Not lost in translation

Plato was most intrigued when she read this headline in the Guardian

" Pierre Lellouche's views on the Tories and the EU were not lost in translation

French minister's spokesman blamed my poor grasp of French. But interview was conducted in English"

Hmm, how interesting.

Read the whole article here

He's not that into you

Oh dear. Ha. Obama was washing his hair when Gordon called...

"We are told that President Obama didn’t watch election night coverage last night of the bad results from Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere.

Instead he was apparently tuned to a two hour long HBO documentary about how he stormed to electoral triumph this time last year.

I was watching it too – so was everyone else in the C4 Washington bureau.

We were all enjoying reminiscing about the campaign and our small part in it. Even if we didn’t learn much that we didn’t know at the time. There were very few revealing moments.

We never saw the Obama facade crack.

Either this was the most disciplined, best run and resolutely self confident political campaign in history or this was the best controlled behind the scenes access in history.

But there was one glimmer of revelation – right at the end.

Soon after Obama was declared the winner but before he’d made his acceptance speech in Grant Park in Chicago a junior aide took a call on his cell phone.

We heard him brushing off the caller saying “The President Elect is keen to talk to the Prime Minister too – but he’s a bit busy right now”.

We can only assume it was Gordon Brown on the phone. Getting his first taste of how UK – Obama relations were to proceed."

Lord Alan says FUCK, we are not in recession - WTF?

Well, there's nothing like ignoring HMG's own figures

The Sun Party

Plato cried with laughter when she read this excerpt from Our Glorious Leader's interview with Piers Morgan in GQ.

His delusion is hilarious and oh look - he even mentions meeting Obama *every day*.

What a sad arse - hoping that the pixie dust will rub off on him...

"In an interview with GQ magazine to be published later this week, the prime minister claimed he had known "for some time" that the Sun was planning to switch allegiances but said he still respected the paper's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.

The News International paper's decision to endorse David Cameron hours after Brown's speech to the Labour party conference in late September overshadowed the prime minister's address and was a hugely symbolic moment. The Sun had backed Labour for more than a decade.

"I have a lot of admiration for Rupert Murdoch personally," Brown told GQ's interviewer, Piers Morgan. "His family come from not far from mine in Scotland, and his attitudes to hard work and getting on with things you can only admire. But the Sun has tried to become a political party.

"It's not personal about Rupert, he's always been very friendly to me. I think the Sun's made a mistake but that's up to them."

Asked by Morgan which executive at News International made the decision to back the Tories, Brown said: "I don't know, but it doesn't matter because the people will decide what happens at the next election, not the Sun.

"I think the Sun tried to become a political party that day and that was a terrible mistake. And I suspect over time that their readers will think that, too."

Brown also said that media coverage has become increasingly personal: "I think that's a mistake, too. Take my recent trip to America. I had meetings every day with Obama, about Iraq, Iran, the economy, global warming, Afghanistan, nuclear power..."

Read the whole thing here

UPDATE Roy Greenslade sticks the boot in as well - hohoho

"...It may be upset prime ministers, especially when a paper pledges allegiance and then goes wildly off message. But the "terrible mistake" was surely Tony Blair's and Brown's for cosying up to The Sun in the first place.

Most owners and editors revel in their independence. So Brown shows even more naivete by asserting in his GQ magazine interview that The Sun's decision to switch to the Tories "is not personal" in terms of his friendly relationship with its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.

Don't be daft, Gordon, of course it's personal. The Sun didn't kick you in the balls without Rupert's say-so. He is on record as saying he calls the political tune at the paper (despite a later denial by Rebekah Wade).

Clearly, his interviewer - and former Murdoch employee - Piers Morgan knows the reality. He cheekily asked Brown which News International executive he thought had made the decision to back the Tories.

Brown, poor Brown, is obviously in denial. He replied: "I don't know, but it doesn't matter because the people will decide what happens at the next election, not The Sun."

It was Rupert wot done it, Gordon. Rupert ditched you. Get it straight."

Do you care about EU arguments?

Mike Smithson over at www.politicalbetting.com has sourced a very interesting bit of voter reality.

Where would you place the EU compared to the other pressing issues we face? Tell me in the comments...

Still feeling clever?

Plato does love her geography [it must be something to do with being humiliated in class if she forgot her Philip's Modern School Atlas].

Anyway, if you are of a similar mind, here are three little quizzes that will test your grey matter on the subject.

Name all the countries in:

Europe [Plato got all of them [eventually] except one she couldn't spell]

Africa [She got 42/53]

and Asia [and 40/48]

Have fun!

Telling it like it is

Plato was APPALLED that Prf Nutt was summarily dismissed from his post as Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

Prf Nutt - MB, BChir, MA, DM, MRCP, FRCPsych, FMedSci has been sacked by a man who left school to become a postman.



If you'd like to show your support for scientific rigour and research over the views of someone who has no professional qualifications of any sort - here are Prf Nutt's contact details:

Professor David Nutt
The psychopharmacology of depression, addiction, insomnia and other disorders

David.J.Nutt@bristol.ac.uk, d.nutt@imperial.ac.uk
Psychopharmacology Unit, Bristol
Imperial College, London

So you think you're smart?

Your Supreme Queen would like to set her subjects a challenge.

She's noticed that many schools seem to think that British history [and science teaching] is 'embarrassing', so ought to be ignored.

If like Plato, you actually think that one's own national history is important - not only to understand where we came from, but also the values that framed our history - try your general knowledge here.

You have seven minutes to name all the countries that have English as their official language - can't be that hard, surely?

Plato scored 22/54 :(

Tiddles and her Carbon Footprint

What is it with the Climate Change Nazis?

I just posted an article that we all ought to be veggies as cows fart a lot of CO2, and now some other Nazis are telling me that I should take account of my kitties emissions as part of the Global Warming FIGHT.

FFS - where will it end?

"Forget scratched furniture and suspicious patches on the living room carpet – your pet suddenly has a lot to answer for: the planet's environmental future no less.

Brenda and Robert Vale are professors of architecture at Victoria University, New Zealand, who specialise in sustainability and they claim the carbon pawprint of a pet dog (roughly the size of an alsatian), is twice that of a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year. Writing in Time to Eat the Dog, the pair use all sorts of calculations to compare the ecological impact of pets with common vehicles or household appliances. Instead of looking at the volume of carbon dioxide produced – the normal method of measuring carbon footprints – the Vales have used the amount of land necessary to grow enough food to "power" your dog, cat or your car. So, according to the couple, 0.84 hectares of land creates enough food to feed a German Shepherd for a year, but only half this space would be enough – if all the food was converted to energy it could use – to keep a Land Cruiser going for the same length of time.

Mind-bending stuff, and more than a little scientifically dubious ("I wouldn't have thought a dog had anywhere near as high a carbon footprint as a car," says John Buckey, managing director of carbonfootprint.com). But taking the statistics at face value, did you know that cats have a marginally smaller carbon footprint than a Volkswagen Golf (both roughly 0.15 hectares)? Or that hamsters have a footprint of 0.014 hectares, meaning if you had two it would be about as environmentally dangerous as owning a plasma television? Given the state of British broadcasting, the animals would probably be more entertaining..."

Eat your pet

Well, this is a novel idea to reduce my carbon footprint. Since I am a serial kitty cat breeder - does that make me the Monsanto of cuddly quadruped breeding?

"Previous researchers have argued that cows and sheep are big threats to the climate, but a recent analysis by two New Zealand architects has concluded that Fido and Fluffy, besides being warm and cuddly, are also warming the planet. As the Dominion Post explains:

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.

The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created by popular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them.

"If you have a German shepherd or similar-sized dog, for example, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around," Brenda Vale said. "A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don't worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact ... is comparable."

In a study published in New Scientist, they calculated a medium dog eats 164 kilograms of meat and 95kg of cereals every year. It takes 43.3 square metres of land to produce 1kg of chicken a year. This means it takes 0.84 hectares to feed Fido.

They compared this with the footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser, driven 10,000km a year, which uses 55.1 gigajoules (the energy used to build and fuel it). One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year, which means the vehicle's eco-footprint is 0.41ha – less than half of the dog's.

They found cats have an eco-footprint of 0.15ha – slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf. Hamsters have a footprint of 0.014ha – keeping two of them is equivalent to owning a plasma TV.

Their solution: Fido fricassee. The Post continues:

Professor Vale says the title of the book is meant to shock, but the couple, who do not have a cat or dog, believe the reintroduction of non-carnivorous pets into urban areas would help slow down global warming.

"The title of the book is a little bit of a shock tactic, I think, but though we are not advocating eating anyone's pet cat or dog there is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment."

Considering that there are about 72 million dogs and 82 million cats in the U.S., that would mean that their ecological pawprints are roughly comparable to that of the entire U.S. passenger vehicle fleet.

Carbon credits for pets?"