Corb Blimey!

[MsD]

Corb Blimey!

This is apparently banned in the USA - very interesting, bears out (hohoski) my point about Putin and the Rusisans wanting stability and respect.

Putin's views on US double-dealing are very interesting, well worth hearing.

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

Just getting round to reading the latest Private Eye now.

Amazingly pro-Cameron. And fairly anti-Corbyn.

[MsD]

Corb Blimey!

You didn't see HIGNFY last night? It was horrible for Corbyn supporters and Labour generally. Hislop denied being in the dining club (which he's admitted /claimed/not denied previously), rubbished Lord Ashcroft and sneered at the public for believing the pig allegations. Then put down Corbyn's speech as "not very good", with "borrowed bits".

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

I haven't watched Have I Got News For You since probably the late 1990s.

The Private Eye coverage of piggate is startling. It's not so much "This story is bollocks" as "For fuck's sake, this story is bollocks. DID YOU HEAR ME? I said, this story is bollocks! Written by cunts. And if you believe any of it, you're a cunt too. (continued page 94)"

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

Denis Healey has died, by the way.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

I didn't think Private Eye was so much pro-Cameron as anti-Ashcroft, which they have been for years and is perfectly valid. They did do several thousand words on DC's supposed non-knowledge of Ashcroft's tax status.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Green Calx wrote: Denis Healey has died, by the way.

A great man who retained his reputation despite being Chancellor in a hideous economic period. Could perhaps have done more to keep the Gang of Four in the Party, but had to fight his own battles. RIP.

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

Sure, but there's a distinct sense of shrillness overkill about this stuff. Inadvertently or not, they have managed to come across as if they are desperate for the story to die, rather than just being sceptical of it.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Green Calx wrote: Sure, but there's a distinct sense of shrillness overkill about this stuff. Inadvertently or not, they have managed to come across as if they are desperate for the story to die, rather than just being sceptical of it.

I know what you mean. But there was a journalistic story about the bullshitness of the book, and there are very few jokes left to be made about the allegation itself.

And Private Eye is shrillness incarnate, at its best and worst.

[MsD]

Corb Blimey!

C'mon, there's plenty more jokes to be made, if you're a satirical magazine. They didn't mind flogging the Andrew Neil thing to death and they've not always cared if things are true or not.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Well, it's down to what about four people find funny, what ends up in those pages of Private Eye. Can't dictate it.

(I reckon if that issue had come out a week earlier, it would have been very different)

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

If they thought the story was total crap, then the best thing to do would have been to run one prominent piece criticising it, and leave it at that. Instead there are about five or six laying into it. It all looks a bit desperate.

The thing is a couple of weeks old now anyway, though that has never stopped Private Eye before anyway. With the Andrew Neil photograph, the interminable floggingness is itself the gag.

And at the risk of repeating myself, my god what a shit front cover.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

I was looking back through the 50 Years of Private Eye book, and it's amazing the way the covers become consistently less funny as soon as they switch into colour.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

I gave up on Private Eye for its Tower Hamlets coverage. One of its targets happened to cross my path on Twitter, and confirmed my suspicions about it.

He was a student who contacted Lutfur Rahman about doing some work/project stuff part-time. Rahman didn't support unpaid work, so offered him the London Living Wage for what he did. Easiest way to do this was by making him an "adviser" to the mayor.

There was a minor squabble when the student clapped a speech. The Tories made a complaint to the Monitoring Officer who, trying hard to keep a straight face, told the young fella it was probably better if he didn't clap. In any case, as a mayoral adviser (not a council officer) he probably did nothing wrong.

Private Eye wrote up the Tory email, full on "Lutfur crony bollocked" for disregarding rules. Chucked in that the student came from Highgate/Cambridge, as though that was relevant. And forgot to tell readers he was gay...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

People who watch these "satire" shows have told me for a while they've been awful.

Ed Miliband "weirdness" treated as equivalent of Cameron corruption, that sort of thing.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

Lucy Waterman wrote:

Denis Healey has died, by the way.

A great man who retained his reputation despite being Chancellor in a hideous economic period. Could perhaps have done more to keep the Gang of Four in the Party, but had to fight his own battles. RIP.

Healey's reputation was hit by the asuterity. Without it, he'd have beaten Foot in what was a PLP-only vote, with plenty of rightwingers about.

[MsD]

Corb Blimey!

Tubby Isaacs wrote: People who watch these "satire" shows have told me for a while they've been awful.

Ed Miliband "weirdness" treated as equivalent of Cameron corruption, that sort of thing.

Yep. The only reassuring thing for me was that the audience didn't seem entirely on board last night. They laughed louder when Paul Merton made a couple of references to Piggate than when Clarkson was making jokes about Corbyn being out of touch or whatever.

Graham Norton had a pop at Corbyn for being an "old man" on his show (in case BBC viewers hadn't got the message), at the same time as sucking up to his 72 year old guest (Robert de Niro). Showbiz years aren't the same as politics years, obviously.

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

HIGNFY was very, very good 20-odd years ago. Or at least it seemed that way at the time to my impressionable 18-year-old self.

It's effectively impossible to carry on doing a satirical programme for that length of time and keep it fresh.

[MsD]

Corb Blimey!

Friends and people generally on social media have made hilarious jokes. If a satirist, or known wit, can't make something funny out of a Prime Minister face fucking a pig (or being thought of as face fucking a pig) then there's an agenda preventing them doing so, IMO.

[dalliance]

Corb Blimey!

Perhaps they think that proper satire needs to be based upon some sort of actual event that took place rather than desperate wish projection.

[MsD]

Corb Blimey!

Then why make cheap shots at Labour?

[Borracho]

Corb Blimey!

Did the Tories ever actually deny the pig-fucking story?

[Snake Plissken]

Corb Blimey!

Green Calx wrote: Did the Tories ever actually deny the pig-fucking story?

Yes. About a week after it first came out, there was a statement specifically denying the pig-fucking story.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

MsD wrote: Friends and people generally on social media have made hilarious jokes. If a satirist, or known wit, can't make something funny out of a Prime Minister face fucking a pig (or being thought of as face fucking a pig) then there's an agenda preventing them doing so, IMO.

Well, it's choices the individual makes rather than an agenda. And if everyone's mates are making hilarious jokes about something, it's down to a professional satirist to come up with a new angle.

[beak]

Corb Blimey!

I like it when Merton does a double-take and looks suspiciously at his water glass!!!!

Also, that Eric Pickles is a fat chap isn't he?