An advertising Masterpiece

I confidently expect this advertisement to become a much-loved classic.

Why? Partly, of course, because Mandelson's a pantomime villain: hated in the Labour Party for helping to destroy any vestige of ideological and moral values, hated by the right for being gay and powerful. For me, I'm reminded of Marvin the Paranoid Android's "Life: loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it".

But that's not the main reason. Mandelson's appalling attempt at acting is another reason for its appeal, but the central horror is the pointless re-enactment of NPR's Masterpiece Theatre introduction - something never seen on British TV. How I know of its existence I can't think.

Everything about this is wrong. Why the faux-19th century stuff? Why the fable framing? Why feature Mandelson at all? I love it.

Life imitates art

In this clip from In The Loop, a hapless MP is harangued about a wall which threatens to collapse on his neighbour's mother.

Meanwhile in Parliament, Peter Mandelson is ordered to repay £800 claimed because a tree threatened to… pull down a neighbour's wall.

Mandelson - it gets worse

As predicted:

The elite research-led universities will be more protected from the cuts as they will not affect next year's research budget, which they claim the bulk of, and Mandelson is also calling for the concentration of research funding in the best rated institutions – largely the Russell Group universities.

So basically, if you're poor, didn't go to a private school or one which encouraged you to apply to élite universities, or want to go to your hometown institution because you have a job, or children, or no money, screw you. You'll never do cutting-edge research or even experience much personal attention, never sit in a warm and well-equipped classroom, and never benefit from the guidance of teachers immersed in research of their own, because they won't have the funding to do any.

Sorry about that. Hey ho. On a lighter note, Ewar's been in. Despite not being able to collect the parcel of books Cynical Ben left with me for him, he still handed over a box of After Eight mints, which may well not last until Christmas tomorrow.

I'm off now - Christmas shopping. I've 5 siblings and numerous others to buy presents for, and I'm not even close to finishing. I'll blog a little over the holidays, but not very often. Happy Christmas to you all!

Christmas keeps on getting earlier

Despite the postal strike, which I fully support (damn you Mandelson, you sounded almost like a Labour Party minister for a few weeks, but bad will out), I've received a couple of interesting things - a photographic (stressing the graphic) catalogue of Eric Gill's sculptures and engravings (ranging literally from the sacred to the profane, with a fair amount of crossover), the new Kings of Convenience album and Yo La Tengo's Popular Songs. I'll listen to it once I manage to stop playing Nancy Elizabeth's Wrought Iron, which is a more sensual cousin of P J Harvey's bleakly beautiful White Chalk.

I also accidentally bought a couple of books in Manchester yesterday - Amis's Money (for work purposes) and the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, which is fascinating though rather venerable, having been published in 1951.

In memoriam

David Cameron appears not to have milked the death of his son, thus far. I can't, however, get the image of Peter Mandelson grimly approaching Wendy Richards' bed, gripping a pillow and muttering about getting Cameron out of the headlines. Or is this the kind of tastelessness that I should keep to myself?