private eyeage

EXCITEMENT REACHES
FEVER PITCH AS
OLYMPICS LOOM
By Our Entire Staff Lunchtime O’Lympics and Coe

WITH the London Olympics only a mere two years away – that’s 9,436,264 seconds and counting- the entire population of Britain is erupting in an unparalleled frenzy of eager anticipation.
Everyone, everywhere is united in a national fervour not seen since the heady days of the Hundred Years War.
Said a typical Stratford East-based newsagent, Sanjit Patel, 53, summing up the feelings of every Briton, “I cannot wait. It will be the greatest moment of my entire life – people coming from all over the world to visit my tiny shop to buy a can of Pepsi for £11.99. It is a dream come true.”
Since you began reading this article, there are now only 9,436,150 seconds before the starting gun goes off to mark the opening of the Games with the start of the 20 kilometre underwater synchronised dressage event in Bournemouth.

The Olympic Games In Numbers

• Cost of Olympic Velodrome £2.4 million
• Hours of Olympic TV coverage 17.5 million
• Cost of protecting athletes from terrorist attack £2.3 billion
• Cost of protecting Mr Boris Johnson from irate husbands, wives, girlfriends, etc £4.6 billion
• Estimated number of visitors to Women’s Weightlifting Arena 12.2 million
• Estimated number of visitors to Mr Patel’s shop to buy Pepsi 7.6 billion
• Number of Wenlock Mascot souvenirs sold 3
• Number of articles recycling press release from Olympic Delivery Authority, saying how great the Games are going to be 216 million

AD NAUSEAM

MUCH nervous shuffling at the Advertising Standards Authority after last week’s Ofcom report on broadband speed.
The Ofcom research concluded that advertised broadband speeds were, basically, a complete joke, and “suggested” wryly to the ASA that: “Speeds should only be advertised if at least some consumers are actually able to achieve the advertised speeds.”
In other words, almost all broadband advertising up to now has been misleading, which is exactly what the ASA is supposed to prohibit.
In response, the ASA issued a mealy-mouthed statement saying it was, er, redrafting its codes and that anyway: “When a speed is advertised, the only speed that can be independently verified is the speed at which the broadband leaves the telephone exchange. This is the speed that is included in advertisements.” This is cobblers. Broadband speeds can be verified simply by running a speed-checker. The ASA knows this full well. At Ofcom, they are still asking why it chose to do nothing about it.

The Amazing Things We Know About The Afghan War Thanks To The Internet Leak Of Thousands Of Highly Classified Documents

• The effectiveness of the Taliban’s guerrilla campaign was woefully misjudged by American commanders

• Terrible flaws in the coalition strategy are resulting in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of allied troops

• Pakistan only pays lip service to supporting the American mission so as to enjoy billions of dollars in aid

• Thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed by coalition blunders

• The war is unwinnable

• The Pope really is a Catholic

• Bears do actually shit…
(That’s enough. Ed)

FUNNY OLD WORLD

“Over the past few centuries, artists have successfully developed a host of imaginative and unusual methods for applying paint to canvas. But few are more colourful than the exquisitely profound rectal squirt method developed by Keith Boadwee, Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts at the California College of the Arts, and visiting faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute.
“Working in the arena of identity politics during the 1990’s, the artist created a series of so-called anal targets and enema paintings, also known as the ‘Purple Squirt’ series. Emulating the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, the artist fills his rectum to the maximum with non-toxic water-based paint, using a rubber hot water bottle with an attached plastic tube. Then, by carefully positioning himself near a large canvas placed horizontally on the art-studio floor, he is able, at the appropriate moment, to eject and direct a constrained jet of paint, thereby rapidly creating one-of-a-kind artworks with an appositely chaotic and spontaneous feel.
Boadwee’s works have been included in the Venice Biennial, Bay Area Now 3, and the John Waters-curated ‘Elimination’ at the Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown, MA.” (California College of the Arts prospectus 2010 and www.keithboadwee.com.)

TV Highlights


BBC1, Sunday, 9.00pm

Sherlock

Holmes and Watson face their most baffling modern day mystery to date, when they are drafted in to decipher exactly how Mr. David Kelly really died.

"No fingerprints on the knife, Watson, and no gloves found on the body.”

“But what does that mean Sherlock?”

“It means Lord Hutton has classified all the records for the next 70 years.”

Eye rating – Hats off to the men from 221b (Norman) Baker Street!

“This evening at 7 pm there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church.
Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.”
Sidlesham Parishioner


DUMB BRITAIN
The Weakest Link, BBC 1

AR: In America, what liquid normally comes out of a faucet?
Contestant: Cheese.

ARE YOU MIDDLE CLASS ?
Ten tell-Tale Signs

1. You went to Eton.

2. You were a member of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford.

3. You are a direct descendent of William IV.

4. You are the 8th cousin of Boris Johnson.

5. You are married to the daughter of a Baronet and Viscountess.

6. You are the son of a wealthy stockbroker and a Justice of the Peace.

7. You are a millionaire several times over.

8. You made an expenses claim for "cutting back wisteria" at one of your agreeable homes.

9. You have tennis elbow.
(surely "sharp elbows"? Ed.)

10. You support Aston Villa.
(surely "fox hunting"? Ed.)

PFI TOLD YOU SO

The NHS has recently noticed that, thanks to the Private Finance Initiative, whereby private firms put up the initial cash for a project (school, hospital, whatever) then extract it in interest over the following decades, they are due to run out of cash.
So much so, in fact, that they face a total bill of £65bn over the coming decades for projects that were worth only £11.3bn when they were built. Some NHS trusts are spending more than 10 percent of their annual turnover on making repayments under the PFI scheme.
It seems a bit superfluous to point out that Private Eye has been reporting the massive flaws in PFI since, er, 1994, and that a special report by the late Paul Foot came fully six years ago, in 2004, pointing out the massive flaws in a project designed essentially to conceal public expenditure in the name of delivering dubious “value for money”.
All of which seems like an appropriate moment to mention that the Paul Foot Awards, which highlight real examples of old-fashioned investigative journalism (ie getting the story right) are coming up soon…

Cartoon:

Bookshop - 'A Journey' by Tony Blair prominent.

Bookseller's T-shirt - "Is your 'Journey' really necessary?"

Sic.

Not wicked sick

Sic.

Posted twice on account of a) being both tired and emotional, and b) lovin' it.

IRANIAN STONING WOMAN ‘CONFESSES’

By Our Man in Tehran Michael Burqa

AN Iranian woman condemned to death by stoning has appeared on Iranian TV to plead guilty to crimes of being a woman.
“I cannot lie any longer, I am guilty of adult womanery,” she shamefully admitted during an appearance on the top-rated Iranian reality programme show “Strictly Come Stoning”.
Penalties for being convicted of being a woman in Iran include “being stoned to death”, “being stoned almost to death then thrown on a burning pyre” and the more lenient option of “not being stoned to death because you’ve already been beaten to death”.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Vice President, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, described the British as “inhuman idiots” and (cont. p.94)

Talking of neighbours…

FUNNY OLD WORLD

“Jerome Forrier lives in a ground-floor flat in Seagate,” Depute Fiscal Baljit Mooker told Dundee Sheriff Court, “and the couple involved live in the flat above. On Sunday morning, the couple were lying in bed having sexual intercourse, when the woman looked out of the window and saw a mop handle with a webcam attached, pointing at her. She got a fright, and alerted her boyfriend who ran downstairs and knocked at the accused’s door. He could hear movement within, but the door was not opened, and the police were notified.”
Later, officers reported what had happened when they arrived at Forrier’s flat. “He showed us the webcam, which was linked to his laptop. He said he had first used it a week previously, when he had heard noises from upstairs. The first time was a test, but the second time he used it to look into the living room, as the people upstairs were having sex. Asked how he managed to use the webcam and view his laptop at the same time, he replied ‘I stood on the window ledge and balanced the laptop on the windowsill’. Asked about his purpose in looking at them, he replied “I just wanted to see that they were normal people. You know, just like the people you see on the internet.”
Forrier admitted breach of the peace. (The Courier and Advertiser [Dundee], 26/06/10)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Buried 57 found alive

There were scenes of jubilation last night in London after contact was finally made with 57 Liberal Democrat MPs buried under a Conservative government over 100 days ago.
“As we’d heard nothing from them in weeks we’d naturally assumed they’d all perished,” said a jubilant Liberal Democrat councillor.
Despite the initial euphoria, rescue workers were more downbeat about the long term prospects for the trapped Liberal Democrat MPs, saying few are expected to emerge from underneath Kenneth Clarke alive. Said one, “I’m doing everything I can to save them from being shafted.”

DAILY MAIL INTRO OF THE WEEK

“It’s not just our country that’s a little over-crowded – our whole solar system is too…”

- Article about asteroids, 27 August