Once a Bellend...


Sometimes, it pays to be childish.

Wholly unedited.

Like a fool, I today committed the double heresy of clicking on an article by Piers Morgan on the Daily Mail website, in which he bemoaned the terrible inconvenience of having to listen to people showing solidarity for whistle-blowing campaigns such as #MeToo, #TimesUp and #NeverAgain at the Oscars. True to form, Morgan seems to completely miss the point: for him, hearing - as he puts it - “actress after actress playing the victim card on Sunday night” is far too tiresome, as if somehow, years of patriarchy and gun crime have all been solved by being raised by figures in the media once or twice.

(But would you expect anything less from a man who proudly displays a picture of himself standing shoulder to shoulder with alleged serial-committer of sexual misconduct, Donald Trump, as his Twitter profile picture?)

Don’t get me wrong; I know the game people like Piers Morgan (and fellow Mail columnist of equal odiousness Richard Littlejohn) play: they court this kind of controversy. But just because their childish “boohoo” opinions bring them attention, it doesn’t make their behavior acceptable; okay, celebrities may court attention too, but if they raise the profile of those who've been forced to suffer repeatedly at the hands of culprits who have been protected by a corrupt and sexist industry - or have lost their lives due to the United States' gun laws - that’s a good thing in my book; anyone would think Piers Morgan has previously ignored other people’s rights as a matter of course (*cough* phone hacking scandal *cough*).

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane
Read more