Fake News!

I have been watching with quite some amusement the inauguration of his highness the grand duke of Trumpton. As a statesman, this man is beyond belief, he and his brother from a different mothers. He and Boris the no-brain shouldn't be let out without chaperones in case they talk to strangers.

Trump has been accused of many things, which I personally wouldn't argue against. They may or may not be true, but he seems capable of all the accusations. When he and his team argued about the size of the crowd at his inauguration he dismissed claims that the crowd were only a fraction of the crowd that turned up for Obama by saying he had alternative facts!

History, it is said, is written by the victors. This of course is true, which makes history interesting. The reason it makes it interesting is because it takes a lot of detective work to find out certain things, but even then you cannot call them facts. Only full physical proof can make a claim a fact. Take our car park King, Ricky 3; he was claimed to be a hunchback by one William Shakespeare, and paintings of him also had him as a hunchback, though they were shown to have been altered. When his skeleton was discovered in a car park in Leicester it was found that he did have a twisted spine, but he would have appeared quite normal with his clothes on, and there was no sign of a hump. So after hundreds of years we can now say that Richard the third was not a hunchback, fact!, And that is yet more proof that history is written by the victors.

So for the benefit of Trumpton, let me explain: you can have a lie, an opinion, and a fact, that's it. If it didn't happen, to say it did is a lie. If it did happen but you can have an opinion on why and how it happened, it happened - that's it! You cannot have an alternative fact. A fact is a fact: that's it. An alternative fact is called a lie. Just what was the country doing voting in this man, who has nothing but his own self-interest at heart? Why do you think he got out of the car to talk to the crowds on Friday? Was it his love of the people or the fact he chose to get out of the car right outside the Trump building with the world's press on him.

As for women protesting against him because of his views on women, why didn't they do that when he was running for presidency? Why don't they march against the world's religions, because of their views on women and their treatment of women? Why didn't they vote for the woman that was running for president? 52% of women voted for him! It has become fashionable to protest against the great combover but, as with Brexit, don't bang on about democracy then start screaming that you want a recount when the vote goes against you. Fight to be heard before the vote!

Fake news is not a modern invention. We have always had it. Why do you think we went into the Gulf war? Do you think Boris the bully really stood aside after the Brexit vote for the good of the country, or could it be he expects Theresa May (or may not) will be pilloried when we leave the EU, and then he can step in like an arse in shining armour. We have been, and always will be, fed a diet of crap when it comes to politics. The truth is there are always someone's interests to look out for, but you can guarantee they will not be yours!

But there is some fake news that I enjoy. I do like harmless pranks played on the press and public. The broadcaster Stuart Maconie, while working for the music paper the NME, once wrote a page giving odd facts about certain bits of the industry. For a laugh one day he wrote that Bob Holness, the presenter of the popular children's show, Block Buster, was the saxophonist on Gerry Rafferty's classic song, Baker Street. 

For some reason this snippet of fake news caught the imagination of the public, who chose to believe it without question. Rafferty himself once said that he was called a liar by a man in a bar who had told him this piece of Maconie propaganda. Rafferty told him it was an urban myth, only for the man to denounce him as a fool. But who's to say that even this story is true?

Meaningless Drivel

I have written before about things people say that make no sense at all, but we accept these phrases without question. Lots of the more inane sugar-coated types of sayings are happily embraced by certain people, my wife being one of them.

She often asks me to write poems for birthday cards for her friends, with me being a poet type and all. The problem is I write about things that I find funny or things I think others may find funny, but I don't do sentiment. With this in mind, I write poems for her but I make them so sickly sweet that anybody with any sense would see the joke... two of my wife's friends cried with real tears of emotion when reading the poems, thinking them to be so lovely! I must be writing the wrong type of poems, maybe I should switch to verses for cards?

My son and his partner (his Partner) bought my wife what looks like a wooden box with a glass front on it for Christmas. Inside this sealed box is what can only be described as cotton wool, on the front is a sickly sweet sentiment. This sentiment is the most inane thing I have ever read, but no one else seems to have noticed. When I point it out to people they call me the usual stuff, Grinch, moaning old git etc. Everyone except me seems to think it's a lovely sentiment but it just makes no sense to me.

Because someone we love is in Heaven,

There's a little bit of Heaven in our home.

For once I'm not going down the road of no such place as Heaven which, to be honest, is another valid argument, I'm looking at this from the "what a load of bollocks" point of view!

Now let's, for a moment, shut off our brains and agree that there's a Heaven where your loving Gods sends you once they've killed you. The sentiment is still meaningless! If this was to be true then you could just as well say.

Because someone we know is in Batley,

There's a little bit of Batley in our home.

My wife also has a plaque made from pot (clay, not cannabis) which she infuriatingly hangs from one of the wardrobe doors. This thing swings and bangs about each time the door is opened - it is only a matter of time before it breaks and I get the blame! The plaque was given to her by a close friend of hers, this plaque is in the shape of a heart and bears the motif,

Friends are the family you don't have!

I find this strange because most people think,

Family are the friends you don't want!

Is that too much? Have I gone to far? No I haven't - it's just inane nonsense which resonates with people at certain times in their lives. But there are other stupid sayings, such as in the Batman film when the caped crusader looks at the camera and says, in a menacing tone,

To overcome fear you must first become fear!

I may not have quoted it word for word, but that was about it. With that in mind you could also use this logic for lots of things such as,

To overcome flatulence you must first become flatulence!

Who ever wrote that line hadn't really thought it through. But then the Batman franchise, as entertaining as it is, doesn't claim anything only an hour and a half of escapism.

These phrases are just harmless mindless drivel but there is a piece of drivel I have seen written and been quoted many times which is dangerous and stupid,

Guns don't kill people, people kill people!

Yes, usually with a gun, you moron! This is one of the gun lobby's ways of trying to say that guns are safe. Then why do we use them to kill things? When was the last time you heard someone say, “I'm taking up flower arranging. I must buy myself a gun!” Guns are designed to kill, that is the sole purpose of a gun. What about when guns have fallen over and fired a shot, killing someone? Or what about when small children find their parents' guns and play with them? Why don't they try this slogan,

If guns don't kill, then what's their purpose?

Like I say, some people just don't think things through before they speak!