The door was opened a crack...

Pathetic MPs fail to test newspapers over ethics

There's a headline I thought I'd never see: MPs, newspapers and ethics all in the same sentence, when they are mutually exclusive, jointly and severally.

At least there was 'pathetic' and 'fail to test'.

I am currently running a test with our national broadcaster, who I co-fund with 59,999,999 (or so) others, and which is in fact responsible to us, but seemingly totally unaccountable for their fine-backed, mandatory-fee-supported media monopoly across all broadcast and some print categories.

Having just listened to a radio talk show create the stage, and then go on to provoke a bar-room brawl first over UK/US relations and then, for good measure, the vehicles 'we' feel should be 'banned' (stirred up with to taste - very bad taste - rants by z-list celebrities), I have popped off the latest in a series of complaints.

I'm guessing two weeks before one of the legions of fob-off-and-forget munchkins gets back with a form 'We had a look/listen. No, there wasn't a problem in our view. If there was we don't care. And anyway, what are you going to do about it? But we do appreciate your feedback and will bear it in mind. Don't bother arguing or asking to go higher because the system doesn't allow for that... for obvious reasons'.

Guardian - Kicking the habit
Celebrities are checking into rehab like there's no tomorrow. Why can't they just buy a self-help book like the rest of us?

Not sure, but I do believe the purchase of self-help books, unless conducted, Britney Hair-styly, does not get you top slot on the nation's broadcaster, or indeed an 'any PR is...' mention here, paying quite a few remora.. sorry.. reporter's, salaries en route .