Humour in Hebburn
Having spent some years living in Hebburn, it’s cheering for me to hear that Jason Cook’s sitcom, Hebburn, has been commissioned by BBC2 for a series. Often seen as the poor tip of South Tyneside, Hebburn has it’s own culture and local legends and it’s nice to see the town put on the TV map. Inevitably it will be compared to The Likely Lads, but with it’s share of real life characters and locations, and with a rich seam of North East humour on every Metro platform, bar stool and street corner as inspiration, I’m sure Hebburn will provide no shortage of plots to keep the show fresh and modern.
It’s long overdue for Hebburn to get it’s chance to shine, and on the national TV stage. In these troubled economic times it’s refreshing that it’ll be something from South Tyneside that will make people laugh rather than add to their misery.
No deistic counsel in council
Up and down the length of the country religious councillors are reeling at the news that religious worship at the beginning of local council meetings was to be banned after a ruling by the High Court today. Councillors from across the political spectrum were consistent in their condemnation of the changes.
Tarquin Mossweed, Twitchester council’s Vegan Party leader was mildly perturbed by the turn of events.
“Yesterday we opened the council meeting with some crystal chanting and offerings of twigs to our spirit guides to help us in our important decisions. Without spiritual guidance, we may never have come to a decision to commit to introduce chill out rooms for our traffic wardens.”
“Tomorrow, without communing with the spirit of the earth mother we will struggle to decide what will be on the council canteen’s breakfast menu, porridge or porage.”
Councillor Zoltan Hellhound from Fatty-on-Picklesfat, was more forthright.
“This is a clear abuse of our human rights. How can a council be expected to perform without sacrificing a virgin to Satan before each meeting?”
Bradyork BNP councillor Schmidt Goering was concise in his opinion.
“They would never dare say that to Muslims. Would they? Eh? You know what I’m talking about.”
Jeremy Lespotty, UKIP councillor for South Spinelesside was clear on who was responsible for the changes.
“This is an example of how Europe interferes with our British customs.”
“And immigrants. They’re up to something too.
However, the Church of England was much more pragmatic about the issue. Bishop Hugh Spoutwell-Nonsensington of Spoon said
“Really, there’s no scriptural reference to Jesus’ opinions about street lighting, road gritting, wheelie bins or community engagement forums.”
“Indeed he was quite specific that people should keep their prayers to themselves.”
1023 vodka
Homeopathy – nothing is as good, and here’s an account of the painstaking production and marketing of 1023 brand Homeopathic Vodka – even after drinking a whole bottle of potentised vodka you’re guaranteed not to have a hangover.
Nostrovia!
Godless Sunday music: The Pope Song
Since the Pope is now getting all uppity again, this time in Spain, moaning yet again about secularism and yet again comparing it to fascism, it seems right that another Pope song gets an air, from Martin Pearson and John Thompson, although whilst this one’s about the last Pope, most of the points still hit target.
Nick Clegg’s speech to the Lib Dems
As scripted by Quentin Tarantino.
What kind of god?
Created AIDS, polio and webuyanycar.com?
Not a nice one.
Love Marmite, hate racism
Actually I hate Marmite. Like the BNP, it smells awful and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Boom boom. However, at least the makers of Marmite, Unilever, have some taste and have forced the BNP to drop the use of their Marmite brand in their racist propaganda videos, or face Unilever’s army of giant scorpion lawyers. No doubt the BNP, who love to play persecuted and whinge like Christians prison bitches, will cry that the man has it in for them and will do anything to stop their radical message being heard blah frickin blah. Oddly, Unilever is the kind of evil satanist corporation the BNP loves to moan about, but Unilever has had it’s own questionable marketing.
Anyhow, Marmite do political broadcasts much better than the BNP.
Hepburn for homeopathic horseshit peddlers
Looking at skeptical-voter.org it seems that Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to rational thought. He’s voted in support of keeping the current abortion time limit at 24 weeks in line with the scientific and medical consensus. To his credit he’s also supported Early Day Motion (EDM) 377 noting the achievements if Charles Darwin (to be honest a nonsense EDM) and more usefully signed EDM 423 calling for reform of English libel laws.
There’s a but though. A very big but. Okay, two.
Note: Before I go further, I’m keenly aware that EDMs are like petitions; they are easy to sign and are mostly pretty harmless, as there is little chance they will ever make law. However, they are an indication into the thinking of the signing MP and where their allegiances lie.
Back to the bad bits.
First up: Mr Hepburn signed EDM 742, calling for religious based adoption agencies to be excluded from the Equality Act to allow these agencies to discriminate against gay couples. To clarify, he put his name to an early day motion calling for homophobic bigotry practised by religious agencies to be legislatively normalised. That’s right people of Jarrow and Hebburn – your MP thought it was fine for religions to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation.
In 2007, Mr Hepburn signed EDM 1240, a kind of EDM for Ignorance – calling for the positive recognition of NHS homeopathic hospitals:
“That this House welcomes the positive contribution made to the health of the nation by the NHS homeopathic hospitals; notes that some six million people use complementary treatments each year; believes that complementary medicine has the potential to offer clinically-effective and cost-effective solutions to common health problems faced by NHS patients, including chronic difficult to treat conditions such as musculoskeletal and other chronic pain, eczema, depression, anxiety and insomnia, allergy, chronic fatigue and irritable bowel syndrome; expresses concern that NHS cuts are threatening the future of these hospitals; and calls on the Government actively to support these valuable national assets.”
If you didn’t know, homeopathy is where an active ingredient in a drug is repeatedly diluted to the point where none of the original drug is left, but the water magically holds the ‘memory’ of the active ingredient. The theory is that the active ingredient memory in the water pills will cure the patient but without any nasty side effects. Basically, it’s bunkum, violates several fundamental principles of science, without a shred of credible evidence to support it.
Earlier this year a House of Commons committee inquiry into homeopathy concluded that homeopathy was no more effective than placebos. That’s right, Hepburn signed up to backing hospitals whose treatments are based on unproven assertions and condemned by authorities such as the World Health Organisation. There’s a concern that people suffering illnesses may become worse or die because of relying on unproven and unregulated treatments. That means the money spent on these hospitals he supported wasn’t just wasted, but contributed to ill health and death. Frankly, Hepburn might as well have signed his support for prayer hospitals or crystal healing.
It’s worrying that an MP would support such woo.
Don’t take my word for it, Dara O’Briain sums up homeopathic woo (hat tip to the The Skeptic) much better than I can.
The First Election Debate
I didn’t watch the debate, I decided to go out instead. Fortunately the debate has had all of the worthless guff removed and condensed here into the most relevant 15 seconds of material.
Hat tip to b3ta.com, a video from cartoon and animation meister Morten Morland. Check out his YouTube channel.
Brian Paget 