You are currently browsing the Celtica Radio Blog weblog archives for April, 2007.
Saturday, April 28, 2007 by Bill Everatt.
Hello again, Bill Everatt here, with news about the April 29th update of the Underground Edition.
In this weeks show, we finally get to hear all about one of the most enigmatic new music groups in the World; Scotland’s Threadneedle Street. And we’ll be chatting with Mike Rat from the bands base in Glasgow in about forty minutes.
In Urban Legends, Keith Berry-Davies reads The Room Mates Death; a frightening and grisly story which may be true or may be false, you decide! Don’t forget, you can get more details on this tale and others from a book written by Mark Barber which is called Urban Legends Uncovered.
Andrew John is here with another moan. This time about jolly old Hugh Grant.
Also who said this? “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Who do you think said that?
Plus we’ve also got some great music and information on the artists from amongst others Charles P Hurowitz, Leigh Phillips, Tetra’Tum, Kidic, Dlugokecki, Elena and in a moment Kinky Durakee.
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Wednesday, April 25, 2007 by Andrew John.
I had a right old rant on The Underground Edition this week. You can hear the entire programme by going to the Celtica website. This one’s about politicians. Don’t you just love ‘em? Here it is.
Of all the dishonest, fraudulent, duplicitous, underhand, sneaky, sly, devious, untrustworthy life forms it’s possible to imagine, politicians come at the top of the slimy heap, don’t they? And what has prompted this most uncommon, totally out-of-the-ordinary outburst of really rather mild carping on my part? Well, our MPs, bless their lying, mendacious, disingenuous cotton socks, brought in a Freedom of Information Act. Great, you say. Let’s have more information about what the great and the good are up to. Let’s know what public bodies are getting up to, and what quangos and local authorities are getting up to, and what police forces and nongovernmental organisations are getting up to. And so it came to pass. You see, this 2000 Act, which amazingly – hmm, maybe not so amazingly – didn’t come into force till 2005, obliges public authorities to release information. That’s what it’s about. We pay them to do their job. We want to know that they’re doing it. Before I get to my point – and I will get there eventually – I’ll give you an idea how tardy many government departments have been. In 2006 alone, there were at least 749 times when these departments or other central government bodies gave themselves an extension of twenty working days – which they can do, apparently – to assess the public-interest factor when it comes to disclosing information. That means they took forty working days in all. Biding their time, or what? Yet the Information Commissioner’s guidelines clearly say these things should be dealt with in twenty working days. Only when public-interest considerations are particularly complicated should they grant themselves the extra twenty days. But they managed to do it 749 times. It fills you to the brim with confidence, doesn’t it, in those we pay handsomely to work for us? Don’t they just make you want to withhold your taxes?
Then they talk of cost. About six hundred quid an enquiry. But now the government is talking about effectively cutting back on that by adding officials’ time into the calculation. But officials are already paid to be officials. That’s what they are. That’s what they signed up to do. They are handsomely compensated for being seen as sad old farts. It’s not only officials’ time, but ministers’ time, too, and the Campaign for Freedom of Information says ministers are only too willing to involve themselves when there’s favourable publicity to be had. I bet they are. I can’t pretend to understand the minute details of the entire workings of all of this – Sir Humphrey would have done so, no doubt – but it strikes me, and every sane person, as a huge dodge to get out of revealing embarrassing secrets. And by ‘sane person’ I include you, because you must be sane because you’re there listening to me. It stands to reason. Don’t argue. Now, this cost thing isn’t new. It’s been talked about since last year, but now – and this is where I reach my point – a Tory MP has introduced a Private Member’s Bill, which was discussed last Friday and fortunately scuppered by its opponents – that would have exempted MPs and peers from aspects of that Act – even revealing their expenses. We’re told by the Speaker of the House of Commons that Parliament will still publish these, even though it doesn’t have to, so let us be thankful for small mercies. This wally who’s introduced the Private Member’s Bill is afraid that letters written by constituents will get out. But there’s already legislation to protect those. We know what they want to do, don’t we? They want to keep their business interests and other nefarious activities a secret, that’s what they want to do. The fact that anyone could even so much as think of wanting to exempt our servants, those we elect, from an Act they brought in to give us freedom of information makes you want to rip your head off in utter frustration. You know, politicians are a scheming, devious, calculating, manipulative, cunning lot of good-for-nothing reprobates and degenerates. There’s that old joke – it always bears a repeat. How do you know when a politician’s lying? You can see his lips moving.
And you can’t imagine how good it feels to get that lot off my chest and once more put the world to rights.
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007 by Andrew John.
Once again, here’s the Andrew John moan. This one’s from the latest Underground Edition, recorded on 8 April for your listening pleasure. You’ll find it on the Celtica website.
One of my tasks as an editor is to index books. Well, that’s as an indexer, not an editor, strictly speaking, but I’m generally thought of as a provider of editorial services, so stop splitting hairs. That apart, I’ve been indexing one recently by a nutritionist.
Now nutritionists should be avoided. They have been put on this Earth to make you miserable. They kill you with their dire threats that, if you don’t get your glycaemic index just so, you’ll die a horrible death as the flesh drops from your body in bloody, fatty, oleaginous globs of putrefaction.
I exaggerate – just a tad.
But it gets to me. I don’t eat outrageously unhealthy foods and like a drink on maybe three evenings a week, sometimes four. Maybe a wee bit more at holiday times, which I can usually extend to a week. Easter is a week-long holiday.
Don’t argue.
Now I reckon the heart is going to beat so many times in your lifetime. It is. There’s no getting away from it. It will beat so many times and then stop. So why bother to argue with that? Just eat your chocolate and ice cream. It will beat for the number of beats it is going to beat for. The logic is impeccable, man.
Same goes for exercise. If you’re heart is going to beat x times before you die, why speed it up? Have a nap.
As for eating more vegetables, well, what does a cow eat? Grass. That is vegetation, so it’s a vegetable – of sorts. You eat the cow, you eat the vegetables. The logic, once again, is impeccable.
As for alcohol, well alcohol is made from corn, from grapes – so you’re consuming natural grains and fruits.
I tend to think a balanced diet is a pint of beer in each hand, and my body-to-fat ratio is worked out thus: I have one body, one lot of fat, so it’s one to one. If I had two bodies, it would be two to one. If I had two lots of fat – but I don’t: I have one – it would be one to two.
So that’s The John Guide to Healthy Eating. Eating that’s good for your mental health, that is.
Nutritionists? Pah! They’re there to make money from their books so they can go out and have slap-up meals and get rat-arsed while they laugh at the rest of us who are shivering in fear of buying the wrong product, daring to fry something, have one unit over the two you are allowed per day of alcohol.
[After saying I’d be putting this moan up on this blog, I added . . .]
I like blogs. And the occasional ice-cream topped with thick chocolate sauce laced liberally with brandy. Trouble is, I can’t afford that. I should be on a nutritionist’s salary.
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Friday, April 13, 2007 by Bill Everatt.
Hello again, this is Bill Everatt, with news about the April 15th update of the Underground Edition, Live, On demand and Podcasted from Celtica Radio, and also as part of the Volts Show Collection of programmes on Radio Freeway too.
In this weeks show Keith Berry-Davies reads The story of the College Letter. You can get more details on this tale and others from Mark Barber’s book called Urban Legends Uncovered.
Andrew John is not so much trying to diet as dying to try it!
Also who said this? “Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.” Who do you think said that?
Plus we’ve also got some great music and information on the artists from amongst others, Hotel Brown, Angel Carrion, Still Life, Elena, Ryan Helman and in a moment Makar.
Don’t forget to e-mail me bill@celticaradio.com with any comments!
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Thursday, April 12, 2007 by Cooky.
Now if you are in the Armed Forces it would seem that being a captive is ‘a nice little earner’……What about the official secrets act?, oh and not giving succour or help to the enemy(not repealed since the Napoleonic wars).
It beggars belief that a high ranking officer, such as a Rear Admiral, can at any time believe that his personnel are not in a position of a special nature! That the defence of ….’I wanted them to be able to tell their own story their way’…would be sufficient for his decision.
Add to the frame another ‘bean counter’, one Mr Des Browne who now claims with hindsight he could have made a better decision…..his best decision now would be to resign, but out of the government…Yes I know he’ll move into another government office and hide for a while. You see that is what is so unfair to my ‘minds eye’. The personnel have only done what they were told they could do…..by a group of ‘idiots of the first water’…..and so carry no blame in this ‘debacle’.
The people who should carry the blame are probably going to ‘dissappear into the woodwork’, and loose nothing.
What about the families of those fallen service personnel? Where has the media rush been to hear their stories? Where are the journalists wanting to put forward the case for the needless loss of these personnel, lost because of the wrong kit being used, or a lack of equipment?
I would say that the fact that there was a woman involved in some way was the only ‘driver’ for this media frenzy, not to say the need for more glamoruos, ’sexy’ news because the Iran, Iraq thing is getting ‘old news!
This woman volunteered to be in the position she was in, even though she was a mother.This was the risk she was perpared to take, and yet we are to be amazed whe she gets taken hostage at the fact she is a hostage, and a mother.
In all of this the MINISTRY OF DEFENCE is getting a bad name, well what can we expect with the Mr blair at the helm of his ‘Blair New Labour project’.
The families of the fallen, those who have lost sons, and daughters deserve better from these ’saturday matinee Cowboys’ who wrap themselve in the Union Flag, and sacrifice these peoples children. These families need to know, and be shown that, unlike most of ‘Blairs Britain’ Honour, Sacrifice, Service, and the ultimate payment any service person can pay for his comrades, and country, the sacrifice of their own life, is NOT FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER!!
With that said, as Dave Allen use to say……..’May your God go with you. Bye
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