Thatcher dies, Judy Garland banned: BBC asks Wizard for brain, courage and heart

Flying monkeys force Wizard of Oz to ban "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead". Munchkins furious and appeal to Glenda the White Witch to intercede.

Judy Garland banned, the Lollipop Guild crushed. Rainbow privatised and handed over to the chaps in the Emerald City.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the right in general and the Daily Mail in particular, with their foaming at the mouth over the widespread lack of respect for Baroness Margaret Thatcher on her demise, as rebel Munchkins respond with raucous celebrations rather than a frenzy of forelock tugging.

Yes, I know that Thatcherism lives on but her spawn have left us so few opportunities to feel happy, that it would be a shame to waste this one.

We're crashing into the limits of free speech as the BBC bans all but 5 seconds of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead on their Radio 1 Chart Show this weekend. An innocuuous piece of material has become subversive through the meaning its listeners give to it, not what it actually is. Suck on that, Tom Stoppard!

It's the greatest bit of recontextualisation since Stanley Kubrick's "Singin' in the Rain" in A Clockwork Orange.

Double and triple standards all round as Thatcher's funeral is mostly paid out of the public purse instead of being put out to tender to the lowest bidder — funny how it's always socialism for them and capitalism for us. And, even though the market has propelled Ding Dong into the charts, the state has decreed that we can't hear it on the the radio. 'Cause we have, like, you know, freedom of expression in this country ... unless they don't like what it is that's being said.

So three cheers for Edgar Yipsel Harburg, the leftist who wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz. Let's see the Mail string up THAT name with his own piano wire.

Let us show the respect due at her funeral. There should be no violence on Wednesday. Just line the route and sing the Thatcher Death Song.

Here's my poem for the occasion.

Margaret Thatcher Died at the Ritz
8th April 2013

Margaret Thatcher died at the Ritz.
It fits. Her blitz on the poor,
national assets thrust into the mitts
of corporate bandits.
Wealth trickled-down like a horse shits
undigested grain for birds that flit
round what it is its rear end emits.
Compassion deficit, dried out tits,
the country in bits, run by greedy gits.
Her fans omit the price
of crimes her class commit.
Her legacy is the pits.
(And she closed them as well.)

Thatcher's blue touchpaper stayed alight
til the nation was run by her acolytes;
she took a look round at pauperised Brits,
said, "My work here is done," and called it quits.

Woman who taught the food industry to sell air to children dies: Margaret Thatcher poem

Look upon my works, ye poor and vulnerable, and despair.

The Baroness hung on until the new financial year, took a look around at the devastation, said, "My work is done," and expired.

It was Margaret Thatcher who sold off our utilities, which is why our electricity, gas, water and rail are in run by private business (and not even British companies) with the inevitable profiteering and everything that entails.

Large swathes of former public housing stock are now in the hands of private landlords whose soaring rents are subsidised by the public purse.

She would have made the poorest pay the same poll tax as millionaires. British manufacturing was plunged into steep decline. A man's woman (eyes of Caligula, lips of Marilyn Monroe, and ankles that fed Alan Clarke's masturbatory fantasies), she notoriously failed to advance the rights of women.

The great fillip to her failing first term as prime minister came from an unnecessary war over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands on the South American continental shelf.

She denied there was such a thing as society and introduced the law of the jungle where it's the survival of the fittest with the winner taking all.

She was not a positive force in any sense of what a civilisation is supposed to be for its citizens.

Here is a poem.

Thatcher is dead

Margaret Thatcher died at the Ritz.
It fits.
Her blitz on the poor,
national assets thrust in the mitts
of corporate bandits.
Wealth trickled-down like a horse shits
undigested grain for birds that flit
round what its rear end emits.
Compassion deficit, dried out tits,
the country in bits, run by greedy gits.
Her fans omit the human price
of crimes her class commit.
Her legacy is the pits.
And she closed them as well.



Another poem, this one from Red Mike.

Glenn Greenwald: Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette

DREAM SELLER: I'm in this scary short film made in St Ives

I'm in this mesmerising and disturbing short film made in St Ives by my friend Paul Healy. Receiving Paul's cheery little movie, Dream Seller, on the day the Mayans said the world would end, is most appropriate as it speaks of the End of Things.

Paul has captured a powerful atmosphere and imbued it with tons of meaning. It's staring the Grim Reaper in the face for our generation, as well as anticipating the decline and death of our version of civilisation now that capitalist production is moving out of Europe and into Asia and Africa, and capitalism is mutating into a form that doesn't need us (as I've been banging on about for some time).

Dream Seller was shot in one of St Ives's few remaining fish-net cellars ("seller" — geddit?), now earmarked for development, with various poets and artists who are to be found in this artists' colony. So as well as being a fascinating exploration of our fears in the face of The End, it's also a groovy holiday movie of my mates.

It was a pretty scary place. I did remark to Paul as he led me down into the dank and gloom, alone and defenceless (him, that is, not me, heh!), that it had the feel of somewhere where a sex-crime had been carried out.

The worst thing that happened, though, was that I left my make-up bag down there and had to send the boys round to get it back.

A sweet memento of my time in St Ives.

An Unusual Case of Smothering Secondary to Ingesting Raw Pet Cat

Oh my good frickin' god. That must have been a bad puddy.

This report from the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology (via Private Eye) reads like a horror story par excellence. It's the cool scientific tone that packs the punch as we see the whole episode and backstory played out in our mind's eye. Short story writers take note.

Motivation? Forensics should have looked for scratch-marks on the furniture or poo in the pot plants.

"Margaret Redpath MD — 'An Unusual Case of Smothering Secondary to Ingesting Raw Pet Cat'.
Abstract: Smothering is defined as an obstruction of the air passages above the level of the epiglottis, including the nose, mouth, and pharynx. This is in contrast to choking, which is considered to be due to an obstruction of the air passages below the epiglottis. The manner of death in smothering can be homicidal, suicidal, or an accident. Accidental smothering is considered rare among middle-aged adults, yet many cases still occur. Presented here is the case of a 39-year old woman who was found dead on her living room floor by her neighbours. Her hands were covered in scratches and her pet cat was found disembowelled in the kitchen with its tail hacked off. On autopsy her stomach was found to be full of cat intestines, adipose tissue, and strips of fur-covered skin. An intact left kidney and adipose tissue were found lodged in her throat just above her epiglottis. After a complete investigation, the cause of death was determined to be asphyxia by smothering due to animal tissue." 06/2011

Actually, this is similar to a scene in the late JG Ballard's "Home" which was dramatised for television with Anthony Sher in the main role. Wonderful it was, too.

So Hitchens, Havel and Kim are standing at the Pearly Gates ...

This weekend's haul by the Grim Reaper has been an impressive one. First Christopher Hitchens, then Vaclav Havel, now ding dong, Kim Jong Il is dead. Is there no God!!!? Hitchens will know by now but he ain't telling.

The only time I saw Hitch was at Bookmarks where he took on the titans (or were they just tits?) of the SWP on the subject of NATO and former Yugoslavia. I disagreed with him but was shock 'n' awed by his bravura performance, standing on a tiny makeshift stage, drink in one hand, fag in the other, tying up the Greatest Minds of the Left like Danny Kaye in The Court Jester. Shame about Iraq and loving up to Bush, though.

He was a great wit, a beautiful youth and had massive style but, in the end, he was more an entertainer and a token radical for the Bush Right than a serious political analyst.

There were early signs that Hitchens was changing sides, or at least hedging his bets, such as in his support for the Falklands War and admiration for Thatcher. His tectonic rationalisation for siding with the new power in the world got under way once the forces of progress were in retreat after 9/11, famously cheerleading the massacre at Fallujah and laying into the Dixie Chicks for their rather mild statement of dissent days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The spirit of Hitchens's hero Voltaire was in absentia, as was his great rhetorical style, when during the peak of their monstering — death threats, McCarthyite attacks in the right-wing media, blacklisting and careers almost demolished — he joined in the public baying for their blood by referring to them in Viz-talk as "fat sluts", later correcting this to the "Fat Slags" of comic-book fame. So much for his gallant defence of the laydeez from the evil woman-hating Taliban.

Country music veteran Merle Haggard said of the episode:

I don't even know the Dixie Chicks, but I find it an insult for all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching.

We have burqas in the West — they're just invisible.

“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body. (A clause in the indemnification contract signed by Hitch)

Hitchens is often praised for his moral clarity despite some gobsmackingly blatant murkiness. What, for me, summed up the disjuncture between his sharp mind and his inability to empathise was his failure to grasp that waterboarding hurts, can cause brain damage and kills. He lacked the imagination to understand the terror and pain until it was actually done to him under controlled conditions by friendly practitioners in the US army. "You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning ..." Good for him that he recanted his earlier position on this score in Vanity Fair but most of us don't need first-hand experience of being half drowned to understand that this horror is torture.

The tragedy of Christopher Hitchens was that he absconded just as we needed him. The joy was that he was great entertainment as a live act — just don't take him too seriously.

Latte Labour

Harpy Marx

The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens

Norman Finkelstein

He said what!!? about Columbus and the native American Indians?

Gauche obituary

Nick Cohen on his friend

Peter Hitchens on his brother

Farewell Poly Styrene: O Death, Up Yours

Today we bid a sad farewell to Poly Styrene who has died from cancer.

One of the first women who swept to prominence on the punk wave of the 1970s, Poly made a massive impact. She challenged the insipid standards of female beauty of the time with unconventional looks that included a mouthful of metal, puppy-fat that had yet to melt, and a spiky attitude that refused to capitulate to the usual mind-numbing requirements of a moribund music industry but carved out an identity of her own.

When she sang, 'Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think, O bondage, up yours,' you knew something had changed forever.

She had a troubled life following her heyday. Hit by a fire engine, misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, she was incarcerated in a mental hospital and only seemed to find peace when she joined a Hari Krishna sect.

Goodbye, Poly. A cultural pioneer who made the world a better place. O Death, up yours.

I yam Spartacus: Tony Curtis RIP

So sad to learn that the funny and impossibly beautiful Tony Curtis died on Wednesday. I had such a major crush on him as a child.

The film clip above of Curtis leading the heroically suicidal "I am Spartacus" declaration of freedom and solidarity still makes my eyes well up.

Other favourite Curtis moments include, "Match me, Sidney." The evil J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) to Curtis's struggling press agent, Sidney Falco, in Sweet Smell Of Success (1957).

"Yonda lies da castle of my faddah," from The Black Shield Of Falworth(1954), a regularly quoted line whose Bronx accent he thought was unfairly exaggerated by snobs.

"Judy, Judy, Judy." His chortlesome parody of Cary Grant in Some Like It Hot (1959).

He was apparently "The Voice" in Rosemary's Baby (1968) but I can't place it. Anyone know anything?

I think I'm going to have a TC DVD glut.

Burt Lancaster abusing Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)

I yam Spartacus: Tony Curtis RIP

So sad to learn that the funny and impossibly beautiful Tony Curtis died on Wednesday. I had such a major crush on him as a child.

The film clip above of Curtis leading the heroically suicidal "I am Spartacus" declaration of freedom and solidarity still makes my eyes well up.

Other favourite Curtis moments include, "Match me, Sidney." The evil J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) to Curtis's struggling press agent, Sidney Falco, in Sweet Smell Of Success (1957).

"Yonda lies da castle of my faddah," from The Black Shield Of Falworth(1954), a regularly quoted line whose Bronx accent he thought was unfairly exaggerated by snobs.

"Judy, Judy, Judy." His chortlesome parody of Cary Grant in Some Like It Hot (1959).

He was apparently "The Voice" in Rosemary's Baby (1968) but I can't place it. Anyone know anything?

I think I'm going to have a TC DVD glut.

Burt Lancaster abusing Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)

Ricky Martin helps Chinese pirates meet their death

This made me very sad.

Livin' La Vida Loca
Even Chinese pirates fall for Ricky

In honour of Ricky Martin's big announcement this week, we thought we should celebrate with our first three stories on him. This was from February 2000:

"Thirteen Chinese pirates staggered drunkenly to their deaths this week, singing a Ricky Martin song. The gang - convicted of murdering 23 crew members, were taken to the firing squad from a court in Shanwei, China. Before they left for the execution grounds, the prisoners were locked in the court room with relatives, some food and a large amount of rice wine. Half an hour later, they emerged unsteadily into the bright sunlight, red in the face and singing Ricky's 1998 World Cup theme song La Copa De La Vida ("The Cup Of Life"). Yang Jingtao, 25, led the singing, jumping up and down in his chains and singing "Go, go, go! Ole, ole, ole!"

A short time later they were all shot, in the head and the heart, by a firing squad."

From Popbitch

Ricky Martin helps Chinese pirates meet their death

This made me very sad.

Livin' La Vida Loca
Even Chinese pirates fall for Ricky

In honour of Ricky Martin's big announcement this week, we thought we should celebrate with our first three stories on him. This was from February 2000:

"Thirteen Chinese pirates staggered drunkenly to their deaths this week, singing a Ricky Martin song. The gang - convicted of murdering 23 crew members, were taken to the firing squad from a court in Shanwei, China. Before they left for the execution grounds, the prisoners were locked in the court room with relatives, some food and a large amount of rice wine. Half an hour later, they emerged unsteadily into the bright sunlight, red in the face and singing Ricky's 1998 World Cup theme song La Copa De La Vida ("The Cup Of Life"). Yang Jingtao, 25, led the singing, jumping up and down in his chains and singing "Go, go, go! Ole, ole, ole!"

A short time later they were all shot, in the head and the heart, by a firing squad."

From Popbitch

1000 Ways To Die review: lurid, shocking, gruesome TV

Has anyone else stumbled across the Bravo cable TV show, 1,000 Ways To Die? It's a sweet little offering from the US, re-enacting the weirdest ways people have met their end — usually prime contenders for the Darwin Awards.

I'm sitting here squirming having just watched the fate of the scumbag robber who stole groceries from a pregnant blind woman (aw, presumably with one leg and five grandparents to look after). Now, robbery isn't a capital crime to anyone except the Joe Sixpack couch potatoes who enjoy this lowly entertainment, whose ranks I now admit to joining in a rare confessional moment I'll probably live to regret, especially if the Orwell Prize judges are reading this (please look away now). But the gleeful voice-over assures us that the evil perp got his just deserts.

Escaping from the pursuing cop, the villain runs into a doorway, unaware that he is now in a car wash. At that moment, an attendant, oblivious to the presence of the unwanted visitor, starts up the machinery for its daily test run. Said crimo, disorientated by flailing brushes, oceans of soap and jets of water, slips and falls back onto a high-pressure nozzle in the wall that spears his head. So far, so banal.

Did I mention this was a high-pressure nozzle?

We are treated to a very surprised criminal whose head suddenly explodes, leaving a stump of neck above his rather fetching blue jumper.

To an animated illustration of the inside of the human anatomy, a Scientist then tells us in a serious tone befitting the sad occasion, exactly what happens when water is rapidly pumped into your cranial cavity at kazillions of pounds per square inch. "It raises the brain to the top of the skull and, having nowhere to go, is ejected upwards and out at force," because, of course, we needed that explained.

Cue illustration showing said brain squeezed up until the skull shatters.

It's all done with no pretence of good taste whatsover, tells the stories with lipsmacking delight, makes us contemplate our own mortality and thank the lord there but by the grace of god/luck/smarts go I.

What's not to like?

1000 Ways To Die review: lurid, shocking, gruesome TV

Has anyone else stumbled across the Bravo cable TV show, 1,000 Ways To Die? It's a sweet little offering from the US, re-enacting the weirdest ways people have met their end — usually prime contenders for the Darwin Awards.

I'm sitting here squirming having just watched the fate of the scumbag robber who stole groceries from a pregnant blind woman (aw, presumably with one leg and five grandparents to look after). Now, robbery isn't a capital crime to anyone except the Joe Sixpack couch potatoes who enjoy this lowly entertainment, whose ranks I now admit to joining in a rare confessional moment I'll probably live to regret, especially if the Orwell Prize judges are reading this (please look away now). But the gleeful voice-over assures us that the evil perp got his just deserts.

Escaping from the pursuing cop, the villain runs into a doorway, unaware that he is now in a car wash. At that moment, an attendant, oblivious to the presence of the unwanted visitor, starts up the machinery for its daily test run. Said crimo, disorientated by flailing brushes, oceans of soap and jets of water, slips and falls back onto a high-pressure nozzle in the wall that spears his head. So far, so banal.

Did I mention this was a high-pressure nozzle?

We are treated to a very surprised criminal whose head suddenly explodes, leaving a stump of neck above his rather fetching blue jumper.

To an animated illustration of the inside of the human anatomy, a Scientist then tells us in a serious tone befitting the sad occasion, exactly what happens when water is rapidly pumped into your cranial cavity at kazillions of pounds per square inch. "It raises the brain to the top of the skull and, having nowhere to go, is ejected upwards and out at force," because, of course, we needed that explained.

Cue illustration showing said brain squeezed up until the skull shatters.

It's all done with no pretence of good taste whatsover, tells the stories with lipsmacking delight, makes us contemplate our own mortality and thank the lord there but by the grace of god/luck/smarts go I.

What's not to like?

Bill Killed: David Carradine found dead in Thailand

He may have done Bruce Lee out of his coveted role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s series, Kung Fu, and looked damn stoopid in yellowface, but actor David Carradine still gave lots of pleasure once you got past the adhesive tape.

Now the man who played the psycho Bill, boss of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and who met his nemesis in Uma Thurman's Beatrix AKA The Bride in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, is dead. Found with a rope around his neck in Thailand.

All that eastern spiritual hokum and you still go out this way. So sad.

RIP David Carradine, 1936-2009

Bill Killed: David Carradine found dead in Thailand

He may have done Bruce Lee out of his coveted role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s series, Kung Fu, and looked damn stoopid in yellowface, but actor David Carradine still gave lots of pleasure once you got past the adhesive tape.

Now the man who played the psycho Bill, boss of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and who met his nemesis in Uma Thurman's Beatrix AKA The Bride in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, is dead. Found with a rope around his neck in Thailand.

All that eastern spiritual hokum and you still go out this way. So sad.

RIP David Carradine, 1936-2009

Bad taste, bad timing

Just saw this as I was flicking through the cable channels. How's that for an unfortunate juxtaposition?

Bad taste, bad timing

Just saw this as I was flicking through the cable channels. How's that for an unfortunate juxtaposition?

Jade Goody Killed by the Big Brother that made her

I feel very sorry for Jade Goody. Dying from cancer at a pitifully early age and in the public eye is not a fate I’d wish on any hapless entertainer. There's clear class conflict going on here with a lucky member of the "underclass" (tabloidese for bottom of the working class) made famous, given riches, then chewed up and spat out, for our edification. Let this be a lesson for aspiring chavs: don’t get above yourselves.

The idiot agent who encouraged her to return to the Big Brother house, like Ayesha walking back into the flames that gave her immortality in She, has as good as killed her.

For some, being “fick” is schtick; for Jade and her tribe, it’s the way they are, testimony to our fabulous class-free education system. Without friendly editors on the job, Jade was doomed. Come in number Epsilon, your fifteen minutes is up.

Yes, we know it was wrong for Jade and her undereducated family to unleash race-fuelled spite at Shilpa Shetty as the pressure on the reality show ratcheted up. And it was a joy to see Britons condemning her for her bullying. But she wasn’t Bernard Manning or Richard Littlejohn, and this wasn’t a capital offence. Such was the shock of the whole entertainment machine turning on this stupid but normally amiable woman, with a viciousness usually reserved for murderers and rapists, that it probably triggered her fatal illness.

We knew she was fick. Why were we surprised when she acted fick? She was no-where as sharp as fellow housemate Carole Malone who, channeling the spirit of Iago, began to poison the atmosphere against Shilpa when Malone was up for eviction. Accordingly, Malone’s acolyte, the dumb WAG whose name thankfully escapes me, diverted her hurt at the imminent loss of Queen Bee and mother figure on to the named party. Jade tried to offer solidarity and comfort to her mate using the only way they knew how: target the person who’s most different, with a lot more style, better-looking, and looking hot to win, define her as Other and keep snapping away at her like a pack of yappy dogs around a hobbled panther. Meanwhile, the smarter women on the show slipped the shiv into Shilpa far more deftly while other housemates bravely turned a blind eye. (Before we get all complacent, this was the same dynamic I saw at work in the left and in the SWP in particular.)

The sad thing is that, unlike more cynical performers who’ve had to seek redemption through charitable works, Jade took the subsequent onslaught to heart. Shilpa was impressive and offered a hand of kindness that was allowing Jade to learn. Having had all her windows smashed, her income drying up, finding herself suddenly a national object of shame and hate, Jade tried to learn by going to India and overcoming her fear of “abroad”. She didn’t do too well, what with her colossal cargo of ignorance sabotaging every move she made, but in her oafish way she was trying.

So now it’s terminal and she’s trying to gather as much dosh as possible in a world that runs on money for those she leaves behind. Who can blame her? With a world-wide depression with no end staring us in the face, would you turn it down if your death might save your family? Look at the role models she’s had in her short life, the example set by that dignity and decorum-free zone, two of the greediest bastards ever to occupy Number Ten Downing Street, f’rinstance. But, no, let’s not get angry with the educated posh men and women making money from a war they started and who presided over the looting of Britain. Let’s get the funny stupid slag who showed us her kebab and enjoy the snuff-fest.

Jade Goody is the distillation of everything this society admires: the worship of money and fame. That is a cancer in itself. There is something horrific and yet fitting about her end: death as entertainment. It is sad that she was wafted in on a circus and now exits the same way, but I can’t condemn the poor girl at the centre of it. She’s never had power over her miserable life and now she’s losing it. The lesson I draw is that we need to have a complete shift in our values, and build something better where no-one has to prostitute themselves in any capacity.

For another perspective, see Hagley Road.

Item picked up by France 24 The Observers

Jade Goody Killed by the Big Brother that made her

I feel very sorry for Jade Goody. Dying from cancer at a pitifully early age and in the public eye is not a fate I’d wish on any hapless entertainer. There's clear class conflict going on here with a lucky member of the "underclass" (tabloidese for bottom of the working class) made famous, given riches, then chewed up and spat out, for our edification. Let this be a lesson for aspiring chavs: don’t get above yourselves.

The idiot agent who encouraged her to return to the Big Brother house, like Ayesha walking back into the flames that gave her immortality in She, has as good as killed her.

For some, being “fick” is schtick; for Jade and her tribe, it’s the way they are, testimony to our fabulous class-free education system. Without friendly editors on the job, Jade was doomed. Come in number Epsilon, your fifteen minutes is up.

Yes, we know it was wrong for Jade and her undereducated family to unleash race-fuelled spite at Shilpa Shetty as the pressure on the reality show ratcheted up. And it was a joy to see Britons condemning her for her bullying. But she wasn’t Bernard Manning or Richard Littlejohn, and this wasn’t a capital offence. Such was the shock of the whole entertainment machine turning on this stupid but normally amiable woman, with a viciousness usually reserved for murderers and rapists, that it probably triggered her fatal illness.

We knew she was fick. Why were we surprised when she acted fick? She was no-where as sharp as fellow housemate Carole Malone who, channeling the spirit of Iago, began to poison the atmosphere against Shilpa when Malone was up for eviction. Accordingly, Malone’s acolyte, the dumb WAG whose name thankfully escapes me, diverted her hurt at the imminent loss of Queen Bee and mother figure on to the named party. Jade tried to offer solidarity and comfort to her mate using the only way they knew how: target the person who’s most different, with a lot more style, better-looking, and looking hot to win, define her as Other and keep snapping away at her like a pack of yappy dogs around a hobbled panther. Meanwhile, the smarter women on the show slipped the shiv into Shilpa far more deftly while other housemates bravely turned a blind eye. (Before we get all complacent, this was the same dynamic I saw at work in the left and in the SWP in particular.)

The sad thing is that, unlike more cynical performers who’ve had to seek redemption through charitable works, Jade took the subsequent onslaught to heart. Shilpa was impressive and offered a hand of kindness that was allowing Jade to learn. Having had all her windows smashed, her income drying up, finding herself suddenly a national object of shame and hate, Jade tried to learn by going to India and overcoming her fear of “abroad”. She didn’t do too well, what with her colossal cargo of ignorance sabotaging every move she made, but in her oafish way she was trying.

So now it’s terminal and she’s trying to gather as much dosh as possible in a world that runs on money for those she leaves behind. Who can blame her? With a world-wide depression with no end staring us in the face, would you turn it down if your death might save your family? Look at the role models she’s had in her short life, the example set by that dignity and decorum-free zone, two of the greediest bastards ever to occupy Number Ten Downing Street, f’rinstance. But, no, let’s not get angry with the educated posh men and women making money from a war they started and who presided over the looting of Britain. Let’s get the funny stupid slag who showed us her kebab and enjoy the snuff-fest.

Jade Goody is the distillation of everything this society admires: the worship of money and fame. That is a cancer in itself. There is something horrific and yet fitting about her end: death as entertainment. It is sad that she was wafted in on a circus and now exits the same way, but I can’t condemn the poor girl at the centre of it. She’s never had power over her miserable life and now she’s losing it. The lesson I draw is that we need to have a complete shift in our values, and build something better where no-one has to prostitute themselves in any capacity.

For another perspective, see Hagley Road.

Item picked up by France 24 The Observers

Death by hooters

It's official. My tits are lethal.

Maybe it was a fit of marsupial envy which first led me to discover that I could stash my iPod in my bra. Handy for access without breaking stride, and for those stupidly short earbud cables.

Perhaps it was hubris that made me think I could increase my cleavage's handbag potential. Just one more small electrical appliance. Couldn't hurt - could it?

The iPod had the protection of a snazzy leather cover. The mobile phone was naked. The sun was shining. I was glowing. Plugged in to my music I didn't have to worry about hearing the phone ring when my mate called to announce her arrival for our regular skive dahn the Sarf Bank. I could feel it vibrate. And very nice, too.

I forgot about the phone.

Until, that is, several hours later when I remembered to call Babes and announce my imminent departure for home. To my horror, upon retrieval, I found the screen steamed up with perspiration and on the fritz, none of the buttons connecting to anything.

That night I turned it off, removed the battery and prayed for it to dry out and miraculously recover overnight.

It didn't.

This wouldn't have happened with a pen and pencil.

To add insult to injury, the mobile company won't send me another one until I'm due for my upgrade in December 'cause this counts as my fault and I would be stuck with the bill for repairs and I really don't want to argue this one in court. Or anywhere.

The decolletage of doom. The hooters from hell. Luddite breasts. That's me.

The horror. The horror.

Death by hooters

It's official. My tits are lethal.

Maybe it was a fit of marsupial envy which first led me to discover that I could stash my iPod in my bra. Handy for access without breaking stride, and for those stupidly short earbud cables.

Perhaps it was hubris that made me think I could increase my cleavage's handbag potential. Just one more small electrical appliance. Couldn't hurt - could it?

The iPod had the protection of a snazzy leather cover. The mobile phone was naked. The sun was shining. I was glowing. Plugged in to my music I didn't have to worry about hearing the phone ring when my mate called to announce her arrival for our regular skive dahn the Sarf Bank. I could feel it vibrate. And very nice, too.

I forgot about the phone.

Until, that is, several hours later when I remembered to call Babes and announce my imminent departure for home. To my horror, upon retrieval, I found the screen steamed up with perspiration and on the fritz, none of the buttons connecting to anything.

That night I turned it off, removed the battery and prayed for it to dry out and miraculously recover overnight.

It didn't.

This wouldn't have happened with a pen and pencil.

To add insult to injury, the mobile company won't send me another one until I'm due for my upgrade in December 'cause this counts as my fault and I would be stuck with the bill for repairs and I really don't want to argue this one in court. Or anywhere.

The decolletage of doom. The hooters from hell. Luddite breasts. That's me.

The horror. The horror.