Monies

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Fonejacker
Kayvan Novak is a British television actor of Pakistani origin. He has appeared in medical drama Holby City, spy series Spooks, and most recently as an Iranian intelligence officer Academy Award-winning film Syriana alongside Matt Damon and George Clooney.In 2005 he and Ed Tracy created Fonejacker, a prank call-based show as part of Comedy Lab for Channel 4. After the pilot, he was given a Christmas special. The new series is on E4.
I haven't seen much about Fonejacker, the spoof phonecall series by Kayvan Novak which my son and I both love, but I came across a reference at Neatorama which prompted me to post this favourite clip from the first series:




Listen to Tim Worstall (again?)

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Tim Worstall: Don't Listen Again With the BBC

Tim Worstall appeared on this afternoon's You and Yours on BBC Radio 4. He seems to have had problems afterwards using the 'Listen Again' service, with Real Player.  Real Player was certainly a pain when it first came out some time ago but I use listen again all the time and haven't had any problems with RP for years. You can also listen again without launching the BBC's stand-alone player.

Anyway, you can listen to Tim Worstall at the You and Yours page, if you are prepared to brave the technology or you can sit back and listen to it here in wonderful streaming audio:



Lurch to the right

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BBC NEWS | Nick Robinson's Newslog
Brown has moved to occupy ground left free by Cameron's efforts to prove that the Tories have changed. He's done it in a way that maximises destabilising pressure from Tory MPs and what we used to call the Tory press to, you've guessed it, "lurch to the right". And he's made each of his announcements on the one day of the week when the Tory leader used to be able to count on setting the agenda - PMQs day.

The left meanwhile have been given very little to celebrate save for a man they trust replacing a man they'd come to loathe.

Clever isn't it?



Dead in the water

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Cameron losing Tory grassroots support, poll shows
David Cameron is losing his appeal to voters, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published tomorrow which suggests that many Conservative voters have come to dislike the Tory leader. It also shows that he is no longer attracting new support to the party.

The poll, giving Labour a six-point lead, has the Conservative party on its lowest share in any ICM poll since the last days of Michael Howard's leadership in 2005.




Cameron has about as much chance of getting to Number 10 as I have. He's finished before he has even started. The Tories chose a Blair clone just as Blairism went out of fashion. Cameron will never be PM while he's got a hole in his arse. Whatever you think of Labour at least they knew how to pick a winner.

If we get a late summer Brown should go to the country. He'll walk it.




The Battle for Walham

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Jon Snow Channel 4 - News - Snowmail 5-22pm
I've been focusing on the extraordinary battle to save the switching station at Walham.

This is a much more sensitive plant than we had at first imagined. Channel 4 News has learned that in addition to the 600,000 people who depend upon it for their supply, it also happens to supply GCHQ - the intelligence monitoring centre at Cheltenham. Oh, and it is a major transit point for electricity direct to the atomic research establishment at Aldermaston.

One wonders whether this perhaps was one of the other reasons that triggered an emergency meeting of Cobra, the ministerial taskforce, last night?

My trip inside Walham today was incredible. The human endeavour to save the place is nothing short of heroic and so too is the forward planning that committed the authorities to buying 50 massive German pumps - each which does the work of 10 fire tenders. This was done just 12 weeks ago.

Without these pumps Walham would have been lost.



Tell 'em George!

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Galloway expelled from Commons after clash with Speaker
"Being lectured by the current House of Commons on the question of the funding of political campaigns is like being accused of having bad taste by Donald Trump, like being accused of slouching by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

This House stands in utter ill repute on the question of the funding of political campaigns.

None of the parties here, and all three of them are culpable, ever asked the millionaires and billionaires who gave them and lent them money where they got the money from."

Meanwhile:

Gordon Brown today urged all parties to work to together to reform the system of political funding.

Nobody has been suspended or arrested.

The debate transcript is HERE. Galloway was only on his feet for 75 minutes before being named and suspended by the Speaker. Read the account and witness parliament in all its glory! Jeez.  Honourable members indeed!




Fawlty Towers it ain't

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John Cleese is selling his ranch for $28 million

Stalloreggi has been called “a living painting,” and it is truly one of the most beautiful and prestigious professional equine facilities in the world. Resting on approximately 16 spectacular acres in Montecito, California this magnificent complex offers a cornucopia of practical and luxury amenities. Enter the property and you are immediately transported into a world apart. A world of pampered boarding and world-class training.


Via Grow-A-Brain


And our 'war-leaders' talk about righteousness!

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Chicken Yoghurt - We can't turn them away
Since British troops occupied Southern Iraq in the spring of 2003, thousands of Iraqi citizens have worked for the British Army, the Coalition Provisional Authority (South) and for contractors serving UK forces. There is now considerable evidence that their lives, and the lives of their families, are at risk: some former workers for the British have been murdered, and many others have fled to neighbouring countries or gone into hiding in Basra.

The British Government, for whom they were ultimately working, has not offered them the right of asylum in the UK. This is morally unacceptable. It is also unnecessary, since we are well able to accommodate several thousand Iraqi refugees, most of whom already speak English and all of whom have already worked for our country.

The most detailed recent report, by Jonathan Miller of Channel Four News, notes the murder of 17 translators in one single incident in Basra. It cites the cases of hundreds of others who have fled to a refugee existence in nearby Middle Eastern countries or are in hiding in Iraq. The British Government response has come from the Home Office, which has suggested that Iraqis put at risk by their work for British troops ‘register with the UN refugee agency’. Other reports provide supporting detail: Iraqis are being targeted for murder because they have worked for British forces.

Marie Colvin’s report for the Times of April 8 speaks of desperate former workers for the British Army being turned away from the British embassy in Syria by staff who had orders not to admit any Iraqis. These brave men and women have testimonials written by British officers If you feel that this is unacceptable and that Britain should prevent Iraqis from being murdered for the ‘crime’ of working for British troops, could you please write to your MP and ask him or her to press the Government for action. You can use the excellent website ‘Write to Them‘ or post a letter yourself.

Read Justin's piece and write to your MP. This is a disgrace but hardly surprising given that even winning a VC fighting for this country doesn't guarantee you entry.