A load of pollock

Sainburys have renamed the delicious and sustainable fish, pollock, "colin". Customers were embarrassed to ask for pollock, apparently. So they're now using the French name for hake. Eh? Will they now rename cockaleekie soup "pete" after the latin word for stone? And presumably customers are not embarrassed to ask for the unsustainable and almost tasteless cod.

Yet another British human rights outrage

Is it me or has this country's record on human rights got worse in the last few years? As a loyal Guardian/Observer reader my grip on my newspaper, as I read it, has been turned very shaky by a long series of outrages in the last few years. The absolute scandal of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes was the tip of the iceberg. We've had the revoltingly supine attitude, and perhaps direct active involvement, of the British government to the US-led Iraq invasion, the Guantanamo jailings, rendition and torture. More recently we've had the uncovering of the brutal treatments allegedly meted out on an alleged regular basis by one of the Metropolitan Police's Territorial support units.

Now we hear that some poor sod ambled away from his job at a newsagent's and just happened to stumble into the middle of a riot and died of a heart attack following an apparent fall which has been allegedly attributed to an alleged 'assault' by police riot officers.

I don't have anything sensible to say about all this but I would like to register my utter disgust at this whole series of outrages.

Quite frankly, I'll send Jacqui Smith's husband a few tenners to watch a few more "adult movies". It matters not. What matters is that his wife and her colleagues appear to making a complete horlicks of their job. It appears that the "cure" they are giving us is worse than the disease.

It's Russell Brand's company, Vanity Projects, which should pay the BBC/Ofcom fine

A couple of days ago I railed against the idea of the licence fee payers stumping up the £150,000 fine for the Ross/Brand affair which the BBC has been asked to pay Ofcom.

I am delighted to see that several MPs, including our own Don Foster, LibDem Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, have called for Jonathan Ross to pay the fine. Foster has said:

This money should come out of Jonathan Ross's salary, so that broadcasting does not suffer as a consequence of this error.

I might add that the Radio Two programme on which the offending calls were made, was produced by a company called Vanity Projects which is partly owned by Russell Brand. As far as I know, that company was paid in full by the BBC for all its Russell Brand radio shows including the offending ones.

Wouldn't it be poetic justice if Vanity Projects stumped up some of the fine? After all, it was because of editorial decisions made (or, indeed, not made) by that company (which were not subsequently overturned by sufficient compliance control actions within the BBC) that led to the fine in the first place.

The Jury team and independence

The Jury Team have launched a sort of graphic video attacking Jacqui Smith's expenses record.

It is accompanied, in part, by this script:

We think that it is disgusting that a politician should seek to maximise the cash they can claim, whilst voting to keep that information private.
We think it is wrong for politicians to feather their nests at our expense, protected by the hierarchies of the political parties.
We think that politics would be better and cleaner if real people from outside of the political class became our elected representatives.

The problem with this attack on Jacqui Smith is that the Jury Team are becoming their own political party. How can someone be "independent" if they are being sucked into an attack on Jacqui Smith which is, for example, unaccompanied by an attack on Michael Ancram or the Wintertons, who have been equally suspect in their use of the MP's second home allowance?

And really, this stuff about "real people from outside of the political class". What unadulterated bilge! Surely the whole point of the MP's expenses rows is that have been revealed as "real people"?! And are they really saying that there is a "political class" and all MPs are members of it? If so, they are bonkers.

Don't get me wrong. Of course, I want to see more women and more people from more disparate ethnic backgrounds in parliament. But starting yet another political party under the pretence of an "independent" one is not the way to do it.

When the Jury Team sponsors its first raving Communist to be elected, I'll believe that it is truly independent.

Lookalike

Has anyone else noticed the remarkable resemblance between Her Majesty the Queen and the late Barbara Cartland?

Weren't they allegedly related?

Fine for Ross/Brand affair - the public pay the public

The BBC have been fined £150,000 by Ofcom over the Brand/Ross/Sachs affair.


Just think about that for a moment.


The BBC is funded by licence payers. So licence payers will stump up £150K to pay the fine.

So far, so good (although bad for the licence payers).

That money will not go to Ofcom. They can't accept money, apparently.


So that £150,000 will go to the Treasury, apparently.


So effectively, the money will go from the public to......er.....the public.

One gigantic great circular monetary merry go round, in other words.

And the point is?

Danged if I know.

If you think about it, the public who pay licence fees are not the same public who pay tax - although a Venn diagram of the two populations would show two virtually covering, mutually inclusive, circles.

But I suppose that there are probably a small number of people who pay the licence fee but don't pay tax. (Off the top of my head I can't think what kind of people these would be). They theoretically will be losing out, I suppose. Poor them.

I'm in the mood...

Coleen Nolan in search of the secret of eternal youth on ITV1 last night...I spent the first 30 minutes selecting a blunt, heavy object to throw at the telly as Ms Nolan toyed with the concepts of cosmetic surgery, laser butchery, botox etc.

Fortunately she came round at the end & plumped for (a) stop smoking and (b) be happy. The flat screen therefore survived until the next appearance by Piers Morgan (now there's a face I'd like to conduct surgery on...).

By the way, I think God was smiling on Coleen Nolan the day that squirt Shane Richie left her. Her new hubby seems a very good egg.