Someone should have told Rod Liddle - when you're in a hole, stop digging - UPDATED

Rod Liddle has written his reaction to the PCC's adjudication against him for inaccurate statements about the amount of crime committed by young black males, and it really does fit in the 'if you're in a hole, stop digging' category. His new blog post is 'A bizarre and incoherent adjudication' and at least one of the statements in it would deserve another complaint to the PCC.

Smellyface, Smel-lyface, what are they feeding you?

Smellyface, Smel-lyface, it's not your fau-ho-haullllt!

Ah, Smellyface. It is your fault, all the old cobblers that turns up in your column. You put it there. You've even admitted it a couple of times recently, saying somthing like, 'sometimes, even I can't make it up,' as if we won't notice that means most of the time you can, you tricky trickster.

PCC - Rod Liddle was inaccurate

Good news - the PCC has upheld a complaint against the Spectator for Rod Liddle's nasty little blog post last year on the grounds that it was inaccurate, which it was.

This time, rather than just sit behind the idea that Liddle is a columnist so nobody will believe a word he says anyway - the Spectator decided to defend Liddle by claiming his post was in fact accurate and offer some evidence in his support.

Dear Mr Daily Express website editor

Your most recent 'Have Your Say' question is 'Has the NHS become a free-for-all?'

That is the entire fucking point of the NHS.

Cheers,

5cc

How left wing papers help push people away from left wing politics

Imagine a new health and safety gone mad story started doing the rounds, but it was pretty obvious that the right wing papers were farting about to make things look more crazy than they were. Yeah, I know - you don't have to imagine it - but if there was a new one, how would you imagine the apparently left wing papers would handle it? The Guardian, after all, is responsible for publishing the excellent 'Conkers, goggles, 'elf 'n' safety? You really could make it up' in response to David Cameron blarting out a speech based on some of this cobblers.

Meme tune

Hey, Jamie at Blood & Treasure, Justin at Chicken Yoghurt and D-Notice at, uh, D-Notice have theme tunes for their blog. What a billiant idea to steal!

Here's what I wish the theme tune to Five Chinese Crackers was:



Here's the more sensible choice. The earlier one is the B-side or something:



You like my theme tune(s) innit? You like, yes?

Update - here's Anton Vowl's for Enemies of Reason.

They sure do grow up fast!

The Mail have been trying to make us frightened of babies for three years, with the first mention of an immigrant baby boom on the Mail website coming in March 2007's 'Immigrant  baby boom puts NHS under strain'.

Last August though, with immigration levels beginning to decrease, the paper needed a new hook to hang its scare stories on, and the baby boom made the front page for the first time in the front page on the left.

Richard Littlejohn is a ridiculous bozo

I always thought people pushing for racial profiling were just a little naive.  Did they really think that police and airport security don't already target people who fit racial profiles? 

But it seems I've misunderstood the argument, at least as it's presented by Britain's highest paid columnist and favourite bellowing oaf, Richard 'Smellyface' Littlejohn.

When tabloids want to whip up a moral panic but the facts just won't fit - and why what they do is bad

If you're looking to whip up a bit of fear and panic, you could do much worse than focus on new technologies your readers are unfamiliar with, especially if you can mix this in with the behaviour of young people, also unfamiliar with your readers.  Combine the sort of outrage and complete cluelessness of the early 1980s video nasty moral panic (which actually led to clumsy legislation banning movies like the Exorcist and the Evil Dead) with the teeth-clenchingly embarrassing attack on Emo subculture or the like and you've got a powerful tool for generating fear of something previously unknown.

Olympic dreaming

This morning I woke up in fits of giggles because I'd been dreaming that I'd been picked to appear at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.  For some reason, I hated the Olympics in the dream.  In real life I'm not that bothered.

That's not it.  Don't go away!