If so, I think we can cheerfully label me a sufferer.
Though it does generate material, howsoever questionable.
What’s that you say? Hmm?
Oh, you say your week won’t be complete unless you can see a picture of Brian and Stewie from Family Guy drawn into a field, and viewed from above?
Luckily for you, your wish is my command.
And if you’ll forgive me, I have to go and polish the coal scuttle.*
*Not a euphemism, you filthy beast.
It seems that, contrary to years of process and legal precedent, The Guardian newspaper was – until a couple of hours ago – blocked from reporting on Parliamentary proceedings.
Just to add to the rather cloak-and-dagger nature of things, the paper was also been told not to say what they’ve been prevented from talking about. I seem to recall the Spycatcher affair took a similar turn, with the media at one stage not allowed to mention the name of the author of the banned book… and we all know how well that turned out.
Fortunately, early this afternoon – just in time, one might say – the lawyers responsible for the injunction (perennial Private Eye favourites Carter-Ruck) dropped the claim, leaving the paper free to report the item in question, which I’ll reprint here, mainly because I can:
Labour MP Paul Farrelly intends to “ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”
So, Carter-Ruck had issued an injunction to prevent a paper reporting a question about an injunction? Crikey, that kind of activity certainly strays close to the zone known as self-parody.
Facetiousness aside, this was a strange legal move, and one which – temporarily – went against freedom of speech issues which had been in place for centuries (and had been, in legal terms, recently* ruled upon by Lord Denning) stating that whatever’s said in Parliament can be reported without it potentially being seen as contempt of court. The opposite of Las Vegas, one might say.
Anyway, I thought this was worthy of drawing to your attention as a freedom of the press issue; I hold no brief for The Guardian, and approach their work with much the same narrowed-eye cynicism as I do most of the newspapers, but I think it’s getting to a pretty sorry state of affairs when a law firm can take out (and, in the first instance at least, obtain) a gagging order to prevent the centuries-established reporting of a parliamentary question, especially one about a gagging order.
*By which, of course, I mean over 20 years ago.
Last night I went with my Dad to see a performance of some classical music at the Barbican here in London.
It was a good mixed bill – a bit of Strauss for me, a bit of Mahler for Dad, and some stuff by a chap called Martinu which neither of us were familiar with. And as you can see from the picture here, we got pretty good seats for our £8.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun – particularly the final bit of Strauss, which often sounds like the soundtrack to a cartoon – and lo and behold, the BBC have made it available to listen to via the iPlayer, and you can do so here.
Another very self-indulgent post from me, I fear, but on the other hand this’ll provide evidence to both my wife and my mother that Dad and I really were at the concert as promised, and not at a lap-dancing club.
Though Dad did joke about going on to one afterwards. At least, I think he was joking…
In the light of the current post service strikes, publishing industry magazine The Bookseller has decided to go all high-tech to get round the non-delivery problem, and so has made the latest issue (cover-dated today) available online.
You can read it on your screen, or download it as a PDF, by clicking here.
So, don’t go sayin I never gives you nuffink never not ever, awright?
I do apologise, I think living in London’s East End is starting to get to me.
I’m assuming they don’t make it available this way every week, mind. And as we all know, when I make an assumption, I make an ass of you and umption… hmm, that’s not right, is it?
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén