A couple of funnies...

Hello there fellow paper people.

I apologise, again, for leaving you in the wilderness for so long. Again... Things really must improve and thanks for all the emails letting me know!

So, in an attempt at placating your anger, here are a couple of funnies as I don't have long to post anything!

This is from Myleene Klass' Twitter feed. Yes, I have joined Twitter people, so look out for contact details shortly...

Anyway, the response to this picture made me laugh, as someone wittily responds to Myleene's post with the comment: "I know, a free Cliff Richard DVD."



Next up, the return of www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk, God love 'em. A simple spelling mistake submitted by someone who lives in 'Twyning':


Sorry about the size of these images, which basically means you can't see them, but I haven't developed the necessary web skills to make them bigger I'm afraid. I'm sure this will be rectified once my Twitter expertise grow. Probably.

Anyway, I'll be back soon, I promise. So please stop sending me abuse!

Free speech or homophobic abuse?

Interesting times over at south and east London weekly News Shopper (what a strange name for a newspaper that is, I mean, what does it mean?).

The paper printed a somewhat controversial letter recently which, well, judge for yourself:

HAVE YOUR SAY: Marriage helps to make society work

YOUR newspaper dropped in our letterbox and I was shocked by the headline Hospital On Sex Website (News Shopper, August 11).

This is meant to be a family newspaper and not some sleazy sex advertiser for the perverted.

Marriage is the thing which makes society work.

This is why we have the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph — to show us man, woman and child is what God asks us to follow.

God gave homosexuals up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions.

Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

If we promote anything other than marriage then we shall answer on Judgment Day for it.

Please stop advertising lesbian, gay and bisexual clubs.

You are giving our young teenagers the wrong message and promoting perversity.

Just before you mention equality there is no equality today due to everything being biased towards homosexuality.

Let’s now tell the truth and stop lying to all and sundry.

Letter written by Mrs S Fitzsimons, South Park Crescent, Lewisham

What do you think? Add your comments below.

Now, call me old fashioned - yes, thank you at the back - but to me that letter is simply inappropriate. End of story.

Is the person writing within their rights to say it? Of course. But the paper's editor is also within their rights not to publish it, in fact, in a case such as this I would argue they have a duty NOT to publish it as it is downright offensive and homophobic.

Obviously, the paper has actually done nothing wrong, because the law doesn't quite censure a genuinely-held belief, no matter how horrendous many of us find it, but I would question what the hell the editor was thinking.

Let's face it, we could all run such letters, and our websites would be deluged with comments and reaction.

but in a world where we are all already labelled as scaremongerers and sensationalists, surely something so blatant and well, obvious, should be avoided?

And the worst thing of all; it was awarded letter of the week.

Scandalous.

A* in same-old-same-old at A-level

Yes, A-level results day. You've got to love it, if only because it gives you a dead-cert front page for the next day's edition, no matter how hard that splash-worthy line can be to find some years.

However, despite the story, there's one thing that never, ever changes, and that's the front page image.

As I don't have an inexhaustable supply of money with which to purchase newspaper subscriptions, I rounded up the images from 'digital editions'. Or websites as us technophobes call them.

Here is a selection of the crackers I found...

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/ went unorthadox, choosing not to show us a single face, instead opting for the 'shadow shot'. Either that, or someone can't crop a picture properly...

The Brighton Argus went rather more upmarket, with the classic 'posh girls who got 17 As'-style pic. Men across Brighton retired early...

This was a PA pic used by the Daily mail on their site. It's fine, but I think the girl in the centre gives it away that it was a staged picture...

Worcester News up next, and at least they tried to pull off a slight, if tired, variation, in the form of the 'photographer on his knees' shot...

The Manchester Evening News went with a classic 'jumping for joy' number, again, rather spoiled by poor cropping work. We need the feet. The feet...

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/ is perhaps the most traditional. Jumping; tick. Feet in shot (take not MEN, tsk); tick. One of the subjects being a tit; tick. Job done.

The Bolton News is a victim of cuts, I think. You can almost hear the editor shouting "for God's sake just send a reporter out with his camera phone, I want an exam picture up there in ten minutes or you are fired!" Okay...

The Birmingham Mail (http://www.birminghammail.net/ for some reason...) is caught between two stalls. The jumping shot (see checklist above as to why they clearly failed on that one) and the smiling as we look at our results sheet shot.

But my favourite of the day has to be the Oxford Mail, not because it's a bad picture, just because they went completely mad with it, therefore exposing the fact that it really isn't that good a picture...


Anyway, I'll be back soon. Emails to the usual address: thehaplesshack@gmail.com.

Pooping on your own doorstep...

Well hello my little Droogies, long time no speak, which of course is entirely my fault so I apologise.

To be honest, not a lot has made my ears prick up recently (although I did receive a very funny email about a certain newspaper which I have chosen not to highlight - thanks though, you know who you are).

However, something always comes along, and an email detailing some fine, fine work by the Croydon Advertiser came up trumps.

An interesting splash last week, exposing a brothel in the borough (unfortunately, I can't provide a link as they haven't - as far as I can see - uploaded the story to their website. Can you believe that?).

Basically, a brothel has been operating in West Croydon under the guise of a massage parlour and one intrepid reporter exposed it as a fully-fledged knocking shop.

Shock horror, obviously, leading to pure admiration at the Sherlock Holmes-like detective work involved in deducing something unsavoury may be going on...

However, here is the catch. Turn to the classifieds and you find the usual assortment of ads for massage parlours and the like and yes, you guessed it, there is an ad for the very parlour exclusively revealed to be a knocking shop just 50-odd pages earlier.

How embarrassing.

Why, for God's sake, didn't someone think to check this?

We all appreciate ad revenues are falling constantly and we are struggling to prop up our rich owners, so why bother with such a story (particularly one as unoriginal as this) when you are adding to the problem yourself by giving them an outlet to advertise their 'services'?

I ask you, a newspaper that runs a story exposing a brothel which is advertising with them should be exposed as a very, very poor publication, which I am more than happy to do here.

You can't take their money then call them scum. Get a moral grip people. We all know this goes on, yet turning a blind eye is one thing, being a damn hypocrite is another entirely.

Someone needs to be hauled over some very, very hot coals for that corker. Holier than thou my arse.

And we can't even read the bloody 'Exclusive' story online anyway. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be hilarious.

Press Release of the Week That WILL Feature in The Daily Mail & Daily Express

I know 'Press Release of the Week That WILL Feature in The Daily Mail & Daily Express' is not a feature of this blog, but I had to create one in honour of this release.

It's pure genius...

Here is the unedited copy (so the PR firm should send me at least a tenner):

Manchester United and the Cardiff Devils Ice Hockey Team face a boycott by Muslim fans because the devil emblems included in their club insignia could be outlawed in Islam.

Already religious leaders in Malaysia have forbidden Muslims to wear Manchester United shirts because the red devil emblem is forbidden in Islam.

The Johor Religious Council adviser and the Mufti of Perak have told fans that images of crosses, liquor brands and devils on football shirts are insulting to Allah.

This could spread to Britain which is home to 2.5 million Muslims.

Secret Millionaire star Paul Ragan and new owner of the Cardiff Devils denies there is any problem.

“We have a predominant ‘devil’ in our logo but the last thing in anyone’s mind was to cause any religious offence. No one has ever complained about our club name or our badge,” he said.

Cardiff has by far the largest Muslim population (4%) in Wales. In the Principality overall Muslims account for less than 1 per cent of the population (22,000 people).

Manchester United have devoted considerable effort in building a fan base for their merchandise in Malaysia. They toured there last summer and have a five-year sponsorship deal with communications group Telekom Malaysia.

“There is no excuse for wearing such garments because it means, as a Muslim, you are idolising the symbol of another religion,“ said Datuk Nooh Gadot, the Mufti of Johor.

The badges on Barcelona, Brazil, Portugal and Northern Ireland strips all feature crosses.

Who wants odds on it being in at least one national and the topic of conversation on EVERY talk-based radio phone-in in the next 24 hours?

bets to the usual address... Cash in advance you understand.

Hyperwhatallnow?

Have you ever heard the term 'hyperlocal'?

If you work in a newsroom and you ever pay any attention to anyone who wears a suit that cost more than your monthly salary, then you probably have.

It's the future, we're told, and involves providing news to communities that they will find relevant and interesting.

Well I never, whatever was it we were doing before?

Anyway, 'hyperlocal' is certainly the buzz term of the minute, so we are all being gently prodded, with a big stick made of redundancy, towards coming up with ways to achieve the ultimate in 'hyperlocal' coverage.

Just as research really, I looked up the term 'hyper' and derivations thereof in a bid to deduce exactly what it is these people may be after.

Needless to say, the results were disappointing:

hype n intensive or exaggerated publicity or sales promotion.

hyper adj Informal overactive or overexcited.

hyper- prefix over, above, excessively, e.g. hyperactive.

Still, first one to come up with exactly what it means wins a media industry...

A big tip of the hat to radio, for a change...

Radio is really not my thing, in terms of journalism.

I love to have a radio on, constantly, don't get me wrong, it's just not the type of broadcast I've really been involved in to any great extent.

However, I felt moved to post this transcript of an excellent, in my opinion it should be award-winning, interview by TalkSPORT presenter Ian Collins.

Collins was the first journalist to get hold of Siobhan O'Dowd, the woman behind the Raoul Moat tribute page on facebook which caused such a stir this week.

It was followed up by every national paper, every TV news bulletin, and the TalkSPORT presenter deserves every bit of praise he receives because, quite frankly, it is an excellent piece of work.

You can listen to it here

But the transcript is below. Enjoy...


IC: We've been talking about the facebook page that has been created. It's 'RIP Raoul Moat, you legend', facebook page.

We were hoping to talk to Siobhan, one of the people that started the page, but we have found Siobhan.

Siobhan, good evening.

SO'D: Hiya

IC: We got you in the end.

SO'D: You did. I must have had no signal as my phone's been on all day.

IC: You weren't hiding from us then?

SO'D: No, I've got nothing to hide for.

IC: Well you did start a pretty unsavoury Facebook page didn't you?

SO'D: Yeah but that's my opinion. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

IC: Raoul Moat you're a legend?

SO'D: Yep.

IC: Why's he a legend?

SO'D: Well I just think he is. Legends usually get talked about don't they and he's getting talked about so in my eyes he's a legend.

IC: Yeah, but what's he done to make him a legend? Usually, people who are a legend have done something that would make people think, 'oh, this guy, he's so good for this reason or that reason that he's a legend'.

You know, Robin Hood, because he robbed from the rich to the poor...

SO'D: No. You lot all think he's a bad person because of what you've read in the papers right... But you, no, every day...

IC: No, I think he's a bad person because he's killed one, nearly killed another and blinded a policeman.

SO'D: Yeah, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with the shootings that he did, that were harsh like, but I can't understand his girlfriend me.

If someone was so scared of someone... Personally, if it were me, if my boyfriend were in jail, or ex boyfriend, and I were that scared of him, I'd pack up me stuff and I'd leave. I would not write a letter and say 'oh and by the way, I'm shaggin' a copper'.

You just don't do it when you know full well what he's like about the police anyway.

IC: Couple of points on that Siobhan. Firstly, we don't know any of that happened, we're just hearing that as speculation so... Secondly, even if she did, maybe, should this woman have to uproot her life because of that? And maybe she thought 'if I tell him I'm now going out with a policeman, he will leave me alone, I'll be protected? Maybe that was the reason.

SO'D: Well maybe it were but it obviously didn't work did it?

IC: Well, you're very casual about the fact that a woman's had her stomach blown out, one man is dead and another fella is blinded.

I mean your interpretation of that is, well, 'she wrote a letter to the prison winding him up'. I mean, that's an incredible reaction for the severity of what's happened Siobhan.

SO'D: Well fair enough but I'm just sayin'. If someone were that scared they would not write a letter to their boyfriend. Even if he were just like a normal person and he didn't have nowt going wrong with him in his head and that...

IC: You're following this like you're following Eastenders. You're filling in the blanks when you don't know. You don't know anything about which letters were written...

SO'D: But you don't know. You you only know what you read int' paper...

IC: No, what I know is that the guy has shot three people; one dead, two very seriously injured, one certainly with life-changing injuries and blinded for life. I mean it doesn't get much worse than that and then you start a facebook page by calling him a legend?

Now, a legend has to have done something to call him a legend.

What, specifically, has this guy done that makes you think he's worthy of hero status?

SO'D: He kept on hide, from police for a week. That were funny. He were right underneath their nose, he were right underneath 'em and they still couldn't find him.

At the end of the day...

IC: If you can't find someone, you can't find someone...

SO'D: All police are bothered about are tiny little petty crimes. They're quick enough to go and follow them out...

IC: They mobilised a police force to try and look for him. If you're hiding, you can't find someone, that's not a fault of the police Siobhan.

SO'D: Yeah, but when it were on't news that, allegedly, he got in the village right, which I can't understand if you know them police there, why didn't one of them spot him?

IC: The fact that one of them didn't is your answer isn't it? They didn't.

SO'D: Well they must not have had their eyes open then...

SO'D: Why is that a good thing? Why is that funny?

They're chasing a multiple murderer. Why is that funny?

What is within your head Siobhan, I'm just interested here, that makes you think, in life, of all the things that are funny, that that is funny? Steve Coogan's funny, that is not...

SO'D: I think he's a legend for keepin' 'em on their toes for a week.

IC: So you think it's good that he did that? That we had a terrified village, kids being kept in a classroom because they were too scared, millions of pounds worth of taxpayer's money being used in mobilising helicopters, and you find that funny?

SO'D: Well I think it's funny how he is, yeah, I do. I do think he's a bit of a legend like that yeah.

IC: And shooting a copper in the face, is that funny?

SO'D: No, clearly not, that's not funny is it? I'm not laughing about that, I'm not saying that were funny.

IC: Have you got a criminal record?

SO'D: No I 'ant.

IC: Never been arrested?

SO'D: Well yeah, I have been arrested, but I haven't got a criminal record.

IC: What did you get arrested for Siobhan?

SO'D: Er, something petty, criminal damage it were.

IC: Oh right, okay.

SO'D: You ever been arrested?

IC: No, not yet.

SO'D: Well you're a good boy then aren't ya?

IC: Not after this phone call. I might be arrested, who knows?

SO'D: Oh well (unintelligible).

IC: Just out of interest then. When you look at the kind of words that have been said on your website: "RIP Raoul, I blame your ex, little whore." Is that acceptable?

SO'D: Well everyone's allowed to their own opinion innit?

IC: Okay, alright, "if my missus ever does to me what she did to Raoul, I hope I'm brave enough to do what he did". Is that alright?

SO'D: Well everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

IC: Yeah, but I mean... You have essentially got a facebook page here where people are discussing potential murder. And then another guy...

SO'D: I didn't think all these people would join it did I?

IC: Well no, I wouldn't imagine you did think that for one second. I can't imagine you thinking that far ahead...

SO'D: It's not just me that thinks the same.

IC: No, there are other stupid people around as well, you're correct.

"Raoul Moat had the guts to stand up to the oppression forced upon us by ego-driven police force. He's a true hero. He has the respect of far more people in this country than any cop ever will do". What do you say to that?

SO'D: I think he's right.

IC: You think he's right. And this man will remain a hero to you?

SO'D: Yep, definitely.

IC: On the basis of..?

SO'D: It's about time someone give police something to do.

IC: Right. And you think that's the best way to look at it; to go round, shoot up a few people and get the police on their toes?

SO'D: Yeah, well, not shoot people obviously but I think it's, well, that's what they get paid for don't they, trying to catch criminals? So at least they got the wage, at least the wage they deserved. And they caught a criminal.

IC: Not sure that's the best way to look at an operation that was that expensive, that frightened the life out of several, several hundreds or thousands of people in that neck of the woods, including small kids who were kept in school for long periods of time...

All of that because this mad man was out on the loose with a gun, telling people 'the cops are gonna get it next, the public might get it next', and you see that man as a hero?

SO'D: Well, anyway, police killed him anyway. So they'll be happy...

IC: No, the police didn't kill him. The police didn't do it.

SO'D: Well this is what they say they did; they tasered him and he shot himself. But it's a bit funny innit, right, they asked all the cameras...

IC: A bit funny that he had a gun next to his head?

SO'D: ...that they asked all the cameras to move, ten foot away from where he were. That's so they couldn't catch nowt on camera, couldn't hear nowt.

They shot him because he shot one of theirs, that's how it is.

IC: No no no no. What are you, Columbo all of a sudden? You've decided this have you, you've worked it all out?

SO'D: Yep.

IC: What are you, CSI or something?

How have you done this then? Did you go down there with forensics?

SO'D: Yep.

IC: Have you got kids Siobhan?

SO'D: Yeah I have thanks.

IC: You have to be joking me?

SO'D: No, I'm not.

IC: So you would bring your kids up, into the world, telling them that this guy was a legend?

SO'D: Er, well, I wouldn't say he were a legend for shooting people but yeah, I'd say he were a legend for keeping police on their toes, like I've told you about five times.

IC: You would tell your children that?

SO'D: Yeah

IC: Okay.

Alright Siobhan, thank you very much for coming on and joining us.

I can only say to the nation; is that the stupidest woman you've ever heard on this radio show?