One of my favourite parts of football gossip is what is known as “the transfer rumour”. This is when your local newspaper links your local football club with at least three or four new players in every week in order to try and shift more copies because to be honest no-one is really interested in [...]

I’m generally in favour of the aims of the Newcastle United Supporters Trust (NUST). I’m a Newcastle fan, and I think it would be great for fans of the club to own a stake in the club (or even to fully own the club, if possible); I think it would be brilliant for there to [...]

I read an article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in yesterday’s independent. I presume she’d describe herself as a moderate as she states she’s against the burkha. But while I found the article she had written to be interesting, and indeed thought-provoking, I found its conclusions to be somewhat dangerous. Basically, her premise is that many Islamic [...]

…who has asked me about 80 times in the last week if I know where to get ‘pussy movies’, so here’s two of my favourites. Cat Man Do Ninja Cat

I don’t know if any of my readers remember the spoof news show “The Day Today”, which produced a news item (featuring Steve Coogan) as a bullying bishop. It would appear however that this wasn’t quite as much of a “spoof” as previously imagined. Workplace bullying of the clergy has become “rife”, according to the [...]

Okay, there’s been a lot of things in the media recently about Muslims — it’s just a bit of a shame that the whole “protester” and “terrorist” aspects seem to have been shoved together by some sources who don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between those who want to raise a perfectly [...]

Right: let’s just get this straight. On Tuesday night, overnight, there was what is known in meteorological circles as a ruddy great lot of snow over North-East England. As this was expected, according to the forecasts, when I’d picked up Bigger Lad from school on Tuesday, I asked his teacher whether I should check the [...]

Tom Watson MP made a throwaway comment on twitter yesterday which introduced me to the idea of the Parliamentary Tache of the Year. So, at a time of year when politics seems to be even more back-biting and bitter than usual, and political bloggers are desperate to put the knife into someone on “the dark [...]

…at least, according to this email I received. See if you can spot the cues that made me suspect that it might not be entirely genuine… I reckon there are three clues in the header alone. From: “UK National Lottery” auto@[obscured].com Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 16:55:56 +0000 To: Subject: [Spam] Results 2009 First, the [...]

I’m not a great believer in astrology. Well, I say that, but that’s not entirely accurate. I actually think it’s a complete load of utter tosh. I’m prepared to accept that, for various seasonal reasons, it might be plausible that you are statistically more likely to have a particular personality trait if you were born [...]