I haven’t done one for a while but as it’s Friday and it’s raining here’s some cute, funny cat commercials for your perusal and delectation.
Cat v Fish, maybe not the outcome you’d expect:
Is your cat trying to tell you something?
Sometimes I really do miss British tv.
Bonus clip: This is in Thai, but never mind the quality – feel the width!
I used to regularly come across disgraced rookie MP Shahid Malik at AntiNazi League national meetings. I was gobsmacked when he was elected MP in 2005 – he was a bumptious, egotistical, gladhanding arse even then.
Well, he’s an even bigger bumptious, egotistical, gladhanding arse now. But greedier.
Sky News presenter: Can I ask why a £800 massage chair is so important to you?
Shahid Malik: You see, I’d have more respect for you if you were honest about the figures. You know full well it is £730.
Malik’s rise from obscurity to Labour’s National Exec to the Commission For Racial Equality to neophyte Labour MP to the Dept for International Development to Justice Minister, in the short space of four years, has been astonishing; this even though questions were asked by his local paper about exactly how it was he was elected, for which he unsuccessfully sued the paper for libel. It was expensive too. I wonder who paid his costs?
He’s denying wrongdoing now as well. Will he sue the Telegraph? And will his suit have the same, lame result as before?
All this week it’s been rumoured in UK political blogdom that the known troughers and married Cabinet Ministers Education Secretary Ed “So what” Balls and Treasury Secretary Yvette Cooper were so worried about public reaction to that greed being exposed that they’d obtained an injunction to stop the publication of their expenses; the implication being that despite the dishonesty that had already been exposed to public disgust, there was an even worse crime Labour’s golden couple were trying to hide. Which of course leads one to ask the inevitable question, “What! Worse than this?”
So have they or haven’t they got an injunction? The press have been remarkably quiet on Balls and Cooper this week, considering their past history, so reports that they’d obtained an injunction haven’t seemed at all unlikely, though impossible to confirm.
Now it’s rumoured they have applied but they haven’t succeeded:
Balls Fails to Prevent Expenses Revelations
News reaches me that Brown protégé Ed Balls has been fighting a rear-guard action to prevent publication of the expenses he and his wife Yvette Cooper have been claiming over the last few years. Rumours have abounded for a while that the Daily Telegraph had a devastating story on the couple but I have been informed that Balls sought a High Court injunction to prevent the Telegraph publishing what it knows.
This morning the High Court rejected Balls’ pleas to cover up his expenses record and I am told that therefore there will be a very damaging story published shortly. Balls has been suggested by some to be Gordon Brown’s preferred successor and if he is damaged goods it will further reflect badly on the Prime Minister’s judgement.
‘News reaches’ him from where? How does a Reading conservative have an inside track on Labour? Has the Councillor a mole in Downing St, or is his source in the High Court, or one of the chambers acting for the couple? If not where are these rumours coming from? Of course it could just be a deep Labour plot, an attempt to nobble Brown’s anointed successor Balls ahead of any leadership battle – hence the propagation of the story in Tory-leaning blogs. You can say virtually anything in a comment thread.
I don’t expect source-revealing. I’m not just nosy (well, I am, OK I admit it), merely trying to pin down whether the injunction story’s true or not. Obviously if the source is a court official, Councillor Willis can’t name names – contempt and all that -but ‘news reaches me’ is just a little fuzzy.
So I reluctantly have to conclude – because I do loathe Cooper and Balls, who personify everything vile about New Labour in one easy to hate package – that at the moment the whole injunction story’s still just a rumour.
Damn. It could have done for them politically for once and all. One can only live in hope.
The expenses scandal is a comedy goldmine that’ll be good for years to come. Anarchist writer Ian Bone:
NATIONAL UNION OF MOAT CLEANERS -DAY OF ACTION
NUMC Captain Swing House Moat Street Millbank London SE1A message from the Geneal Secretary
‘As the son of domestic servants I have been honoured to accept the position of General Secretary of the NATIONAL UNION OF MOAT CLEANERS (NUMC). As you know with drastic cuts in MPs expenses there will be a knock on effect with drastic – redundancies amongst our members – something the do-gooders who do not understand the countryside should bear in mind.
Accordingly I announce a DAY OF ACTION next Wednesday May 20th. NUMC will hold a press conference on ST.Stephens Green opposite parliament at 11am before prime minister’s question time followed by lobby of parliament. We will then move on to Tory HQ where we will be joned by National Union of Mole Catchers (NUMC) Liberal Democrat HQ – joined by National union of Trouser Pressers and Labour HQ – National union of Tudor Beam makers.
Pity the rich, tossing and turning on their Porthault sheets. How they suffer.
Forbes Magazine is so worried about a backlash that they’ve published an allegedly tongue in cheek guide on how to avoid the pitchforks and flaming torches by not flaunting, but hiding your wealth. While still keeping up your lifestyle, obviously.
It’s tough out there when everyone hates you–or at least suspects you had a hand in the collapse of the global financial system, the shredding of trillions of dollars of assets and the issuance of 5 million pink slips since January 2008. Have you hired a security firm yet? At least get a lawyer: The feds may be coming after you, combing through the wreckage of your business, looking for evidence to send you up the river. If Barack Obama doesn’t raise your taxes, your populist state legislators will.
What’s a strapped hectomillionaire (to say nothing of a billionaire) to do? First off, relax. Don’t do anything crazy, like build a bomb shelter or open a Channel Islands trust with a dummy trustee to hide from taxes (it’s illegal). Like the recession, the angry mob clamoring for your head will pass on. It’s still good to be rich.
Yes, I expect it is.How can the poor suffering oligarchs hide their money?
– “Trusts for children are nearly impossible to crack…”
So nice to see tradition still counts for something.
And how can one avoid taxes when the oiks in the revenue come knocking?
“Store all the diamonds or gold bullion (but not gold certificates) you want in a Swiss bank without reporting it to the irs, since the investments don’t pay interest. (Another option: raw land, which doesn’t require reporting until it generates income.)
Ahh, the old ways, always the best. The authors go on to advise their readers to keep their chins up, stay upbeat and think of uncertain times as an opportunity, not a threat:
….the recession provides a good smoke screen for disposing of a servant you don’t like anyway.
That’s what’s most telling about this cover piece; the tone. It tries hard for charming insouciance but the real worry still shows through, because it’s it’s studded with nuggets of thoroughly specific advice, like
If your worry is creditors, not tax collectors, buy a flat in London and go there if things get too hot. “As long as it’s not criminal, you won’t get extradited,”
Haha. So very droll. Though a commenter didn’t find it all amusing:
Forgive me for sounding like a member of the “POPULIST MOB,” but this article strikes me as being in profoundly bad taste. People are losing their homes and lining up at food banks, and you’re offering instructions on how to evade taxes?? And offering condolences to people whose yacht builders went out of business? Is it really okay to even joke about this?
Bad taste it may be but it’s not a joke, it’s whistling in the dark. The rich are worried and are right to be worried – the climate change exodus has begun already, food and water riots loom and because of an unprecedented access to information which has exposed their leaders’ corruption, electorates worldwide have lost faith in democracy. The world is in a dangerous place and it’s mostly the rich’s fault.
But hey, stay upbeat, oligarchs. Why not make hay while the sun shines? The authors forgot the best advice to the rich who want to keep activities quiet while still making shedloads of untaxed cash: put your money in pitchfork production.