Oh, Danny Boy

Oh, those lovable Welsh!

Daniel Cooper, father of 3 despite being only 24, was convicted of indecent exposure after trying to shag a kebab shop counter and a Land Rover whilst drunk. At least it beats (on the indecency stakes - I leave it to my Welsh reader to make any qualitative comparison) shagging sheep whilst sober.

Mr. Cooper, who may or may not henceforth be known as Mini Cooper having been caught in all his naked glory on CCTV, "simulated" (why "simulated"?) sex with a blue Discovery, blue Discoveries presumably being the Essex girls of the car world. Did the Discovery drop its bag of chips, I wonder. We may never know.

Nor does the report state whether Mr. Cooper achieved the necessary degree of arousal, or whether he was properly prepared for his one night stand (what kind of lubricant is best?), though presumably the CCTV could answer those questions.

Cooper said he was so drunk he could not remember what happened until he was shown the CCTV pictures. Riiiight. Although his lawyer claimed that Cooper was "mortified and totally ashamed", he changed his name to "Daniel Hotcock Cooper" on his Facebook page, so not very convincing, really. Unless the description was a literal one, the exhaust pipe being still warm. Just wondering.

One of his "friends" said: "Daniel will never live this down – everyone is saying he was 'tyred' and 'exhausted' afterwards. "He is not a pretty sight when naked. We all felt sorry for the Land Rover and hope it wasn't offended."

Cooper admitted indecent exposure and must stay at home on weekend evenings for the next three months, where he will presumably be watching the Discovery Channel. Geddit?

Send In The Clowns

"Sir" Alex Ferguson is an unlucky man. If only a few appalling refereeing decisions had not gone against him, his team, Manchester United, would have been unbeaten for 26 years.

But seriously, he has had his share of luck, including winning one last trophy in his last two years as manager, albeit through landing a single player who made all the difference to his aging team, with a bit of help from Fergie-time as well as some of the decisions he forgot to complain about. So he was able to go out as a champion, and to avoid having to decide, year after year, whether to hang on for just one more season or to go out as not-a-champion.

But he has  gone, or has he? He remains with MU as a director and as their "Ambassador". One would assume that this was to keep his experience in the club and to provide a wise head when needed. If so, it is not working as MU's humiliation in the transfer market has shown.

Much fanfare heralded David Moyes's arrival, with brash talk about the big signings MU would be making. Luring Ronaldo back, buying Cesc Fabregas, attracting Robert Lewandowski; all these projects were yelled from the mountain tops, yet none were achieved. The full sorry story is here: the upshot of the transfer season is that MU bought one 20-year old, paid four and a half million pounds more than they needed to for the only one of the two Everton players they were after, and made a laughing stock of themselves by referring to some well-known Spanish sports lawyers as impostors. They are left with the almost-sole achievement of not having lost their injury-prone and moody striker, Wayne Loony, to Chelsea, whose bids for the fat has-been were surely only designed to wind up MU anyway.

How strange that this chapter of accidents could occur with the wisdom of Fergie still in the club. Did he say nothing to the hapless Moyes and Woodward to suggest that they might, perhaps, think about trying this or that instead of blundering around?

Talking of Rooney, what a poisoned chalice Sir Alice has left there, with his claim when he (Alice) was leaving, that Rooney had asked for a transfer. In what possible way could this have helped his successor? And there we have it; I believe, far from helping behind the scenes, Alice is revelling in the contrast between his reign and his successor's. How long before MU's fans tumble to it?

Well, Duh!

Comment is almost superfluous (but I won't let that stop me) on this story: Tony Abbott, Australia's opposition leader, is quoted as saying "No one -- however smart, however well-educated, however experienced -- is the suppository of all wisdom."

Perhaps the kindest thing that could be said about this, from an Australian point of view, is that it diverts attention from the Australians' collapse yesterday in the fourth test match.

Or that, arguably, an earlier gaffe from a candidate in Queensland (of course), Stephanie Bannister, a female welder, describing Islam as a country, was not only worse but was only one of a series, leading her to be described as Australia's Sarah Palin.

Ah, Australia, where men are men and women are welders!

Fatuous

Here's another one for the meaningless apology collection. Geoffrey Miller, a professor in New Mexico (as opposed to old may he koh) has been disciplined (ooh-err!) for tweeting that fat Ph.D. candidates have less chance of success because “if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation".

The university could have tried, in a disciplined academic way, to fault Miller's logic, or perhaps to force him to justify his conclusion with some statistics or a study (surely not hard to find enough fat students in America?), and, if he couldn't, to ridicule his lack of science. If he couldn't support his comments, they could have called him an inner fatty. Or is this what they meant when they "roundly" criticised him?

But no, the university has gone straight for the lazy PC option, saying that Miller broke "at least three"different ethics rules (Can't they even work out how many of their own rules he broke? Are these people too fat to count above three?) with the tweet,and demanded that he apologise to students and colleagues. Not just the fat ones, it seems, but all of them. So Miller (if he does so) will be apologising to thin people for something said in respect of fat people - an apology as empty as the calories the fatties consume.

Banging The Drum

Finally, there is someone who doesn't apologise immediately after saying something that might, conceivably, offend anyone who is really rather pleased to be offended and to have the chance to parade their offendedness in the media. Ckufing PC wankers.

Hats off to Godfrey Bloom, who questioned Britain paying vast sums of aid, whilst still in debt itself, to "Bongo Bongo Land".

When questioned about his comments (for which, read 'asked to apologise'), Mr Bloom told BBC News it would be "absurd" and "ridiculous" to label them racist, adding that Bongo Bongo Land was "a figment of people's imagination. It's like Ruritania or the Third World. ...It's sad how anybody can be offended by a reference to a country that doesn't exist."

Mr Bloom also said: "If I've offended anybody in Bongo Bongo Land, I will write to their ambassador at the Court of St James."

Later attempts by worthies of his party, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), to smooth the ruffled feathers of the Bongolese by getting Mr. Bloom to apologies had mixed results. The Bloomster said:

"I used a term which I subsequently gather under certain circumstances could be interpreted as pejorative to individuals and possibly cause offence. Although quite clearly no such personal usage was intended, I understand from UKIP party chairman Steve Crowther and leader Nigel Farage that I must not use the terminology in the future, nor will I, and [I] sincerely regret any genuine offence which might have been caused or embarrassment to my colleagues."

Such is the hunger for apologies that the leader of the UKIP, Nigel Farage, claimed on the basis of the above that Mr. Bloom "apologised", whilst the Beeb itself sloppily or deliberately misquotes Bloom as saying "he sincerely regrets causing any offence".

Read it again, Messrs. Farage and Beeb. He "regrets" any "genuine" offence caused to individuals to whom the comment might have been personally pejorative (i.e. not the PC brigade). That means no one.

Good on you, Mr. Bloom.

I Lick It Because I Like It

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Shifting Sands

I had only just got over my bewilderment at the current AustCham ad on the Australian Channel, where they say they have been "flavouring" Hong Kong for 20 years, accompanied by a cartoon of someone pouring salt (or maybe pepper) over the Hong Kong skyline ("Flavouring", where did that come from?), when I received a circular from "Business Events Australia's Chinese outlet. The circular contains a storyette about a jolly to Australia's Gold Coast by over thousand Chinese delegates from Herbalife China.

Jerry Li, President, Herbalife China said, “When choosing Australia for the Herbalife Leadership Vacation 2012, we were attracted by its world-renowned culture of fun; its people, natural beauty, and its proximity to China.”

Its "proximity to China"? A mere 9 hours' flying time away?
Or is there perhaps some territorial claim brewing under which Alice Springs will be discovered to have always been an inalienable part of Chinese territory?

Graveyard Humour

My mole at the FCC, where the usual closed shop, no term limits, vested interest candidates have been re-elected under a system which the CCP would be well advised to copy, has drawn my attention to a gem in the letters page of the current issue of The Correspondent, the FCC's bi-monthly rag.

Kit Sinclair, wife of the late Kevin, wrote complaining that Kev's name is omitted from the 2008 (the year he died) list of obituaries. The editor of The Correspondent replied that this was "a grave oversight". I am sure that will make Kit feel better.

Bloomberg - Burger-Eating Racist Bastards

Bloomberg's current headline on Ford's decision to stop making cars in Australia is "Aussie dollar is villain as Ford end Mad-Max Land Output". Or "Mad-Max Country" if you look at their screens. If reducing an entire country, nay a continent, to the status of a violent movie caricature is not racist, I don't know what is.

And anyway, everyone knows that Australia is Rolf Harris Country.

Bring Me The Head Of Sergio Garcia

Golf, the game which pretends to be a sport, is introducing a ban on "belly-putting". Belly-putting is where golfers use their largest natural asset instead of their hands to control the putter, essentially anchoring it against their substantial gut and removing half of the difficulty of nudging a ball into a hole from a few feet away. I realise that any analogy between golf and sport is essentially flawed, but the equivalent might be for soccer players to be required to only use their feet. Shock! Horror!

The Royal and Ancient and the US Golf Association (i.e. the Brits and the Septics respectively) have, a mere 40 years after these cheat-sticks started to be used, come up with a 40-page report (that's an easy calculation!) justifying their decision to implement the ban, which comes into effect in only 3 years' time.

Golf club makers (although the specialised clubs are not themselves being banned, they would become redundant under the new rule, so no self-interest there, of course) had already made their opposing views known, claiming that it would reduce the attractiveness of golf, by ... err ... introducing some sort of skill or requiring people to be in some sort of physical shape other than round, either of which would be too much of a hurdle for the average lard-arse. Call me controversial but I believe that's where watching golf on TV, or its close cousin, sleeping on the sofa, fit in.

In other golf news, Sergio Garcia has stirred up outrage amongst the PC brigade by suggesting that an American might like fast food. At some sort of golf awards dinner (largest belly, most horrific trousers?), Garcia - whose dislike of the hooker-chasing Tiger Woods is well-known - was asked if he would invite Woods for dinner in the US next month: hardly a serious question. Garcia replied that he would do so every night and would offer fried chicken. Apparently, this is racist. FFS! Fried chicken is an American staple, exported around the world to the delight of gourmands everywhere. Surely offering someone their national dish is the height of hospitality? If someone said they would offer me curry and chips, I would be delighted.

Compare and contrast with the following recently sent by the French and British Chambers in an invitation for a joint networking event:

Or is that racist too?