Cheryl Cole Off To USA

Cheryl Cole is off to the US of A to appear as a judge on the new X-Factor although that pesky ABH charge against her may prove to be a sticking point when it comes to filling out her work visa.
Cheryl was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2003 for pummelling toilet attendant Sophie Amogbokpa at a nightclub after Mrs Amogbokpa stopped her from taking some lollipops.
She was sentenced to 120 hours of community service and ordered to pay her victim £500 in compensation. The judge told her 'This was an unpleasant piece of drunken violence which caused Sophie Amogbokpa pain and suffering. You showed no remorse whatsoever'.
Mrs Amogbokpa told how the singer had racially abused her while punching her but the charge of racial assault was thrown out of court because the witness spoke to the press before court so it was discredited.
The US Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual states that a visa application will be turned down if the consular officer has reason to believe that the applicant has 'committed a crime involving moral turpitude' which includes assault and causing serious bodily harm.
I am sure that a little thing like an ABH conviction will not stop Cheryl from appearing on American television over the next few years and maybe even lip-syncing to her latest release as she did here while critiquing other peoples singing.
If she does, as expected, get through the visa application stage she still has that deep Geordie accent to scupper it for her.
Fellow Geordie's Ant & Dec were told by American network bigwigs that their speech was 'incomprehensible' when they tried to crack the US market in 2007 with game show Wanna Bet? and biffer Cole's accent is stronger than either of theirs.
Whatever happens to her, and i can't pretend that i particularly care, we can be sure that dear, fragile, brave Cheryl will always be a hit here in the UK. Here and in nightclub toilets.

North Korea And Prince Andrew

The Wikipedia leaks were supposed to be making the American leadership uncomfortable but it seems there may be a few backsides shuffling uneasy on seats in Beijing and Pyongyang tonight.
China seems to be distancing itself from its North Korean ally according to the latest leaked US embassy document that reveal senior Beijing figures regard their ally as a 'spoiled child'.
It also admits that a growing view within the Chinese Communist Party is that Korea should be reunified under Seoul's control which won't go down well in North Korea as it's bodyguard moves slowly to one side.
Another document from today's batch show that the senior Royal who acted inappropriately was Prince Andrew.
No, he didn't actually pay for something or do anything as drastic as work, at a dinner for business leaders, he was cocky and rude and labelled 'idiocy' the serious fraud squad investigation into the BAE bribery scandal.
So Prince Andrew is obnoxious, arrogant and a bit dim. Nothing we didn't already know there then.

Leslie Nielsen

There are lots of tributes to Leslie Nielsen all over the internet and he was undoubtedly a great comic actor.

There is not much i can add to what everyone else is saying but he had two scenes, both in Airplane, that make me laugh now although i have heard them both a thousand times and know exactly what is coming.



This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
A hospital? What is it?
It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

and

Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious...and don't call me Shirley

Just brilliant.

Let The Leaking Begin!

The great US Embassy cables leak has started to be distributed through 5 media outlets in the USA, UK, Spain, France and Germany. This much information will take a while to work through but the first revelations are that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the USA to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme and officials in Jordan and Bahrain have also openly called for Iran's nuclear programme to be stopped by any means, including military.

It has also been revealed that Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK. The document signed by Hillary Clinton asked for credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives to be collected.

World leaders to be bad mouthed include:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who plays Robin to Putin's Batman.
Kim Jong-il of North Korea is called a flabby old chap who suffered from physical and psychological trauma.
Thin-skinned and with an authoritarian personal style is the description of French
President Nicholas Sarkozy.
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader with a penchant for partying.
Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts and is easily swayed by even the most bizarre stories.
Yemen President, Ali Abdullah Saleh is dismissive, bored and impatient.
Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, is the crazy old man.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is strange.
Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu never keeps his promises.
German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, is incompetent, vain and critical of America.

Spying and collecting personal information on senior UN Members, being urged to attack Iran and insulting World leaders and this is only the first day. It is going to be a long week for the American leadership.

UK Government Issue DA-notice

A Defence Advisory Notice is something the Government hands down to the media and is essentially a request for the media to not report on something 'in the national interest'. Prince Harry being in Afghanistan is a recent example.
Today, the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (DPBAC) has made a request to newspaper editors, television and radio broadcasters concerning the soon to be published documents sent between the US State Department and its embassy's around the World.
The DA Notice (standings 01 Military operations & 05 UK Security) is not ordering a blackout of the story and any publication that ignore it is not going to end up in court, but it is a firm reminder that the print and broadcast media should be concerned for disclosing 'information which could damage national security'. It has asked that editors consult with the DPBAC before they publish any information.
The countries said to be the main beneficiaries of the most intensive US diplomatic briefings are the governments of Great Britain, Canada, Israel, Australia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, Denmark, Italy and Norway.
It seems that whatever is due to be released, it is going to be diplomatic dynamite and hugely embarrassing for the United States.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has closed the comments section on the story on its website.
I expect the British media to largely ignore the DA Notice because on the age of the internet, it is going to be all over blogs and websites before the newspapers hit the newstands.
Nothing stays secret for very long and this DA Notice has been rendered redundant already and the US State Department will be squirming for a long time to come over the exposure of its backroom dealings.

America Said What???

My Grandmother always told me not to say anything about somebody that you wouldn't say to their face as the truth will always come out. Shame the Americans never had a similar Granny to pass on pearls of wisdom because it is now forced to scuttle around the globe warning of the imminent release of millions of embarrassing and sensitive diplomatic documents sent between the State Department and it's embassy's.
The communications, said to include candid remarks about world leaders, ambassadors and foreign leaders, are expected to be published by Wikileaks and the US State Department has condemned the actions of the website as 'gratuitous and likely to harm relations and erode trust between countries'.
I love the idea that the State Department have been ferreting through their archives trying to discover exactly what derogatory remarks they have made about other leaders and then trying to convince them that what they actually meant when they said the Prime Minister was a toadying bootlicker was a great honour in their country. Honest Tony, the Bootlicking Toad is much revered for its bravery and erm, leadership qualities in Albuquerque.
The US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said about the impending leaks 'This is harmful to our national security. These revelations are going to create tension in our relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world.' Not your emails slagging them off creating the tension then PJ?
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said 'Obviously, the Government has been briefed by US officials, by the US ambassador, as to the likely content of these leaks. We don't want to speculate about precisely what is going to be leaked before it is leaked'.
I would like to point out that before the citizens of the offended countries reach for their keyboards to lob brickbats back at Americans, the term 'burger eating invasion monkey' has already gone as i snapped that one up years ago.

Dealing With North Korea

It does seem that North Korea is spoiling for a fight. It sank a South Korean navy ship earlier in the year and this week fired over 200 artillery shells onto the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing four people.
Where it all gets a bit tense is that North Korea is an ally of China and South Korea an ally of the United States. Throw in the fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons and it has the potential to be highly dangerous.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's health has deteriorated rapidly after his recent strokes and the thinking is that this is the handiwork of his son and successor, Kim Jong Un, who is keen to show his southern neighbours and US protectors that he will not be an easy touch when it comes to the negotiating table.
China is aware that if military action is taken against North Korea, it faces an influx of millions of refugees crossing over its borders so it holds back from outright condemnation of North Korea's attack, only urging both sides to 'retain calm and restraint and engage in talks as quickly as possible in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again'.
The White House said that 'We stand shoulder to shoulder with our ally in South Korea and we're fully committed to their defense.' America, has now sent US aircraft carrier the USS George Washington to the Korean peninsula for four days of naval exercises with the South Korean Navy which North Korea has warned will drive the peninsula 'closer to the brink of war'.
All very tense and reminiscent of the sort of dances that took place with the US and Soviets during the Cold War, but with so many potential flash points that we can only hope that the Chinese can rein in their hot-headed ally. As a wannabe super-power, it has to take on a greater share of the responsibility and as America has found out, if you don't choose your friends carefully, you can bring down a whole load of trouble on your own head.

Not Loving The Tories So Far

The Conservative Party do have a bit of an image problem. They are widely considered to be a bunch of millionaires out of touch with the rest of the general public who run things for the benefit of their rich pals.
Of course they bend over backwards to portray another image, even quoting 'compassionate conservatism' whenever they get an opportunity but once in a while some Tory minister will pop his head up and remind us of all the reasons why the Conservatives were kept out of power for the last 13 years.
Up first was Lord Young the Conservative enterprise advisor who said many Britain's had 'never had it so good' despite the 'so-called recession'. He later apologised for any offence that his comments caused and added another one to the growing list of recently unemployed.
This weeks Conservative party numpty is Howard Flight a peerage nomination and former deputy chairman of the party who has apologised for saying changes to welfare payments would give people on benefits "every incentive" to "breed".
It's too late now for people to listen to the Tories and see the effect they are having on public services and suddenly remember that actually, i forgot just how much of a bunch of idiots they were last time because we are stuck with them.

Bailing Out Ireland

Being the thoroughly decent chaps that we are, we have dug deep to lend Ireland £7 billion.
Chancellor George Osborne said that it was 'overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest to contribute to a major bailout'.
Now i am all for spreading around the wealth but hasn't George Osborne just been telling us we are broke and he had no choice but to cut 500,000 public service jobs, slash benefits and shut down public services through lack of money?
So where did he suddenly spring the £7 billion from to hand to Ireland?

a>The Government are giving Ireland what they saved by the deficit reduction programme.
b>Britain wasn't as stoney broke as the Government made out.
c>We are borrowing £7 billion from somewhere to give to Ireland.

If the answer is a, then we should all be turning up at Millbank armed with flaming torches because we have been decimated to bail out another countries banks.
If it's b then we should still turn up at Millbank because the Government has cut us to the bones for no reason.
If the answer turns out to be c then we now need to find £176 billion from somewhere rather than just £170 billion.
Whatever the reason, Ireland is up the swanee because it spent outside of its means and has borrowed too much money...and the solution is to lend them tens of billions more.
Brilliant.

Bloggers

There is a famous quote that states given enough time, a thousand monkeys typing at random would, produce all of Shakespeare's plays. A hundred monkeys given a few weeks would turn out an episode of Seinfeld and one monkey, given 20 minutes and a bottle of extra strong Russian vodka would produce one of the right wing milblogs polluting the internet.
That's the great thing about blogging, anyone and everyone can do it so we end up with blogs about cats, sports, politics and just about anything you can think of as well as some you don't really want to think about. Sometimes it is better to just let people think you are a racist bigot rather than create a blog and remove all doubt.
Considering that bloggers come from a wide arena of backgrounds and opinions, Technorati have conducted a survey of bloggers and used the data collected to create a profile of the people sat behind the keyboards.
The survey showed that 49% of bloggers are American and 29% European with the majority of bloggers being male and aged between 18 and 44.
1 out of 3 have worked in the media in some capacity and 80% have a higher education qualification and run three or more blogs and have been blogging for two or more years.
They spend an average of 10 hours a week blogging and the biggest influence for topics to post about are from conversations with friends and from reading other blogs.
53% conceal their identity with the greatest reason being there employer might disapprove of their views and 1% wishing they had concealed it better as they had been fired for their blogging.
The most blogged about topics are technology, politics and current affairs and 87% have a Facebook account and 36% make money from their blog.
So there we have it, the person at the other end of the blog is probably male, American, educated and almost certainly has a Facebook account.
Alternatively, they could be a sozzled monkey writing about what the World needs is more guns.