Who'll be my role model now that my role model is gone ?

I walked into the room while Stanetta was watching "American Idol" right about the time that a wide eyed adolescent male contender was saying "I hope one day to become a role-model."

This blew my mind. A role model is usually defined as a "person who serves as an example, whose behaviour is emulated by others". Is this really what he had in mind ? And can you actually set out to be a role model - surely you just do what you do "with clean hands and composure" and almost accidentally become one.

The John Terry saga illustrates for me that the "role" part of "role model" has been forgotten. If you're looking for a great example of a muscular, thuggish centre-back, then John Terry is a great choice. Since when was he supposed to be a model father or model husband ?

I think Ron Greenwood sums it up in his assessment of a previous generation's role model:-

"Ask me to talk about Bobby Moore the footballer and I will talk for days. Ask me about the man and I will dry up in a minute."

One Cheer for the Economy ... Hip Hip !

The UK economy grew at 0.1% in the final quarter of 2009. Wow - anyone feeling giddy ? Scream if you want to go faster...

The media (and the government) seem to think it's a big deal, but let's get a sense of proportion.

If I were to grow at 0.1% in the next 3 months, this would equate to a gain in height of less than 2mm and a weight gain of 100g. In other words, the difference between having a number 1 haircut and a number 2 haircut and the weight of half a cup of sugar.

And anyway, unless the economy grows faster than the population then we're not actually any better off. And according to the World Bank, UK population grew by 0.65% over 2008, which suggests a quarterly population growth of 0.16%

Whoops. We've all got a slightly smaller slice of a not-much-bigger pie.

Orange makes Stan see Red

My mobile phone company wrote to me recently :-

"Dear Stan,

We've been asking Orange customers what they want from a credit card.
The feedback was loud and clear."

Here's what my loud and clear feedback would have been if they'd bothered asking me :-

"What the flippy heck are you doing asking us about credit cards?? If you've got some time on your hands you should be improving your rotten customer care and billing systems or your slightly iffy network coverage in Stanshire.

No, I do not want an Orange credit card - for the same reason that I don't want a Bradford & Bingley mobile phone.

Now get back to work, and the next time you contact me the message had better be about mobile phones, preferably containing the words 'free' and 'upgrade' '"

Verbing

There is a battle raging in the Stan household and poor Stanetta is caught in the middle, having to choose sides.

The dispute is around the use of the word "dialoguing", which Mrs Stan used in an essay recently and which gave me something akin to anaphylactic shock when I read it.

To me, there are valid situations where converting a noun to a verb just works. For example, I don't object to the use of "to oil" instead of "to apply oil" - nor do I whince when "chair" is used as a verb. Yet the use of "dialoguing", "medaling", "signaturing" and even "transitioning" can raise my blood pressure more than reading about a mere human rights abuse. What does that say about me ?

No, don't answer that.

In the case of "dialoguing", this was a perfectly acceptable verb form to Shakespeare, then it fell out of fashion for a few centuries before being enthusiastically adopted by the kind of management consultant that gets paid by the syllable. I'm sure it's this Bullshot Bingo association that provokes my response.

Mrs Stan and I agree to disagree on this, but really it's down to Stanetta - she inherits the English language from our generation and it will down to her lot to decide whether in future we will "dialogue our issues and language a response".

Joke ?

"Say what you like about servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're going to have a f***ing good paralympic team in 2012."

I was going to have a bash at commenting on Jimmy Carr's recent attempt to squeeze humour from the plight of limbless squaddies, but the guys 'n' gals at ARRSE (the Army Rumour Service) have more right to comment and they do it much better than I ever could. Follow their link here.

Oh, what the heck, I'm a blogger, so I have a licence to rant about stuff I don't fully understand:-

The only problem I have with the joke is that it's lazy. It's very obvious and not particularly incisive - Oscar Wilde it aint.

The comment on ARRSE that he probably got it from a squaddie at Selly Oak hospital is probably not far from the truth. In fact he was probably told much worse while he was there - far too near-the-knuckle for public consumption. For example, there's a squaddie on ARRSE who adds the line "Can you imagine the scene when the starting gun goes off?". Now that would have dug him a properly deep hole.

You see, people who work in dark places have dark humour, and that humour no longer works when an outsider lifts that humour from its proper context and plonks it down into a happy Manchester Apollo.

If a wounded soldier had told the joke, it would have been a killer - it would have been their show of defiance and courage. But when a millionaire comedian squeezes it in between the knob-gags, then no wonder the joke falls flat.

And anyway, today a soldier from the Black Watch died from his wounds six weeks after being blown to pieces in Kandahar. As far as I know Jimmy Carr didn't send him out there and Jimmy Carr didn't plant an improvised explosive device by the roadside. So why is it that people seem to be more cross with Jimmy Carr than with the whole range of people more deserving of our rage?

To BNP or to not BNP - that is the Question Time

Yes, let's allow the potato-faced fascist onto Question Time.

But, let's choose the rest of the panel carefully :-

(1) Al Murray's "Pub Landlord" character ("Where would we be if we had no rules? France! And if we had too many? Germany!")
(2) Ali G ("... is it cos I is black ?")
(3) Sam Kelly's character Captain Hans Geering from "'Allo ' Allo" ("Heil Hitler ! .... Clop !")

Who is Jan Moir and How Can I Persuade Her to Give Up Writing?

Thanks to the brilliantly unreliable Charlie Brooker for setting my blood thermostat to "boil" this morning.

He pointed me to a barely literate hack on the Daily GuessWho called Jan Moir, who wrote a particularly hateful article this morning about the death of Stephen Gately that was barely worthy of a BNP blog entry, never mind a national newspaper.

If you were to follow Charlie Brooker's advice and complain on the Press Complaints Commission website, you'd see

(a) that the site is running extremely slowly due to the sheer weight of outrage
and
(b) they've had to set up a separate section specifically to handle complaints about Jan Moir

If you check out the article on the Mail's online service, you'll see that it's currently running without adverts, because Marks and Spencer have asked that their advert be removed - it seems unsubstantiated homophobic innuendo doesn't sit well with their brand values. You can imagine the voice-over : "It's not just any gay-bashing; it's Marks and Spencer gay-bashing ..."

Look, Stephen Gately was not a giant in his field. He was one of the least talented, but most ornamental members of one of the most insipid boy bands of all time. But he died without warning, aged 33 and his partner, his friends, his family and his fans are in mourning. The last thing they need is some gossip-monger incorrectly joining the dots between "Gay", "Pop Star" and "Early Death".

The overwhelming medical evidence is that Stephen died from the pulmonary oedema he inherited from his father, rather than any kind of gay debauchery.

But the truth is rarely interesting enough for the Daily Mail these days. Their readers deserve better.

PCC Code of Conduct (extracts)

Section 1 : "The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information"

Section 5 (i) : "In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively"

and especially :-

Section 12 :

i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

ii) Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

*** UPDATE ***

If you do complain to the Press Complaints Commission, you get the following email back :-

Dear Stan
Thank you for sending us your complaint about the Daily Mail article on the subject of the death of Stephen Gately. We have received numerous complaints about this matter.

I should first make clear that the Commission generally requires the involvement of directly affected parties before it can begin an investigation into an article. On this occasion, it may be a matter for the family of Mr Gately to raise a complaint about how his death has been treated by the Daily Mail. I can inform you that we have made ourselves available to the family and Mr Gately's bandmates, in order that they can use our services if they wish.

We require the direct involvement of affected parties because the PCC process can have a public outcome and it would be discourteous for the Commission to publish information relating to individuals without their knowledge or consent. Indeed, doing so might unwittingly add to any intrusion. Additionally, one of the PCC's roles is dispute resolution, and we would need contact with the affected party in order to determine what would be an acceptable means of settling a complaint.

On initial examination, it would appear that you are, therefore, a third party to the complaint, and we may not be able to pursue your concerns further. However, if you feel that your complaint touches on claims that do not relate directly to Mr Gately or his family, please let us know, making clear how they raise a breach of the Code of Practice. If you feel that the Commission should waive its third party rules, please make clear why you believe this.

Press Complaints Commission

Oppression

A group of people in this country are being oppressed, and I can't get Amnesty or any human-rights organisation to take an interest.

I'm talking about MPs. Apparently they are being forced to pay out of their own pockets for any cleaning fees beyound £2,000 per year and gradening beyond £1,000.

The Prime Minister spent £64 per week on cleaning a house that was hardly ever used, and this seems seems totally reasonable. You can imagine how dirty a house that is not occupied can become. And if his garden in Fife is under-pruned, you can imagine how badly it would affect his ability to do his job in London.

But seriously folks, the whining of our elected representatives (all parties) is repulsive. They've been caught behaving badly and the least they can do is to be adult about it and take their lumps. We have more to worry about than MP's private gardens. Maybe they could learn how to use a hoover and a lawnmower ?

"We're all in this together".

Ha.

Ha ha.

Ha.

Free Stan's Radio

The medium of writing was most possibly invented six thousand years ago in what is now Iraq. Presumably "reading" was invented around about the same time.

The medium of singing was invented much earlier when a caveman dropped a big boulder on their foot and the rest of tribe had such great fun copying the noise he made.

This of course was the birth of Rock music.

Radio is a much more recent invention, being just a tad more than a century old. Unlike writing and music, it hasn't changed all that much since it was invented, mostly because it just works. Now some spanner (sorry, I meant to say "His Lordship, Lord Carter of Barnes") wants to force us to scrap our various radios and go buy some of these new fangled DAB digital sets.

Digital radio is rather excellent. Apart from the expense of the equipment. And the electrical power it needs. And the totally hopeless reception you get.

Actually, come to think of it, digital radio is completely hopeless. I could use a bent coathanger as an aerial on my analog set and pick up Radio 4 in perfect stereo. On my DAB set, if the wind blows or if someone in the room moves, the signal disappears.

You see, it's like forcing every cyclist in the country to scrap their bicycles and get motor bikes instead. Expensive, badly-tuned bulky motorbikes with terrible fuel economy at that. How do these people not understand that some of us don't want over-engineered solutions to problems we haven't got ?!

Don't read the whole report - you will lose the will to live and when you close your eyes you will dream in management jargon and pseudo-scientific technobabble. The chapter on the future of radio is here for those who want to see what the fuss is about.

A final piece of advice : the only people who talk about "platforms" that are worth listening to are railway announcers. Lord Carter mentions the word five times in the first page of that chapter. He doesn't work in a railway station.