Hutch & That Other Guy

As the day ends in a Y, there must of been an anti-war march in London today so the usual suspects armed themselves with banners and rehearsed the same well worn chants against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. So far, so the same as the other 100 marches since 2003.
Only this time, as well as the usual faces there will be a visage from a 70's television show i remember thinking was as cool as a fish finger in the bottom of a polar bears freezer.
I don't know David Soul's (or Hutch as he will always be to me) view on the Iraq conflict but i do remember spending Saturday evenings sat on the sofa watching him and Starsky crashing there red car with the white stripe through strategically placed boxes while they chased the bad guys.
I also remember Starsky's chunky cardigans and Hutch's neat brown leather jacket and try to forget the singing career that followed before he and his curly bonced buddy fell off the planet and were replaced on my Saturday evening sofa by something like Charlie's Angels or the Six Million Dollar Man.
Nice to have him here and if he can drag along Huggy Bear with him even better but at the first sign of him singing 'Don't Give Up On Us Baby' he can count his welcome worn out.

Australia 10 England 12

A Norwegian commentator once famously gave it to the English when his side beat us at football so...

Ned Kelly, Dame Edna Everage, Catherine Freeman, Germaine Greer, Dame Nellie Melba, David Campase, Rupert Murdoch, Ian Thorpe, Donald Bradman, John Howard, Nicole Kidman, Kerry Packer, Paul Hogan, Paul Keating, Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Mel Gibson, Richie Benaud, John Farnham, Mark Vuduka, that bald guy from Midnight Oil, Daniel.....Your boys took one hell of a beating!!

Suck it up Aussies. It is always a pleasure for us Poms to send you crying all the way home.

That's Crazy Talk! Isn't It?

There have been some cracking conspiracy theories circulating since that day in September 2001. On the Sky One channel last night they rounded up a bunch of these conspirators and gave them an hour to flex there theories which went from the insane to the ridiculous but as i was sitting there and tutting loudly at the absurdity of it all, one of the men pulled out an official looking document.
"I put forward it was the actions of the Government to launch a war" he spouted brandishing a wad of paper "They have form in this area" and highlighted a sentence or two, one of which caught my attention.
'...blow up a US ship and blame Cuba..' it said.
Not sure if i had caught it properly i sniffed about the web and was quite shocked at what i discovered on many of the US News sites.
In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the assassination of Cuban exiles, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.
America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
Have to admit, it did throw me slightly but it is just to absurd to even contemplate the US Government orchestrated the 2001 World Towers catastrophe isn't it?
Yes, it is.
Isn't it?

Just A Quick Thought

Cardiff council are organising family pole dancing classes, open to kids as young as 11. Oh, it’s just clean fun they said in defence and went into some waffle about it keeping the kids fit.
Oh, really? Pole dancing developed in strip clubs - and here’s us trying not to overly sexualise the young. Is this the stuff an 11-year-old should be learning?
The council claims pole dancing teaches strength, coordination and agility. So does tap dancing - why not get them to learn that instead?

Greedy Music Labels

Two big music stories that broke on the same day, both concerning downloading music.
Story one was a lady in America ordered to pay £108,000 after six record companies sued her for sharing 1,702 songs by downloading them without permission and then offering them online through Kazaa.
Story number two was Radiohead asking fans to name their price for the new album, In Rainbows.
The bands website is asking users to decide how much they want to pay, starting from nothing with the only required cost will be a 45p administration charge.
The first story gets my hackles up because any billion pound industry coming down so heavily on a member of the general public is always going to get my hackles up. This one especially because 'Downloading' in one form or another has been going on for generations.
I'm glad the music industry lawyers didn't come around my house when I was recording
portions of the Top 40 from the radio onto my tape recorder.
To my understanding it is not the downloading that is illegal, it is the sharing part and making your files available from your PC. Any clarification would be nice from anyone knowledgeable in this.
Secondly, anyone screwing a billion pound industry is always going to get me passing on my support. It is common knowledge that the actual artists make very little from CD sales and the vast majority of the price we pay in the shops ends up in the back pockets of the record label. Wikipeadia puts the total artists' share ass between 10% and 12% of the retail price of an album/single. That is to share between writer, singer, musicians, etc.
If Radiohead can bypass the greedy labels and put out there own music and keep all the money given themselves(minus web costs), then i say good for them and hope it inspires a few more bands to do the same.

Give It Up Al Fayed

"That car didn't accidentally crash. There was a conspiracy. I will not rest until I have established exactly what happened."
While i understand why Mohamed Al Fayed is pursuing yet another inquest into the crash that killed his son and the Princess of Wales, i do believe that he is too blinded by grief to accept what many other inquires had concluded, that it came down to the actions of a drunk and reckless driver.
I expect this inquest, ten years on, will reach the same conclusion and Mr Al Fayed will refuse to accept it and spend millions on yet anther one while spouting his conspiracy theories that the Royal Family had Diana and his son killed because they could not stomach a Muslim as stepfather to Princes William and Harry.
Tragically, it is a feud that Mr Al Fayed will never end until he gets the decision that vindicates him and lays the blame at the feet of his enemies.
It is not going to happen and the only people going to win out of this is the lawyers who have already earned over £2.5m in legal fees from previous inquests and will be rubbing their hands together with glee that this one is scheduled to last six months.

Prince The Underrated?

Prince is not someone I automatically think of when great guitar players are mentioned.
Strange little man with a weird voice yes, but not one of the giants of the guitar wielding fraternity.
And as much as i loved Nirvana, neither would i class Kurt Cobain as anything other than a perfectly average guitarist but what do i know because the pair of them have topped the Rolling Stone poll for the most underrated guitarists.
Readers of the magazine were asked to vote for guitarists who didn’t make their top-100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time survey which was won by Jimi Hendrix.
Third most underrated was Neil Young and then George Harrison and Ace Frehley from KISS.
As Prince is popular again after ten years doing god knows what and calling himself some sort of squiggle, the strange one is back on the music channels so maybe i can catch a glimpse of what the Rolling Stone readers noticed that i never because as good as some of his songs were, his guitar playing prowess was not something i noticed.

Chicken George

It was a slap bang dead certainty it would happen. An Iranian university has invited US leader George W Bush to speak following his Iranian counterpart's turn at a US college last week.
The head of Ferdowsi University in Iran's second largest city of Mashhad said Mr Bush could answer students' questions about the Holocaust, terrorism and human rights.
"This is what President Ahmadinejad did" said the University president Alireza Afshour.
A White House spokeswoman responded to the invitation on behalf of Mr Bush saying "If Iran was a free and democratic society that allowed its people freedom of expression, and wasn't pursuing nuclear weapons, and wasn't advocating to destroy the country of Israel, the president might consider that invitation."
You not going then Bush? Have to speak up old boy, the sound of your backside squeaking is drowning you out.

UK Election Fever

In the red corner a one eyed Scotsman, in the blue corner a posh Etonian whose hair seems to be carved out of wood.
Yes, Election fever is back! But don't mistake the exclamation marks for excitement because ahead of us, if the rumours of a snap November election turn out to be true, there will be soul-sapping speeches on fiscal policy, irrational Tory backbenchers whinges and the Liberal Parties hopes drooping like the male of the species after one too many Bacardi breezers.
Gordon Brown is apparently mulling over calling an Autumn election to capatilise on his parties lead over the Conservatives and desperately hoping that nobody remembers not only is he not English, but he sat at Tony Blair's right hand as he took us all down the gurgler.
His opponent, David Cameron, is your archetypal posh bloke who sees himself so far above the rest of us that we wouldn't be far enough under him even if we all moved to New Zealand.
The third option, the Liberal Democrats, may as well pack up and go home now and watch it on TV.
So it doesn't matter who wins really, Brown is Blair with one less eye, Cameron is instantly punchable and Campbell has as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as he has of waking up tomorrow with a full head of hair.
Tony Blair was well known for picking his favourite songs as themes for his election campaigns so if i may be so bold, may i make the suggestion of 'Creep' by Radiohead for Mr Brown.
The chorus "I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, What the hell am I doing here?, I don't belong here" is perfect.

Another Right Chipped Away

Don't expect the Government to trumpet there latest wheeze, because the bunch of lovely people will today have access to your phone records, both landline and mobile.
Almost 800 different official bodies including police, security services, tax authorities, NHS trusts and local councils will have access to who you called, when you called and how long you called.
After hearing we have more surveillance cameras than anywhere else in the world, we are already the most watched people on the planet - now they want to know who we talk to as well?
The government also plans to extend the powers to cover email, blogs and internet activity. All in the name of increasing security, the Government will know more about parts of our personal life than our family and close friends.
Other countries are putting up a fight. 15,000 people took to the streets of Germany to protest against their government's plans for data retention. Butin Britain? Hardly a peep.
We are literally sleepwalking into a surveillance society ane we don't seem to care.
THE 'DOING IT FOR OUR OWN SECURITY' IS A LIE PEOPLE.....WAKE UP!!!!