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Wednesday 16 August 2017

Mail Big Ben Bong Baloney

The slow and sad decline in the power, influence and above all credibility of the Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor Paul Dacre has been sad to see: from the bizarre hatchet job on Leveson Inquiry advisor David Bell, through the hypocritical and vicious attack on the memory of Ralph Miliband, to his meltdown after Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson suggested the Mail may be peddling Islamophobic hate, it was all downhill.
What the f*** do I care about workers' safety, c***? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

This cycle of increasing desperation has now arrived at the point where the Mail has become a parody of itself, as if the front pages were being devised by someone at NewsThump. One look at yesterday’s effort, and today’s follow-up, tells you all you need to know. “DEATH KNELL FOR COMMON SENSE … Big Ben silenced for FOUR years to protect workers’ hearing … yes, it’s all down to Health and Safety!” came yesterday.

The idea that those working on the restoration of what is now called the Elizabeth Tower should have their hearing permanently damaged, and perhaps worse, so that Big Ben can continue chiming while they work on all four clock faces, the mechanism that drives the clock, the structure of the tower, provision of better access and emergency egress, and still keep to the four year timescale, is little short of preposterous.
But the Dacre doggies returned to their vomit this morning, telling readersBONG! NOW A BIG BEN CLIMBDOWN … MPs who signed off facelift say they didn’t know about bell’s four-year silence and pledge: We’ll think again”. They sodding well won’t. The cost of the restoration is already high enough, thanks. If Dacre and his goons want the whole exercise revisiting, they can open their wallets to fund the difference. They won’t.

Instead, the Vagina Monologue has appointed tedious and unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn to whineThe Blitz could not silence Big Ben, but the Little Hitlers of elf’n’safety have succeeded where the Fuhrer failed … Their entirely predictable excuse is that the precaution is necessary to protect the hearing of building workers … Fair enough, but surely issuing noise-cancelling headsets would be sufficient. Bose will sell you a top-of-the-range number for a couple of hundred quid”.
So speaks a Briton so proud he lives in North Vero Beach, Florida.

And it’s all total crap. How can the bells be taken away for X-Raying if they’re going to be chiming every hour, or more frequently in the case of the smaller ones? How do the Dacre doggies expect the glass in the clock faces to be removed for restoration and cleaning if the mechanism is still active? Since when was Northcliffe House the repository of all knowledge on building restoration and project management?

The whole faux outrage is part of the modern tabloid tendency to dismiss the experts in their fields in favour of hacks and pundits with no knowledge of the subject areas other than the hot air they generate when discussing them. Climate change? Nah, not happening. Vaccination? Nah, don’t need it. Cuts in services could be dangerous? Nah, just send more of the ungrateful oiks down the road. Dacre knows best.

Except he doesn’t, this is going nowhere, and politicians of all parties should quit treating the Mail’s pointless ranting with kid-gloved reverence. The old fool is out of time.

7 comments:

Stephen said...

Have these people never read The Nine Tailors?

AndyC said...

Tim wrote: 'The slow and sad decline in the power, influence and above all credibility of the Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor Paul Dacre has been sad to see'

Its not sad at all. Its very welcome, long overdue and is cause for much celebration.

Spot on with the rest of the piece though. Can it only be 2 months since the Grenfell fire, and the 'elf & safety bollocks from the likes of Littlejohn starts again.

Sam Best said...

" but surely issuing noise-cancelling headsets would be sufficient." What a brilliant solution!. However I detect a tiny flaw in Littlejohn's excellent suggestion. When a load of bricks or timber etc suddenly topples over, as can happen on any sort of building or restoration site, and heads downwards towards a group of hapless workers and the chap above screams "run for your fucking lives" I'm not sure said headsets may be of much help.
Clearly dear Littlejohn hasn't thought this through.

SteveHolmes11 said...

Noise cancelling headsets won't protect you against concussion grade noise.

This sort of thing isn't new.
I visited a Spanish church tower with an elaborate carillon (Musical bell chorus thing).
I'd admired the peals from outside thought I'd stick about to watch the mechanism in action.
Should be every 15 minutes right?

Over 30 minutes later a young Iberian Father Dougal type dashed up the stairs and asked me to come down.
There was a proximity detector which prevented the chimes if people were present, on account of "head damage" - I felt that lost a bit in translation.

Buy hey, what do these forriners know compared to a common sense Mail columnist from Florida.

Anonymous said...

What other columnist would mourn the silencing of the dong of a large erection?

I often think that Mr Littlejohn is trying to tell us something,

Anonymous said...

Does anybody else outside London give a solid brass shit about a missing bell in a crumbling building?

Frankly, I hope the whole fucking lot collapses on their heads.

Milo End-Road said...

Anonymous at 17.22. When exactly did you discover that your great grandmother was, shamingly for you, a cockneyroon?