A pub has apologised after a “misguided” advertising campaign that seemed to condone rape. And you won’t believe how… The Hobgoblin pub in London Road had put up posters in the pub and online advertising its “Festive Frape” promotion.Customers were invited to use the pub’s name in the status section of their Facebook pages and encourage friends to “like” the comment in exchange for a free shot. The promotion was…
The University of Sussex has become embroiled in a debate over private donors after it created a new chair in “modern Israeli studies” . The position was established by Lord Weidenfeld, who admitted on a BBC radio show he put up the cash to fight the “anti-Semitism” he believes is on campus. Gosh! Why would he think that? It’s not like they have prominent Islamists on campus, is it? Oh.…
West Mercia police has apologised for a poster campaign which an anti-rape charity called “inappropriate.” Good lord! What did it say? Oh. Well, who could object to that? Worcestershire Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre claimed the Safe Night Out campaign blamed victims who had been drinking for sexual assault. Ah. I see. Anyone not blinded by their single-minded desire to blame only men would welcome safety advice, but…
The ‘Guardian’ gets philosophical: If your train journey proves a little trying beware letting go of your emotions lest the live-tweeter in seat 34A reveals your misery to millions.This is what, in effect, happened to a couple who were having a fairly lively argument on board a northbound Virgin train recently. It was their misfortune to be sitting close to comedian Janey Godley, who tweeted the whole thing to several…
Police are teaming up with pubs in Hucknall town centre to refuse entry to anyone found to have traces of drugs on their hands. So, better not handle any money, shake hands with any dodgy people, push open any shop doors…well, not if you want a drink, anyway! The testing works by swabbing the palm of the hand with a piece of card which is placed into a machine and…
Charles Crawford has turned his fire on the Left’s attack on ‘elitist, bourgeois’ teaching of grammar. His bull’s-eye of the day is Michael Rosen. Good. I have added my pen’orth to Crawford’s blog, more or less thuswise: Michael Rosen? Would that be the ageing grammar school boy, Oxford-educated Socialist Worker polemicist and Respect Party candidate? The comrade of the Israel-hating apologist for Islamist mass murder and friend of Saddam Hussein,…
When Liz Haughton opened The Park Café in Knowle West, Bristol, her vision was to create a community eatery serving wholesome and organic foods. Chips, coke and sweets were off the Daventry Road menu and replaced with dishes such as butternut squash soup and homemade bread. Wot, no chips? Why, no! If customers want chips, they can clearly go elsewhere. And…it seems that’s just what they did! But after just…
All children under five in care in London should be sent a free book a month to boost their reading and prospects later in life, the Commons was being told today. Well, that’ll get rid of a few more unsold Olympics tie-ins, I suppose… Senior Labour MP John Healey urged Mayor Boris Johnson and his Labour challenger Ken Livingstone to back the Imagination Library scheme,already running in some parts of…
So says Mychal Denzel Smith, a freelance writer and social commentator, in CiF. Presumably, only because ‘Private Eye’ no longer does ‘Pseuds Corner’: Judging by the amount of fuss he caused, one would think Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson had floated the idea of abolishing child labor laws. In reality, all he had done was announce that this semester he would be teaching a course entitled “Sociology of Hip-Hop…
For a few weeks now, the ‘Guardian’ has been running a series of posts under the subheading ‘The Cuts Get Personal’. Some of them have been those stories you’d expect (cuts to disability benefits, etc), but most of them, well, they’ve merely shown the parochial interests of the ‘Guardian’ readership. Rachel Millward is one such plaintive voice: I launched the inaugural Birds Eye View Film Festival in 2005, with a…
When Paul Venables, an IT consultant, last visited McDonald’s, he ordered a quarter pounder with cheese and large fries. Yesterday, he swapped the fries, at 460 calories, for a fruit bag at 42 calories, and held the cheese, knocking almost 500 calories from his meal. An IT consultant needs to see the actual calorie count to know that cheese has lots, and fruit less than chips? Mr Venables, 42, from…
A fascinating article from Sam Leith on the changes to the books industry post-Internet age: You won’t find any shortage of people willing to pronounce the printed book doomed, arguing that the convenience and searchability of digital text and the emergence of a Kindle-first generation will render them obsolete. Frankly (perhaps because I just read fiction on my iPhone and iPad), I’ve never used the searchability options, but I can’t…
Oliver Wright in the ‘Indy’ on the riots, desperately trying to proclaim them as the ‘inevitable result’ of lessons left unlearned after the last Broadwater Farm-related shindig: When the ashes had been cleared, the events at Broadwater Farm lead to much soul-searching about community relations and the economic viability of one of London’s poorest areas. How much has changed? Well, it seems the answer is ‘Not a lot’. Bernie Grant,…
Images from the park show groups of young people carrying colourful water guns and having fun soaking each other in the 40C heat, according to Radio Free Europe. But when images of the event were posted online they upset the nation’s conservatives. One conservative MP said the event was shameful and could spread “corruption”. Shortly later, the city’s police chief Hossein Sajedina said some of those involved had been arrested.…
Following on from Longrider’s post on Harrods, I find this in a local newspaper: Female visitors to a community event were ordered to cover their shoulders by the Muslim organisers.Staff at the Noor Ul Islam Summer Fete, which took place at Leyton Cricket Ground at the weekend, are said to have told some women showing their shoulders they could only enter the site if they wore specially provided t-shirts. Cue…
Latest Comments