Category: Sorry To See

Supporting Documentation For Emigration Request, Pts 1&2

Posted on by Kelly Welles

I haven’t been around much lately, but with good reason. I have been completing my application for permission to leave this pleasant land* for greener pastures and surprisingly, considering that the government is supposedly desperate to bring down the net migration figure, it’s ridiculously complicated.

Surely a  multiple choice form with pictures of the ‘Desperate Scousewives’ cast in the margins might be more appealing to a demographic we can probably do without?

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Morrissey: The World Is Indeed Full Of Crashing Bores

Posted on by Kelly Welles

I’ve really been trying, but I’m yet to be horrified and offended by the new John Lewis advert.

I diligently availed myself of the anger directed towards Morrissey for allowing the retailer to use The Smith’s track ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ in their seasonal ad campaign. I purposefully sat down in front of the TV when it came on, fully prepared to begin shouting ‘sell out’ and accusing him of not being a ‘proper’ vegetarian because Waitrose sell meat/that the song is a ‘hymn’ and belongs to the fans/blah blah blah de blah.

I saw it as a real opportunity to unleash some of the ire I had been assiduously storing up for when I do my Christmas shopping.

Sadly, instead of the warm contentment one generally gleans from deconstructing the decision of a cultural icon, I just ended up feeling a bit like I’d been the victim of a massive, media-fuelled, utterly pointless, marketing campaign.

Bit like Christmas, really.

Death Race 2021: Science Fiction Prediction

Posted on by Kelly Welles

Moto GP rider Marco Simoncelli’s father is comforted by an official after his son’s death during the Malaysian Grand Prix. Many news agencies ran a video of the incident as it happened. Image: Reuters.

As a teenager, I always found science-fiction novels to be a touch depressing. Whether we’re talking Orwell’s predictions of strictly controlled information flow or Philip K. Dick’s chilling dystopian landscapes where individuals starved of affection find comfort in technology, the future through these guys’ eyes was never quite the hedonistic bundle of fun I was envisaging adulthood to be.

The rate at which their damn depressing prophecies are coming true hasn’t helped my interest in the genre, either.

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Reflections: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

Posted on by Kelly Welles

We reserve the right to make judgements on people based on their actions. And not too many of us would dispute that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was a dictator who imposed and presided over a brutal regime, was responsible for thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands living in fear and suffering.

So we’re entitled to feel anger towards him, right?

But our actions are a reflection of us, too. What are we when we watch him being dragged from a drain pipe, beaten and then shot to death? What about when his body is paraded through the streets of Sirte and then put on display in a meat locker so locals can take souvenir photos on their mobile phones and we can look at them over our cornflakes? Should we feel ok about that because he was very bad man?

It would’ve been nice to show the world why Gaddafi was so wrong in his actions. Not mimic them.

Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Fox Hunting: Such A Civilised Way To Spend A Saturday Morning

Posted on by Kelly Welles

The Hunting Act became law in February 2005. It made hunting with dogs illegal in England and Wales. As far as I am aware, despite vociferous campaigning by the Countryside Alliance, it has not been repealed.

Which made my alarm call this morning – howling beagles, gruff shouting and backfiring quad bikes skidding around the field next to my house – even more surprising. How could this be?

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Amanda Knox: The Point. Has Anyone Seen It?

Posted on by Kelly Welles

Do you know who these people are? Most of the media don’t appear to. Image: AP Photo.

UPDATE: Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito have been cleared of the murder of Meredith Kercher on appeal and freed. The morning after the verdict was given, Channel 5’s morning magazine show ‘The Wright Stuff’, ran a discussion segment prompted by the case called ‘Foxy Knoxy – Would Ya?’. The introduction, by presenter Matthew Wright, went like this.

‘She’s entirely innocent of the murder of Meredith  Kercher and foxy as hell, so what I want to know this morning is: If you met Amanda Knox in a bar  and she invited you back to her room – would ya?’

It’s actually worse than I thought.

ORIGINAL POST: Regardless of whether Amanda Knox’s conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher is overturned on appeal later today, it’s unlikely that anyone apart from Knox, her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede will ever know the truth of what happened that night in Perugia.

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Floyd Mayweather vs. Larry Merchant: Over & Out

Posted on by Kelly Welles

The boxing world is tying itself in knots this morning over a post-fight altercation between Floyd Mayweather and veteran HBO reporter Larry Merchant. Merchant, who is no stranger to controversy in the ring himself, repeatedly questioned the credibility of Mayweather’s fourth round knockout of former WBC champion Victor Ortiz, after the winning punch appeared to have been thrown before Ortiz was prepared.

While the video of an octogenarian offering out one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world is worth the entry fee alone, one can’t help but wonder whether the real sleight of hand here has been by HBO. Once again, the morning after a great boxing match, we’re talking about their coverage and their staff rather than the sportsmen who have trained for months for the bout.

No wonder the sport is struggling.

Image via mmamania

Sorry To See: 9/11 Remembered Like This

Posted on by Kelly Welles

It obviously hasn’t occurred to either the members of the English Defence League or the Islamic extremists who attended today’s 9/11 memorial service in London to shout at one another, that the higher ground might have been a better place to occupy.

Images: Getty Images