Ashes to Ashes

''Fame: puts you there where things are hollow'

It is something of a shame that the man who, even while assiduously courting it, regarded celebrity with a certain amused cynicism - "I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir" -  could not enjoy what has turned out to be a mass media hagiography of epic proportions (unless, of course, we have just collectively witnessed the pinnacle of a career dedicated to performance art; think of that 'Lazarus' video...).

While it was reasonable to recognise in a news broadcast the importance of his influence on popular culture, Radio 4's Today Programme went so far overboard it ended up effectively scraping the bottom of the ocean. A veritable host of callers popped up to describe even the most fleeting interactions with the star, while the programme itself turned into a rather trendier version of housewife's choice as enough exerpts from his records were played to make the copyright owners very happy indeed.

As the day wore on, endless interviewees from the music industry queued up to explain in lavish detail what Bowie meant to them personally and - more importantly - how he influenced their work. You can't blame them, I suppose; as always, behind each banal celebrity is a ruthless agent demanding that the client somehow shoehorn in a reference to his or her own latest opus.

As a culture, we seem to be experiencing some difficulties in adopting a suitable degree of response to the death of a well-known public figure. While the Victorians admittedly threw themselves into the whole business of mass mourning with unaccountable enthusiasm, the British attitude in general has traditionally been one of restraint - possibly because there were usually more important things to worry about like civil war, plague or taxes.

What we have seen this week is largely the product of a solipsistic media caste heavily influenced by their own personal priorities - the same phenomenon that produced the wall-to-wall coverage when Nelson Mandela died in 2013. It's all part of a growing trend towards collective sentimentality - remember 'the People's Princess'? - and an emphasis on the outward display of emotion, whether genuine or synthetic.

While I applaud the unseen hand that put Bowie on the PA system in my local shopping centre last week - infinitely better than the usual X-Factor warblings - and I may well play my CD of 'Ziggy Stardust' in the car this weekend (and sing along if there's no one listening), I see no reason to join in with a communal and irrational manifestation of grief played out to the extent that the mourning becomes in itself the news story.

There is a certain irony in the media descriptions of Bowie's quiet last months with his family and the private cremation interspersed with lurid accounts of candlelit vigils by tear-stained, elaborately-dressed fans (or, more correctly, fanatics). According to one paper, 'Rosie Lowery, 21, who painted her face with a lightning bolt in tribute, was crying as she laid flowers in Bowie's memory'; is it cynical to think that young Rosie's touching display may owe more to the omnipresent news cameras than to veneration of an ephemeral persona created twenty years before she was born?

Still, regardless of my views on conspicuous lamentation, I have to say that I have admired Bowie's musical and creative talent since I first heard 'Space Oddity' as a science fiction-obsessed teenager. Clearly I am not the only one for whom the song had a certain resonance - the internet sensation generated by Commander Chris Hadfield's performance suggests a sizeable intersection of enthusiasts (though it helped that Hadfield had already achieved online fame with his excellent tweet about having to wear a red shirt).

That being so, it is, perhaps inevitable that - and I've been saving this treat until last - there is an asteroid out there called David Bowie. It's not likely to be dropping by Earth any time soon but there's something rather agreeable about the idea of it sailing on eternally through the asteroid belt; perhaps, if online speculation proves correct, it will one day be joined out there in space by the cremated remains of the man himself.

Ironic posteriors and the Cotton-Spinners' Gazette

We have been musing this week on the topic of feminism. While this is territory already visited in the Tavern, the chance discovery of an article in the Guardian - where else? - has led to a certain boggling of minds.

It concerns a French artist and a series of drawings inspired by the work of one Nicki Minaj, a hip-hop artist whose performances are something of an eye-opener for those of us who had stopped watching music videos by the late 80s. Camille Henrot has 'reworked' the single 'Anaconda' into 'a piece of social commentary' described in vintage Guardian style:

One of the drawings is called 'My Anaconda Don’t' – a lyric repeated throughout the song. Each snaky, filigree-like ink line seems as if it's a riff on postcolonialism, adding up to a poignant collision of high art and pop culture.

Those of you who have been paying attention to the youth scene will doubtless know already that there was a public rift between Minaj and 'pop princess Taylor Swift' (nope; me neither) when the video of 'Anaconda' missed out on some kind of award. Minaj appears to have suggested it was 'cos she is black' but, having taken a look (here, if you really must - but don't say I didn't warn you), I can think of other reasons.

I can appreciate, for example, that Minaj wishes to ridicule the objectification of women, but I have to admit to some difficulty in seeing exactly how this is achieved by writhing around slathered in baby oil and pouting at the camera, patting the rear of a shapely bikini-clad dancer or crawling on all fours around a seated man, however ironic the intention.

“I like to think she created Anaconda to evoke criticism. She has abused the typical ‘black music-video girl’ archetype to the very end, to catch attention and create hate – if only so we too can realise our aversion to the sexualisation of women.”

Now I can't speak for the male of the species, but it seems to me that, presented with four and a half minutes of Minaj's ample and impressively mobile buttocks undulating in a variety of insubstantial garb alongside a quartet of equally callipygian acolytes, the response is not necessarily going to be "Goodness me; the objectification of women is a terrible thing!"

While the lyrics - as far as I understand them - are full of mordant, if crude, irony directed at men who judge women by their physical attributes, this message seems to have entirely escaped the visitors to a Las Vegas waxwork exhibition who amused themselves taking a variety of inventive and explicit pictures of each other with a replica of the singer depicted, mid-twerk, on all fours .

Henrot - along with, presumably the Guardian - is in no doubt, however, hailing Minaj as a feminist icon. In fact, the Guardian seems to have something of a Minaj obsession, which suggests that its journalists believe an oiled and gyrating posterior can have impeccable feminist credentials as long as it is intended ironically - it's a very long way indeed from the earnest articles I devoured back in my boiler-suit days.

As it happens, another issue altogether may be tipping the balance in Minaj's favour (a tip of the tricorn here to JuliaM); given the paper's perennial preoccupations, it is perhaps something of a giveaway that, even in the piece on Henrot's drawings, the critic manages to shoehorn in a load of post-colonial guilt for good measure.

In her new work, the elegant line drawings inspired by the sweatiest, most sexualised scenes from Minaj’s video play with the ghosts of colonialism and racial stereotyping in contemporary culture.

The Manchester Guardian as was - there's nothing quite like it!


(If you did watch the video, you might enjoy this parody as an antidote.) 

Invasion of the Brummie Snatchers

There's proof today, it if were needed, that the silly season is well under way. A Freedom of Information request by staff at a Banbury newspaper (who surely have better things to do) has revealed a fascinating fact:

It may sound out of this world but Thames Valley Police has dealt with 15 reports of aliens in just four years.

This includes sightings in Milton Keynes, Oxford, High Wycombe and Chipping Norton, where 'residents claimed to have spotted little green men twice'.

Here at the Tavern, we like to keep an eye out for tales of visitors from beyond the void, particularly since I was one of a number of people who saw an unexplained object in the sky over rural Scotland one night in the mid-70s. (Occam's razor - always a useful tool when dealing with the paranormal - suggests it was a prototype drone from a nearby military base).

According to the news article,

Back in 2007, UFO expert Michael Soper claimed the Thames Valley area was becoming an alien hotspot.

Which is quite odd, because back in March, Birmingham Mail readers were told....

Back in 2010, UFO expert Richard Lawrence claimed Birmingham was becoming an alien hotspot.

,,,in an article beginning:

It’s out of this world – West Midlands Police has dealt with 23 reports of ALIENS in just four years.

Spooky! Or, alternatively*, lazy journalism; "It's summer, half the staff are off on holiday and we need a front-page article by midday on Tuesday - see if you can nick a piece from someone else's archives".

It's not even as if Thames Valley can compete with Birmingham's grand total of 23 sightings:

Three of the cases concerned alien abduction plots while two others claimed attacks were mounted by extra terrestrials. 

Four more were reports of people talking to or hearing aliens, while the majority – 14 – were sightings of little green men.

According to the police, five were registered as false alarms and advice was given in three cases - sadly, the report does not say what it was, although I'm guessing it had something to do with laying off the illegal substances - leaving fifteen presumably unaccounted for; heady stuff for local UFO enthusiasts.

I'm particularly intrigued by the 'alien abduction plots'; I must admit that I am having some difficulty anyway with the idea of the West Midlands as a point of first contact, and why extra-terrestrials would want to make off with the locals there, as opposed to, say, CERN (assuming their intentions are intellectual) or their usual remote rural USA (for more fundamental purposes) is more than a little baffling.

Surely they would be better off in Chipping Norton, where it would actually make sense to say, "Take me to your leader".


*Unless, of course, it is an orchestrated campaign for an as-yet-undisclosed purpose and we are being softened-up by advertisers (or aliens).

Polishing a Turd

Like that last clinging smear on the shoe you thought you had meticulously cleaned, serial bus-stop Lothario Keith MacDonald has this week made another public reappearance.

It seems that, since he was last in the news, his attempts to turn the Sunderland gene pool into a cesspit have continued unabated; the tally of his alleged offspring now stands at 15 or 16 which, in tabloid terms, officially entitles him to the epithet 'feckless'.

It also means that he qualifies to take part in Channel 5's latest freak show along with a collection of similarly fecund specimens dredged up from the Jeremy Kyle standby roster. However, if the Mail - don't go there; it's horrible! - is anything to go by, his usual modus operandi of chatting up women (and occasionally impregnating them) on buses doesn't seem to be working any more:

He says he finds it hard to meet new women because of his reputation in Sunderland and is shown in the programme going to Birmingham to 'pull girls'.

...despite his most recent partner being heavily pregnant, he tells programme-makers he is still desperate to meet new women - and is even shown trying to chat up love interests at a bus stop.

I'm not entirely sure what this televisual feast is intended to achieve but it raises the appalling and very real possibility that MacDonald may launch a media career from it and, worse, that having appeared on TV may even enhance his appeal to the less discriminating single female.

Since he currently has nothing to offer the lucky lady apart from the occasional go on his X-box, any further reproductive activity will add to the burden his progeny currently place on the taxpayer. Moreover, if his children share their parents' casual attitude to conception, the fact that the older ones are now in their teens will surely compound the problem in the near future.

In the run-up to the election, politicians take note: a system of benefits and tax credits, to say nothing of housing allocation, that allows MacDonald to pursue his self-indulgent, exploitative, idle lifestyle while a dozen forsaken young women bring up his children at public expense is surely a system broken beyond repair.

"It's much too dangerous to keep that plant alive..."

Run for your lives!

Flowers deadly enough to kill humans were reportedly planted in a public park by a group of well-meaning girl guides.

It's the perfect B-movie scenario - the innocent youngsters unwittingly sowing the seeds of humanity's doom, the plant that attacks without mercy...

As well as death it can also cause stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, dizziness, weakness and slow breathing.

...and, of curse, the plucky hero who tries to tell the world that the attractive flowers hide a terrible threat to mankind:

They were only discovered to be dangerous when curious photographer Mike McKee alerted authorities on August 14.

Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Or, alternatively, consider that this is the corn-cockle, agrostemma githago, a feature of the British countryside for centuries and, until modern farming methods changed the agricultural landscape, a common plant in the wheat-fields from which it derives its name.

The RHS even gives helpful advice on how to cultivate the corn-cockle, 'an upright annual to 75cm, with narrow grey-green leaves and open funnel-shaped magenta-purple flowers 5cm across in summer', and sells the seeds on its website.

So why the panic? Well, it appears we have our intrepid hero to thank for that:

‘I looked in my flower book and it said these were scant and very rare, so I did a bit more research on them. When I Googled them I found out they could be deadly.’

Deathly peril from an unlikely source? Internet stories spreading unnecessary panic? You've guessed it; step forward the Daily Mail:

The flower that can kill: Deadly British plant thought to be extinct is discovered by a lighthouse (16th July 2014)

How confusing English prepositions can be! The plant was actually found by a National Trust assistant ranger who clearly hadn't read the Mail's script:

'I have never seen one before. I am delighted. If it disperses, we might get a small population of them which would be great.'

The RHS spokesman wasn't exactly on message either:

'They are poisonous and harmful - but as long as you wash your hands thoroughly you should be okay.'

Still, why let the details get in the way of a good headline? Thus this once-commonplace plant becomes a threat and its presence in a public park a matter for reporting to 'the authorities'. Predictably enough,

...after being alerted by Mr McKee earlier this month, contractors quickly moved in to remove the plants before they could seed.

But Mr McKee and the Mail will surely not stop as long as our gardens contain such murderous predators as aconite, bluebell, celandine, daffodil, euphorbia, foxglove, hellebore, hyacinth, laburnum, laurel, lily-of-the-valley, lupin ....

Burn them! Burn them all!

Quote of the day - 'not now!'

Before we finally leave the Torquay Herald Express, this story caught my eye:

BREAKING NEWS: Child and parent stuck in mud

The emergency services are working together to rescue a young child, and what is understood to be a parent, who are both stuck in mud at Combeinteignhead near Newton Abbot.

The reporter was clearly quick off the mark but this is 21st-century journalism; rather than racing to the scene, he or she seems to have set about phoning around for quotes while the rescue was going on.

The first source was a fruitful one:

A spokesman for the police said...“The fire service have launched a raft on the river and are pulling them out.”

...but things went downhill from there: the Fire Service wouldn't comment because of industrial action and the local pub denied any involvement, which is fair enough, and finally I invite you to consider the unspoken subtext behind:

...the coastguard confirmed they were involved but were too busy to give further details.

Quote of the week - small town life

In the great tradition of local newspapers reporting non-events, this story hit the headlines last week:

Naked woman photo call shocks onlookers at Banbury’s Fine Lady statue

At around noon a woman was spotted sitting next to a man with a camera by Banbury’s iconic statue when she suddenly removed her summer dress and stood naked as the photographer took a series of snaps.

The statue is something of a red herring here; a quick glance at the handy, if blurred, accompanying photo - her companion was evidently not the only one taking pictures - shows the photographer sitting with his back to the equestrian artwork to capture his subject against the scenic backdrop of a main road.

There is something endearingly 'let's-put-the-show-on-right-here-in-the-barn' about the whole thing, from her utilitarian footwear to the choice of location - though that didn't stop a concerned citizen reporting them to Thames Valley Police (who must have been delighted at this addition to their workload).

According to an eye-witness who saw it from his office window, it "lasted probably about three minutes" - during which he clearly wasn't getting any work done - before, as he put it,

"She put her dress back on then went up near the dentists and did it again. Just another day in Banbury!"

(Fans of Giles cartoons may appreciate this one from 1970 on a similar subject (the zoom feature might be helpful))

Back again!

So... I've opened the shutters and removed the worst of the dust in Tavern following a short absence; did anything important happen while I was away?

Certainly the election seems to have produced a predictable crop of nannying politicians telling us that the voters who failed to succumb to their blandishments and voted UKIP didn't really mean it  - "It's not big and it's not clever" - and Man's myriad inhumanities to Man (and Woman) continue, alas, unabated.

One thing that turns out not to be happening is the future impact of a 10-mile-wide asteroid, a headline which caused a media sensation on CNN's citizen journalism website:

"The asteroid is calculated to have a potentially lethal encounter with the Earth on March 35, 2041 [sic]"

Now, of course, the news story is 'Earth NOT to be hit by killer asteroid', which takes reporting of non-events to a whole new level. The whole thing appears to be the result of an enterprising hoax combined with lax editing at weekends.

Those of an apocaholic disposition who find themselves unaccountably bereft as a result can take small comfort in the fact that today brings a bumper crop of near-Earth approaches - six known ones in all - ranging from the 'big and far away' 2014 GD45, several hundred metres wide, to the diminutive 2014 KC45 passing a mere 80-odd thousand miles above our heads.

Five of these are recent discoveries, courtesy of new, improved surveillance. The recent spate of newly identified space rocks has been so dramatic that it has - mirabile dictu! - even brought about the return of Lembit Opik to the asteroid fold (and thence to a call for Clegg to resign; the leopard definitely hasn't changed his spots).

This is cheering news; although it appears Opik has been keeping the flame alight on the speaker circuit, he has, of late, been more active in other spheres when celestial bodies have hit the news. Perhaps his ill-fated foray into dog-show judging has finally convinced him where his true métier lies.

Despite the increase in the numbers, we still aim to drink to every near miss, which makes this evening something of a gala occasion; you are very welcome to pour yourself a drink (or six) and join me in a toast to tonight's clutch of space rocks.

Cheers!

I damn' well hope it can!

From - where else? - the Daily Mail:

Boom time for beetroot, the new superfood: Sales up 20% in four years after claims root vegetable can help treat bloody pressure and boost athletic performance

The old ones are always the best

From this morning's Oxford Mail:

Big hole appears in road: Engineers looking into it

7:00am Tuesday 8th April 2014 in News

Vital Statistics

(c) Matt Pritchett (The Daily Telegraph) 2006

In the high-and-far-off times when satellite television was so new and all, a bunch of people in offices looked at the healthy sales figures for the first few months and decided that the entire UK population would be sitting down to Sky TV within a decade.

Instead, after an initial surge, the take-up rate slowed dramatically, throwing their business strategy into chaos. While the gadget-minded, the sports-obsessed and the 'frequent flyers' immediately installed their heart's desire and settled down to marathon viewing sessions, a fair proportion of the population went about its business largely unmoved by the visual cornucopia on offer and steadfastly refused to buy.

Some, in fact, actively opposed the idea and do to this day; while Sky Arts won over a few die-hard snobs, there are still plenty of people out there who view satellite dishes in much the same way that a 13th century villager might regard the cross painted on his plague-stricken neighbour's door.

The advent of Freeview has rendered the matter essentially academic, but the same false logic now appears to be applied to the obesity 'time-bomb'. Those not-so-clever chaps crunching the numbers forgot to factor in the inevitable weight increase with age, so they have revised their figures amid much media fanfare and emotive language:

"We're now seven years on from the Foresight Report. Not only is the obesity situation in the UK not improving, but the doomsday scenario set out in that report [that half the UK population will be obese by 2050] might underestimate the true scale of the problem."

History and literature show that, except in times of famine, Britain's population has always included some people who are overweight, a few grossly so. Today's abundant grazing opportunities, combined with medical advances that have dramatically reduced child mortality among mothers in poor health, mean that the descendants of those people may well form a large proportion of those now giving cause for concern.

Whatever the reason for their state, whether nature or nurture, it's unlikely that the seriously overweight are distributed evenly throughout the population, however much the statisticians think they ought to be. While some individuals - and families - have piled on the pounds, most of us have for years had the same opportunities to eat ourselves to a standstill and have manifestly not done so.

Today's environment, with unprecedented access to cheap fast food and a sedentary lifestyle, may have contributed to some people gaining excessive weight, but does that really mean that the rest of us are bound to follow?


Update: this news story has been brilliantly satirised by Mark Wadsworth, while Longrider questions the motives of the National Obesity Forum.

Step away from the sherbet!

"I don't want my children exposed to these traders."

It's the oft-repeated protest of a concerned parent, though the subject in this case might come as a surprise to those of us old enough to remember the school tuckshop.

With obesity rates among children soaring, sweet-sellers outside schools have been labelled irresponsible. 

Nottingham City Council is considering banning them from streets around three schools.

It appears that some enterprising chaps have taken to turning up outside schools with vans selling sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks, which has stirred up a hornets' nest of healthy eating issues, road safety and discipline. According to one parent:

"My children also say they have heard that some students are often late to classes, as the trader will always stay until the last student is there."

That one, at least, is in the school's court, always assuming that The Powers That Be have left staff with sufficient disciplinary sanctions to deal with persistent willful lateness. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, has gleefully seized on the story and found itself a suitably emotive quote from another parent:

"To me, it’s no different than a drug dealer peddling drugs to addicts."

It is highly opportune that this story should turn up at the same time as a mass media condemnation of sugar consumption - a phenomenon tackled with panache by Leg-Iron and passion by Longrider. It's difficult to tell, amid the feeding frenzy of diet advice, 'expert' opinion and fake charity opportunism, exactly who is jumping on whose bandwaggon, but the issue has produced a startling degree of unanimity in the chorus of disapproval.

And it may be a deduction too far, but is it really a coincidence that this onslaught has coincided with media focus on the West Indian slave trade and the ill-gotten economic benefits derived by Britain from the resulting sugar industry, along with a demand that both should feature in the school curriculum?

Today's schoolchildren will be bombarded with anti-sugar slogans and carefully-designed PSHE programmes to demonstrate the risks - look how well it's worked with drugs! - and an army of state-funded busybodies will doubtless swing into action writing stern health warnings to accompany 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Mary Poppins'.

Just as the Temperance movement indulged in flights of hyperbole in its portrayal of the 'demon' drink, the Righteous are rushing to attribute a plethora of ills past and present to the consumption of a legal substance which most of the population manages to use without ill effects. There is more than a a whiff of religious fervour in what is clearly seen by its proponents as a moral crusade.

Under the circumstances, I suppose it's hardly surprising that selling sweets to children has produced such a dramatic overreaction.

'Oh what a circus! Oh what a show!'

Picture the scene, if you will; it is a Thursday evening in the mid-1980s in the home of a venerable seat of learning, and the smallest bar in town is hosting 'Red Shift', the weekly club night of University Left.

This political umbrella group embraces socialists of every hue, from earnestly myopic Fabians in ethnic scarves to donkey-jacketed hard-line Trotskyites, and this is where they all go to let their hair down among like-minded souls. It's not always easy - men can't ask women to dance because it upsets the feminists ('Don't you oppress me!') and, in any case, nobody wants to look as if they are having fun and ignoring the suffering millions.

But one thing is certain; as the strains of one particular track fill the room, the tiny dancefloor will suddenly be packed. This is the spiritual communion; the seemingly disparate united in song and dance, exhorting a detested regime to 'Free-ee Nelson Mandela'.

For three short minutes, everyone there is an honorary black South African, sharing the pain of an oppressed people and shouting their cause to the rooftops. The true cognoscenti alternate the lyric with 'Free Walter Sisulu', smugly demonstrating - albeit to the already converted - that their knowledge goes further than a mere song title.

It is, of course, compulsory; no one would dare sit this one out and risk the accusing looks and the taint of indifference to the cause or, worse, potential racism. It is the anthem that defines a generation of socialists, a manifestation of their political credentials as much as a genuine expression of belief.

This, I believe, is what is at the root of the BBC's all-encompassing coverage of Mandela's death, a juggernaut so unstoppable that it displaced not only the usual Friday night TV comedies but even the harmlessly soporific 'Book at Bedtime' on Radio 4.

For those 1980s left-wing undergraduates, the ecstatic unity of purpose evoked by 'Free Nelson Mandela' may well have provided their closest approach to a  religious experience, now imbued with an added glow of nostalgia for their gilded youth and the heady days of revolution and camaraderie.

Given the number of them who must now be in influential positions in the media, the extent of the coverage was surely as inevitable as the response to a Pavlovian dinner-bell.


As a remedy, for those weary of the crass media bombardment,  I heartily recommend the elegantly satirical prose of Caedmon's Cat.

And in other news...

...nah, only joking!

What, you wanted to know about the biggest storm surge since 1953 and the thousands evacuated from their homes? Or the Al-Qaida bombing in the Yemen that killed 52 people including foreign medical personnel? Or even the latest on the Chancellor's Autumn Statement?

Tough! You'll have to wait while the BBC wheel out dozens of carefully-prepared tributes - he's been ailing a  long time - and chat to studio guests who spoke to Nelson Mandela for thirty seconds in 1996. I fully expect Charlie Dimmock to pop up any minute now to discuss his taste in herbaceous borders.

And then you'll have to sit patiently while every major politician on Earth seizes the chance of some reflected glory with some well-chosen words of tribute - naturally Tony Blair has come rushing out of the woodwork to bestow his wisdom upon us - and a host of BBC reporters add their own experiences of reporting on the struggle against Apartheid.

I don't mean to belittle the achievements of the man who managed the seemingly impossible - though there seems to be a certain amount of glossing over some elements of his past ideology and an interestingly laconic treatment of Winnie - and, as Donne said, 'Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind', but why this hagiography to the exclusion of all other news?

He is, after all, no less of a significant historical figure than he was last week or will be a century hence. His death simply provides a convenient hook to which the media can attach everything accumulated to his account in one giant package, at least until the the broadcast tributes themselves become the story.

Which is, presumably, the whole idea.

Update; if you haven't already done so, I urge you to visit Velvet Glove, Iron Fist for a beautifully-curated collection of self-serving tweets on the subject.

Quotes of the day

First, a headline from the BBC, whose staff really ought to be able to proof-read:

Plymouth student talks of

drink-drinking regret

We can all identify with that, I think. And secondly this, from a 'close friend' of Blair on the rumours concerning Wendi Deng:

“I believe Tony. He would never do such a thing and he is not a liar.”

Admittedly it's from the Mail, which is doing its utmost to fan the non-existent flames of conflict. To be honest, it looks as if its staff are letting their collective imagination run away with them.

A sensational note written by Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng that reveals she had a ‘crush’ on Tony Blair has been found, it was revealed last night.

The idea that Ms Deng would sit down and write a note to herself expressing 'warm feelings' for Blair and then leave it lying around for staff to find is so preposterous that it could surely originate only in the fevered brain of a Mail journalist, unless, of course, the woman herself has lost all reason.

There. Could. Never. Be. Enough. Popcorn.

Yes. I know we've heard it before, but, mining its usual vein of news-that-isn't-news, the Mail has brought up a story which has a certain fascinating potential:

Relations between Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair have collapsed over reports of Mr Blair’s friendship with the media mogul’s ex-wife, Wendi Deng.

The paper's anonymous sources claim that Ms Deng and Mr Blair stayed overnight together at several of Murdoch's homes without his knowledge, leaving the Mail to do its best to fan the flames of back-stairs gossip into a full-blown partisan feud.

The protestations of friends and allies provide have a certain piquant interest but - and I suspect it's what the Mail journalists are secretly hoping - these may yet prove to be mere appetisers for the main event.

You see, whether or not his wife believes that he actually strayed - one assumes she knew where he was all the time (though I can't imagine that protestations of innocence carry much weight from the mouth of a consummate politician) - there must surely be a temptation to react with hostility towards any perceived interloper, however slight the incursion.

We know that Mrs Blair is a woman of strong personality and events at the Leveson enquiry suggest that Ms Deng, too, is a force to be reckoned with (and, perhaps relevantly, a newly-single woman who acquired both her husbands through extra-marital affairs).

So far, the principal actors in this drama - unlike their alleged allies - have maintained a dignified silence; should it be broken, this would surely be a conflict of epic proportions - Alien v. Predator on stilts.

And there would, it has to be said, be more than a little entertaining irony in two women, who have, in their separate ways, gained much indirect material benefit from the dubious practices of spin, PR and the media, finding their own private feud laid bare for the masses.

Geology fail

From, of course, the Mail...

Europe's largest and most volatile volcano Mount Etna spews molten lava from the earth's core thousands of feet above the Sicilian countryside



...but then, why let the facts get in the way of a spectacular headline?

Result!

From today's Mail, a seasonal vignette composed entirely of headlines:

• Woman wielding fake knife handed trick or treat children real lamb's heart when they knocked on her door
• Children ran away screaming when they realised the heart was real
• Nine to 12-year-olds were chased by woman wearing blood-stained apron
• Angry father confronted woman who said it was a 'bit of fun'

and finally...

• Mother says her children will not be allowed trick or treating again

It all sounds to me rather like going on the ghost train at the fair then demanding your money back because the ride was haunted.

Like David Duff, I have to say, I'm impressed by the thoroughness of the preparation involved:

'a table set out outside the woman's home was adorned with raw cuts of meat, as well as offal, including intestines'

In fact, I like the story so much that I think the householder should be the Tavern's Toast of the Week.

Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses to the scourge of trick-or-treaters; I give you...

...the Butcher of Orpington and her Table of Woe!

Apocalypse 2032

So, once again, we are in, as our transatlantic cousins would say, a 'non-zero impact probability situation'.

This is, of course, our new friend 2013 TV135, a 1,300' wide hunk of rock whizzing about the solar system which was spotted last month.

The news has, predictably enough, sent the tabloids into overdrive:

Nasa admit huge asteroid could destroy Earth in just NINETEEN years (Star)

and

Huge asteroid 'will hit earth in 2032' claim astronomers (Express)

Which, once you have eliminated the inevitable hyperbole, translates as 'current  observations indicate a 1 in 19,000 chance of striking the Earth in 2032' - those observations providing just ten days' worth of data so far.

What seems to have got everyone so excited is the announcement that TV135 has been given a rating of 1 on the Torino scale, one of only two in that classification at present.

And even that, when you get down to the detail, isn't quite as exciting as it sounds; the scale goes from 0 to 10, and 1 - 'Normal' - doesn't even make it into the yellow zone, let alone orange or red:

A routine discovery in which a pass near Earth is predicted that poses no unusual level of danger. Current calculations show the chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern. New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to Level 0.

Still, why let the details get in the way of a good headline? It's a tabloid editor's dream; too far into the future to spark a mass panic but threatening enough to create a sensation.

It would be pleasant to think that this major global threat - even if it exists largely in the minds of sensation-hungry journalists - might bring about a radical improvement in behaviour and provide humanity with a new sense of purpose, but I suspect much of what we laughably call civilization is too far gone for that.

When the idea of impending doom took hold in plague- and war-ravaged 14th-Century Europe, society polarised into religious fanaticism and hedonism, some groups becoming ever more extreme in asserting their own religious superiority while others descended into a last-ditch Bacchanalian frenzy.

Somehow, we seem to have got to that stage before the threat arrived.

"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching."

Some news stories are just crying out for the treatment...

(photo: Sky News)

One man on his own

Opposed to radiation,

One man and his dog

Made a demonstration.

Angry Iain Dale

Flushed with indignation

Fought the one man and his dog

Who made a demonstration.

Then the mainstream press

Depicted for the nation

Iain Dale fighting one man and his dog

Who made a demonstration

Photographers all round

Filmed the confrontation

For reports of Iain Dale fighting one man and his dog

Who made a demonstration.

The comments flooded in;

Political exploitation

Of the photos and reports of Iain Dale fighting one man and his dog

Who made a demonstration

Blogs were swift to add

Trenchant observation

On the comments on the photos and reports of Iain Dale fighting one man and his dog

Who made a demonstration.

When you're in the public eye,
Whatever your frustration,

Take a lesson from the posts on the comments on the photos and reports of Iain Dale fighting one man and his dog 

And the media sensation*.


*Unless, of course, that was the whole aim of the exercise - how far will a publisher go to create interest these days?