Ziggy, Snape, Frey, Wogan. All four of these big hitters are in some way directly responsible for what I think is fair to call a pretty miserable January, and I've had to break all of my New Years' resolutions to eat my feelings as a coping mechanism. Honest.
Musical genius David Bowie returned to the stars on the 10th January, quickly joined by Alan Rickman just 4 days later. The much loved actor must have felt a musical collaboration was in order, so cast Avada Kedavra down upon us, striking Eagles musician Glenn Frey. Those who believe things come in threes took a sigh of relief, thinking that the bad news may finally be over. But just as the month came to an end, 77-year-old broadcaster Terry Wogan served to demonstrate the idiocy of superstition in the most definitive way.
Obituaries have flooded in over the course of today, describing him as a national treasure. I have nothing witty to say about this, he was indeed a much loved man, remembered for his involvement in charity work such as Children in Need, his drunk commentary of Eurovision, and his titillating radio broadcasts. I imagine the BBC are breathing a sigh of relief that one of their employees is in the news for something that isn't a sex scandal, but don't worry BBC, I remember that rather revealing picture of him in those trousers. Points of View had never been so… enlightening.
I am shocked that so far there hasn't been a Daily Mail headline explaining how Jeremy Corbyn is in someway directly responsible for all of this. It's just the sort of thing I would expect from the peace loving, migrant sympathising threat to Britain?! Perhaps it will be included in the comedy musical of the Leader of the Opposition, announced this month and to be staged in April. One of the writers, Rupert Myers, said it took a few glasses of wine and 20 minutes to come up with the plot. No different to that of most tabloid stories on him then…
After all, why should we take sympathy for families fleeing from war-torn countries, risking the lives of themselves and their children to escape bombings, beheadings and starvation. We have issues too - Wentworth Golf Club is raising their fees to £100,000! Like, seriously, get some perspective guys, why would you want to come to a country with such prohibitive golf membership fees. You have plenty of holes all over your country in which to play put-put for free, courtesy of the British drone strikes, be grateful. It would only have gotten worse had we decided to ban Trump from entering the UK, as he'd have packed up his golf course and gone back to the States, adding us to his ever growing list of hates and irrational fears. I cannot wait until the Presidential campaign is over, so we can stop giving this semi-articulate, angry Troll Doll a platform on which to spout his bigoted, nonsensical view point.
Talking about nonsensical points of view, let's give a hand to George Osborne, who has dug another few inches of the shallow grave for his leadership bid by describing the tax deal struck between Google and the HMRC as a "major success". Yes, Gideon, nothing says success like reclaiming £130m of unpaid tax and interest from 2005 - 2011, unless of course, they actually owed closer to £800m. Still, every little helps to pay off the deficit which requires such brutal cuts to public sector spending, right? I'm sure then, there is a logical reason members of the Conservative party are trying to allow tax havens to continue, by lobbying the EU. After all, we are all in this together, and it would be totally illogical, discriminatory and unfair to allow rich corporations to get away with paying little to no tax, while stripping the unemployed and disabled of much needed benefits. Oh, wait, yes - it is discriminatory. Bad luck on that court case by the way, must be bad to actually be held accountable for your actions, especially when so often you push things through without Parliamentary scrutiny, and then get upset when the House of Lords actually perform their function and recommend changes.
2016 hasn't really gotten off to an explosive start, more a a pathetic dribble which leaves you embarrassed and apologetic. There is plenty to be apologetic for. Describing the waves of refugees as a 'bunch of migrants'. Planning to further privatise national assets - this time in the form of the railways. The 3-hour dross-fest that was The Hateful Eight. The appalling whitewash that is the Oscars, and the ill thought through plans of deporting migrant spouses who cannot speak basic English, after cutting funding to language classes.
Good job guys.
Shall we put January down as a practice month, and agree to never talk about it again? Who needs 12 months in a year anyway…
Fantastic piece Tom :)