FIFA : CORRECTION - BLATTER WINS BY A LANDSLIDE!!

Against all odds, Sepp Blatter was re-elected president of Fifa today. Those who voted for him were, of course, democrats to a man. After all, they have dedicated their lives to understanding the intricacies of voting. They know when, how, why and where to vote. You could say that they're professionals - professional voters, that is.

Although no one stood against Sepp Blatter, his victory was still decisive. That is because he was elected unopposed. And an unopposed election, it has to be said, is no less an election for all that. And that is what counts.

Now, this point is crucial. For football is the peoples' game. And the people are interested in nothing more than the game itself, a game many refer to as the "beautiful game". Do these "people", these lovers of the (beautiful) game really care whether some distant oligarch - a democratically elected oligarch, I should add - is filling his boots at the expense of the (beautiful) game and thereby making the game (indirectly) more expensive to enjoy?

Of course not! The people simply want to enjoy, they want to enjoy the (beautiful) game.

Do these people complain when the bread-maker mixes his flour with sawdust in order to increase his profits? Do the people complain when the circus comes to town and parents pay through the nose for an act their children forget within hours - assuming they like it in the first place?

No! Of course they don't. They just want to be fed, to enjoy, to draw in the richness of life.

So, before we all get on our high horses and start moaning about the bundles of cash that Fifa officials (allegedly) receive for casting their votes, should we not ask this simple question: What difference does it actually make to that game that we call the peoples' game, the beautiful game?

Nothing, I would wager. For, the people actually like, they enjoy paying through the nose for something they have not only learnt to love, but have learnt that they should pay through the nose precisely in order to love.

And who are we to judge? Who is anybody to judge?

FIFA - BLATTER - ZUMA - EXCLUSIVE!!!

BREAKING NEWS - Jacob Zuma takes on FIFA boss Sepp Blatter. Discusses orderly transition of power.

More on this political football soon...

Too big to fail

The world's leading banks held billions of dollars on behalf of Colonel Gaddafi's regime, it was revealed this week. Here the Colonel gives us his "take".

"I like to thank these banks that were keeping my money safe during financial crisis that was happening in 2008. These, they were difficult times for everybody, not least, for great leaders of great nation like myself, who have invest so much money in your highly respectable banking institutions.

"I also like to thank the politicians who, at this time, bailed out those banks and who made sure that the precious billions my family had hoarded, that they were not in any jeopardy. Me, my family, all of us, we had worked very hard over the many years since I had come to power to earn this money. We sweated hard, we were fighting hard, we struggle hard to skim off as much as we possibly could from my country and from its coffers, in order to ensure we could keep on funding and investing in the good causes that we believe in so much - like the paying of foreign mercenary to guarantee the stability of Gaddafi regime. So we give many thanks to your politician who make sure that these banks that hold our money, that they did not collapse. We give big thanks.

"But most of all, we thank your taxpayer, who was giving his hard earned money to the politician, who then gave it to the banks, who then paid some of it to themselves and who then also use it to secure and guarantee the money that me and my family, we invest with them. Without you taxpayer, how could we have survived? How could we have paid those mercenary? How could we have paid your companies for the crowd control weaponry that your government, it kindly sold us in 2009? We thank you Mister Taxpayer - most of all people - we thank you!

"Of course, since that time, the ground, it has shifted under our feets, and your current bastard politician, they are freezing the assets of the Libyan regime. They make it so that we cannot touch it, this hard-earned money. What is the point of that, I ask you, when it could be put to such good uses? What is the point, indeed?

"But, I suppose the money, it was good and worthy while it lasted. It was - for a while at least - still put to many good uses. And as they say with the money that you have on this earth while you are alive, you can't take it with you when you go, when you die. That is indeed what they say. And so, it is true, I suppose, that I wouldn't be taking it with me when I go, when I die either. Which probably won't be that long now."

From the archive - Re: Superinjunctions

This was first published Wednesday, 14 October 2009

Twitter versus the Injunction - A Lawyer's 'Take'

"It is indeed a sad state of affairs when the legal process is confounded, not by government, not by the judges, but by that shallow and capricious phenomenon we call the Internet. That the users of a social networking site like 'Twitter' can have defeated an established legal firm seeking to protect the reputation of an esteemed client, is indeed troubling.

It is apparent to many not just in my own profession, but in the broader business community and in some sections of government that the 'world wide web' is looking increasingly like the 'Wild West': It has become barbarous, even feral. Long established laws, principles and ethics are being casually discarded. Procedures, conventions, practices that apply to the orderly, responsible dissemination of information are trampled underfoot by gossip, speculation and chatter. The execution of appropriate legal undertakings are being undermined by frivolous and unbalanced opinion.

When an established law firm went to court this week to obtain an injunction it followed due legal process. It did so to protect a respected client from the kind of tittle tattle that is rife on the Internet and that can destroy the reputation of a company as well as the livelihoods of its employees. That an august institution as the Law can easily be undermined should give us pause for thought. Who will defend you or me when our reputations have been thus maligned?

Do we really want an Internet that runs wild and unchecked, that has no rules nor boundaries? What if, say, we lived in a world where anyone, yes anyone, had access to the law, whatever their intent, whatever their status, and irrespective of their inability to pay? Well then Law would become a mockery, a free-for-all where any man could take issue with any other - however nefarious, or shallow, or ill-informed the intent might be. The courts would be overrun and would no longer have the capacity to defend those who generate wealth, those who keep our society ticking along - those who make society what it is.

Surely we do not want all men and women to have free and unbridled access to the Internet any more than we would want them to have free and unbridled access to the law? For that, I emphasise, must inevitably lead to the breakdown of everything that this society stands for, the trampling under foot of everything that is dear to us."

"I urge you all: Leave the law to those who can afford it!

(Lawyers name and firm withheld)

A rape by any other name

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke came under fire yesterday when he tried to qualify the term "rape". Here we consider how widely the term is applied nowadays:-

No.69 a) - "The Wikileak" - This Swedish definition of rape refers to any form of unprotected sex that results in unwanted discharge (also known as a leak). Some individuals have a tendency to leak everywhere, leaving others to clean up after them.

No.69 b) - "The Strauss-Kahn" - Not strictly rape in the Swedish or wider Eurozone sense. It involves the non-consensual intrusion of an unwieldy member state into zones usually designated to free speech and culinary sensations. In France Strauss-Kahn is often called the great seducer. It's worth noting some feminists view seduction to be a form of rape.

No.69 c) - "Reputational rape" - The application - or misapplication - of the word rape can have devastating consequences for a man's reputation. A highly emotive word - similar in its reach to 'racist' or  'climate-change denier' - it's often skilfully exploited by any politician looking to violate an opponent. In fact, The Justice Secretary took such a hammering yesterday you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd perpetrated a rape of ideas, of principles, of beliefs. And even if the charges - or discharges - were untrue or unfair they certainly appeared difficult to shake off.

Free association

A celeb gives us his "take" on super-injunctions

"Hi there. Listen, I dig freedom of the press as much as the next man. Let's face it, without a free press, I wouldn't have the kind of following I have. So, I'm grateful, really, really grateful for a "free press". Thing is, in recent years the press has started taking liberties. So, for clarification's sake, let me simply state the obvious:-

"Freedom of the press means - My publicist is free to provide newspapers, television companies, micro-blogging sites, what-have-you, with any information (including gossip) that might enhance my image, that might further my career, might sell my films - you know, generally make me look like a fucking hip, cool guy. And, similarly, those media outlets are totally and utterly free to swallow anything my publicist feeds them (No point in denying that!)

"Freedom of the press does NOT mean - The press can publish any information or gossip that contradicts the image my publicist has worked fucking hard to develop (and for which, incidentally, I have paid a stack of cash over the years). If I take it upon myself to cruise the streets of LA late at night offering working girls my largesse, offering them my abundance, then what business is it of the press? Or for that matter, what business is it of the members of the public who buy those damn newspapers that my hard-working publicist works day and night to provide with interesting snippets of information about my good self?

"Does that make sense?"

Twitter and be damned - Part 69

This week celebs learnt Twitter can be used to get round super-injunctions. But we should never forget the micro-blogging site has tried and tested commercial applications as well. Even the legal profession can use it to sell its services...

Easyjudge - In need of a super-injunction? Easyjudge makes it quick and painless. Available to all irrespective of wealth. Yours for £60,000

Afterlife 2

(An autocrat and a terrorist bogeyman discuss conspiracy theories)

Osama: You heard the latest conspiracy theory, brother?

Saddam: No, tell me about it.

Osama: People are refusing to believe I'm really dead.

Saddam: That's crazy.

Osama: Indeed it is, brother. Apparently the American government is refusing to release pictures of me. They say it might inflame my supporters. But some people on Earth have concluded that the real reason they won't release the pics is because I'm not really dead.

Saddam: Ha! Priceless, bro'. What a joke... Though I have to say it would make little difference if they did release them. Everyone saw pictures of my capture and execution, but conspiracy theories continue to circulate.

Osama: What? They saying you're not really dead?

Saddam: Yes... Can you believe it? People say I'm not really dead!

Osama: It's totally mad.

Saddam: Yep, but what can you do, brother? People love their consiracy theories. They need them... almost as much as they need us!

Osama: That's ridiculous. How can our followers need conspiracy theories as much as they need us?

Saddam: Not just our followers, brother. Our enemies need them too. A lot of them also want to believe that the likes of you and I aren't dead.

Osama: Struth! Mad old world, isn't it?

Saddam: Mad old world indeed.

Osama: Thing is, I want people to believe I'm dead... Then they might rise up in rage.

Saddam: I know what you mean, brother. That's exactly what they would do - rise up in rage. And so it's almost as though our enemies want people to believe the conspiracy theories. It means they've got us where they want us, but our followers do not.

Osama: Do not what?

Saddam: Do not have us where they want us.

Osama: Oh! I see what you mean, brother. Our followers want us in a place that'll make them rise up in rage. But our enemies do not.

Saddam: Exactly, brother... And now our followers, they cannot rise up in rage.

Osama: The cunning of the infidel never ceases to amaze me!

Saddam: Tell me about it, bro'... Although, it could be worse.

Osama: How so?

Saddam: It could be like Elvis over there.

Osama: Elvis? He's here? In this place? How so?

Saddam: Didn't anyone tell you bro'? This is actually the place where they send all the celebrity guys like us that people refuse to believe are really dead. It's a kind of like a purgatory, a conceptual celebrity purgatory. The big guy sends you here when the fans and followers refuse to believe you're dead.

Osama: I didn't know such places existed. The big guy didn't tell us.

Saddam: I know. I only found out about it myself a couple of years ago. It's what comes from having a fan club. There's no release or, at least, no final absolute release... It probably also explains the lack of virgins here too, brother.

Osama: And all the famous people, believers and non-believers alike come here?

Saddam: All the celebrities. I even saw JFK the other day?

Osama: JFK? Hold on! Everyone accepts that he's dead. The conspiracies surrounding him are not over whether he is dead but who killed him.

Saddam: You think, brother? Well, think again. There's actually another lesser known conspiracy that he's not really dead.

Osama: Struth! I had no idea... These conspiracy theorists think of everything.

Saddam: They do indeed!

Osama: So anyway, tell me about Elvis.

Saddam: Elvis?

Osama: Yes, Elvis. You said it could be worse, like it is for Elvis.

Saddam: Oh, yes. So I did, brother. Yes, poor Elvis. Well the thing about him is that he's stuck in this concept purgatory like the rest of us. Meantime, back on earth, all this speculation about whether he is really dead or not serves only to sell more records. The Elvis estate is still expanding... even now.

Osama: I follow you. So what's the problem with that, brother?

Saddam: Well, you heard the saying: you can't take it with you?

Osama: Ah! I see what you mean, brother. He cannot take it with him. That's must be very frustrating.

Saddam: Very frustrating indeed, brother.

Osama: But then, in our own way, we have not been able to take it - whatever it might be - with us, brother.

Saddam: You'd really want to, brother? Take it - whatever it is - with you?

Osama: Hmm... perhaps not, brother. Perhaps I wouldn't really want to.

Saddam: No, exactly brother!

Afterlife

(Exclusive! An ex-oligarch and his favorite ex-bogeyman are overheard discussing eternity.)


Osama: Seen any virgins since you got here, Bro'?

Saddam: Nope.

Osama: What? None?

Saddam: No, none.

Osama: I don't know, Brother. Sometimes I wonder what it's all about.

Saddam: What what's all about?

Osama: This martyrdom thingy. They said there were going to be virgins.

Saddam: I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

Osama: Wouldn't worry about it? Of course I worry about it.

Saddam: As I say... I wouldn't worry about it. Brother Muammar will be here before long. He'll know where to find them.

Osama: What? The virgins?

Saddam: Yep... The virgins, Brother.

Judge Dreadful

At a time when victimised celebrities the world over are coming under sustained attack from the "Freedom of Information League" one man defends the rights of those celebrities. His name is Judge Dreadful - though he sometimes operates under the aliases "Judge Needy" or "Judge Dodgy".

He, and he alone, safeguards the right to engage in hypocrisy. He alone safeguards the right to sleep with prostitutes and deny it. He alone safeguards the right to screw people left right and centre, to lie, to cheat, to deceive and generally to undermine the fabric of society... and yet, still appear the picture of respectability.

He is a man on a mission. Here is his charter:-

- Everyone in the legal profession, in Parliament, in society despises me. Therefore I take it upon myself to defend those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves despised (assuming they are wealthy enough to afford a lawyer).

- You can wake me up at any time of the day or night and ask me to issue a super-injunction - so long as you have huge amounts of cash at your disposal.

- I am the guardian of the hypocrits, the fakes, the bullshitters, in their basic requirement to be defended from those investigative journalists who march under the banner of "truth".

- If you are poor and you cannot afford a good libel lawyer, then fuck off.

- One day I might need the European Convention on Human Rights to defend myself from the "truth-seekers", so I am probably onto a good thing.

- You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

- I might bring the legal profession into disrepute, but if you say as much, I'll sue your arse.

- Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I reply: Who gives a damn?

(NB. All of the above is subject to a super-injunction, so it's illegal to read any of it.)

You wanna get high (dependency)?

The director of a major "front-line service" and champion of the “big state” tells us what the public sector means to him...

“I believe in government that endows its citizens with front-line services from cradle to grave.”

“I believe in government that spoon-feeds children from an early age, by force if necessary, and that is always on hand to pick up the spoon if it drops, or even if it does not.

“I believe in government that’s always there to wipe the noses and the arses of ordinary men and women, even if they are perfectly capable of wiping their own noses and arses.

“I believe in government that offers its citizens cosmetic surgery on demand simply because it cares about their insecurities. I believe in government that offers fat people stomach stapling so they don’t have to undergo the rigours of dietary discipline and forbearance.

“I believe in government that tells ordinary men and women where they’re going wrong, when they’re going wrong, even if those very people neither know nor care when nor where they’re going wrong.

“I believe in government that obviates the need for stoicism when the going gets tough, because front-line services like my own are always there to pick up the pieces when people screw up, even if we are totally incompetent at doing so.

“I believe in government that will fund my beliefs. I believe in government that’ll let me roll my ideas out to the whole of society, that’ll let me hire armies of generous, caring men and women who want to give, give, give until it hurts - and hurt, hurt, hurt until it gives. I believe in government that'll pay me three times as much as the Prime Minister and that’ll let me build an empire of generosity and empathy and hope.

“And finally I believe in government that I can tell where to go, even though ordinary punters want to tell me where to go nowadays... And, I'll tell you this: If you miserable lot, you the public, are simply too miserly to give me what I believe in and what I really want, then you can all go to hell the lot of you, because I’ll simply up sticks and join the private sector.”

“And that's... that's, cos’ I believe!”

A year ago today...

As the day of reckoning for the banking industry approaches, we turn the clock back one year to what this site was saying back then...

Prime Minister Brown says: “I told you so.”

Gordon Brown wishes people had listened to him back in the 80s when he warned investment bankers were a bunch of greedy, reckless gamblers.

“Over recent years people probably thought I was a champion of these casino capitalists as they created their toxic mortgage-backed securities that almost brought the Western economies to their knees. But nothing could be further from the truth.”

“It was only for the eleven years I was Chancellor of the Exchequer that I labelled the City of London “a creative hotbed and a centre of wealth generation.” It was only for eleven years that I gave these charlatans free rein to bleed this country dry.”

“But may I remind you, before this, back in the days of the evil Maggie Thatcher, I used to call these pinstriped terrorists a bunch of dodgy geysers who would sell their own grandmothers - or words to that effect.

“I say to you now: It is the other people who told me to make friends with these fat cats who actually bear responsibility for the financial meltdown that occurred in 2008. I, Gordon, fought long and hard against the off-balance sheet vehicles that these bankers and their creative accountant buddies in America employed to hide the true nature of debt, of their liabilities. And I did this by appropriating these very off-balance sheet vehicles and by putting them to good use hiding my own government’s debt instead.

“But sadly, it was to no avail.”

“I stand here before you today and I say with my hand on my heart: I, Gordon was right all along. Everyone should have listened to me when I said how bad these greedy bastards were. And as for all my old mates at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, and as for the Goldman bankers currently advising my government, I say simply this: Repent! Repent! Don’t be stupid, be like Gordon. Become a penitent sinner.

“Indeed, as the son of a Manse, and as a deeply, deeply religious soul, I will remind you that it was Jesus himself who threw the money lenders out of the Temple. Now, I personally think that this was going just a teensy-weensy bit too far. I would have let them stay in the Temple and even allowed them to carry on advising Pontius Pilate for the time being. And yet I still say unto these money-lenders: Repent! Repent! Or at least, please try to show that you are thinking about repenting. Could you? Please?

“And indeed when I Gordon Brown leave this office of No.10, I will no doubt go back to the very Manse where I was born and where I grew up. And verily will I re-examine my religious roots, those roots that gave me the moral compass that I possess even unto this day.

“Yeah, verily. That is what I Gordon, Son of Manse, shall do. Unless, of course, these banking scoundrels, these Satans, put temptation my way and offer me a lucrative job in the City of London, trying to sort out the total hash they’ve made of things. And, of course, I will not abandon them in their hour of need - but only because I possess an extremely charitable nature.

“Yeah verily.”

“The bastards.”