Monday Moan 3

 

Chiller

It seems that part of the reason for the frosty exchanges between Lord Leveson and Michael Gove when the latter appeared before the Leveson Inquiry in May was that the noble Lord had taken exception to earlier comments from Gove apparently questioning the impact of the Inquiry on free speech. Reading between the lines, Gove probably wondered something like 'how can we do our job supporting the Murdoch empire when this Inquiry is taking place?'

Apparently he referred to this Inquiry having a "chilling effect".  Hmm.  A little like the cold shiver readers may be experiencing now having looked at Gove's picture?

 

Fly me - please

The cable car over the Thames is to open on 28 June - having cost some £64m by all accounts. Quite possibly the BBC reporter and spokesperson for the service interviewed in May who both made disparaging remarks about the possibility that it would be open before the Olympics might wish their interview to be dropped into the murky waters of the river on its first journey.

And if you ever come across Tim Clark, president of Emirates, you might like to ask him if he had been drinking some of that water when he gave this quote - "The Emirates Air Line will bridge people closer, enabling them to discover, connect and express their ideas about this diverse city through crossing its majestic river, providing an incredible travel experience for residents, commuters and visitors alike." People were worried about the possibility of David Walliams contacting unmentionable illnesses when he swam the Thames recently - seems like Tim Clark has contacted a bad case of verbal diarrhoea.

Gorgeous

His Bradford constituents must be pleased to see that Gorgeous George is a media star with the independent Iranian news service PressTV.com.  Getting to grips with constituency issues has  always been a key thing for George.

The poor man has to listen to all sorts of waffle from callers to his programme and it can sometimes take the patience of a saint to wait for them to finish.  George is not a saint.  He gave this caller about 50 seconds of air time before he leapt in with his own rant.  Priceless. 

Where would UK politics be without George?  In a better place you say?  Surely not.

Don't call me ....

And finally, Harold Hackett has apparently decided that the modern world and its multiple ways of instant communication are not for him. Instead, he prefers to rely on an older method, first devised by those who found that their dream cruises did not take them to the destinations they had expected. Relying only on bottles and messages produced in large quantities, Harold has sent more than 4,800 messages on their way from the shore near his home on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Thing is, the 3,100 replies he has received since he first started in 1996 constitutes a response rate that direct marketing professionals can only dream about.

Perhaps there's a message in that for us all?