Bulgarian government, Bulgarian TV station or British Sunday tabloid?

On last night's BBC Question Time, Diane James of UKIP claimed that a Bulgarian government survey showed that 56% of Bulgarians have said they want to move to the UK. 

This instantly sounded fishy to me. Last month, the Sunday Express said that 54% of Bulgarians wanted to come to the UK after it took UKIP's Paul Nuttall to Bulgaria on a fact finding mission. The paper claimed the figures came from a survey by Bulgarian TV station bTV. The Daily Star on Sunday reported the figure at 55%, leaving out mention of any source. These are probably the same numbers Diane James was talking about, since her leaflet mentions 4 million Bulgarians like the Express article.

Toby Young - not much better than Delingpole

A while ago now (although it was in my last post here) I looked at a James Delingpole column and went through the logical fallacies I spotted in it. I think I got most of them.

In it, I mentioned Toby Young, one of the other big professional Gumbys who earns at least some of his living spouting nonsense the media thinks someone should be representing, even if it's an idiot with a knotted hanky and wellies on standing in the middle of a field.

For larks, I decided to do the same thing with Young's latest Telegraph blog* as I did with Delingpole's and go through the logical fallacies. I must just miss the rock n roll lifestyle.

James Delingpole - not very good

A few weeks ago, I joined the Blocked by James Delingpole club on Twitter. It's not a very select club, it must be said. The criteria for entry seems to be disagreeing with him, whether or not you use the sort of colourful language I did. You can even get in if your name's not down and you're wearing jeans and trainers.

Delingpole is one of those professional Gumbys that are employed because they represent a point of view that people in the media feel needs to be expressed by someone, even if it's an idiot in wellies and a knotted hanky standing in a field expressing it in a stupid voice.

My journey into mucky books, with Cagney & Lacey

Mucky books, mucky books (ooh mucky books)

Mucky books, mucky books (ooh mucky books)

Mucky books, mucky boo-hooo-hoooks

Mucky books, mucky books (uh huh ha, uh huh ha!)

- Darts (except not quite)

Some recent tweets and a post by Steve Baxter at the New Statesman have made me think about mucky books. I hardly ever think about mucky books these days, but typing this right now is making me do a Sid James style 'phwooar!' at my keyboward.

Phwooar!

Frumpy A-Levels! 5 bits of advice for those who didn't do so well

Via the late sexyalevels

So, today was A-Level results day. If you picked up a newspaper you'd have seen the pictures of pretty girls jumping that decorate the occasion like tinsel at Christmas. Look at them, all excited because they got what they want. Aren't they lucky?

But not everyone's so lucky. You won't see any pictures of kids whose results look more like the name of a well known cable news channel thinking 'shit, what do I do now?' in the papers.

If you were one of those people today, you're not alone. I experienced A-Level results day three times. At none of them did I jump for joy outside the front of my school. So here's some friendly advice from some twat who has a blog and is desperately trying to fight off incipient middle-aged spread. Like a boss.

No offence

I told my first ever joke in front of an audience when I was eight years old. I was at my mate's ninth birthday party, and all the other kids had gone home with their parents. We were the only kids left, and our parents and aunts and uncles were busy boozing in the dining room while the two of us watched The Two Ronnies and something I think was The Comedians in the front room, until we thought we'd go and wow the grownups with the jokes we'd just seen. It was going to be great.

The more things change...

Hey, did you know one of the classic tabloid PC Gone Mad urban legends had cropped up again recently? I had no idea, but a couple of months ago, the old favourite 'can't even sing Baa Baa Black Sheep any more' story got a brand new airing in the Daily Mail.

There's something new in this latest version. I hope you're sitting down for this, because it might be a bit shocking for you. Ready?

This time, the Mail reports the story honestly. Well, almost.