to be a little flimsy, security wise. Mumsnet cancelled £30,000 worth of advertising with Sky. Money they raised by selling their collected bile to the Chinese medicine industry.
Glenn Mulcaire, who’s accused of hacking Milly’s phone, asked the press to leave his family alone. I’m guessing he then went to look up the word ‘irony’.
Does anyone else think Rebekah Brooks looks like the exhumed Milly Dowler? It’s so sad that the mobile phone of a murdered teenager was hacked into – a life cut short before her natural death from a radiation-induced brain tumour in her 30s. Listening to a murdered girl’s messages. It’s a new low. Whatever happened to the traditional methods of tabloid journalism? Nicking stories from regional papers and doing Select All/Copy/Paste from Britain’s Got Talent press releases.
We celebs must take precautions. I urge any I meet to follow my example and make themselves a carrier-pigeon runway hat. The only tricky bit is training the mouse in the control tower. The News of the World hacked Lembit Öpik’s phone messages – after six months of waiting, they rang him just to check he was still alive. Apparently, Chris Tarrant’s phone messages aren’t very interesting – it’s mostly just people saying ‘Sorry I was out. I don’t know what the capital of Ecuador is.’ At least I know the newspapers will never listen to my answerphone messages, as no one ever calls me.
Rupert Murdoch appeared at a parliamentary select committee and some very important questions got answered. Such as, how hard can a Chinese woman punch a man in the face? Rupert said he’d never felt more humble – which is saying something. He owns the TV channel that shows Fat Families and Gladiators.
The committee room was full of searching questions. Well, apart from ‘Why are you carrying a plate of foam?’ The amusing thing about the incident is that normally, if you want to see an old man, a younger Chinese woman and a cream pie, you’d have to turn to channel 973 on Sky TV.
After the fight, the MPs missed an opportunity by not asking Wendi what her surname was. She’d answer and then they should’ve asked her to repeat it. ‘Deng. DENG!’ And then Tom Watson could have shouted, ‘Seconds out. Round two.’ Shaving foam in the face. What’s the big deal? If you read the side of the can, that’s the manufacturer’s exact recommendation. I could understand the outcry if it were toothpaste.
Before this incident the rest of the world only associated the Brits with Benny Hill. This won’t have helped. We might as well have ended the proceedings with Murdoch pulling his trousers down and chasing his wife around the room while intermittently being slapped on the head by Tom Watson MP. Jonnie Marbles (which isn’t even his real name by the way, it’s Jonathan Marbles) said that he wanted to shove a pie in Murdoch’s face, ‘for all the people who couldn’t’. Well, Jonnie, after your piss-poor attempt, you can now join the ranks of those people who couldn’t.
Of course, Jonnie Marbles should’ve stayed perfectly still – Wendi’s vision is based on movement, just like a Tyrannosaurus rex. After the attack it was difficult to tell if the white stuff on Jonnie Marbles’s face was shaving foam or if Wendi had slashed all the way through to the bone. Everyone’s lost interest in the hearing now and just want to see a UFC cage fight between Wendi and that other high-profile bodyguard, Sinitta.
I actually think Murdoch made quite a good impression. Of a garden gnome in a hospice. I’m starting to wonder if we’re actually dealing with the ghost of Rupert Murdoch. In the select committee I expected to see him starting making a clay pot with Rebekah Brooks. Met police chiefs resigned and Rebekah Brooks was arrested over the allegations. Talk about the pigs and the vultures being thrown to the wolves.
Sir Paul Stephenson was Britain’s most senior policeman – he’s so important he even invented the phrase ‘Evening all’. With Stephenson and Yates having quit, it means a dinner lady called Trisha is now the country’s highest-ranking officer, outranking Rav Wilding and the guy who does the funny noises in Police Academy. In Sir Paul’s defence, on his watch crime in London fell – well, apart from among policemen. After the stress of resigning, Sir Paul probably needs somewhere to relax for a few days. I hear Champneys Health Spa is quite good. What? Oh.
I liked former Assistant Commisioner Andy Hayman’s reaction in the select committee when asked if he took money – ‘I can’t believe you’ve suggested that.’ The fact that it came as a shock to him to be asked if he’d done something wrong gives us some insight into how the investigation might have fallen down. John Yates admitted that he didn’t investigate thoroughly because he had a lot on. Come on, mate, you’re not redecorating the back bedroom – it’s a criminal investigation. Not exactly Columbo is it? Just one more thing – I can’t be arsed to read all of that.
Surely the easiest way for the Met to prove they weren’t being bribed by the tabloids is to point to all the newspaper sellers they’ve killed.
Strange times. If you can’t trust the police, politicians and journalists, then who can you trust? Police officers have been resigning, politicians have been compromised and journalists are being arrested over the phone-hacking scandal. So it’s reassuring to know that their conduct is being investigated by the police, parliamentary committees and the Press Complaints Commission. There really needs to be an inquiry by a less corruptible group, though, like FIFA. David Cameron said the hacking inquiry will widen – or in other words, he shouted, ‘What’s that over there?’ and ran off.
Of course, let’s not forget that Murdoch’s decline will largely benefit the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail. Papers whose worldview could best be summed up as mentally ill. I also catch a slight air of monied celebrities and critics telling poor people what they should be interested in. Inequality in our country is so rampant that a big chunk of what was the News of the World’s circulation isn’t literate enough to read a broadsheet. Also, broadsheets are partly about consumption. Who wants to read about box sets, holiday homes and beauty routines they can never afford? Much as the whole thing was hugely enjoyable, I feel a slight prickle on my scalp wondering who might replace Murdoch as an owner, and how many decent billionaires there are around.
It would be great if the tabloids went back to being investigative, campaigning papers, but I think that muckraking and perverse nosiness are actually part of their function. Maybe the tabloids are a kind of Jungian ‘shadow’ of intelligent inquiry, addressing the wearying and disappointing part of ourselves that wants to see who Rio Ferdinand is fucking. The newspaper proprietor William Randolph Hearst pursued a vendetta against Mae West because of the forthright sexual confidence of her work and because he was appalled by how much money she made. Meanwhile, he had affairs and built a business empire. Perhaps we just project hatred onto things we see as embodying what we hate about ourselves, and perhaps tabloids simply embody the worst of us.
‘Haye punches his arm so hard that he falls over screaming’
First thing I do when I get back to Glasgow is I phone this drug-dealer lassie and get some pretty hefty Valium and some acid. We walk round a park for a bit before she hands them over. I’d always felt guilty about the chit-chat with a dealer, trying to hide the fact that you’d just like to buy the drugs. For the first time I’m aware that she is doing the chit-chat but would just like to sell the drugs. I gub two in the local coffee house and everything, the fact I’ve left my bike on the other side of the park, the fact I’ve agreed to do 8 Out of 10 Cats, the rapist, everything is OK. In a way they are all positive developments.
I’m trying to place some short stories I wrote ages ago. My agent is struggling to get me on anything (‘They’re scared’), and tidying them up is something to do. I get a big bag
