God Save the Tabloid

I know they do it on purpose, but this really is moronic play-on-emotions melodramatic broken-britain royalist innaccurate blindingly-stupid nonsensical headlining. No, you irritating scrotal itchings, you will not go to jail for singing the national anthem; you will not be stripped of your liberty for declaring your patriotic urges; and you will not land yourself with a criminal record for stating your belief in a random possibly-not-real deity keeping an eye on an unelected accident-of-birth.

The new law being debated, a further attempt at driving sectarianism out from being an idiotic mind-numbingly persistent blot on the landscape, is somewhat more specific than "... and you know what they're doing next? Telling us we can't sing the national anfum. Ridiculous innit mate. Yeah, I know. This is a Christian country, we should be allowed to do what we want, y'know. It's them Poles. And that Muslim lot. Yeah. Political Correctness gone mad, that's what it is. I mean, why would anyone be offended by God Save the Queen? Speaking of the royals, have you seen that Pippa's backside?"

Nope, what would be an offence is if the circumstances show that the singing of the national anthem was done in such a way as to provoke; basically a case of malice-aforethought breaking out into dull dirge. The difference between, for example, saying someone is 'black' and saying someone is 'black'. We all know when a word or a phrase or, indeed, a song is being very deliberately picked for a malicious reason. And it's not just the national anthem. Though it wouldn't serve the purpose of the headline if the militant iq-challenged reader realised that, given the football sectarianism slant to this, it also covered the singing of pro-IRA songs.

Interestingly I can't find the story on the Daily Wail website now... I might just be looking in the wrong place, but it's a while since I looked at the site, and by eck I tihnk it's worse than it ever has been! You know it's gettign bad when the commenters on the story are actually telling the Wail to move on and tell the real story!

In other news of Anth-annoyance, I went to Clydesdale Bank at lunchtime to pay some money into a bank account belonging to someone who has provided me with a couple of Take That tickets for tomorrow night. Account number and sort code in hand, together with the just-withdrawn cash, I pass both to the cashier. But no. She can't pay the money in. The reason? She needs the account name, and I don't have it with me. How long would it take her, with the account number and sort code, to get the name up on her screen? I think we're probably counting seconds. Do I need the name to effect the same transfer online? No, I can call the transfer whatever I want. But because I wanted to put the money instantly into her account, because I want to be more straightforward and, in effect, helpful, more barriers are placed in the way.

Jobsworth numpties.

And, why would supermarkets with a 'health and beauty' shelf stock stacks of Anusol, but no contact lens solution? My bum pains are all figurative, my eye needs are real...