Reversal of Fortunes for Von Bulow

'Optimist of the Year' goes to whoever wrote the copy at the bottom of this BBC News story about the death of society hostess Sunny Von Bulow.

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She was 76 years old and had been in a coma since 1980. It's not impossibly, but it's unlikely many of her contemporaries would be spending their time reading an internet news page. What this shows is the point at which the mission to engage with audiences collides with the fear of encouraging libellous comments from the public. The BBC is expected to provide a forum for all their content, yet doesn't want to risk someone posting a message along the lines of 'I seen the film and he definately dun it.'

I saw the film too. Back in 1990 I saw about 75 films at the cinema, plus hundreds more at home. I'd finish work at 2.00 on Friday and rush to see a film at the arthouse cinema, or one of the less glitzy flicks at the Odeon. Then another film at the early evening showing before meeting friends for the main evening screening of the latest blockbuster. I seem to remember I saw this one with a particular friend, which means I saw it on a Tuesday.

Odd what I remember. Alan Silver played the lawyer on whose book the film was based, wearing a big curly wig.

Interestingly, the vultures at Wikipedia have already swooped to update their page on Sunny. There's something quite morbid about someone rushing to the internet the second they hear of someone's death.

oh...

And Today's Biggest Gobshite is...

... Sky News who, reporting on the idiotic decision by Radio 1 to censor 'Fairytale in New York' by Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues, wrote:

"MacColl died at the age of 41 the same year when she was hit by a speedboat while diving during a holiday in Mexico."


I'm pretty certain she died the same minute she was hit by a speedboat, you insensitive fuckers.

A Bit of Politics

So, they've finally hanged Saddam Hussein, which might mean that news reporters stop copying the Americans in the way they pronounce his name. It was a deliberate policy of the Americans to pronounce his name with short vowels because (so some expert said a few years back) it means 'bastard' that way, whereas the pronunciation with the long vowels means 'honoured leader' or something.

Some woman's just been on the news and she began her insightful commentary by saying 'Since Saddam Hussein's passing...'. PASSING? You're on the news, not the parish mother's union. He's not a deceased elderly relative. He didn't PASS, he was executed. Talk like a grown-up, you soft cow.


And that's all I have to say on the matter.

A Week in Politics

I'm dipping out of the 'past life' and into this one for a bit. Last weekend, a whale swam up the Thames splashed around for a day and then died, largely (I suspect) to piss off those lovely people trying to haul its onto a floating platform to get it out of there (a bit like my friends trying to get me into a cab after a night on the lash). So, then the press begins to speculate why the whale died.

Durrr - it was swimming in the Thames! With the needles and used rubbers and the poo!

Then we had Celebrity Big Brother, where the winner was a non-celebrity who two days in was already more famous than four of the other eleven. He might be cruel, grotesque and merciless, but for my money Pete Burns was an absolute winner. The first evictee ever to *get* that the boos should be encouraged, not feared; who knew that being funny and dramatic made for better television than being 'a nice person' (catch yerself on, Traci Bingham); and who gave us such wonderful phrases as '[Traci's extensions] look like Tina Turner's arse hairs' and '[to Rula Lenska] You're just a dried-up old husk' and '[to pretty much everyone] You get right up the crack of my arse' (meaning 'you're a little annoying today'). Pete, we love ya, and we agree that You Spin Me Round has been done to death. But Lover Come Back to Me and In Too Deep should be rereleased NOW!

And then this morning I received a lovely DVD box-set through the post - Doctor Who: The Beginning. 13 episodes of lovely, restored black-and-white clunky TV that kick-started the most important cultural event to have touched my life.

Or to put it another way, we're still trying to work out whether this was the cause of my degree of autism or just a symptom of it.