Housekeeping 1: What the actual fuck?
I've noticed a couple of pictures on my desktop that I hadn't used for blog posts last week, so I thought I'd tidy them up by posting them up. Here's the first, quite a delightful front page from last week's Daily Express:
So many questions enter your head at once. Why is it 'hooray'? Why does the Express believe in scientists when they're talking about the ozone layer, but not when they're talking about climate change? By using words like 'rotter' and 'hooray' on a front page, are they actually taking the piss out of themselves or are they just trying to sound like the fucking Beano in 1955? Is the nice orange dog going to be deported because it's an immigrant? Who was the benefit cheat who was sent to jail? Why was it 'at last', as if it never happens at any other time? Is the Express losing the plot? Is Richard Desmond trying to make his newspaper a laughing stock? Or is it a laughing stock already?
Hooray!
The Express reaches out to international readers
Let's suppose you ran a newspaper which has an international edition, rounding up news from your paper in a handy seven-day package. It's distributed all over the world and can be found in airports, newsagents, all sorts of places. In a lot of ways it reaches out to those international readers to give them an idea not just of your newspaper but also your nation.
What message would you want to give to the world about Britain? Perhaps the people in the airport are excitedly on their way to Britain for the first time, wondering what it's like, so they might have a peek at the press from that country to get an idea of the people's views. What would you tell them?
Oh. I see.
Spotter's badge: Andrew Ellson of the Times.
And bonus points for the "Giscard d'Estaign".
Express silliness
This weekend I have only two things to comment on, and both involve the Express. Well obviously I have lots of things to comment on not involving the Express, but for here, and for now, we'll concentrate on that.
1. It's a bit rich of the Express to come out with a headline like this, given their track record. Is this the same newspaper group which paid out damages to Kate & Gerry McCann for libelling them?
2. Not only was Saturday's front page a straightforward lift from a deeply flawed and wholly unpleasant Littlejohn rant we discussed on Friday
but it involves the same hateful "THEY're not YOU" tactic that Express stablemates the Star have used before:
Just as the Star said that Muslims couldn't possibly be YOU, so it is with transgender cops. All minorities are not YOU in Express land. It's a clear "You're not wanted" statement of intent, and pretty stinky.
Also, I dare say there were spectacular queues at garden centres across the nation this weekend with Express readers keen to redeem their free cup of coffee (coffee, mind, not tea) OR cake at the counter. You can imagine the teeming masses backing up cafeteria lines up and down the land. I mean, garden centre eateries are hardly bastions of speedy service at the best of times. Imagine the madness as literally millions of Express readers demanded their free coffee OR cake from bemused weekend workers! It hardly bears thinking about. Imagine if a transgender police officer, who clearly should not be allowed to buy the Express, decided to try and get a cake OR coffee (but not tea, mind). What then? Should they be banned from doing so? It's PC gawn bladdy mad! Innit!
I’d kind of hoped…
...that I would be proved wrong about the wonderful story of Oluchi Nwaubani, who recovered from 'drowning' for 20 minutes in a tale of miracle survival. But no, that great story mysteriously didn't make it to any of the front pages of the national papers, who chose startlingly interesting photos of bankers sitting at a table instead to thrill their readers.
Apart from the Express, of course, who just can't help themselves sometimes when it comes to concocting something truly shite:
NOW EGGS ARE GOOD FOR YOU! In tomorrow's Express: SOME OTHER RESEARCH SAYS SOMETHING ELSE WHICH DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS WHAT WE'VE SAID TODAY, SO THAT MUST NOW BE THE COMPLETE AND UTTER TRUTH IN FUCKING ENORMOUS CAPITAL FUCKING LETTERS ON OUR FRONT PAGE, BECAUSE WE HAVE NO ABILITY TO THINK ABOUT THINGS, WE JUST BLINDLY REPEAT ANYTHING WE'VE HEARD ABOUT FOOD ANYWHERE EVER, WHETHER IT GIVES YOU CANCER OR NOT, WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF WE NEEDLESSLY SCARE YOU, WE JUST WANT YOU TO PICK UP THE FUCKING PAPER, IS THAT ALL RIGHT?
As well as that, there's the case of a girl who was a mum at 15, now having triplets. AND YES OF COURSE, THEY'RE ON BENEFITS! Like, dur, yeah, child benefits, which are payable to everyone in the country who has children, regardless of how old they are. Or would the Express like to see child benefits taken away from the kind of people they don't like? Hmm. Probably they would actually...
‘Small businesses’ again
Remember yesterday Peter 'Peter' Mandleson announced - in the sense of not announcing, but telling his mates to make it known so journalists could 'understand'; basically an announcement but without having the balls to simply announce it - that he might look again at the thorny problem of people with families having the temerity to ask (with no guarantee or right for their request to be accepted, or even considered beyond a nod and a "Well I'll think about it") to work a bit more flexibly, and how that was affecting 'small businesses'. Not enormous businesses, the kind who lobby Government all the time, oh no not them: think of the poor small businesses, who are suffering in the credit crunch, and we really must do something to help them...
Well, the Mail has joined the crusade for 'small businesses':
A couple of questions:
1. Who the fuck designed that front page? Have you got the splash sub from the Daily Express in on a trial? That's fucking appalling. "Yes, so to make it really horrible on the eye, let's have white text on a black background and red ink, yes red ink, what a good idea, I've seen that on the Express so it must be the mark of a quality newspaper front page, they even do it on the Independent now and that's a really good paper, so yes, lots of red, and oh, a couple of fruity white women in the corner please, to illustrate the fact that fruity white women exist, I mean, to illustrate the terrible cost on middle England of the credit crunch and the bastards of regulation and red tape and tax and that..."
2. The Mail's plans to help 'small businesses'. They wouldn't by any chance also have the accidental and totally unintended knock-on effect of reducing costs for utterly enormous companies, such as Daily Mail General Trust, would they? I mean that would be completely accidental if they did, given that they're purely interested in helping the 'small businesses' who are the 'lifeblood of the economy', and not boosting their own share price.
But there you are. Until now, the Mail hadn't really challenged the Express in terms of 'worst front page ever' status, but I think this one comes close.
Expressdependent strikes again
There was a time when I used to make fun of the Express on a regular basis for having the most rubbish front pages in the world. Don't get me wrong - they're still as laughably shite as ever, viz today's pisspoor Beanoesque effort:
Seeing as the Express has been wittering on for months about how things, including bread and butter (illustrated with a handy snap of a plate of toast), have been rocketing up in price, it's a bit odd to say the least that on the day inflation figures break through the five per cent barrier they turn into the voice of calmness and reason, telling their panic-crazed readers not to panic - everything's going to be all right, and prices will come down.
Sure, it's a crap front page: a dull headline, a big picture shoved into the bottom right-hand corner, some dithering shite about a bollocks reader offer in childishly bright colours... Just what you'd expect from the team of vaguely sentient creatures who gather together to knock out the Express fronts. But... what's this over in the quality press?
A dull headline, a big picture shoved into the bottom right-hand corner, some dithering shite about a bollocks reader offer in childishly bright colours... ooh look! It's a free lunch for every reader! A free fucking lunch! Imagine that! Fuck you, Mr Guardian and Mr Telegraph, I'm eschewing your superior more highbrow news coverage, for you do not tempt me with a baguette! And thank fuck that the Indy have managed to illustrate the free lunch with a picture of someone holding a baguette, just in case you were unaware of what lunch looked like. Remind you of the plate of toast? And instead of an interesting image or graphic to illustrate the news, let's just have pictures of people's heads. A dead white woman's head down in Dead White Woman corner, much beloved of the Mail and Express, and three other disembodied heads up top. Wow! What visual excitement for Indy readers. Thank fuck for the baguette, that's all I can say.
Yes, it's happening before our very eyes, just as we've seen before. Unable or unwilling to tackle their former broadsheet soi-disant 'quality' rivals, the Indy has decided that there's one group of readers who are thick enough to be swayed by a photo of a woman with a baguette, some pisspoor reader offers and a dumbed-down load of old toss about 'Big Brother': Express readers.
You don't believe me? Not only is this story out of date, but it's exactly the fucking same story as a certain other publication mentioned last week. The paper in question?
Of course it was!
Seriously though. Have you ever seen a worse newspaper front page?
I thought it was a joke at first. It couldn't be... could it?
Richard Desmond once likened his editor to a chef and his publications to a cake - sometimes he could add a little cherry on top, he smarmed.
If this was a cake, it would be a giant dog-turd covered in sick, with scabs instead of sprinkles and jism for icing. And instead of a cherry, there's a splattered pigeon scraped up off the road and chucked on the top.
I mean, look at the fucking thing:
Have you ever seen worse than this? Let me know if you have, because I need to see it.
Oh, and the story itself is a load of bullshit peppered with quotes from the usual astroturf groups to justify something that isn't even going to happen but that the spectral 'they' are plotting to do to 'your lawn'. But you knew that already, I reckon.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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