95 year old man dies after long illness. BBC goes into full on Saint Mandela mode with Mark Mardell calling him “a secular saint”. It’s been amazing watching the sanitisation of Mandela’s life with the very notion that he supported terrorism verboten. As I watch Newsnight he is being compared to Lincoln.
THE SECULAR SAINT
Bookmark the permalink.
Oh no. I hoped he’d live forever. The coverage is going to be a complete nightmare.
I turned on Newsnight for sixty seconds and I’ve already heard him spoken of as a Messiah and a King. Jerry Dammers now being dragged in, from under a bridge by the look of him.
Time to raid the DVD collection. The next week is going to be a test.
Television off, radio off, for the next 2 weeks.
to be fair its not just BBC – I switched on ITV to catch news at 10. Sure it is first item – he was a leading statesman (like Thatcher) – but surely there was other news yesterday as well – Balls making arse of himself for one. The whole life story etc is not news – could devote a whole programme to him another day – perhaps in place of ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’
Someone tweeted a copy of this to my timeline earlier this evening… worth remembering before too many people get carried away.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9997714/Margaret-Thatchers-vital-role-in-ending-apartheid.html
Not strictly BBC related I know, but they won’t mention it.
An “inconvenient truth” as far as the BBC is concerned.
Sorry to name-drop, but Nelson Mandela told a friend of mine about how grateful he was to Mrs Thatcher for all her help in ending apartheid. He really liked and admired her.
I love telling lefties this (absolutely true) story.
Both Jesse Jackson and Alan Yentob mentioned Thatcher last night. But not in a positive way, of course.
Yentob,
just a chauffeur driven ride away from Whitecity as an every ready comment for everything he thinks he is an expert commentator, which happens to be everything.
He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the biased BBC.
What on earth is going on in the mind of the person who invites Jackson and Yentob to give their opinions on anything?? Does anyone in the real world care what they think?
Oh dear nofanofpoliticians , as far as the BBC is concerned, the fact that Margaret Thatcher was instrumental in getting Mandela released, and a peaceful transition to democracy, tarnishes Mandela’s halo..
Remember boys and girls….`This is what we pay the licence fee for…..To be harangued to the point of near madness when a leftist icon dies…
Thank God for the Internet, thank God for Tim Berners-Lee, a Briton that allowed us to flee from the official state broadcaster…
Now that’s what I call a Saint!
I don’t know what year it was, maybe 1989 or 1990, maybe around that concert and the subject of Mandela arose while we were in a school corridor waiting for class to start. Back then, as a fifteen or sixteen year old, I’d parrot the sort of things my dad said. Anyway, I’m guessing we talked about him because of the music concert and I said matter-of-factly, ‘he’s a terrorist’. Fucking hell, the place went quiet and then the shrieking started, ‘no he wasn’t’ a few of the girls yelled. I repeated that he was but naturally they were having none of it. One of the girls looked at me like I was something she’d picked up on the sole of her shoe. I’ll never forget that look, it was pure hatred and disgust. That’s my one and only Mandela anecdote.
It was estimated the armed wing of the ANC, co-founded by Mandela, killed at least 130 people and injured hundreds more. They also practised torture and summary executions.
The Guardian mods are working overtime tonight censoring such uncomfortable facts, and this on their on their Comment Is Free section of all places. Apparently they don’t do irony.
Something wrong with those figures. 130 would be about the number Winnie had murdered in Soweto.
A mate of mine of many years was a Ratel commander (6 wheeled armoured personel carrier with 80mm cannon) and spent some months patrolling Soweto on call-ups. The memory of the many black people summarily executed by necklacing haunted him every day.
For those not familiar with this method of execution; car tyres filled with petrol are stored for when the need arises. The condemned have this tyre thrown over their heads in sequence so that they are unable to move their arms. The stack is then ignited. The fire cannot be extinguished and they were left until the tyres had burned out. The remains were ash and the stain of body fat.
There were many hundreds that suffered this fate all over South Africa. Lets not forget the many hundreds of Black cadres who fled South Africa to join Umkonto and then discovered that this was the personal army of these nut jobs. When they wanted to leave they were caged and later murdered and horrific acts of cruelty to deter others from doing the same.
The 130 is the number of those estimated – almost certainly significantly underestimated – who died as a direct result of the bombing campaign.
Mandela is not the first nationalist leader to follow that path, nor will he be the last, and actually I don’t really have a problem with that aspect of his life, anymore than I do Menachim Begin or Michael Collins. I like to think I might have done the same in their places. I didn’t have a dog in that race, and I would certainly not wish to endorse any aspect of apartheid.
My initial post on this thread illustrates my fear, realised within moments, that Mandela’s unearned sainthood will make the next week utterly intolerable.
Already he is being spoken of as the greatest figure of the 20th century and a man who changed history. That’s true, but he changed the history of South Africa, not the world, and not even the corrupt oppression of swathes of that continent itself.
I never met Mandela. Judging by the media so far I seem to be one of few who did not. He may well have been a great presence, he may well have been a great man, but he was not a good man, and nor was he a saint.
I’m drawing no historical comparison, because Churchill dwarfs Mandela in every aspect, but Churchill was a great man, and not necessarily a good man. There are aspects of his life which seen through the prism of historical presentism do him little credit. We as a nation did not need a good man. We needed a great man.
The hushed reverential tones of the BBC today are sickening, but they are by no means alone. As we speak the news anchors of every major media organisation in the world are flying towards Jo’burg and will spend the next few days in that massive country standing within a few feet of each other shouting down the line trying to drown each other out.
There was one little gem this morning on the Today programme, which made me wonder if Mandela himself knew how ridiculous the cult was.
Apparently if you met him for a second him he would ask “Do you remember me?”
Today the press are talking of South Africa as if it was not a work in progress, and as if it is on the cusp of moving into the sunlit uplands rather than potentially on the edge of a Marxist Venezuelan nightmare. I was reminded hearing some of the coverage about SA of the quote misattributed to Mao when asked about the French Revolution. “It’s too early to tell.”
None of us know how Mandela’s death will affect South Africa in the coming years. Was he the brake on the ANCs true intentions, and now he is gone will it roll inexorably towards totalitarianism? Let’s hope not, but few of us would put money on it.
You’ll probably not hear about him regularly beating his first wife either which is well documented. Any other bloke doing that and the BBC would demonise him, and rightly so, but they won’t want to shatter the image of a “saint”.
“I don’t really have a problem with that aspect of his life, anymore than I do Menachim Begin or Michael Collins.”
I do.
You wouldn’t if you had a modicum of empathy. Terrorism exists because terrorism works.
Beating “necklace” Winnie and the murderer of poor old Stompie Maketsi is probably one of his few virtues!
The convicted terrorist Mandela has suddenly gone up in my estimation.
Winnie was his second wife. The beating of the wife is not news because it is not cool for saint to beat wife.
130? Thousands…
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4424/why_is_nelson_mandela_so_revered
Mandela was a terrorist who decided to change tack and seek a peaceful end to a vile form of government. For the BBC to hide the terrorist bit simply diminishes his story.
Nelson Mandela had been invited to give a speech via conference call to a company I then worked for. My the boss a former SAS officer said he refused to attend and be lectured to by a former terrorist. I was dumbfounded and decided to look into his statement and fund him to be 100% correct. I now tell my son the same
when Maggie died, all the BBC went on about was how many miners she’d put on the dole, even though Labour put a lot more miners on the dole
Now St. Nelson (may he rot in hell) has popped his cloggs, not a single word about the hundreds of dead he is responsible for from his fellow comminists at the BBC
I just heard ….”The greatest statesman of the 20th century”.
Honour the man in death is fine, but this is getting absolutely ridiculous.
Also – it has stopped the coverage of the cricket on 5 Live. At the start of play tonight the teams and the crowd stood in silence for a minute, fine, all due respect. But then on with the game.
We just had the Chancellor’s autumn statement, a day of major political importance in the UK. But it has all been smothered by Mandela coverage. (I good day to bury good news” is the BBC’s approach to Osborne’s walloping of Ed Balls ?)
I’m more interested in the storm.
I see that the Telegraph has blocked any comment on Mandela – I suppose they were getting too many off-message remarks and decided discretion was the better part of journalistic valour.
i cant take no more of this blanket non stop nelson mandela hysteria from the bbc and radio 5 live,the man was 95 and very ill for years and close to death for weeks,but all this fake shock at his death from people that did not even know the man is quite worrying and bizarre, did you listen to stephen nolans show last night which was suppossed to be about politics,oh no,everything changed into one big nelson mandela love in.dont get me wrong,nelson mandelas death is as sad as anybodys death but this overreaction and hysteria over this man death by the bbc and radio 5 live is just boring me to tears.i for one wont be watching the news for at least 2 days because we all know what the news will be dominated with,thank god the footballs back on this weekend as a excape from all these sickly politicians and politacaly correct white media types like nicky campbell,stephen nolan,vicky derbyshire,shelagh fogarty sycophants who will be crying false tears on there phone ins today for this man nelson mandelas death.
the very same psyhco leftists mourning mandelas death held streets partys to celebrate margeret thatchers death and spat on her gravestone
its their marxist ideology. They view Mandela as a freedom fighter just like che Guevara was a freedom fighter, so muder is ok because its for a good cause.
Or he freed an oppressed people (blacks) so all that kiiling was ok, just like Lenin killing a load of people was justified because he freed the oppressed working class.
Apart from being a poster boy for marxists, what has Mandela actually achieved since he got out of jail?
Look up the South African project
http://www.southafricaproject.info
And a warning from South Africa to America
http://www.manews.org/0105sawarning.html
I think I pressed ‘report comment’ by mistake for which I truly apologise. As for the link to http://www.manews.org/0105sawarning.html thank you David Brims for posting it. It is a powerful article and should be read by everybody, especially those who are blind to the very real threat that the Western world faces.
It’s by a woman called ilaner Mercer who wrote a book called ” Into the Canibal’s Pot.”
http://www.ilanamercer.com/newsite/index.php
Its already with us here. If in doubt look at the metropolis of London and remember the riots. Its has arrived and slowly but surely they will reduce the country to a 3rd World cesspit.
From Guevara’s diary, 1952:
“The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese.”
“The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.”
I was hoping he could hang on until the 25th of December and pass away then, it would go unnoticed, drowned out by Christmas and the media luvies being away. But now we’re going to be subjected to a whole month of the ‘Risen Christ.”
Contrast and compare the media’s coverage of Thatchers death and Mandela.
David, I think the BBC would have cancelled Christmas had he died on the 25th December.
I think it was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain that ended apartheid. America had no longer any use for anti communist South Africa, they threatened to cut off its oil supplies if it didn’t change.
But now as we can see, South Africa will go the way of Zimbabwe. White Liberals wanted South Africa to be more African and therein lies the problem.
The oil threat arose in October 1976 to ensure the collapse of Rhodesia. This came from the mouth of Ian Smith when he addressed us civil Servants. One Mr Kissinger. Hence the acceleration of the SASOL project.
The threat was an empty one as the main supplier was Iran and it collapsed the following year.
In retrospect it was the collapse of the Soviet Union but also the fact that South Africa had developed nuclear capability and had also become the 4th largest producer of of armaments and her ties in the military arena with Israel. They were jointly developing fighter jet technology and stealing this IP from American sources (disassembling American tech).
Watching BBC news on the bottom of the screen they are scrolling comments from present and former US presidents but only Democrats and from Milliband jnr and Gleggy boy but not Cameron.
Mardell actually said “secular saint”? BBC imitating Biased-BBC? First of all, what the hell is the BBC’s so-called North America editor doing pontificating on this story? Do all titled, higher-caste Beeboids feel they have a Divine Right to comment on whatever they please around the globe? Actually, I suspect it’s because – as I said sort of said earlier – the BBC sees this as all about RACISM, which is Mardell’s bread and butter. It’s all he knows, all he sees, and is the prism through which he views everything in the US.
This is beyond parody. No, actually it is parody, only the BBC doesn’t get it.
I Saw Mardell on last night’s BBC news pontificating – I mist admit I also wondered just why it had been felt necessary to get The Great Man’s completely over-the-top views on the death of Mr Mandela. Listening to his embarrassing, self-indulgent twaddle I was forced to switch channels, fearing I had no sick bag close to hand.
Mardell obviously considers himself a sage of ‘journalistic integrity’ and insight. I found him insufferable.
This is the reality of Africa by Kim Du Toit, ”Let Africa Sink.”
” My favorite African story actually happened after I left the country. An American executive took a job over there, and on his very first day, the newspaper headlines read:
“Three Headless Bodies Found”.
The next day: “Three Heads Found”.
The third day: “Heads Don’t Match Bodies”.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Among old Africa hands, we have a saying, usually accompanied by a shrug: “Africa wins again.” This is usually said after an incident such as:
A beloved missionary is butchered by his congregation, for no apparent reason.
A tribal chief prefers to let his tribe starve to death rather than accepting food from the Red Cross. (would mean he wasn’t all-powerful, you see)
An entire nation starves to death, while its ruler accumulates wealth in foreign banks.
A new government comes into power, promising democracy, free elections etc., provided that the freedom doesn’t extend to the other tribe.
The other tribe comes to power in a bloody coup, then promptly sets about slaughtering the first tribe.
etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. ”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/924795/posts
I was watching a very weak programme on BBC2 last night. It was about the role of submarines in the cold war and it had very little of substance plus it was riddled with ridiculous errors – apparently the RN has “scrapped all its hunter killer submarines” – anyway half way through the programme the banner “Breaking news on BBC1” kept coming up.
Something very bad or very urgent had happened
I was worried, my instant reaction was that the Queen had died, because very little else would justify this reaction from the BBC – but no someone far more important to me as a Briton had passed. I am now listening to R4 prior to going to work and it is a solid Mandela fest.
I am fairly sure that HM will not get this level of adulation when her time comes. (Long may it be delayed)
This set me thinking about the inability of the BBC to ‘do’ irony. For example, a couple of weeks ago there was a programme about the cold war – on the BBC no less – and it showed an event I remember with crystal clarity: the day the West won the cold war. It was Mrs Thatcher being mobbed by deliriously happy Muscovites on her visit to an (empty) supermarket there http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-30/news/mn-568_1_soviet-union . Now, Mandela was a genuinely great man (and some of the commenter here should really consider what he achieved) and deserves a lot of praise. But Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan freed the world from the threat of nuclear war and liberated billions of people from communist oppression and servitude but the BBC saw fit to allow many, many people cover her memory in ordure and stage manage groups of vermin burning her in effigy for BBC news consumption.
I was in Miami airport the day she died and was struck by the difference in tone between the US coverage of her death and that of the BBC which was on some of the screens. A US passenger turned to me in disgust and amazement at the BBC coverage and asked me if the BBC had no respect for her or her achievements. I said “no, they hated her and will do their best to tarnish her reputation”
Anyway, Nelson was a great man but he didn’t do much for me personally. Mrs Thacher did, he is lauded, she is derided. as the Americans say – go figure…..
Great post CCE !
CCE you’re right. Also, what Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher achieved has transformed the lives of Russians and East Europeans for the long term (plus the removal of the nuclear threat which loomed over us all) whereas the dismantling of apartheid and reconciliation within South Africa will now slip away into chaos, corruption, bloodshed and destruction.
And they were just getting to the decent Christian bit of “In Our Time” and about to leave off the New Age.atheist, effnic bit(that nearly always closes that show)-when they “interrupted” my coitus with this rumpus over a 95-yr old black man whos` “Time Has Been!”.
Was this the will of the Lord?…or the BBC going all Janet Webb on me and Melvyn just as it was about to get sonically intimate?
You-the people now decide!
If you`ve not got a life and too much money on your fone then
I was watching the same programme. I was just getting annoyed at the pathetic errors, such as showing a plan of a French “Clemenceau” type carrier when they were talking about the Russian “Kiev”, when the breaking news banner came on. I thought that the Queen or Duke of Edinburgh must have died, though I am sure the BBC will be a bit more low key when that happens.
The BBC are warning the public to expect in the coming days and weeks a ‘perfect Mandela storm’
The expected areas of heaviest inundation will be on BBC news and current affairs but Licence Payers are warned that sudden outbreaks of Mandela may occur in unexpected places on the BBC. Children and younger viewers will be most vulnerable to sudden floods of Mandela. It is feared their proper understanding of history and political context could be washed away in the rising tide of emotion whipped up by strong blasts of BBC Mandela wind.
Vuvuzelas will be handed out at local distribution centres.
I understand that the state funeral will have the constant 200db ambient noise of 200 billion demented and angry bees – the traditional Vuvuzela salute.
Yes the Beeboids are really feeling this one.Unlike with Lady Thatcher when it felt like they were just going through the motions.
I will neither morn his passing as that is for his family to do not me, I didn’t know the man and anything I think I knew about him is tainted by the views of the person/organisation that told me !
But also I will not celebrate that is way too close the nastiness of the left for me personally others find their own path ! I feel like the lefts hate of Thatcher it will be counter productive ,remember for all the scum on the TV shouting and hooting, they lost as in the real world all their party’s and dancing were crushed and ignored and has become a vast embarrassment to many lefty’s , this was done by the vast silent majority’s respect and honour at her passing!
Just wait til Nicky Campbell starts.
Had to steal this one from Telegraph comments:
Foullaini • −
“Amazed to see the BBC lauding an indigenous patriot willing to resort to ‘terrorism’ to wrest his country from the hands of an immigrant race who tried to take control of his countrymen’s birthright.”
And a fat cat lawyer, a crap and venal politician and a privileged toff born with a gold spoon in his mouth as Mandinka(thanks to Sinead O Connor for that one!)!
And a love louse hound and rat at one and the same time to boot!
Yet the Springbox chose just to wipe their hands as they went up their stairs to get the Egg Cup back in 1994.
Any real men would have kicked him over his Zimmer for less…wimpy rugger types eh?(unlike those real men like Luis Suarez and Alex “Fergie” Ferguson).
No-privileged toff who was a blend of Jonathan Aitken, Chris Huhne and Gerry(the Beard) Adams…albeit blacked up by Harry Enfield.
His ads for Duracell…I`ll always remember Nelson for that!
We got a far better prize giver in the dear oldQueen mum.
Let`s rejoice at that news today, and be proud to be British…we still lead the world in SOMETHING(we came top in a world poll of prize giving champions in 2009.)
And Chris Evans at 8am Radio 2 showed us all how to subvert the system from within.
Where next after Manhattan all you Cohen experts out there?
P.S-we`re not sending bloody `Ullcha Vulcha Lord Prezgott back to the Temple to shove Bikos kids out of shot at the funeral bier are we?…the poor old Queen Mum was still “rockin in the coffin” by the time he`d left the temple to “show his respects” at the service for her immediately afterwards.
At least now we`ve all learned a new euphemism for what dear old Jimmy, Stuart and other BeeGrandies were doing when they got arrested.
Signing off then…with absolutely no proof that I ever “showed my respects” to anybody but my adult partner of 30 years.
Loves Bert Royal( TagTeam No 1)
The vomit fest has begun. I turned on to watch Millibland “inspirational” blah blah blah. Then the local news Liverpool to fly the South African flag at half mast.
I’ve had to watch Russia today Still there was a story on there about Nuns being kidnapped by the “rebels” in Syria. Didn’t see that one on the Bbc
Nuns are Christian, so do not count.
I think that Mandela was a great leader and became a true democrat who found a way of removing white only rule with comparatively little blood shed. I note above that many posts record the number of people killed by the ANC but I am sure that many more Africans were killed by the whites in the years since 1948.
So I believe that his death merited a top of the order slot on the BBC News and in the coming days a ‘special’ looking at his life. But I found the BBC coverage last night way too much. I was amazed to see several of the news readers and BBC reporters seemed to be struggling to keep back tears and had breaking voices. I really expected one of them to burst into sobs of grief. To have all other news banished from the programme on a day when we had a key parliamentary occasion and major floods was a total misreading of what the British people actually feel and think. This confirms yet again how out of touch the BBC is with what the British people actually think and value. They live in their own liberal left elitist bubble and think that the rest of us should share their value set, although, of course, they would never let ordinary folks join their elite.
The irony is that Mandela ended his life as a democrat but the liberal left in Britain have shown only contempt for democracy in their own country by never allowing any debate or discussion about immigration, one of the biggest single issue Britain has faced for hundreds of years. They are creating a multiracial state with all the myriad problems that creates, when there was absolutely no reason to do so , other than to feed their overblown egos.
Check the numbers of whites murderded since 1994. Freely available on the internet. Try Genocide watch for a start. Horrific.
And check the numbers of blacks murdered (tens of thousands) by blacks (ANC/SACP vs Zulus etc)
Excellent post DT Mandela was a great man, he deserves top billing (but not blanket coverage) – A non capitulation by De Clerke would have resulted in eventual defeat of the Afrikaaner population and far far more bloodshed. Nevertheless the “Rainbow Nation” meme is pure lies and the refusal of the liberal media to address the endemic, epidemic, murder and sexual violence of SA is very telling about the inability of the left to tell the truth about their project
Not “comparatively little bloodshed”, that is part of the revisionism.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4424/why_is_nelson_mandela_so_revered
One report on the BBC last night said Mandela had died through some ailment he had contracted whilst being imprisoned. Again the BBC making up facts? for which there is no evidence. He was 94 free and healthy 20 years after imprisonment. Not much mention of Winifred. I wonder why?
Maybe Winnie will take up Hinduism and jump on the funeral pyre.
All that fat?…global warming?
Have a care man!…can`t she go all lesbian with Machels old bird, who`s now non-Nelsoned?
Sorry folks…I did not use the correct technical term!
i , of course meant “HALF-NELSONED”.
For they were of course married and not living in sin!
Still-when the BBC World Service/Radio 4 don`t even know that Steve Biko was NOT an ANC fighter( they told his own son that he was!)…after 8.30 today, Radio4(go on , I dare ya!)…my wrestling error was understandable.
This has been Bert Royal here by the circus ring here in JoBurg…further updates on the role of my brothers appearance in court for killing Johnny Quango will feature in the next news bulletin!
F Off BBC.com!
I think he spelt it “Kwango”. Went and saw him fight one time, great fun.
I was more of a fan of Masambula, myself. And Les Kellett, of course.
Actually, that bit is at least partly true – he was always prone to lung infections after having contracted TB during his imprisonment.
President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy tweets: Nelson #Mandela – one of the greatest political figures of our times. Let’s honour his memory by collective commitment to democracy
……..says the impeccably democratic and representative Mr Rompuy. Have these eurocrats no sense of irony whatsoever?!
Bit late to Twetet Nelson now innit?
Our rugby club`s already sent its card…will the Mandela/Umbecki Combine of tribal families and huckstas Estate give us the stamp back at least?
Just a quick reminder, since the BBC won’t mention it, that the ‘bloody fiasco’ of post-Saddam Iraq had a lower death rate that St Nellie’s Rainbow Nation.
Apparently, all the Beeboids were too busy filing the Car Bomb Du Jour reports in Baghdad to cover how the left’s Living God was mouthing words about peace and reconciliation while the nation was collapsing into mayhem.
Any pretence the Beeb might attempt at balance has been completely destroyed by their ott response at Mandela’s death. I always knew they would go into meltdown but this has been absolutely gross. Of course the death of a world icon should receive attention, but the bloody sycophancy and fawning with no attempt at critique has become nauseating. Programmes will be cancelled and an endless conveyor belt of teary eyed talking heads will recall the great man’s smile, what he said to them, the twinkle in his eye…..
Wake me up for Christmas.
Are any spread betting websites offering on how many BBC staff will go to South Africa for the funeral?
150-155 would be my best guess.
Listen to John Humphrys ToadFest after 8am news with a bowl of cherries(as well as Evans plums) in his gob…his best sonorous tones, trousers at half mast yowsaYowsa!
If anyone can say that the BBC have not been rehearsing and re-recording endlessly in the Jimmy Savile custOD/editing suite since that false alarm last year(earlier in the year, god knows how often they`ve been a rand!)..then my names not the Candyman(our code name on Radio 2 for Jimmy Savile!).
FFS-Humphrys telephone voice was worthy of Gyles Brandreth-now THERE`S a man who should be doing Royal occasions like this one!
Still-look on the bright side(c/o Idle .E)…at least Xmas has come early for them…and we get an early rehearsal for the Nativity Play…with hopefully an upgrade to Pantomine if they can summon up the Ghost of Danny La Rue.
Grayson Perry perhaps?..wooo!
By canoe to minimise the global warming impact?
That’s way too low, they use more than that to cover Glastonbury. I would imagine it will be in the order of 500.
I woke up this morning to the horribly sad news (and sorry to our American cousins who will not understand) of the sad demise of…..
English cricket. Australia 570-9 declared. England 35-1.
At least I managed to pull off the front cover of my freebie rag, the Metro which was coated with copious amounts of BLACK ink for some reason before it made a mess of my fingers.
Ding dong; will we get a day off to mourn the loss of a National Institution ie English cricket?
By the way did anyone miss the other news today of a 95 year old terrorist dying? Not if you consume the BBC.
Someone on-line said it has been a terrible week because both Paul Walker and Nelson Mandela have died. I mean, how can you possibly compare the two of them! This week a truly great man died, an inspiration, a legend, I take my hat off to you … Paul Walker. It’s not easy to look good and drive cars at 100mph.
Splendid doyle!
The BBCs carpet crawling guff over this tribal TOFF who…wait for it!…went all rebellious and became a FAT CAT LAWYER…and then blew up or apologised for BLOWING UP PEOPLE…and then was booted out of his own office and Party because he was such a CRAP PRESIDENT /hopeless politician…is typical.
Any other fat cat lawyer, born into privilege at his private schools would be scorned to hell, or ignored ( Rhodes Boyson, Ray Honeyford come to mind)
That he was a crapPrez and a terrorist plotter is (of course) being thoroughly commended by the BBC in his slavering over his “tragically early death” at 95(Phil Jupitus) and his “unexpected demise when he had so much else to give”(Jeremy Hardy).
FFS, let`s laugh this one to hell! Listen to Chris Evans between 7.58 and 8.05 today over the news bulletin!
ZooTime Gold!
Miaow Pussycats!(fatcats get that one oldbloke, you Old Bloke)
Well at least it does exactly what it says on the tin, eh oldie?
A few hundred yards from my house is an old peoples home named after Nelson Mandela. I propose that the name is changed to Paul Walker House after the great man.
Even harder to look good whilst trying to put the flames out on your back
Is Guido taking the piss or has he decided to spend the day in the pub? No comments allowed I see.
Mandela wasn’t a Churchill. He wasn’t a Gandhi. He wasn’t a Bonhoeffer. He was a major player in the struggle against the evil of apartheid. He seems to have kept in check to some degree the decent of South Africa into a violent racist state (though how far the media have covered the true situation there in the last few years may be open to debate – I don’t know).
I do fear for the future of that country, the continent and its people.
What greatly concerns is the cocked view of Africa and politics (national and international) generally that comes from the progressive elite.
It might be edifying to compare and contrast the BBC’s coverage of Mandela’s passing and Mrs Thatcher’s. (The BBC and the rest of the media for that matter).
I understand that the Mail and Guardian are editing comments. Last time I looked there were no comments permitted on the Daily Telegraph.
When Mrs Thatcher died the BBC were only to happy to give generous air time to anyone with a grievance against her.
But then I guess the liberal elite these days object more to racial discrimination (as practiced in South Africa) as opposed to political discrimination (as practiced by the Communist Soviet bloc).
Just read this over at the Guardian:
rationalistx
06 December 2013 9:52am
Recommend 8
Despite the great publicity given to the death of Nelson Mandela, the historian of Southern Africa will attribute little contribution from him to the fall of Apartheid.
In the early 1970’s, the white man ruled over South Africa , Rhodesia, South West Africa, Angola and Mozambique.
Hopelessly outnumbered by the black population and with the native population gaining greater skill in warfare, due to the training they received from Communist countries, the white man’s situation became increasingly precarious.
Portugal abandoned Angola and Mozambique in 1974, and Ian Smith’s rash UDI came to an end in 1979.
Faced with an increasingly militant black South African population, the white South African government imposed a state of emergency, and in the 1988 whites only election, the white minority brutally told the world to mind its own business, and voted overwhelmingly for a hardening of Apartheid.
However, the end came swiftly.
In 1990, South West Africa was handed over to the black majority and became Namibia, and four years later, the ANC marched to power, and the new South African flag flew over the Parliament buildings in Pretoria and Cape Town.
Mandela, incarcerated on Robben Island, had virtually no influence on these events, and they who say that “might is right”, can justifiably claim that the bullet was the force behind change in that unhappy region of Africa.
The philosopher will occupy his mind on the question of why throughout the history of Africa, the white man was totally incapable of living in harmony with the black man.
Coverage of Margaret Thatcher’s death involved, from virtually the word go, a mixture of her supporters and those who disliked her. Those who hated her were given airtime that very day to go on about how evil she was. Nick Robinson lead the way with banging on about how ‘divisive’ she was; the word ‘controversial’ kept cropping up too.
Coverage of Mandela’s death; brief mention in a report that he was once part (founder?) of a terrorist organisation. Then fawning, almost slightly cultish, reporting of how great he was with political correspondents lining up to say he was the greatest leader of the century. Nonexistent uses of the words ‘divisive’ or ‘controversial’.
At the time of Mrs Thatcher’s death, 5 Live thought it very important to track the progress of a certain record. This enabled a 5 Live news bulletin announcer to say “Ding dong the witch is dead” every half hour.
Excellent example of the venality and extreme bias of BBC producers and on-air talent.
“Rod Liddle criticises BBC for too much coverage of Nelson Mandela death.
“Spectator columnist posts comments on Twitter, describing story as ‘famous nice black man dies.'”
By John Plunkett.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/06/rod-liddle-bbc-nelson-mandela-spectator
Rod Liddle:-
“Look; I’m sorry Nelson Mandela is dead. It happens quite often to people in their 90s who have been very ill, even famous people, but I’m sure that doesn’t lessen the sadness for many of us. I never met the man but, on balance, I came to the conclusion that he was a force for good rather than ill. I think I came to that rather banal and broad brush conclusion twenty years ago, or maybe fifteen. So, I’m sorry he’s dead, I wish it were otherwise.
“But for Christ’s sake BBC, give it a bloody break for five minutes, will you? It’s as if the poor bugger now has to bear your entire self-flagellating white post-colonial bien pensant guilt; look! Famous nice black man dies! Let’s re-run the entire history of South Africa. That’s better than watching the country we’re in being flattened by a storm.”
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2013/12/nelson-mandela-dies-aged-95-the-bbc-goes-into-overdrive/
Good man, Rod. The bbc journalists are working themselves up into mandasms over this. Can I coin that word?
Once again the Left-wing, Old Labourite, former Today boss says the same thing people here say, and once again defenders of the indefensible and lurking and non-lurking journalists remain silent.
Why, it’s almost as if they aren’t interested in defending against charges of BBC bias at all and have a different agenda entirely when visiting this blog.
This ruined my viewing of The Silent War on another channel with “Breaking News on BBC1” filling half the screen for over 5 minutes.
Who is this Nelson Mangala? Didn’t he win the Battle of Trafalgar. That was an awful long time ago. Wasn’t it?
A similar post to The Grauniad was deleted in seconds.
Perhaps we could commemorate Mandela by using him as a tiebreaker for citizenship.
Name a famous Nelson.
“Mandela.” Sorry that’s the wrong answer. You have a week to leave the country.
“Horatio.” Congratulations, you’re in.
And, of course, on the contemporary South African political scene, Beeboids still conflate Mandela with the African National Congress, so thereby the ANC avoids substantial political criticism by BBC.
“South Africa’s ANC has lost Mandela glow”
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131206/south-africas-anc-has-lost-mandela-glow
Still at least we know from his tour of the DroidTV™ palaces this morning that REd really does ‘support armed struggle’ where it is institutions (and the odd human in situ/passing) that are targeted.
I wonder if red ed will support the armed struggle impending in Greece
Wow just read that Nissen Main dealer was instrumental in getting rid of Aids.
(In reality he encouraged everybody to go to the Uk and sponge off the British NHS)
Now just read that Nelson visited London in 1990 (who were in power at the time?) and so the bBC interview:
Labour Party’s Lord Healy, Bernie Grant’s widow Sharon Grant, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and former chief executive of Lambeth Council Heather Rabbatts.
Bernie fucking Grant?
And now I’ve read an article about how he spoke at the Labour party conference (also in 1990) in Brighton. (maybe there’s his link with AIDs)
And in another f-ing article the bBC promote this:
Jerry Dammers said there was little awareness of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment before his song
No shit sherlock
And now we have this black crap:
BBC reporter, Nomsa Maseko, gave her personal tribute to Mr Mandela.
FFS
He’s even on the Sports Page:
Nelson Mandela: Sport pays tribute to former South Africa president
Has the BBC mentioned any negative things about Mandela? They’ve had enough coverage to theoretically go into some lengths about Mandela sanctioning terrorist attacks.
After 3 hours with Vanessa Feltz on bBc Radio London we’ve now got perpetual ‘right-on’ student Robert Elms continuing today’s themed programming. I can take his posturing but not the god awful music.
i thought i would seek some relief from this mandelamania on the bbc by tuning into talksport,i was wrong,talksport has turned into talkmandela ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
He is covered on every topic from entertainment to sport to regional news. But the HYS discussion closed after 18 posts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-25247907
The Russian national anthem has already been replaced by the South African national anthem by the patriotic Marxists.
But apart from the Queen telling us that she is mourning the president who brought one of her former realms back into her beloved Commonwealth of Nations, I hope its too late for the BBC to change the Radio Times schedules to replace Jesus/Santa with Mandela/Obama.
I still prefer the sentimentality of the old dogmas on Christmas day, rather than the “First Black President of a Country given a high status by a long list of White Presidents” dogma.
Is it just me who is deeply, deeply concerned about the widespread and casual deletion or prohibition of comments by mainstream media outlets (as mentioned by posters above)?
What sort of country are we living in? Since when did we all have to adhere to a single thought-meme?
Very bad.
”What sort of country are we living in?”
A communist country, there is a disconnect between the ruling elite, the media and the people, who quite frankly, don’t give a stuff about Mandela.
I am sure the BBC will covering the State Funeral in some depth from beginning to end.
Some background info for those watching (not) is that in preparation the family have created a new village cemetery and have carefully exhumed ancestors and placed them in the new cemetery.
According to African custom this is an absolute no-no for fear of upsetting the ancestral spirits and thereby bringing about total mayhem to those involved. Accordingly there have been a series of running court battles concerning this with many of the relatives are very unhappy about upsetting the ancestors. Lookout for the Sangoma’s carefully sanitizing the place.
Please check out this story:
http://www.spainvia.com/sarahmandela.htm
I tried to read it but the lurid colours gave me an instant migraine