From the Telegraph, this picture:
“A pickled “dragon” that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry Potter’s Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.
Allistair Mitchell, who was asked to investigate the dragon by a friend, David Hart, who discovered it in his garage, speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts at the end of the 19th century, when rivalry between the countries was intense.
The documents suggest that the Natural History Museum turned the dragon away, possibly because they suspected it was a trick, and sent it to be destroyed. But it appears a porter intercepted the jar and took it home. The papers suggest the porter may have been Frederick Hart - David Hart’s grandfather.
Mr Mitchell said: “The dragon is flawless, from the tiny teeth to the umbilical cord. It could be made from indiarubber, because Germany was the world’s leading manufacturer of it at the time, or it could be made of wax. It has to be fake. No one has ever proved scientifically that dragons exist. But everyone who sees it immediately asks, ‘Is it real?”‘”
Absolutely classic interview with Michael Robinson on Guardian Unlimited Football today, including this superb gag:
” There’s this Iraqi who signs for Liverpool and he replaces Emile Heskey at half time on his debut. They’re 4-0 down but he scores five and the Kop’s chanting his name and everything. After the game he phones his mum all excited and tells her. When he’s finished raving, he says: “So, how’s the family?” And she says: “Well, the house has been looted, the car’s been torched and your Dad’s been shot.” And he says: “Blimey Mum, I’m so sorry.” To which she replies: “You bloody well should be - you’re the reason we moved to Liverpool”.”
Well, it’s not really all Murdoch’s fault. That’s a facetious precis of what Emily Bell, Janine Gibson and Georgina Henry have written in the Guardian today. It’s a considered, interesting piece (and hugely well informed, given that those three know more about British media than just about anyone else), and also rather sad - which is the tone I think is appropriate for what’s happened to Dyke, a man I interviewed once and who I’ve always felt was compassionate , decent and above all human. As he said this morning in various places, the BBC made mistakes, but so did the government.
But on the other hand, the BBC should be above reproach. It should have apologised earlier when it realised mistakes were made. It’s lost a great deal of trust. Yes, the Hutton report was wrong when it came to the government, but it was dead right when it came to the BBC, which came across as arrogant, defensive and supremely right during the whole Hutton saga. The Today programme has grown in arrogance over the years, and now believes (as does Paxman) that it has the right to probe anything in whatever way it so chooses. Hutton should act as a corrective to that. But with the departure of Dyke, it may be kill, not cure.
Has Belle de Jour been outed by Popbitch? Yess, according to Scaryduck, who also writes hilariously:
“But who can tell these days? Bloggers could be lying through their teeth and no-one would know the difference. Kenna only tells us he’s a double glazing salesman because he’s too ashamed to admit he’s a Conservative MP. Ionicus tells us he plays a huge organ in church, and even I’m prepared to believe that it’s the kind with bellows. We will never know. Maybe George W Bush really does blog (”ToDaY ME n dIck InvadeRed iRaK!!!1 iT woz dA bOmb!!!111 I aM da l33t pr3z1d3nT!!!1 LOLOL!!!111″). Good grief, if Grand Ayatollah Sistani (remember that name - he’s gonna go huge in Baghdad after his crushing win in Iraq Idol) can proffer advice on anal sex on the Great Satan’s interwebnet, anything can happen.”
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Why on earth has Grey Dyke decided to resign? Wasn’t it enough to the chairman, Gavyn Davies, to go? Dyke’s going to be replaced by a dalek, so the BBC and thus Britain will suffer.
And it all makes the Hutton report look even more like a whitewash, and actually takes a lot of the shine off Blair’s victory. It’s out of control now.
I heard the voice of Garth Marenghi for the first time this morning, on Christian O’Connell’s xfm breakfast show, and it was hilarious. Even funnier was his “agent”, Dean Learner, who used to work in “erotica” (”call it porn if you want, it’s shorter) and who replied to a question about Garth’s work being “just a comedy” with “it’s not comic, it’s apocalyptic, and if you think that’s comic, boy, well laugh it off.”
The funniest thing, somehow, is that Garth lives in Barnes with (as his website says) “his wife Pam and his four daughters, Meredith, Jocasta, Katrina, and one that has yet to be named.”
History of the Fleet River - which is where I work nowadays, only now it’s Farringdon Road.
“In 1766, after a drunken butcher who had fallen in the sludge froze to death, the remainder of the Fleet was arched over: it became, and indeed remains, a part of London’s underground sewer system.”
So it’s over, and I make no apologies for linking to Guardian Unlimited’s superlative coverage today. Lord Hutton exquisitely knifes the BBC, rightly pointing out that the odious Gilligan was given the chance by the BBC to spout uncheckable, unsubbable, unprovable guff on air. We discussed this at work, and decided that the Today programme’s “fake interview” technique, where the presenter “interviews” the journalist, was an irresponsible kind of “radio blogging”, within which a journalist can combine comment with fact, and which is not intermediated by any of the sub-editing and legal processes which normally gives serious media their authority.
The government has, I think, got off pretty lightly. I still stand by my view that the MoD’s treatment of Kelly was inhumane, whether or not you thought that Kelly brought the whole thing on himself. But Blair’s righteous, blistering anger is a wonder to behold, and if it strips the skin of that opportunistic liar Michael Howard, all the better.
The real losers, I think, are not the BBC, but the media in general. Throughout his presentation, Hutton referred witheringly to the media frenzy which surrounded the Hutton episode last year, and ended everything with a threat to sue the Sun for irresponsibly leaking the report. The TV news shows are already suggesting the report is fairly weak. At the end of the day, they protect their own.
