What to Boycott - Cut Out and Keep List for Celebrities

Brunei is late to the party, Saudi Arabia has had the death penalty for homosexuality, along with conversion from Islam to any other religion (Brunei just did that too but nobody noticed because it's not about sex), for as long as anyone can remember. Brunei has simply caught up with what a raft of hardline Islamic regimes have been doing for years.

I obviously don't need to point out the irony of Elton John using Twitter to promote a boycott of hotels owned by Brunei, when Twitter itself is part-owned by Saudi money.

So just to help Elton, George Clooney, and the couple of dozen other people who can afford to boycott the Dorchester hotel chain, here are some of the institutions supported by Saudi money in the UK, just to help you avoid them:

universities
Oxford University
Cambridge University
Durham University
Newcastle University
Exeter University
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
Edinburgh University
Dundee University
Bristol University
University College London
London School of Economics

Media and PR
The Independent
The Evening Standard
Vice
Freuds
Snapchat
Deezer
Virgin
Twitter
Snapcat
and several others

Industry and Commerce
BAE systems
Jersey Financial Services
HSBC
Uber
General Motors
Standard Chartered
The Savoy

It's also worth checking the money trail behind whichever Premier League football club you support. The UAE also has the death penalty for homosexuality, and 'apostasy' (conversion from Islam). Arsenal play at the Emirates stadium. Nobody has mentioned that. Strange.

Bear Grylls in the Big Issue on Faith, Fear and God

It was around 16 I found my Christian faith. I wasn’t brought up in the church but I had a natural faith when I was a little kid, I always believed in something. Then when I went to school I thought, if there is a God, surely he doesn’t speak Latin and stand in a pulpit? But when I was 16 my godfather, who was like a second father to me, died. I was really upset and I said a very simple prayer up a tree – if you’re still there, will you please just be beside me. And that was the start of something that grew and grew and it’s become the backbone of my life. I’m more convinced than ever, no matter how crazy it sounds, that there is a God and he is love. It’s a very personal relationship, I still don’t go to church very much. But to this day I start every day on my knees praying by my bed, and that’s my grounding for the day.

I see miracles everywhere I look, in mountains and in the jungleBelieving in God definitely makes me less scared in life in general. People say I’m not scared of anything. Well, I am, I’m scared of lots of things. After my sky-diving accident in the military [a fall doctors feared would paralyse him for life], I still have to parachute quite a lot and I find that hard. But having a faith reduces my fear hugely because I’m not alone, I’m fighting these battles with the creator and that’s amazing. My faith definitely plays a part in my love of the outdoors – I see miracles everywhere I look, in mountains and in the jungle. And I think I have less of a fear of death as well because I see it as going home.

read the rest of the article here. 

Celebrities above Criticism

The grim revelations around Jimmy Saville are a reminder how toxic it is to place people above criticism, or to develop a culture where certain things are routinely shushed. I think back now to the TV of my teenage years, both BBC and ITV, which routinely depicted women as sex objects (Kenny Everett, Benny Hill) and maybe its not so surprising that female employees were treated the way they were.

Have we moved on? The pack instinct still seems to prevail when it comes to coverage of celebrity lifestyles. The National Treasure is above criticism (Claire Balding, Stephen Fry, Bradley Wiggins, Cheryl Cole), the Public Enemy can't do anything right (Kevin Pietersen, Simon Cowell). Others attempt to control their own narrative - one popular tweeter makes a habit of retweeting any criticism to their legions of followers, who then descend in an avalanche of abuse upon the victim. It's a clever method of vicarious bullying, and makes people think twice about saying anything negative.

All this is pretty dangerous. Whilst as a nation we tend towards cynicism, and hand out praise far too reluctantly, we also need to make sure that nobody is above criticism. Allowing a culture to develop around people which refuses to hear the truth at all costs is dangerous. It can happen within subcultures, within organisations, within a country. But all of us are a glorious ruin, sometimes the ruin is most obvious, sometimes the glory.

'A sickening misuse of the gift of life'

Outstanding piece in the Times today, about the hideousness of celebrity culture:

The centuries of prattle, of air time and screen time, the miles of column inches are a sickening misuse of the gift of life, of health and adequate nutrition, of freedom from oppression, of the access we now have to the world of knowledge and the arts. They are stolen from thought about, or discussion of, things that are truly important or worthwhile; fighting poverty, disease and the iniquities and injustice of the world; the profound joy afforded by literature and the arts; questions about the meaningful purpose of life.

The celebrity culture is a black hole sucking up light. It is not only a manifestation of the cretinisation or tabloidisation of our culture but further cretinises it.

Celebrity culture spreads like a stain. It engulfs even those whose fame is rooted in real achievement or real responsibility. As the empty are valued, so the valuable are emptied. They are treated as if they were as vacuous as pop idols. Scientists, artists and politicians become defined in the collective consciousness not by the serious, complex matters that they deal with or by their real achievements but, increasingly, by their sex lives, their personal traumas, their peccadillos.

Never mind the general theory of relativity and those field equations that are one of the greatest monuments of the human intellect. What the punter wants to know is whether Einstein s****ed his dog. (my emphasis)

Comedian Stewart Lee, critiquing celebrity 'books', made the point that someone who read them would end the books more stupid than when they started. Marcus Brigstocke 'alleged' on Sunday night that some atheists are atheists because they can't hold the concept 'God' in their head without their eyes glazing over. Maybe the Stupid Society is more of a problem than the Broken Society, or perhaps it's just a symptom of it. If our capacity to think and reason is broken, traded in for a pole dancer and the latest rock star implosion, then that's a serious problem.

There's probably a good book out there comparing the decline of the Roman empire with postmodern Britain, but I'm not sure I'm ready to get that depressed.

I looked over Jordan....

This is possibly the moment yesterday when Katie Price remembered where she was.

Judging by the other photos of the event, the centre of Yeovil was pretty busy for the royal visit. Still, there might just have been room to park your bike.

We happened to be in town yesterday, but not for the book signing, and noticed a headline in OK magazine for August (like you do) which said 'Katie Price explodes'. It wouldn't come as a shock.

Through the gates?

U2 'The Playboy Mansion' from 'Pop' (written about 15 years ago, just after Michael Jacksons 'History' album came out)

If Coke is a mystery,
Michael Jackson History
If beauty is truth,
and surgery the fountain of youth
What am I to do?
Have I got the gift to get me through
The gates of that Mansion

If OJ is more than a drink,
a Big Mac bigger than you think
If perfume is an Obsession,
then talk shows confession
What have we got to lose?
I'll never push my way through
The gates of that mansion

Don't know if I can hold on
Don't know if I'm that strong
Don't know if I can wait that long
Til the colors come flashing and the lights go on
Then will there be no time for sorrow
Then will there be no time for shame
And though I can't say why I know I've got to believe
We'll go diving in that pool
It's who you know that gets you through
The gates in the Playboy Mansion

The Playboy Mansion
In the Playboy Mansion
Then will there be no time for sorrow?
Then will there be no time for shame?

no doubt much will be written, and much of it will be speculative. God alone knows the truth.