The Daily M*il is currently running a promotion to boost sales and thereby increase the net amount of bile and hatred in the world. They are giving £10,000 to each of 50 charities nominated by readers. 25 of these will be picked by a panel of “experts” (probably BNP activists, Melanie Philips, Norman Tebbitt and Chris Woodhead), but the other 25 (they claim) will be chosen by members of the public, drawn at random. Now, presumably the Mail are expecting that the winners will be people like the RNLI, Guide Dogs for the Blind and the National Trust. However, if enough people nominate (say) the Refugee Support Council or Stonewall, there has got to be a chance the the Daily Mail will end up giving them the money. Wouldn’t that be great? 10 grand of Paul Dacre’s money to asylum seekers. Just think about it for a second… You’re smiling, aren’t you?
You can even do it without having to buy a copy of the Mail (which saves having to give them any of your cash). Go on – doing this will make the world a slightly nicer place, it won’t cost you anything and there is a chance it could really annoy the Daily Mail. Do you have a better way to spend 10 minutes of your time?
Dave
Web design
The Elmcroft Associates website is now online and working! Hoo-ray!
Destination: MORGUE!
I am currently reading the latest from my all-time favourite author, James Ellroy. It’s a collection of essays and autobiographical pieces, as well as three novellas. It is (obviously) brilliant.
I am currently putting together a fairloy lengthy Palimpsest post on Ellroy and his work, and the Wikipedia entry for him is rather sparse, so I might have a go at updating that. Will link to them when they are finished.
Two new books
I had a look round the Kingo branch of ‘The Works’ (which the carrier bag claims has the website www.theworks.gb.com) today. They seem to stock mainly remaindered stuff, but I got an Ian Rankine three novel omnibus for £4.99 and a volume of 2 Carl Hiaasen novels (Sick Puppy and Skin Tight) for £1.99. Bargain! I bought the latter having had my interest grabbed by this in the Guardian recently.
Norfolk Scrutiny Conference
The report I wrote about the Norfolk Scrutiny Conference last week can be found on the Centre for Public Scrutiny website here.
Next stop for it will be the Local Government Chronicle and the Scrutiny Champions’ Bullettin. How exciting!