Madam Miaow stand-up: Everyone hates the Chinese

Anna Chen's second stand-up gig this year. At the Lion's Den in London, 15th August 2008.

On the same theme of "Everyone hates the Chinese", don't forget I'm on The Stephen Nolan Show, BBC Radio 5Live debate, tonight.
CHANGED TIME
11.20PM, SATURDAY 23rd August

The subject this time is how have the Chinese Olympics changed people's views on China? For better or worse? And how?

Hosted by Tony Livesey, sitting in for Stephen Nolan.

You can email, phone or text during the show.
Phone: 0500 909 693
Text: 85058
Email: 5livesport@bbc.co.uk and Livesey@bbc.co.uk
You can listen online for seven days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/nolan.shtml

STOP PRESS

Arrived prepped and revved to find a no show from Tory Boy Edward McMillan-Scott. Hah! Instead, I was up against Ian Thom of the Free Tibet campaign, one of the two British protesters who were deported.

To listen to the show for seven days online, click here

Then click on "Listen again — Saturday" and slide up to 1hr and 43 mins.

Madam Miaow stand-up: Everyone hates the Chinese

Anna Chen's second stand-up gig this year. At the Lion's Den in London, 15th August 2008.

On the same theme of "Everyone hates the Chinese", don't forget I'm on The Stephen Nolan Show, BBC Radio 5Live debate, tonight.
CHANGED TIME
11.20PM, SATURDAY 23rd August

The subject this time is how have the Chinese Olympics changed people's views on China? For better or worse? And how?

Hosted by Tony Livesey, sitting in for Stephen Nolan.

You can email, phone or text during the show.
Phone: 0500 909 693
Text: 85058
Email: 5livesport@bbc.co.uk and Livesey@bbc.co.uk
You can listen online for seven days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/nolan.shtml

STOP PRESS

Arrived prepped and revved to find a no show from Tory Boy Edward McMillan-Scott. Hah! Instead, I was up against Ian Thom of the Free Tibet campaign, one of the two British protesters who were deported.

To listen to the show for seven days online, click here

Then click on "Listen again — Saturday" and slide up to 1hr and 43 mins.

China labour laws blocked by US corps: Tory politician knows nothing, shock, horror!

Tory MEP and Euro Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott effectively called me a liar on BBC Radio 5Live's Stephen Nolan show a few Sundays ago when I pointed out that when China tried to improve its abysmal workers' rights situation in 2006 the American Chamber of Commerce, representing a swathe of top businesses like Walmart and Nike, lobbied hard to get it stopped.

He also accused me of being in thrall to the Chinese government ("China is your regime") and said I wasn't properly British, insisting on defining me as Chinese. In the past few weeks I've had to put up with assorted ad hominem attacks on air and in the blogosphere, been told that the Chinese are "ants" and "robots", and carrying out genocide "against themselves". This last reminds me of the Kamikaze contingent that should heve rescued our hero in Life Of Brian when he was nailed up on his cross. Dur! Yes, that makes sense!

Anyhow, here's a link to an item on how US corporations blocked China's Labour laws, of which McMillan-Scott was so vociferously and willfully(?) ignorant. It's taken from a New York Times report.

Many of the largest corporations--many of whom contribute significant amounts of money to the Republican and Democratic parties and their candidates--are doing everything possible to keep their slave wage heaven in China.

More

Hypocrisy, much?

STOP PRESS!!!
Hah! Would you believe it? The BBC have put me head-to-head again with the Tory MEP and European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott who accuses China of being guilty of genocide.

The Stephen Nolan Show, BBC Radio 5Live
(Note changed time) 11.20PM, SATURDAY 23rd August

The subject this time is how have the Chinese Olympics changed people's views on China? For better or worse? And how?

Hosted by Tony Livesey, sitting in for Stephen Nolan.

You can email, phone or text during the show.
Phone: 0500 909 693
Text: 85058
Email: Both 5livesport@bbc.co.uk and Tony.Livesey@bbc.co.uk to be sure
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/nolan.shtml

China labour laws blocked by US corps: Tory politician knows nothing, shock, horror!

Tory MEP and Euro Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott effectively called me a liar on BBC Radio 5Live's Stephen Nolan show a few Sundays ago when I pointed out that when China tried to improve its abysmal workers' rights situation in 2006 the American Chamber of Commerce, representing a swathe of top businesses like Walmart and Nike, lobbied hard to get it stopped.

He also accused me of being in thrall to the Chinese government ("China is your regime") and said I wasn't properly British, insisting on defining me as Chinese. In the past few weeks I've had to put up with assorted ad hominem attacks on air and in the blogosphere, been told that the Chinese are "ants" and "robots", and carrying out genocide "against themselves". This last reminds me of the Kamikaze contingent that should heve rescued our hero in Life Of Brian when he was nailed up on his cross. Dur! Yes, that makes sense!

Anyhow, here's a link to an item on how US corporations blocked China's Labour laws, of which McMillan-Scott was so vociferously and willfully(?) ignorant. It's taken from a New York Times report.

Many of the largest corporations--many of whom contribute significant amounts of money to the Republican and Democratic parties and their candidates--are doing everything possible to keep their slave wage heaven in China.

More

Hypocrisy, much?

STOP PRESS!!!
Hah! Would you believe it? The BBC have put me head-to-head again with the Tory MEP and European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott who accuses China of being guilty of genocide.

The Stephen Nolan Show, BBC Radio 5Live
(Note changed time) 11.20PM, SATURDAY 23rd August

The subject this time is how have the Chinese Olympics changed people's views on China? For better or worse? And how?

Hosted by Tony Livesey, sitting in for Stephen Nolan.

You can email, phone or text during the show.
Phone: 0500 909 693
Text: 85058
Email: Both 5livesport@bbc.co.uk and Tony.Livesey@bbc.co.uk to be sure
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/nolan.shtml

Chen wins gold for awesome snatch

Chen Xiexia

You can wait a lifetime for a headline like that.

Would you believe it? My namesake wins China's first gold of the Olympics with superior muscle-power and a fearsome snatch. Chen, 25, lifted 95kg in the snatch and set a new record for the class with 117kg in the clean and jerk.

It's little things like this that make my day.

Video of women's weightlifting event. Chen wins first gold for China

Chen wins gold for awesome snatch

Chen Xiexia

You can wait a lifetime for a headline like that.

Would you believe it? My namesake wins China's first gold of the Olympics with superior muscle-power and a fearsome snatch. Chen, 25, lifted 95kg in the snatch and set a new record for the class with 117kg in the clean and jerk.

It's little things like this that make my day.

Video of women's weightlifting event. Chen wins first gold for China

Opening ceremony Beijing Olympics: Madam Miaow on the radio tonight

I'm now watching the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and laughing. It's spectacular beyond belief: 2,008 Foo drumers with an amazing light show; 3,000 year old string instruments; fireworks displays across six miles of the Forbidden City axis to the Birds Nest Stadium; dancers painting a huge unfurling scroll combining the arts of dance, painting and music; and mysteriously floating objects rising like magic. Thousands of years of history all designed by movie director Zhang Yimou, so I'm guessing wires will be involved.

Oh, and the mandatory cute kid singing while China's national costumes get an airing and PLA officers march (no that is not a goose-step!) with the national flag in tow.

And puppets!!! (The kind with strings, you cynics out there!!!) As bread and circuses go, that was ace.

Fifty-six Chinese ethnic minorities, 1,000 medals, 300 events, 204 competing nations, 10,000 athletes, 313 Brits, 639 Chinese, plus 7 feet six inches of basketball hero Yao Ming.

A cast of thousands (fifteen thousand to be precise), state of the art technology, imagination and flair. London is so screwed. Follow that!

I'm on Radio 5Live tonight, 10 to 11pm, on the Stephen Nolan Show

Just watched the lighting of the Olympic flame that officially opens the games. Zhang Yimou — you are The One!

Another great blog on the ceremony

Madam Miaow in the media: Guardian and BBC R2

Phew! A busy day today. My piece on Martin Bashir's strange outburst at a journalists' event in Chicago is in The Guardian's G2 section.

And I spoke on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show at 1.10pm about the Beijing Olympics. Available online for seven days.

Madam Miaow in the media: Guardian and BBC R2

Phew! A busy day today. My piece on Martin Bashir's strange outburst at a journalists' event in Chicago is in The Guardian's G2 section.

And I spoke on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show at 1.10pm about the Beijing Olympics. Available online for seven days.

Madam Miaow on the radio: the year of the "Genocide Olympics"

Bon profit — tonight I should be eating Denise's paella (above) instead of engaging in radio verbals with the terminally ambitious

Yes, the "Genocide Olympics". That's what the latest bandwagon-jumper, Edward McMillan-Scott (Tory MEP and European Parliament Vice President), busy climbing up the greasy pole and endeavoring to make a name for himself, has decided to call this month's sporting excitement.

"We Should Shun Beijing Olympics in the Land of Genocide", he says, with his full understanding of the Holocaust on display. "But there is still genocide inside China. Hundreds of thousands are in 'administrative detention'." Tell that to the survivors or my mates who lost their families in the real Holocaust.

"China’s economic boom is causing massive environmental degradation. The air in Beijing is appalling.”. And this coming from a native of a country that's been pumping carbon into the atmosphere for how long?!! And can't even meet its Kyoto promises.

Here I am, spending a lovely restful Sunday with my oldest mate, Denise, and I have to be on BBC Radio 5 Live's Stephen Nolan programme between 22:00 and 22:30 tonight in order to counter lightweight morons bashing up the Chinese — AGAIN! And I have to stay sober. Two more reasons why this Bruce Banner may well be hulking out by the time we're on air. (You can listen again for seven days.)

Oh, and did I mention Nick Clegg? Demanding Gordon Brown boycott the Olympics. Boycott yourselves in 2012, warmongering jerks with a million dead Iraqis on your lily-whites and the prospect of a nuclear strike on Iran. Why aren't you dragging that grinning monster Tony Blair, the only person who could have been a more convincing Joker than Heath Ledger, into The Hague alongside Radovan Karadic? Taking $2 million a year from JP Morgan, a US bank making money from the war that their new talent started?!! What is UP with people? Are you guys NUTS?!!!!

If I may quote myself (rather than simply repeat myself) from Wreath Lecture which I wrote in June:

Coz this is the country of Magna Carta
No longer.
The authorities here are growing stronger.
The Meaning of Life is 42
42 days detention without charge
42 days of your life writ large
42 days without a home
42 days because politicians lost their back bone.
Rendition to a torture zone
Your wife and your kids don’t know where you’ve gone
Guilty until proved innocent
Where sucking your teeth while black is an arrestable offence
A copper scrutinising every email you ever sent
Gotta fuck for food, steal for rent
Freedom of speech? What a cheek!
Satan could sue the bible for libel
Get a million pound payoff and a House of Lords title.
DNA records, CCTVs,
Media frenzied heeby-jeebies,
Asbo-land, tapping phones,
Booming business, crippling loans
For school fees in the land of the free
Hey, why you picking on the Chinese
It’s not us starting World War Three
You’ll free this land?
Iran, Iraq, I scrammed.

BTW, Denise's tiramisu is bursting with alcoholic goodness and I feel overstuffed like a turkey. Must ... get ... in ... shape ... for ... radio ...

Madam Miaow on the radio: the year of the "Genocide Olympics"

Bon profit — tonight I should be eating Denise's paella (above) instead of engaging in radio verbals with the terminally ambitious

Yes, the "Genocide Olympics". That's what the latest bandwagon-jumper, Edward McMillan-Scott (Tory MEP and European Parliament Vice President), busy climbing up the greasy pole and endeavoring to make a name for himself, has decided to call this month's sporting excitement.

"We Should Shun Beijing Olympics in the Land of Genocide", he says, with his full understanding of the Holocaust on display. "But there is still genocide inside China. Hundreds of thousands are in 'administrative detention'." Tell that to the survivors or my mates who lost their families in the real Holocaust.

"China’s economic boom is causing massive environmental degradation. The air in Beijing is appalling.”. And this coming from a native of a country that's been pumping carbon into the atmosphere for how long?!! And can't even meet its Kyoto promises.

Here I am, spending a lovely restful Sunday with my oldest mate, Denise, and I have to be on BBC Radio 5 Live's Stephen Nolan programme between 22:00 and 22:30 tonight in order to counter lightweight morons bashing up the Chinese — AGAIN! And I have to stay sober. Two more reasons why this Bruce Banner may well be hulking out by the time we're on air. (You can listen again for seven days.)

Oh, and did I mention Nick Clegg? Demanding Gordon Brown boycott the Olympics. Boycott yourselves in 2012, warmongering jerks with a million dead Iraqis on your lily-whites and the prospect of a nuclear strike on Iran. Why aren't you dragging that grinning monster Tony Blair, the only person who could have been a more convincing Joker than Heath Ledger, into The Hague alongside Radovan Karadic? Taking $2 million a year from JP Morgan, a US bank making money from the war that their new talent started?!! What is UP with people? Are you guys NUTS?!!!!

If I may quote myself (rather than simply repeat myself) from Wreath Lecture which I wrote in June:

Coz this is the country of Magna Carta
No longer.
The authorities here are growing stronger.
The Meaning of Life is 42
42 days detention without charge
42 days of your life writ large
42 days without a home
42 days because politicians lost their back bone.
Rendition to a torture zone
Your wife and your kids don’t know where you’ve gone
Guilty until proved innocent
Where sucking your teeth while black is an arrestable offence
A copper scrutinising every email you ever sent
Gotta fuck for food, steal for rent
Freedom of speech? What a cheek!
Satan could sue the bible for libel
Get a million pound payoff and a House of Lords title.
DNA records, CCTVs,
Media frenzied heeby-jeebies,
Asbo-land, tapping phones,
Booming business, crippling loans
For school fees in the land of the free
Hey, why you picking on the Chinese
It’s not us starting World War Three
You’ll free this land?
Iran, Iraq, I scrammed.

BTW, Denise's tiramisu is bursting with alcoholic goodness and I feel overstuffed like a turkey. Must ... get ... in ... shape ... for ... radio ...