Antony N Britt – Author

A brief note to all my readers …

There will be no mention this week of a certain event which occurs on the 25th of this month where the entire world goes mad over some mythical character, and I don’t mean the one in the red suit, either. I’ve had enough already and it’s still sixteen days away. Therefore, the other C-word is banned.

Think of the consequences before you pull a stunt like that.

This is what comes of our celebrity culture. You get knobs like those two Australian radio presenters – Mel Grieg and Michael Christian. They decided it was funny to ring King Edward VII Hospital where the future Queen Kate, Duchess of Wherever, was ill in hospital. Pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles, they were astonishingly put through by nurse, Jacintha Saldanha. After being given personal details by another nurse, the two presenters hung up. Laughed at how clever they were.

Mel Grieg and Michael Christian – smugly pleased with themselves for pulling their stunt.

The consequence has been widely reported. Nurse Jacintha Saldanha apparently killed herself, reportedly distraught over the mess-up. Now who is to blame? Yes, procedure totally failed. She did wrong putting the call through. However, when you play a prank, it is only okay if everybody else taking part is in on the gag, apart from the victim, and then have the victim give the okay for it to be broadcast. Did these idiots in Australia have the permission of the royals to be stooges in this stunt? No, and I can’t believe I’m actually defending the royal parasites I hate so much, but in this case, I have sympathy.

The knock-on will see the media will whip up a storm against these two fools now and we may not have seen an end to tragedy. It’s done. Hard lessons learned. Leave them alone as they have to live with the fallout.

The presenters may have thought is a harmless joke and wouldn’t have done this in hindsight. However, at the very least, they must have known they’d put staff in a position of facing serious disciplinary action, all for a few laughs at the time. As it turned out, the nurse couldn’t cope.

It is reported Jacintha Saldanha had the full support of her hospital. However, I know, as in most public sector organisations, the majority of hardworking staff are supervised by middle-management tosspots who’d be looking to lay the blame at any door apart from their own. So think on folks before you play a joke. What could be the result from a few minutes of idiotic actions?

And The Sun’s take on this …

Scummy paper, The Sun, commented yesterday that the nurse’s death was heartbreaking and bewildering. They have lashed loads of sympathy. But aren’t they also to blame? It is papers like theirs who create this intrusive culture and obsession with celebrities. If people were more protected from vultures like those at The Sun, then perhaps two planks on an Australian radio show might have thought twice about invading privacy. Instead, they reckoned that as the press do it all the time, why shouldn’t they?

But what else has the Scum been reporting?

I speak about consequences of jokes and how they could backfire, but what about when it backfires on yourself. When premiership footballer, Liam Ridgewell had a snap taken of him wiping his arse with a £20 note in order to wind up a mate who’d lost a bet, he didn’t think it would be passed around and end up in The Sun.

No, I don’t want to post a picture of him wiping his arse, he’s already made himself look enough of one anyway. Now the butt of all jokes (sorry, couldn’t resist that one), Liam was branded by The Sun as being the vilest footballer in Britain.

Come on, give the man a break. He may have had a perfectly good reason to use a £20 note as toilet paper. Perhaps he hadn’t had his copy of The Sun delivered that day?

Liberal Demolition.

It seems the Lib/Dems are on the verge of extinction after being wiped out in three local elections the other week. Well, you can’t say Nick Clegg and his pathetic party weren’t warned. That’s what you get when you sell-out your own principles for fifteen minutes of power.

Ah, Nick, no wonder you look glum. Having broken the promises you made after deciding to turn your back on all who voted for you and use their support to prop up the Tory opposition your followers voted against.

I have to admit defeat.

Not often I say that but for only the second time in my life, I gave up on a book after struggling to read 100 pages. We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver has sold millions and won awards. How? I couldn’t see it. Perhaps it’s just me. After taking ten tedious days of groaning at each page I turned, I thought it deserved no more of my attention. Very passive, lazy style full of needless waffle. 100 pages and bugger all has happened. It’s written in the form of letters from the main character to her estranged ex. If he had to put up with that all the time, no wonder he left and lives the other side of the world. I can imagine him hearing the letterbox and dreading. ‘Oh no, not another bloody one from her.’ Pages of his ex telling him their past. Er … he already knows.

We Need to Talk about Kevin. Up the loft, waiting to be filed in the corner of books marked crap.

Back to an author I trust, methinks.

And following on from last week and the Simon Cowell observation …

Simon now says he can’t return to the UK version of the X-Factor without damaging the franchise on both sides of the Atlantic.

Oh, please do, Simon. Come back and destroy the show for good and stop filling our airwaves with bland generic karaoke singers recycling other artist’s crap.

Things that go clink in the night.

A family in Yorkshire had to flee their home after being disturbed by the clinking of cups as an alleged ghost, apparently kept trying to make cups of tea.

The Doherty family left their council house after kettles were switched on and cups shook from their mug stand. Hmm, it’s always a council house in these cases. Looking to be re-housed, Mr Doherty? You think they’d be grateful. Why not leave all the mugs full of tea bags when you go to bed? Then you’ll have a steaming hot drink waiting for you when you got up in the morning.

That about wraps another roast …

And I didn’t mention Christmas, once.

Did it, just then. Damn!

Cheers

Nick