‘pap’ Is a word I like to use sometimes which means ‘unworthy crap’
It seems like every time I pick up this ‘newspaper’ I see a headline that stinks of right-wing intollerance.
Take today’s (or rather yesterday’s 4 hours ago) edition: “A MILLION CHILDREN UNDER 10 HAVE A MOBILE”. So fucking what! Mobiles are useful devices! If a child is abducted he or she can ‘ring it in’. If a child gets lost he or she can call mum or dad. If a child doesn’t know what to do her or she can call mum or dad.
The only reason I do pick it up is that I have nothing else to read on the toilet. My left-wing-intellectual step-dad buys it (why oh-fucking why? I find that I can’t read beyond a headline without shoving it back down)
I sooo wish I didn’t have the memory of a sieve, because I’ve seen some classic headlines from this rag that have been pit-worthy (just about every headline in fact).
Well, in the 1930s, it supported Mosley, was keen on appeasment of Hitler, and complained about the country being flooded with refugees (sound familiar? Except these were Jews from Germany). So no, the right-wing element is nothing new. But the crappiness is - I hate it being treated as anything other than a trashy tabloid.
To be fair to the Mail though, the angle they were taking was the supposed health risk of mobile phones to young children, and while that might be possibly unscientific scaremongering, I’d hardly call it “right-wing pap”.
Look at today’s headline, dear. Oooh, it shouldn’t be allowed! 10 million?! We never had them in our day. Young people today don’t know they’re born. Don’t need a telephone up a chimney, I can tell you. And where are they getting the money to pay for them, eh? I’ll tell you where; selling drugs and social security, that’s where! It’s that Labour government’s fault. I bet half of them are illegal immigrants too. Well if they want to phone home, then why don’t they just go there! Eh? Oh, I do like that Mr Kilroy-Silk, he’s such a nice man, always a cheery smile and so healthy looking. Do you think these curtains would look nice in the front room? It says here the right curtains could add as much as £1000 to the value of your home. We’ve got one of those phone mast not 1/2 a mile from our house, you know, we’ll be getting youths congregating around it next, high on drugs and downloading pornography and that “hippity-hoppity” music. It’s all swear words you know, I watched it on TV last night and … "
Yes the Mail has always been like it is now - if anything it has mellowed (if you doubt me, google “zinoviev letter”). Just as the guardian has always been for tofu knitting liberals, the telegraph for proper people like me and the Sun for people who like a nice pair of bristols with their news.
I didn’t realise you were a retired colonel. Next thing you tell us is you’re buying a little place for the weekends on the Suffolk coast. Then I will have to kill you.
I also think the country is going to the dogs, kids today have no respect, modern music is rubbish, food doesn’t taste as good as it used to, policemen are looking younger, modern art is a pile of poo (often literally), that the new 5p piece is too fiddly, and Radio 4 is making a mistake letting those announcers with regional accents on - why oh why can’t they learn to talk properly?
Owl - embracing middle age and off for a cup of tea and a nice sit-down.
No, it depends on how the story is reported.
You could do a factual, balanced report weighing possible health risks against benefits of having them, or you could have a screaming hissyfit, and find someway to blame it on tofu knitting liberals, gypsies and immigration, a la the daily mail.
Yesterday it treated us to the headline that millions will be outraged over Camilla appearing with the royal family at Buckingham palace. MILLIONS OUTRAGED!
They really should have a tiny map in the top corner of the page, just so the Little Englanders can relate.
I take back my ‘reeked’ description of your minors with phones examples. It does have a ring of rightwingism in it. Had the Daily Mail been a leftist publication, the headline might have read: CAPITALIST PLOT BY MOTOROLA TO CAUSE BRAIN CANCER IN CHILDREN
If the cell phone article paints the kids having the phones as a bad thing, it can kinda be seen as right-wing, or at least conservative. One definition of conservative is “tending to oppose change.” It’s a cultural change for kids to have phones, and IMHO thinking that’s wrong could be considered a conservative view. YMMV, of course.
*… and why can’t we have more of that lovely “Come Dancing” on anyway? That’s *proper music. I do like that nice young man Graham Horton. 10 years old! It’s outrageous. And who do they find to phone? I expect they’re “texting” each other all the time in class behind the teacher’s back. They’ve got no respect children these days. When I was in school we had to make do with paper notes, and we got the hiding of our lives if we were caught. Never did me any harm. Oooh, look! We can buy a nice set of commemorative plates with Charles on Camilla on them! Special Edition limited to 10,000 sets! I suppose you don’t get proper phones in them gypsy caravans. If they want a phone let them live in a proper house and pay a proper mortgage like we do! Of course they wouldn’t, the Labour government would pay it for them and put up our taxes! Why! There’s a new episode of “Heartbeat” on tonight, I must set the video. I do like that, back in those days people knew their place and the country was full of these…"
I remember when we could go missing for hours as a child in the fields around here, now it’s all gypsy caravans and immigrants on heroin! We’re paying for it too! that Camilla is appearing on the balcony with the queen soon! I’m outraged! She’s not like that princess Di… cheap flights to the south of france! that sounds lovely! i remember when you could get a bus trip to Bornemouth with 100 green stamps, can’t go these days as the high labour taxes and insurance fraud by the immigrants are putting the small coach companies out of business! Too many people on welfare in bornemouth these days anyway…
