Saturday, November 13, 2010

Ingerland, their Ingerland

If one news story could summarise the fact of Britain having become a ridiculous, anxious, provincial country it might be this one: a man makes a lame joke on Twitter about blowing up something called Robin Hood Airport and is convicted under a law designed to protect female telephonists in the 1930s.This is what the man said:
"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
And this is what the Judge said:
Jacqueline Davies called the tweet "menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed".
Any ordinary person, it seems, would see that and think
Oh.My.God. Shirelle, look at this. That man is going to blow up the airport if it does not get its shit together by next week and a bit!! You can tell he means it by the way he used two shock marks!! This is so alarming!! What's on telly tonight?
The only good to come out of this is that we all now know that there is such as thing as Robin Hood Airport, which turns out to be the former RAF Finningley and is really called Doncaster Sheffield Airport. Apparently,
DSA is branded after the UK national icon ‘Robin Hood’ who is known to have spent much of his life around the Doncaster area, particularly Conisbrough and Tickhill Castles. Robin Hood is a well-known and well-loved character the world over, and one who is undeniably associated with this part of the country. The Robin Hood brand has enabled DSA to inform people about what the area has to offer, as well as providing a ‘personality' for the Airport.
Will somebody tell them(a) that Robin Hood was not a real person, still less a branded icon, and (b) that his imaginary life was spent near Nottingham? Perhaps Stephen Fry will do it, since he knows so much about so many things and he has involved himself in this matter as the Honorary Grand Master of Twitter.

Anyway, use of the Lady Telephonists (Protection) Act has not been confined to this one case. Seizing upon the precedent, the Police in Birmingham have charged a Tory Councillor who made a comment about stoning to death someone called Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, after she had "questioned whether any British politician was morally qualified to comment on human-rights abuses, including the stoning of women," according to Time. She considers his remark to be an incitement to murder, racist and all the fault of Jeremy Clarkson.

Why are the English like this? Perhaps it is because they take so much cocaine, perhaps because they eat so much junk, perhaps because even the Liberals are lying to them. I would comment, but I am probably not morally qualified to do so.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are like that because the liberal left, EU and UN (not in any order of stupidity) made them that way.

We will get there as well - all it will take is a bit more liberal left crap and the UN poking about in things that don't concern them.

Peter in Dundee said...

Things are like that from a combination of extreme political correctness colliding with traditional British scattalogical humour and the hysterical security overreaction of The War Against Terror which our former Great Leader St. Tony of New Rome signed us up cheered on by the Tories who are now behaving like they got a thumping majority in the general election.

It is a stinking mess. Paul Chambers is being judicially lynched basically because nobody in any position of authority dares to exercise discretion any more for fear of their jobs. So nobody stopped it and once it got to court the system just ate him up. Hopefully he can go to the European Court of Human Rights and they will set things right. Saint Stephen of Fry (National Treasure) has offered to pay his fines and costs, but he really wants and needs the conviction to be quashed.

Richard T said...

It starts from a very simple point, an almost eternal verity, that you give authority in Britain an inch and it takes the mile. Add in government induced paranoia about aliens and terrorism, well meant if futile gestures about maliciously inciting hatred and the eternal fear of the people by the establishment and we have what we've got. Factor in privilege which persecutes those who make the best of the benefits system while allowing rich tax cheats to get out of gaol free and a cynical media in the hands of reactionary foreigners and historical fascists and it's no wonder the British take all this lying down.

It has nothing to do with PC but everything to do with the contempt with which the governors regard the governed.