"He is not good-looking but he is quite young. He will look terrible in eight years" - Polly Toynbee on David Cameron.
"Why are straight men such poofs?" - Matthew Parris
"Newspapers are to be snoozed beneath or as a basis for cat litter" - Gyles Brandreth, saying he would approve of a society devoted to "People Who Never Read Newspapers Online".
"An airline that spends millions of pounds on improving its corporate image seems intent at the same time on kicking its good name to pieces for the sake of a tiny fragment of metal no larger than a thumbnail" - Michael Dobbs on British Airways' decision to ban staff wearing the Cross.
"Watching Britney Spears and Kevin Federline trying to outsmart each other is like observing monkeys trying to play chess" - TV comic Jay Leno.
"If you were a conspiracy theorist, you might think the Government was hoping to pass on to its successors a humungous millstone of a white elephant that positively dwarfs the Tories' piddling little Millennium Dome" - Will Self on the 2012 Olympics.
Where are my royalities then Mr. Dale?
ReplyDeleteA commendable selection; further comment is redundant.
ReplyDeleteOn Michael Dobbs' comment: Mania will out in the end.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of Matthew Parris' column was bizarre. Can anyone enlighten me as to what he was trying to achieve?
ReplyDelete"Why are straight men such poofs?" - Matthew Parris
ReplyDeleteMatthew, darling, if men's toiletries and grooming products were the same price as women's, I'd be macho and buy them. But why pay £6.95 for a bottle of "Just For Men" hair dye when Schwarzkopf is £1.98? And you should SEE the prices of men's exfoliating facewash! There is no WAY I would put my delicate complexion in the hands of Lynx, when Nivea has 13.5% aloe vera. Let them all talk, see if I care.
"If you were a conspiracy theorist, you might think the Government was hoping to pass on to its successors a humungous millstone of a white elephant that positively dwarfs the Tories' piddling little Millennium Dome" - Will Self on the 2012 Olympics.
ReplyDeleteMorning Iain,
I might have missed something, but at what point was the decision made to spin the Olympics into a regeneration exercise?
I was listening very carefully when they were explaining the figures for the budget for the games last year, and ‘regeneration’ was to be a byproduct of the games, not an entity.
We are now led to believe that this was the grand plan all along! Lord Coe said as much on TV earlier this week.
I’m all for regenerating, but these soaring costs are now tangled up together, and only the ‘consultants’ will ever know roughly what is paid for the Olympic games and what is paid for the new roads, trains and houses. The ODA will probably not know, neither will the London tax payers, and definitely not the politicians who will mostly have changed jobs by 2012.
Sorry to be so negative. I cheered when we got the Olympics job, but the usual political interference was bound to surface, and it has, much sooner than I thought it would, – and with a nasty vengeance!
I don't often agree with Will Slef, but...
ReplyDeleteCan we go to the Olymic people and say, "Sorry, we've just come to our senses. If you still want us to run the 2012 Games, we are only going to use already-existing facilities. Take it or leave it."
"If you can't live with that, why don't you see if Paris are still interested. Or have they come to their senses too?"
"I feel ashamed. I have been a Labour Party supporter for 48 years - ever since I was 15-years-old. Corruption is rife. It is shambolic and disgusting. The public is being deceived and betrayed by a Government hell bent on staying in power. We are being run by a dictatorship. Democracy has simply been swept away." - Bryn Sidaway on Labour illegally forcing Labour councillors to hand over a percentage of their allowances direct from the council payroll (i.e. council tax) to fill the financial black hole.
ReplyDelete"This is a misuse of the council payroll to help the Labour Party. This is a bill that will be footed by the taxpayer. At a time when cabinet ministers are being questioned by police, Labour at the other end of the spectrum is behaving like a bunch of loan sharks demanding money with menaces." Angus MacNeil, the Scottish Nationalist MP on the Labour Party "Group Levy".
ReplyDelete'He is not good-looking but he is quite young. He will look terrible in eight years'
ReplyDeleteLet me see...David Cameron in eight years, or Gordon Brown now....
*shudder* The mind of man is not designed for such upsetting.
As was suggested on Question Time last night I say put Polly on the A List!
ReplyDelete"The Sexuality of DIY" - how about that for a sociology thesis?!?
ReplyDeleteMatthew Parris's column was very amusing. In a role reversal of stereotypes, gay men now have the monopoly on traditional attributes of manhood - DIY, the outdoors etc. Just watch Brokeback Mountain (written by a woman), and I recall the Village People (only one of whom was gay?) dressed up as "traditional male role models".
Heterosexual men are now mincing metrosexuals worrying about their fingernails and hair. Perhaps this is because of the unreasonable demands placed upon them by women!
Where does that leave men like me, married heterosexuals with a penchant for DIY and the outdoors? Do I have to "do it" furtively in my shed with the door locked? Do I have to pretend I am going out "for some retail therapy and a latte" and swop my man-bag for a rucksack in a car park somewhere? What to do in these confusing times?!?
Well in fairness Leno has a point. Someone please tell Matthew Parris that it's because they're English. In the words of the great Stephen Colbert, "It's England. Everyone seems a little gay."
ReplyDeleteJust for the record, the quip about Britney and her ex was actually made not by Jay Leno, but by fellow late night talk show host David Letterman.
ReplyDelete