'Pound rises against dollar in defiance of Osborne's warning it would collapse'


Just wondering if he might've done something to move beyond the 'slap on the wrist' of a few weeks ago...

'Don't cross me again, warns Tory's accuser'

 

'Declaring a form of uneasy truce, friends of Rothschild said he did not at this stage want to escalate the public battle with his old friend. They said Rothschild had not intended to bring Osborne down by disclosing the shadow chancellor's involvement in talks about raising money from Deripaska. Instead, the friends said, Rothschild had intended it as a "slap on the wrist" because he was furious that Osborne had breached confidences'

I had the misfortune of having to make a visit to the Metro Centre yesterday for reasons that seemed important at the time. As I was waiting at the bus interchange to get back to Gateshead proper, a familiar tune played out over the brushed-steel and glass concourse. The strange thing was, it was a famous piece from a movie. No, not the score from George A Romero's original version of Dawn of the Dead - that would be too direct. The evil management of The Man that monitors our corporate dystopia would never let that through the gates.

No, this much more subtle. This was incredibly subversive. This was the choral piece from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

For those of you not familiar with the piece, the movie is set during the American Civil War. The music in question is sung by a choir of Confederate prisoners in a Union POW camp. The piece is sung by prisoners on the orders of The Bad character (at this point an NCO in the Union army) whenever he's beating the shit out of, or just generally torturing, other prisoners.

It's an odd choice of muzak. I've been mulling it over, and there's only two options I can think of to explain it. Either

(a) it's a cry for help from the mall itself*. Casting itself as the beaten and wounded Confederacy, by playing this piece the consumerist palace says to the hordes who visit it every day to extract precious consumer items from it, it's very lifeblood: 'yes, my cause was unjust, but I don't deserve the abuse of having my roller coaster cut out and the indignity of 3 Collectables outlets'.

(b) The security guards beat up shoplifters in the toilets.

Any further explanations are welcome.

*You know, a bit like Farpoint station in the pilot episode of Star Trek The Next Generation.

According to Joe Queenan, Grauniad cinema critic,

"Ledger will now be remembered as the victim of an epic miscarriage of justice"

Apparently the "grizzled, homophobic slobs who run Hollywood" didn't give Heath an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain.

To the best of my knowledge, Heath's death is currently thought to have involved not reading the box very carefully. But given this new information, who is to say that he wasn't rubbed out, just like Diana was, for speaking the truth about the gays?

After all, Heath's "Father Kim Ledger said the death of his "dearly loved son" was "tragic" and "accidental"." but then that's just the sort of thing he would say isn't it? I bet that's what Earl Spencer said as well.

Anyone got Al-Fayed's number? He's bound to want to look into this...