden ballad (or whatever style of music this is) I could sense a couple of ducks preparing to take off. Indeed Mr Vernicos takes teenage (?) misery to completely normal heights in "What they say". What I most liked about this - other than Victor's sartorial boldness qua footwear - was that the setting brought to mind the incomparable "Between two ferns". In this case it was "between two palms" and what was between them was a brown velour sofa.

Inspired.

Any road, we had a bit more swimming pool action and some gravity-defying rain, but I suspect that the chorus was sufficiently catchy that it will have some fans at least.

Clanger rating:
Was it fun: see above with reference to ferns
Was it dancey: see above with reference to the chorus
What would Terry have said about it: Am not sure there was very much to say, really.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Sunak playing for time over Raab, is anybody shocked?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Question Time came tonight from the lovely York, where I was once ejected from a medieval banquet by men in tights. Unfortunately anyone hoping for a barnstorming political rumble after the Easter break would have been left feeling disappointed.

For the Tories we had Jeremy Quin. You'll have to forgive me for not having paid much attention to anything Jeremy said. In part because he was profoundly dull, but mainly because he looked like someone from TV in the 1970's and I could never quite put my finger on who it was. Upon reflection I think that's because he just looks like a generic 70's gent of the sort you'd get on the BBC. Not glam obviously but with his hair and glasses he could have presented anything from Ask the Family to Nationwide. As for his politics from what little I was able to discern he had nothing of interest to say about anything...let me just have a quick think...nope, nada.

For Labour we had (sigh) Wes Streeting. To give Wes his due he is polished. So polished in fact that he's literally shiny, as if he's made of plastic. So he looks like a robot as well as sounding like one. Like an unfortunate number of Labour front bench politicians Wes is absolutely bloody awful at ad-libbing, or to put it another way, talking like a normal human being. Ask him a question that he isn't prepared for and he'll stumble over his words and blather out platitudinous drivel until he can shoehorn the script he has in his head into his answer regardless of whether it's relevant to the question he was asked. I'm fully aware Wes isn't the only politician who does this, god knows I've complained about it repeatedly in these reviews, but with Wes it's just so bloody obvious it's painful to watch. So what did we learn from what Wes actually did say? Like Mr Quin above I'd say nothing, in keeping with the 70's TV theme you could have got the dog that said 'sausages' on That's Life and got it to read a couple of Labour leaflets and it would have done at least as well as Wes but would clearly surpass him because it was a talking dog.

For the (gasp, finally!) Green Party we had Carla Denyer. Carla did a pretty good job I would say, at least she appeared enthusiastic and human. Often with Green Party folks you think they're going to have a monomaniacal focus on climate change and the environment, but no, Carla had more strings to her bow, including doing Wes Streeting's job for him. That Tory 70's dude kept mentioning that the Conservatives had raised NHS spending 'in real terms', Wes Streeting just let him get away with it, whereas Carla pointed out that all this meant was spending had increased with inflation but not with the demands of an ageing and increasing population. She also quite splendidly rebutted our next panellist who was...

Merryn Somerset Webb for Bloomberg news. You know when you take an instant dislike to someone and feel a bit bad about it because maybe you're allowing your prejudices to get the better of you but then they prove you right so you end up feeling smugly pleased with yourself? Well ironically by being gratuitously smugly pleased with herself Merryn managed to do that with me. The way she lounged, smirked and drawled raised my hackles and she spoke with the kind of absolute certainty that comes only with insanity, idiocy, or privilege. As a 'finance journalist' she made some decent points about doctor's pay structures over their careers but then descended into right wing dogma when it came to moving to renewable energy and got her arse well and truly handed to her by Carla above, who just happened to be an engineer who'd worked with renewables before becoming a Green politician so it wasn't even a competition.

For the Christian god we had John Sentamu. I like John, it's almost impossible not to he seems like such a splendid fellow. So all I'm going to say is I approved of his Ugandan proverb which involved elephant sex, other than that he was a bit like Grandpa Simpson. Not yelling at clouds but going off on weird tangents that were often difficult to follow.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

a brown velour sofa.

I must object. As a velour aficionado, especially when it comes to upholstery there is no way that's a velour sofa unless it's been horrifically abused.

Also boots with long socks pulled all the way up and shorts? Hell no.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anyway apologies for the state of that review but it really was a dull episode of QT and while I was trying to write it a bloke who lives upstairs knocked on my window because he was drunk and had lost his keys. Before you judge him like I did with Merryn he'd been to an open mike folk night and has had half his guts removed because of stomach cancer so he's not so good at taking his booze anymore. As I was letting him in and helping him up the stairs he was singing something (badly obviously) and laughing when I didn't know it.

I've now worked out what it was (maybe not this particular version but definitely the song).

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[refitman]

Thanks for the QT words Sky.