Hillsborough: Lies, Damn Lies & Disaster Management Logistics

Image: Jim Dyson/Getty Images Europe.

Perhaps the revelations of the Leveson Enquiry have desensitised us to corruption and collusion between the media, the police and government, but the full impact of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report has yet to be felt.

The enquiry found that police statements were systematically altered to support the theory that Liverpool FC fans were responsible for the events that left 96 dead, that that version of events was perpetuated  in the public domain by The Sun publishing of unsubstantiated reports as fact and the FA allowed a high profile cup tie to go ahead in a stadium without a safety certificate.

Right now, they’re all hunkered down, waiting to see which direction the shrapnel will fly in and where it will cause the most damage. Only one thing is certain. When the dust clears and those responsible are brought to book, their suffering will be inconsequential compared to that of the families who’ve spent the last 23 years being told that their son, daughter, father, mother, sister or brother was, at least in part, to blame for their own death.

That’s a bloody long time to walk alone.

Victoria Pendleton: Scar Tissue That I Wish You Saw

Image: Tim Whitby/Getty Images Europe.

Listening to Victoria Pendleton trying to explain her reasons for self-harming on the radio this morning reminded me of a time when I too sought refuge in the slicing of my own flesh. Conversations with people since then, plus the perspective that the passing years lent, did not make the compulsion any clearer to me.

What I do know is that it was necessary, it was powerful and it frightened the shit out of people.

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Readers Digest: I Am Boris Johnson’s Brain

Images: Getty Images Europe.

Great opportunity, blah blah, blah… affirm public faith in self as Prime Ministerial candidate…. blah blah…do not make a massive tit of oneself. Do not make a massive tit of oneself. Do not make a massive tit of oneself.

Right. Ready.

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Salvatore Iaconesi: Internet v2.0

A digital technology artist recently diagnosed with brain cancer has released his medical records in the hope that someone might be able to help him with a cure.

Salvatore Iaconesi cracked the proprietary code on his scans, notes and test results and published them on his website so that others can use them to “create a video, an artwork, a map, a text, a poem, a game or try to find a solution for my health problem“.

What a wonderful use of the collective consciousness that is the interweb. Hopefully, all the doctors aren’t too busy looking at porn to help him.

Take a look at Salvatore’s site. Perhaps you have something to offer too. 

Andy Murray: A Moment In Time

Image: PacificCoastNews.com.

How serendipitous that we English should throw a massive life-affirming, celebration of sporting and cultural inclusivity, just weeks before a Scotsman wins the first grand slam victory for a British male in 76 years.  It would have been a bugger to claim as our own if we hadn’t, wouldn’t it?

Congrats on the win, Andy. And the perfect timing.

Leon Knight: Hashtag Hate Crime

 
Involuntary writing hiatus over, I return to the internet only to find that yet another misogynist has broken loose from his moorings and started spraying Twitter with his own brand of vigilante DVT.  On the plus side, it’s a footballer this time, so there will be no crushing fall from grace and embarrassment at our own misplaced faith.

Alright, maybe a bit.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Just About Bearing Up

Dominique Strauss-Kahn prepares to leave the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel last night. Image: VALERY HACHE/AFP/GettyImages.

You’d imagine that resigning from your job as head of the International Monetary Fund would be enough to assuage those who doubted your veracity when you were accused of raping a chambermaid, wouldn’t you?

But no. Even though the allegations were dropped because the chambermaid was careless enough to be illiterate and an African immigrant, effectively rendering her a non-person, Dominique Strauss-Kahn had to sacrifice his political aspirations too. No one, not even a man of his self-confidence and power could seriously expect to undertake a presidential campaign in his native country without journalists excitedly surfing the tsunami of allegations that follow him in lieu of a wake.

Until recently, Big Dom was able to rely on his wife for comfort and support, but even she’s left him now.

Still, it looks as though he’s just about bearing up, doesn’t it?

Clint Eastwood: Attack By (Un)Conventional Means

While the Clint Eastwood ‘conversation’ with an empty chair has prompted much hilarity and derision to be directed at the Republican National Convention in Florida, there’s a darker thread running through this story.

It’s not so much the fact that shoving an eighty-two year old man onto a stage in front of millions and expecting him to successfully reprise a role he played over thirty years ago implies the Republicans ideas department is run by idiots. We could have figured that one out for ourselves. But appointing a man who is entirely associated with firearms, killing and rightful vengeance in the cultural psyche as some sort of figurehead for your party? Just days after yet another high profile fatal shooting on the streets of America?

And there was me thinking the right wing don’t understand irony.

Boris Johnson: Unleash The Beast?

Image: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Europe.

Coverage of Boris’s adventures at the Olympics threatened to overwhelm the sporting competition at times.

He had enjoyed himself thoroughly and yearned to revisit the thrilling heights of the cable cars and zip wires during the Paralympics.

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America’s Oxymoron Sets Off UK Crap-O-Meter. No One Killed.

Image via wired.com.

British people realised some time ago that guns in the wrong hands are dangerous. Over the last few decades, we’ve made it our business to insist that successive governments gradually relegate those who enjoy killing things for fun to parts of the island that no one really cares about or would think to visit.

Mainly sink estates in London, Birmingham and Manchester and the countryside.

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