Regular readers will know that my home town is Southport, a small retirement village of a town on the North West coast of England. I visit every few weeks, but often I check in on the town via the internet, to see what is causing the inevitable arguments at the time.

Southport is an affluent town whose (small ‘c’) conservatism is somewhere to the right of the residents of Ambridge even before the Macy/Craig wedding, and, as such, it’s the arena for fascinating debates that the rest of the country concluded some centuries ago.

It’s a place where the Daily Mail is taken as gospel, complaints are the local speciality, and people’s primary concern in life is the state of the town’s public toilets. It is Middle England. If Richard Littlejohn hadn’t hailed from Essex, he’d probably have come from Southport. It’s the only place I’ve come across to have held a protest against the anti-war protests.

The hot topic in Southport at the moment appears to be regarding breastfeeding in public. Not whether better provision should be given to mothers, not whether their right to breastfeed in public should be enshrined in government legislation, but whether it should be allowed at all. This has hit the local newspaper after a lady breastfeeding her baby was asked to leave McDonalds.

Contributions to the debate from the Southport Visiter (sic) website include:

Of course this woman shouldn’t be allowed to breastfeed in McDonalds.

I certainly don’t want to be sitting tucking into my Big Mac with fries while a woman serves up a fresh milkshake for her baby.

The staff at the store were totally in the right to ask her to stop. Others were eating and women should be a bit more aware of the sensitivities of others around them.

It is certainly not acceptable for women to breastfeed in public, particularly in a restaurant.

It may be the most natural thing in the world, but so is being naked, but that isn’t allowed in MacDonalds.

Woah. Even the case for the ‘Ayes’ is skewed with small-town mentality:

I would be more offended seeing mothers feed their kids with the junk in MacDonalds than seeing a mum offering her baby the most nutritious food it can get!

If topless sun bathing is the norm on the beach, then Breast feeding in public should not be an issue.

There are pages and pages of this stuff. It’s quite remarkable.

Another debate: Should a photographer be allowed to have nude portraits in his shop window? We’re talking tasteful portraits here (click here or here for samples), not hardcore porn. Yet the vitriol greeting this display would suggest otherwise:

There’s far too much sex being rammed down our throats as it is.

It is a sad day when the family portrait becomes soft porn sordid snaps.

Presumably, that was said without irony.

I don’t know of anywhere else in the country where the apparent attitudes of the majority are quite so trenchant, where achievement is so under-celebrated, or where complaining is quite so much the way of life.

But somehow, from a distance, these uniquely negative qualities give Southport something of a bizarre charm. The predictability of the vitriol, bananaism, and ultraconservatism provides a level of reliability of response that maybe isn’t present in other towns.

Southport is a town that’s stuck in the past and stuck in its ways. But it’s my town, it’s inevitably part of who I am, and I’ll always look out for it.

Since last Thursday, when the story of the refusal of Tul Bahadur Pun’s immigration application broke, I’ve been contacted by a quite extraordinary range of people asking me to support his appeal – from people I’ve never met, to fellow bloggers, to personal friends, to TV presenters. Mr Pun has, intentionally or otherwise, become the cause célèbre of students, social networkers, and bloggers nationwide (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), but I’m not so sure about his case.

Tul Bahadur Pun is an 84 year-old Nepalese citizen. He’s lived in Nepal for most of his life, and, like may 84 year-olds, has developed a collection of medical conditions – in his case, heart problems, asthma, and diabetes. In his home country of Nepal, medication is not regularly available for his consumption, and so he’d like to move to Britain.

Mr Pun has no family in Britain. He has no-one to support him. He wants to move here to use the services of the NHS, and no doubt rely on Social Services for his social requirements. He is the classical immigrant ‘drain on society’ that the Daily Mail is forever seeking to vilify.

Yet a huge amount of support has surrounded Mr Pun’s case, as he fought for 18 years with the Indian Army and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his efforts with the allied forces during the Second World War. Does that entitle him to British citizenship? By current immigration rules? No. Morally? I’m not sure.

If you read around his case, you’ll come across a lot of emotive stuff about him being denied entry to Britain on the basis that he ‘failed to demonstrate strong ties to the UK’. In immigration terms, this means he’ll be reliant on the state, and so saying that receipt of the VC ‘demonstrates strong ties’ is misleading. You’ll also note that this was only one of several reasons why his application was denied, another being that it was not demonstrated that regular medication would actually improve his condition. Try to find the full text of his rejection has beaten me, which makes it difficult to make an informed judgement on the case.

But more sinister about the whole campaign for which Mr Pun has become the poster-boy is that thousands of people are being urged to sign a Downing Street petition calling for all Ghurkas to have the right to come and settle in the UK. People who support this one individual case are being urged to support a campaign that has quite different aims to merely allowing Mr Pun access to healthcare. It’s extrapolation from one emotive case to the cases of many, and however sympathetic I might feel towards Mr Pun, the underhand way in which his lawyers are playing this game is despicable.

If we open our doors to all Ghurkas, who else are we to admit? Is every US soldier that has served alongside British comrades in Iraq to be entitled to NHS care because of the shocking state of medical care in their home country? And besides, why are we limiting ourselves to those who have made a military contribution to the country? Are there not many others who’ve made an equally large contribution, with equally large personal sacrifice, who deserve citizenship too? I’m sure as Brits we have plenty of our own examples of Clara Maass, but our national obsession with remembering and honouring militarian sacrifices means that they are tragically forgotten. Many, many people risk their lives for the good of this country day after day – only the tiniest proportion of them are military personnel.

Mr Pun fought for the wellbeing of a grateful nation, and did so with exceptional bravery. Nonetheless, he did so voluntarily, of his own free will. He now has health problems unrelated to his service, but would like something back from the country for which he gave so much. I’m not sure we’re morally obliged to provide it, but it seems mean-spirited at best to deny citizenship and care to the exceptional Mr Pun, and I will make those views known to the relevant people in the relevant ways.

But who else, out of the thousands of people who apply for immigration each year, is exceptional? How do we define who ‘deserves’ our help and who doesn’t? The fact is, we condemn an awful lot of people to receiving poor medical care every year, and every one of those cases is a tragedy – but a necessary tragedy if we want to retain the level of health and social care we universally provide to citizens of our fine country.

The question is not about Mr Pun, and certainly not about allowing Mr Pun and all of his comrades have open access to the UK. The question is much bigger than that. And I have no answers.

The release of a top-ten chart of funeral music requests got me thinking morbid thoughts a few weeks ago. The top ten, for those who missed it, were:

1. Goodbye My Lover – James Blunt
2. Angels – Robbie Williams
3. I’ve Had the Time of My Life – Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley
4. Wind Beneath My Wings – Bette Midler
5. Pie Jesu – Requiem
6. Candle in the Wind – Elton John
7. With or Without You – U2
8. Tears in Heaven – Eric Clapton
9. Every Breath You Take – The Police
10. Unchained Melody – Righteous Brothers

There’s not a one on that list that I’d want at my funeral. And it seems I’m not the only one. The blogging world has been abuzz with suggestions, from Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and Always Look On The Bright Side of Life to Where Eagles Have Been and See You in the Next One.

But what would I want? Well, I’ve come up with a list of three. I know that’s pushing it a bit, but hey, it’s my funeral… It’s not as if I’m going to be too bothered if it drags on…

Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah:
[audio:Hallelujah2.mp3]
It’s the defining death scene song of a generation – anybody who’s anybody in anything dies to this song, to the point where it’s almost a meaningless cliché. But it’s a nice song, and kinda sets the mood for a funeral, I think.

My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade:
[audio:Parade2.mp3]
Pushing the boundaries of acceptable funeral music… It’s a new release, so a new one to add onto the list (bumping Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars off, I think). It says everything I’d want to say I my own funeral – remember me for who I was and what I did in life, not for how I died – however that might be! And ‘carry on’ without me.

Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now:
[audio:Stop2.mp3]
It seems so appropriate… I think I’ve wanted this ever since Jonny Kennedy had it at his funeral, so I guess it’s a tribute to him in a way. It would serve as a reflection on a happy life I’d enjoyed living. And it’s kinda upbeat, which would be nice for the end of a funeral, I think. Leave people celebrating life, not dreading death.

So there you go. That’s a cheery thought and a half. Hopefully, I’ll have an awful lot of time to be rethinking and rejigging this list in the future…!

Oh, and I’ve probably broken a gazillion copyright laws in this post, so if any record company wants anything removed, feel free to get in touch. And then I’ll write to the Daily Mail and tell them that the big bad corporation wouldn’t even let me tell people what music I wanted at my funeral. Or maybe not.

Did Fireman Sam really need sexing up?

The original and best:

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/oldsam.flv” /]

The new, bad version:

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/newsam.flv” /]

What was wrong with the old one? And why is the new one so bad?

Was the person singing it really as drugged up as it sounds?

Is the fact that Sam is no longer ‘there on time’ a commentary on the gradual decline in public services and regular fire service strikes?

Why hasn’t the Daily Mail been complained about this?

Why does life have so many questions and so few answers?

Iain Dale has just finished his latest book, Guide to Political Blogging in the UK (buy here, or download here). It’s a good read, with contributions from Francis Maude (Tory Chairman), Adam Boulton (Sky’s political editor), David Milliband (uber-loyal Blairite minister), and the political editor of the Daily Mail to name but a few. As well as being released to the general public, it’s also going to be distributed at the party conferences to raise awareness of blogs amongst politicians.

In one section of the guide, Iain rates the Top 100 Non-Aligned Political Blogs. As you’d expect, Guido quite rightly claims the number one spot. More surprisingly, I’ve somehow parked up at number 29.

Just to put that in context, ex-politician and author Jeffrey Archer is at 68, the Daily Mail’s star columnist Melanie Phillips is at 69, and The Times’ David Aaronovitch is at 80. I’m at 29. That’s five places down from the BBC’s Political Editor, Nick Robinson. How the heck did that happen?

As if that wasn’t enough, I feature at number 69 in the overall list of political blogs. The 69th best political blog in the country. I think that’s pretty impressive for a medical student with zero political experience writing on a blog where a high proportion of the posts are not remotely related to politics.

So thank you, Iain, for your support. 🙂

Stomach-wrenchingly abhorrent news from The Guardian:

A Vatican official has said the Catholic church will excommunicate a medical team who performed Colombia’s first legal abortion on an 11-year-old girl, who was eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, said in addition to the doctors and nurses, the measure could apply to “relatives, politicians and lawmakers” whom he called “protagonists in this abominable crime”.

Why on Earth does Middle England complain so much about Islamic society when Christianity – the religion at the heart of Middle England – does as many things which are at least comparably terrible on a daily basis? I don’t get it.

Perhaps it’s because Middle England don’t know that these things happen – after all, a story like this would never feature in the Daily Mail, as to do so would be to cast doubt upon the beliefs and values of it’s readership. Far better that they reinforce the prejudices by using dubious research to convince it that the 2% of the population that have an Islamic belief system pose an immediate threat to the future of the UK.

How can anyone justify forcing an 11-year-old raped by her step-father to carry her child to term?  That is evil.  And that is the decision of one of the most senior people in the Catholic church, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who will almost certainly oversee the conclave to select the next Pope.  This is not some crazy parish priest in some far-flung land.  This is a crazy senior priest in the highest echelons of the Vatican.

Just, for a second, imagine the uproar if these were the words of an Imam.  Yet, because this is apparently based in Christian “truth”, nobody blinks.  I just wish the world could, for once, look past religion, with it’s ifs, buts, excuses, corruption, out-dated teachings, and evil actions, and work towards true, universal, morality.

Earlier this month, Trinity Mirror announced a 13% fall in profits, and hence a wholesale review of its operations. Reaction to this news largely assumed it was the regional papers which were at most risk – but is it? Rumours I’m hearing are suggesting otherwise.

With a 14% year-on-year circulation decrease – the biggest in the Sunday newspaper market – The People is looking on shaky ground. Quite why this is a case when last week’s front page had the earth-shattering exclusive BB PETE PORN SHOOT SHAME (“The Big Brother star who won the hearts of millions with his shy charm is today exposed as a sex-mad gender-bender.”) is unclear to me. However, I’m hearing that The People is likely to be closed before long, as the decline in the Sunday newspaper market as a whole makes resuscitation of the newspaper an unlikely prospect. Although, of course, it’s not entirely unlikely that Trinity Mirror will ditch all its other titles as well, and get out of the newspaper business.

Matt Wells also alludes to the closure of The People in his latest missive about the decline of the tabloid over at Comment is Free. Oh, and we should all have a good laugh at the Daily Star for trying to teach it’s readers Greek in a week (maybe they should start with English), the Daily Mail for withdrawing its You supplement from the newstands after finally realising that there’s nothing in it which anyone would ever want to pay for, and The Sun for printing a front-page story congratulating itself on the previous day’s exclusive – which printing an apology for the very same exclusive on page six.

I do hope that’s cheered you up – unless, of course, you work at The People.

You may remember from last week that a new terror alerts system is to be introduced in response to the London bombing of 7th July. Clearly, it’s important that the public know the terror level at all times, because if we’d known that it was lowered from ‘severe’ to ‘substantial’ just before the attacks then we would’ve been more vigilant. Apparently. No, I don’t understand either.

Anyway, the new system does away with ‘Negligible’, because, durr, we’re always facing the biggest threat we’ve ever faced – otherwise we wouldn’t vote for policies which restrict our everyday lives (like ID cards or House Arrest). They’ve also combined ‘Severe Defined’ and ‘Severe General’ into ‘Severe’, because we can never be sure whether we’ve received intelligence about an attack anyway until after the attack takes place. And no-one really knows whether the intelligence is ‘patchy’ or ‘clear and authoritative’ anyway.

So how will the new system work? Well, I reckon the levels of threat will be determined much like this:

• Low: Oh my god, there’s a terrorist with a big nuclear bomb sat with a detonator in the centre of London. Best not panic the public, let’s keep the alert level down.
• Moderate: Hmm, some planes seem to be heading off course and towards some tall public buildings. Probably not worth calming the public completely, they might not accept draconian control measures, but let’s reassure them a bit.
• Substantial: The Daily Mail, that most reliable intelligence source, says someone who once passed Prince Charles’s butler’s cousin twice removed on Oxford Street made a comment that the Monarchy should be abolished! Clearly a terrorist plotting to kill the Queen!
• Severe: Someone seen calmly walking into a tube station wearing a light denim jacket. Shoot!
• Critical: Save our good Christian souls, a Muslim family has moved into a quaint village in Middle England! We don’t want those people here! Deport them!

So there you go! In fact, the official definitions are worse:

• Low: “An attack is unlikely”
  Which presumably means it’s not likely, but it is possible. See also ‘moderate’.
• Moderate: “An attack is possible but not likely”
  Which presumably means an attack is, erm, unlikely. See also ‘low’.
• Substantial: “Strong possibility of an attack”
  Presumably meaning an attack is quite likely. See also ‘severe’.
• Severe: “An attack is highly likely”
  Or, there is a strong possibility of an attack. See also ‘substantial’.
• Critical: “An attack is expected imminently”
  But we’re not going to tell you where or when. Bwwaaaahaahaaa!

I feel safer already!

Normally, I like to joke about the links I publish here, perhaps slipping in a gentle pun or two, to point out the ridiculous nature of the idea communicated.

Here, I just don’t know what to say.

Channel 4 is to bring mass public masturbation to the small screen.

The broadcaster – once led by Michael Grade, dubbed “pornographer in chief” by the Daily Mail – has commissioned a documentary about the UK’s first “masturbate-a-thon” as part of a series of programmes dubbed “Wank Week”, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

Wank Week!?

I don’t care, I’m going to moan about them anyway. That was my response after being told I’m too easily irritated by minor things, and they probably don’t make blog posts that can be described as interesting. But it’s not going to stop me.

Front loading on news programmes is annoying. This is the conclusion I’ve reached, after seeing an epidemic of front-loaded introductions to news reports spreading across all UK news outlets. It’s like somebody reading the Daily Mail outloud, and it’s incredibly tedious and irritating.

Worse, though, is that it undeniably introduces an element of bias, through implicit agreement with the statement made. News broadcasters often say things like:

The death toll from the Chernobyl Nuclear accident twenty years ago today will be much higher than government estimates predict. That’s according to Greenpeace…

There, they are clearly agreeing with Greenpeace over and above what the Government estimates might suggest. You can never imagine them using this construction for something they find controversial, or that they might disagree with:

Asians are invading Britain and stealing the jobs of hard working white people. That’s according to the BNP…

It would never happen.

On top of this, I have no idea what to make of the statement that is being read to me until I know the credibility of the source. Compare:

Tony Blair should resign immediately in order to protect the future prospects of the Labour Party, backbench MPs have said today.

Tony Blair should resign immediately in order to protect the future prospects of the Labour Party, his cabinet have said today.

The first one’s a non-story, the second is huge. And yet they delay bothering to tell me until they’ve got the quote out of the way first. Irritating! What’s wrong with

Tony Blair’s cabinet have today announced that they beleive he should resign immediately in order to protect the future prospects of the Labour Party.

I realise it pushes the content of the news story back by, ooh, two seconds, but it actually allows me to assess whether the story is a real story or not straight away.