Monday 25 March 2013

Fun Online Polls: Press Regulation & Full English Breakfasts

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Press regulation: is anybody actually bothered?

Yes, me! - 69%

Not me - 26%
Other, please specify - 5%


1. I personally am not too fussed either way, all newspapers and media are government propaganda in one way or another. Some support the actual elected government (or the elected opposition/government in waiting); most support the real government (banks, landowners and other cartels); and some are cheerleaders for a parallel government/system which doesn't actually exist (I'll put my hand up to that one).

2. So when you read anything, it's always interesting to see what spin they put on things and which particular parallel universe they inhabit, most are in the parallel Home-Owner-Ist universe where polarisation of wealth via the land market and tax system is seen as A Good Thing and some are in a parallel Keynesian universe where all government spending is viewed as A Good Thing, regardless of what it is spent on. And Osborne's recent splurge of subsidies for land prices keeps the Homeys and the Big Spenders happy, I suppose.

3. What completely baffles me is the fact that what kicked this all off was actual newspapers breaking actual criminal or civil laws - bribing policemen, stealing and leaking documents, ruining individual people's lives, invading privacy, covering up skullduggery, hacking telephones and bank account details etc etc. The fact it was newspapers doing this is more or less by the by.

4. I understand why politicians seized the opportunity to close ranks against the Murdoch empire which had played off one political party against another so successfully for so long; but at what stage did they cleverly shift the terms of debate from lots of individual offence being committed by newspaper companies and their employees to having some sort of political control over content?
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Longrider misses the point slightly on Full English.

As I said in the comments, the real hard decisions here are toast, chips or waffles; and tea, coffee or other drink to accompany.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

8 comments:

Old BE said...

Bit confused about black pudding being an "other" option?? Also, toast is fairly mandatory I would say.

BE

Mark Wadsworth said...

BE, not everybody likes it, many places don't even offer it.

Old BE said...

Weird.

BE

Anonymous said...

According to the head of Starbucks, his shareholders got a 38% return last year. Presumably that's so high because franchises aren't in the selling business, they're in the landowning business. Is Starbucks the world's largest housing co-operative?

Mark Wadsworth said...

RA, 38% is meaningless. Perhaps they have share capital of $1 million and made $380,000 net profits or something.

AFAIAA, most Starbucks shops are company owned, not franchisee or licensee and they are mainly rented from third party landlords. So it is certainly not a housing co-operative!

Tim Almond said...

needs a fried bread option.

Bayard said...

I never have fried bread these days. The idea of the fried bread was to soak up the fat from the bacon and the sausages, after the egg(s) had been fried in it, but nowadays the pigs have been genetically engineered so that instead of fat, they have water. As a result the fried bread arrives dripping with horrid vegetable oil rather than lightly smeared with tasty fat and juices from the meat. Oh, and AFAIAC, a Full English must come with beans.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS, stick it in the comments at the poll and I'll do a full menu next week.

B, don't quibble. We will assume that people who choose "fried bread" mean proper fried bread done in the leftovers from eggs and bacon.