That evil bastard: Steel on The Sun on Brown

Mark Steel takes on the British press—or, more specifically, The Sun, a prominent, Murdoch-owned tabloid—for its efforts to bring down Prime Minister Gordon Brown:

You can forgive Mrs Janes anything, given the circumstances, but the Sun has made a front-page issue of this spelling business, claiming his tatty handwriting proves his lack of concern for soldiers, which seems a slight exaggeration. They might have had a point if he’d sent his condolences in the form of a limerick. Or if he’d sent a text with a grumpy face on it. Or if he’d reversed the charges when he made the call. But in the list of priorities when dealing with a war, accurate punctuation must come a fair way down. This is why, as far as I know, none of the First World War poets wrote “Worse than the crash of the shells sent to bomb us, General Haig writes a dash where he ought to put commas.”

Even so, the front page, then two more pages, then a page of the whole conversation, then a cartoon are dedicated to this story, and you can hear the whole taped call on a website. Tomorrow there’ll be an advert with a picture of a pouting woman in a nurse’s outfit, saying: “Ring 0898 600 500 to hear Naughty Naomi read out the whole letter with spicy spelling.”

The Sun has declared Mrs Janes “Mum at War,” and the poor woman is their weapon for the week for belittling Brown. If she’s not careful they’ll tie her into a deal like a record company, and she’ll be barred from displaying any grief or anger anywhere except by a Sun reporter, who will have full exclusive rights to print them, mash them into a dance track or whatever they fancy.

Yet strangely, they were the most enthusiastic supporters of the war in Afghanistan, even depicting politicians who opposed the war as wobbling jellies. You’d think that it might have occurred to them that this could involve an element of danger, what with wars in Afghanistan tending to fall a bit short when it comes to health and safety.

So now they protest the reason for the deaths is the lack of helicopters and suitable jackets, but they could suggest another method which could radically reduce the risks, which is to no longer fight the war at all, the major success of which has been to give Afghans the democratic right to not to vote for a corrupt leader in a fiddled election that’s re-run and cancelled.

I don’t know what to say. This whole thing seems so foreign. After all, we Americans don’t have a similar experience. You know, a news outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch in permanent campaign mode against political figures they don’t like? Politics may make strange bedfellows, but it also can define the idea of cognitive dissonance.

Run that by me again, please? No, wait, don’t.

From the “How does that work?” file, Alastair Taylor’s frightening tale out of Sheffield, England:

A vicar turned up in agony at a hospital — with a potato stuck in his bottom.
The clergyman told stunned casualty nurses he fell backwards on to his kitchen table while hanging curtains.

He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap ….

…. The spud was yesterday revealed to be among a litany of objects medics in Sheffield have removed from people’s nether regions.

Others include a can of deodorant, a cucumber, a Russian doll — and a carnation.

Like most of the other patients, the red-faced vicar insisted to staff at the city’s Northern General Hospital that his predicament was NOT the result of a sex game gone wrong.

A & E nurse Trudi Watson said: “He explained to me, quite sincerely, he had been hanging curtains naked in the kitchen when he fell backwards on to the kitchen table and on to a potato.”

And we thought the press was bad in America

And to think that we Americans complain about our press.

Sure, we have impotent anchors like Brian Williams, and tarted up “CNN babes”. And, of course, there is the ever-outrageous FOX News, but whether we yell and scream about corporate—or “establishment”—media, the liberal press conspiracy, or even Bush-era propaganda programs, I confess I’m stuck for finding something to compare with what I’m hearing from across The Pond. The inimitable Mark Steel explains the situation:

The Sun newspaper has come over a bit modest. Following a Channel 4 documentary about media reporting of Muslims, the paper accepts some of its stories were “distorted”. But they’re not doing themselves justice. They weren’t distorted – they were entirely made up. For example, a story about a Muslim bus driver who ordered his passengers off the bus so he could pray was pure fabrication.

But if reporters are allowed to make up what they like, that one should be disciplined for displaying a shocking lack of imagination. He could have continued, “The driver has now won a case at the Court of Human Rights that his bus route should be altered so it only goes east. This means the 37A from Sutton Coldfield will no longer stop at Selly Oak library, but go the wrong way up a one-way street and carry on to Mecca. Local depot manager Stan Tubworth said, ‘I suggested he only take it as far as Athens but he threatened a Jihad, and a holy war is just the sort of thing that could put a service like the Selly Oak Clipper out of business’.”

Then there was a story about “Muslim thugs” in Windsor who attacked a house used by soldiers, except it was another invention. But with this tale the reporter still claims it’s true, despite a complete absence of evidence, because, “The police are too politically correct to admit it.” This must be the solution to all unsolved crimes. With Jack the Ripper it’s obvious – he was facing the East End of London, his victims were infidels and he’d have access to a burqua which would give him vital camouflage in the smog. But do the pro-Muslim police even bother to investigate? Of course not, because it’s just “Allah Allah Allah” down at the stations these days.

Don’t bother reading this

Rare kudos to FOX News.

A German retiree is taking a hospital to court after she went in for a leg operation and got a new anus instead ….

The rest of that sentence, in fact, is, “the Daily Telegraph is reporting”. The FOX version is nothing more than a slightly edited—for vernacular—version of the Australian newspaper’s short article. But the thing is that I picked this up from David Schmader at Slog, who noted that The Sun had the better headline. Indeed, the British tabloid’s staff reporter simply edited the four sentences of the Australian version.

So let’s do a headline comparison:

• Daily Telegraph: “Pensioner gets bum’s rush on op”
• The Sun: “Leg op woman gets bum deal”
• FOXnews.com: “Woman Goes for Leg Operation, Gets New Anus Instead”

And, yeah. I have to go with the FOX headline. I mean, you don’t need to make any joke about it. The simple fact of the story is the joke. Well, sort of. As long as you’re not the pensioner who still needs the leg operation.

Well, that and even without the typographical omission, there’s something about the phrase, “Click hear Dr. Manny talk about medical errors” that strikes me just so. They ought to just give it up and go find themselves a doctor named Nick.

Art is ….

Strangely, the artist isn’t the biggest wanker of the bunch.

Controversial performance artist Jordan McKenzie, 40, has made 55 images by ejaculating over canvas and sprinkling carbon over the results to immortalise them ….

…. Father Kit Cunningham, of St Etheldredas Church in Clerkenwell, said: “All we can do is pray for the artist.”

The clergyman, based at the oldest Roman Catholic church in London, stressed: “The extraordinary thing is that someone actually thought it was art and put it on at his gallery.

“We are clearly dealing with a very mixed-up person.”

• • •

Update:

Sometimes, we respond in the moment and forego an opportunity to build something more complex than the base reaction, which may range from irony and mild amusement to shock and shuddering disgust. In this case, I went with mild amusement. And, I suppose, irony, as there seems something amiss to me about a Catholic priest—one whose livelihood depends on one of the largest creative endeavors in human history—denouncing something as unartistic.

That is, of course, the lazy route. Further consideration raises all manner of morbid questions. For answers, why not turn to the artist himself, or, at least, the Centre for Recent Drawing’s explanation of the exhibit, which opens as I write this, and runs through February 1:

During the last decade, McKenzie has produced a significant body of work that includes performance, installation, drawing and sonic art, all of which is notable for its brave and often shocking use of the body to explore taboo and push the boundaries of what is acceptable.

This latest series of drawings, collectively entitled Spent, is no less controversial. Referencing the universal themes of procreation and creativity, these works are produced using human bodily fluids: the artist ejaculates on a sheet of drawing paper and covers it with a layer of carbon dust. When dry, the excess dust is removed, leaving a black imprint of the spurted semen.

Signed and dated, the images collectively become an acknowledgment of human futility in the face of time as well as a violent record of male sexual drive. Caught and frozen as black-on-white eruptions, these simple auto-drawings plot desire, libidinal drive and sexual economies whilst powerfully evoking mortality and the will to overcome its inevitability. Each one has both an aggressive, chaotic imprint and a fragile delicacy that complement the medium, adding to the body of work by various artists that explores and articulates the notion of the artist as (pro)creator. On a more humorous level, they also subvert this, becoming an ironic take on the machismo of action painting by reframing it in a hyper-sexual manner.

On the upside, I suppose that’s more comprehensible than the guy walking ’round Britain with a rock.

Update: Velocipedephilia

It really is an awful price to pay for a bad joke. I had, earlier, asked what the hell was wrong with Scottish people. After all, it seemed a bit ridiculous to call the police simply because a man was having a go with his bicycle in a room at a hostel. I mean, it’s not like he was trying to get some from a mannequin at the local YMCA.

Anyway, The Sun reports that, according to Robert Stewart’s solicitor, “He thought he was having fun with the cleaners. He doesn’t think it’s funny any more.”

And, yes, I can see how wanking for shock value makes for a bad joke, but I still can’t believe this is something worth placing a guy on a Sex Offender Registry.

The question is still valid, though.

Poor, stupid bastard.