I need to rant about Christine Bleakley. I heard today that she gets paid £200,000 a year by the BBC.
I watched The One Show this evening, and I can’t see how she’s worth that much. She presents for 1/2 hour each day, and as far as I can see, she reads an autocue, asks a few pre-scripted questions and grins inanely. And that’s about it.
Of course, she will actually earn much than £200,000 a year — voiceovers for adverts, magazine shoots, guest apperances on other shows etc. And didn’t she do Strictly Come Dancing or something?
How can this be fair? A speech and language therapist/nurse’s starting salary is around £23,000.
Is what Christine Bleakley does worth so much more?
ITV has been fined 3,000 Australian dollars for allowing contestants on I’m a Celebrity… to kill and eat a rat. The fine was issued by the Australian RSPCA for animal cruelty.
I didn’t see Gino D’Acampo and Stuart Manning do the deed, so don’t know all the details or how they did it. But I am wondering why killing and eating a rat (when they were supposedly short on food) is considered cruel … whilst biting a live witchetty grub in half for a game is not. Come to think of it, is killing a rat any worse than eating chicken or any other meat?
John Terry seems like a totally knob. How many affairs has he had? According to The Sun, loads. Who knows whether the allegations in that link are all true or not, although Terry’s certainly not whiter than white: in 2005 he apologised publicly to his wife for his past behaviour, and promised to remain faithful to her in the future, before getting it on with a “blonde teenager” in a car park a few weeks later.
Most recently, you can’t fail to have heard about it, there have been allegations of an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, a (French) underwear model. (Funny how all his alleged flings have been models, “Page 3 babes” etc, isn’t it? No speech therapists among them, ha ha). This woman was the partner of his team mate, Wayne Bridge, and he apparently got her pregnant and paid for her to have an abortion. The betting seems to be that it’s all true this time. The evidence: a super-injunction initiated by Terry, and a kiss-and-tell by Perroncel worth £250,000.
As a result of the ‘scandal’, it seems that Terry, just like Tiger Woods, is going to lose lots of sponsorship deals: Svenska Spel have said they won’t be employing him again, and Umbro and Samsung have distanced themselves from him. Fair enough, I suppose – they’ve got images to maintain. (Don’t you always think of clean cut family man when you picture a Samsung TV? ;-)
But, it seems he may also lose his job as England captain.
So, why am I writing all this?
I really couldn’t give a toss who John Terry shags. However, I actually think that, as long as the quality of his play remains the same, what Terry has or hasn’t done in this case should have no bearing on whether Capello decides to sack him.
Yes, I know that playing alongside, or giving advice as captain to, Wayne Bridge may be difficult, but can you really imagine them not passing the ball to each other or tripping each other up in the World Cup Finals? The England team want to win too much, and they would become the biggest hate figures since David Beckham in the 1998 World Cup if they messed up. I’m sure they would play well together “for the sake of the nation”.
In every other walk of life, people don’t get demoted or sacked for what they do in their private life, so why should football be any different?
All that said, I do find John Terry completely odious and unattractive (doesn’t he look much older than 29?). And I think his wife must be extremely forgiving and/ or enjoy living her WAG lifestyle very much to put up with his continued philandering ways.
I heard that Christian Bale’s rant at a crew member on the film set of Terminator Salvation was accidentally shown in full on BBC Breakfast on Friday morning. (BTW, what a rude tosser he is!). The offending words were supposed to have been bleeped out but were accidentally left in, I had heard.
Curious to hear what all the fuss was about (it was a headline on BBC homepage for a few hours), I ‘you-tubed’ the clip this morning.
All I can say is I am really disappointed! I thought it was the full uncut rant that had been broadcast but actually there is only one “fucking” before the clip is cut short and the presenters begin to grovel their apologies.
Later on in the programme, the presenters apologise again for the mistake and say that “lots” of people have been in touch saying how “offended” they were by the error.
I mean, really! Have people got nothing better to do of a Friday morning? It was a mistake for Gawd’s sake! How can anyone actually be offended by it?
Ooh ooh! Excitement! I had an email read out on Vanessa Feltz’s show this morning!
For those who don’t know, the show is on BBC Radio London every morning (except Sunday) and people phone or email in with their views on the day’s news.
One topic of discussion today was Matt Lewis, the Tory Party activist who dressed up as Madeleine McCann to attend a New Year’s Eve fancy dress party. His antics became public knowledge because he was chatting about it to his friends on Facebook, and he has now been expelled from the Conservative Party. You can read more about it here and here.
A range of views were expressed by listeners, but most people were disgusted and outraged by what he had done. Some said that he should be kicked off his university course.
My thoughts? Well, can you guess? How much do you know about me?
What the hell is the Daily Mail newspaper doing having this as its main headline today? What about the war in Gaza and the 30 people killed at the UN school today? What about the 1000 people that are going to lose their jobs at M&S? What about the cold weather? Surely even BB is more interesting/ important than getting your knickers in a twist about no longer being able to buy 100 watt lightbulbs? How utterly ridiculous.
I must say that I already worry about knocking over cyclists when I turn left across a bus lane (it’s a bit easier to see taxis and buses) and now there will be motorbikes to contend with/ worry about, too! On the other hand, I suppose it may discourage motorcyclists from weaving in and out traffic, which they are wont to do, and which must surely contribute to collisions involving motorbikes…
Boris says that the new scheme will help ease congestion in the capital … but honestly, how often do motorbikes wait in queues with cars? They usually just zoom on through.
Maybe he means that more people will be encouraged to travel into work by motorbike (rather than by car) and it will reduce congestion that way…? But is that really likely? How many car users would actually buy a motorbike rather than use the car they already have? Either car drivers (like me) are too scared to use a motorbike or they have a car for a particular reason (e.g. they need it to transport their family). And motorbikes aren’t cheap, are they?
I’m pleased that Boris is addressing the issues of both safety (for all road users) and congestion, but I am not sure whether this scheme is the right solution. Perhaps a better idea would be three separate lanes – one for bikes, one for motorbikes, taxis and buses, and a further one for cars. This would put public transport/ cars/ bikes on an equal footing, but would probably upset many car drivers and be hideously expensive to implement. And it doesn’t solve the problem of traffic turning left and knocking both types of cyclist over, either.
Obviously the ideal would be to have a super-duper, state-run, CHEAP and not- for-profit public transport system, and then nobody would need to use their own car/ motorbike for commuting anyway. Maybe I should write in to Boris and suggest that one. I’m sure he’d get that up and running in no time.
