Why I hate the Daily Mail, as distilled into one edition

What I love about Hitchens is that one minute he's trying to sound calm and reasonable and the next...

When, 20 years hence, Chinese or Russian jets, with UN Sanction, are destroying RAF bases and air defences because of some last-gasp British attempt to defend what's left of our sovereignty or suppress indigenous terrorism, they will silkily point out that they got the idea from us. Don't think it can't happen...

Littlejohn's taking the piss, isn't he? We have a bloke called Andrew Bolt who's exactly the same and just plays it up to get web hits and sell books.

just read peter hitchens on ADHD. sort of agree really.

he throws away any goodwill i might have had with this towards the end:

"Many of these definitions - 'autism', 'Asperger's' and so forth, turn out to be surprisingly vague when examined, covering enormously varied types of behaviour which doctors barely understand and for which they offer no solution. And then there is the question of whether the current huge increase in 'autism' may have a physical cause. The MMR controversy (which I won't go into here, having examined it at length many times in the Mail on Sunday) is just an example of how some doctors suspect that this may be so."

Skimmed a v. interesting book called The Myth of Autism the other week. There is quite a complicated, nuanced argument to be had about the pathology (if any) of neurodiversity and its social causes, in the same way that mental illness appears to be both socialized and pathological.

Fucked if P. Hitchens is gonna give it a complicated, nuanced argument tho. But Ritalin does seem like it might well be A Bad Thing.

Need to read Myth of Autism more carefully and it is not without v. contentious (read: "probably bollocks") assertions, but one of the authors has been diagnosed with Asperger's himself and it isn't yr typical "Dyslexia? More like bloody lazy" Daily Mail-esque diatribe.

Found the exploration of this (amongst other things) by Plasmon on the MMR thread to be v interesting.

And Mad Travellers (about socially transient mental illness) to be equally fascinating. Won't try and replicate the arguments tho because I'd bodge it.

Top stuff from Martin Samuel

After a week of Irish glory and glorification at Cheltenham and two very jolly days in Dublin to follow, many Englishmen would have felt the bond between our countries had become rather civilised these days.

So it came as something of a surprise to pick up the newspapers on Monday and discover what really inspired Ireland's Six Nations victory over England at the Aviva Stadium: hatred.

Andrew Trimble, the Ireland wing, let this slip, describing a rallying call from lock and most recent Lions captain Paul O'Connell prior to the game. 'I always love listening to him during England week,' Trimble said.
Andrew Trimble

'We wanted to get everything right technically, but we also wanted to use our physicality, our intensity, just a real hatred. We never get sick of beating England; that is why we enjoyed the win so much. There's a lot of history there.'

Indeed there is. Like the European Union's £73.7billion bailout for the failing Irish economy last November, that could end up costing British taxpayers in the region of £6.07bn.

Not many songs about that on Saturday, though, just the usual one about prison ships, prison walls and a terrible famine that took place 160 years ago yet is still thrown in the face of every visitor in an England shirt, as if it was cooked up in the Harlequins dressing room last Tuesday.

Maybe next time Martin Johnson visits he could give a rousing and equally relevant speech before the game based on vengeance for all the little kiddies abused by Ireland's paedophile priests.

Or is it only the English who have entries in the history books of which their modern descendants might be ashamed?

proper sore losing there

In spite of all the practice, still the world's worst losers

thanks to all the practice

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/Pictures/web/w/a/o/martin_samuel.jpg

Why are the English rugby team (i.e. not England) so bad and hated

... must be an Irishman or two working for Nike... or Scottish, Welsh, French, Australian, South African, New Zealander...

Disappointing that the beeb don't actually show the video, which will no doubt be required viewing for all opposition teams playing England in future. Well done Nike!

http://i.imgur.com/KIr1b.jpg

Close thread, we're done forever:

Next, having removed my knickers — something I don’t do lightly — I lie on my side, knees to my chest.

Amanda inserts the small nozzle of the tubing. This is strange, but not painful.

Amanda sits next to the tube, massaging my abdomen as warm water is gently pumped into my body. She sits watching the contents being whooshed back out down the tube.

Primitive tribes used river water and hollow reeds to perform the first enemas
I can’t see the tube, so I watch her face intently. Occasionally, she raises an eyebrow. She agrees my abdomen is very distended. ‘You have been holding on to a lot of anger, hurt and grief in your tummy,’ she says.

I’m a vegan, so there’s none of the mucus from dairy, or bits of old rotting meat, in my intestine (meat can lodge in the colon for years, which can contribute to cancers and other illnesses), but a hint of diverticulosis: this occurs as you get older, and means pockets of gas and food get lodged as your colon loses its elasticity.

I tell Amanda I always feel things in my stomach. I think my anorexia, which I suffered from acutely in my teens and 20s and have never quite been able to shake off completely, is because I feel fear and stress in my gut, and so I starve it.

Amanda gives me a coffee enema, pouring weak organic coffee into the big cylinder above me. This feels very strange, slightly sharp. She adds electrolytes and herbs, designed to help my liver to release bile.

At the same time, she massages around my liver (on the right hand side, just under my ribs), and the ileo caecal valve, where the small intestine meets the large intestine (the enema doesn’t reach beyond this point).

‘Wow!’ she says, looking pleased, and I feel like a child on a potty. ‘But aren’t our bodies designed to look after themselves?’ I say. ‘Haven’t we existed for millions of years without expensive treatments in spas that flush out our bodies?’

Not Safe For Breakfast

wtf

Liz Jones now literally serving DM readers any old shit.

Amanda gives me a coffee enema,

While reading that I very nearly had an involuntary coffee nasal irrigation all over the keyboard.

‘But aren’t our bodies designed to look after themselves?’ I say. ‘Haven’t we existed for millions of years without expensive treatments in spas that flush out our bodies?’

And even, at the end, she sees the inherant bullshit at the heart of all things.

@You have been holding on to a lot of anger, hurt and grief in your tummy,’

Hooray, even in the midst of an investigative piece into a health treatment, Liz still manages to shoehorn in a "poor me, poor my life" reference, conveniently vocalised by the person she's with who can SEE HER PAIN!

alt: You are full of shit, btw.

‘But aren’t our bodies designed to look after themselves?’ I say. ‘Haven’t we existed for millions of years without expensive treatments in spas that flush out our bodies?’

This'll be the same Liz Jones who has run up thousands of pounds of debt on various treatments and potions and spa breaks and quick fixes?

yeah but she existed for millions of years before that

No wonder they had to use a coffee enema if her shit's fossilised.

Willing to give the Mail a little credit for this story.

The "HaveYourSay" is priceless tho.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Bathroom?

think ken c works for the mail

http://i.imgur.com/KhWui.jpg

You shouldn't click on this - I shouldn't have clicked on it - but I'm recording this Liz Jones piece here for posterity.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/debate/article-1372758/Seeking-cosy-hostel-17-cats-collies--me.html

Can we have a whiparound for her?

As long it involves actual cat o' nine tails.

PETER HITCHENS; We can protect a mob in Benghazi, so why not a little girl in Stockwell?

Was at my Mail-reading mother's house today and almost choked on my breakfast at that bit of solid Liz Jones gold.

Fuck

Ha, lucky you :)

http://i.imgur.com/VTLvz.jpg

they really do the crappiest graphics ever

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-1373743/Martin-Samuel-Were-Manchester-United-want---dont.html

350lb livestock rapist marty samuel continues his strange vendetta against minority interst irish sports

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1373849/Nick-Cleggs-Social-Mobility-Strategy-Privilege-guilt-betrayal-poor.html

Weird take on social mobility: they swipe at Clegg's "internship in daddy’s bank" and in the same article assert that parents are the "most effective engine of social mobility" so we mustn't stop parents trying to help their children up the ladder.

Richard Attenborough loved making historically fatuous films such as Gandhi, which depicted British imperialists in India as murderous monsters.
We might suggest, in defence of Blair and Attenborough, that they do not know any better. They learned little history at school, and have spent most of their lives in the company of people who, though British, do not think much of Britain.

But Cameron attended what is probably the best school in the world, Eton, and is a highly educated man. He is also a Tory — indeed, leader of the Conservative Party. Thus, it does not seem too much to hope that he knows something of Britain’s past, and takes pride in it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1374257/David-Cameron-compelled-knock-Britain-abroad.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1374256/David-Cameron-Pakistan-Why-does-PM-talk-Britain-down.html

But Cameron attended what is probably the best school in the world, Eton, and is a highly educated man.

Blair and Attenborough not highly educated, can't be, didn't go to Eton (or Charterhouse like Max)

not good enough schools for him and his standards

Haven't the Tories worked out by now that Caneron will say anything to anyone, he's a PR man

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1373872/We-Tory-PM--Lefties-luvvies-run-Britain.html

Chris Jagger, we would like you to be clear that your life is of very low quality

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1378325/Rolling-Stone-Mick-Jagger-fills-arenas-brother-Chris-cans-sell-village-hall.html

okay the guy lives in a renovated farm house in a gorgeous part of england, has two jobs, and plays music and has even released an album.

sounds like he's doing okay to me

having two jobs isn't my idea of a good time

yeah sort of otm, having two jobs isn't like having two cars!

unless you're a funeral director and a clown