It’s still the season for binge drinking and its morning after associate, the hangover. There are lots of hangover cures, of course. But most of them sound like the old wives tales that they are.

So here’s RU-21, a cure for hangovers that ‘balances alcohol metabolism by slowing down the process of ethanol oxidation into acetaldehyde, so less acetaldehyde occurs in the first place. It then speeds up the process of acetaldehyde decomposition into acetic acid, and then into water and carbon dioxide, which are harmless’ or so I’m told. All this from the people who brought you the KGB and with natural ingredients to reassure those who think nature harmless. But now all the supermarkets are selling it, I guess harmless, but effective, must be what it is.
Detox in 28 days… or by ‘Misery Monday’

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Good to see Anne Robinson’s continuing to keep PR people busy over Christmas. This time the National Care Homes Association’s proved it’s on the ball after Anne suggested carers are in the habit of stealing from old folks. (Key message: care homes are nice places, with nice people.) Celebs like Anne are great for cheap publicity like this. A few years ago, I was PR for Robinson’s Brewery, when our local soap, Coronation Street, ran a comic story line around bringing cheap beer back from the continent. A stern press release saying excessive UK beer taxes were no laughing matter got a nice spread in the Sun. (Key message: we want a level playing field for British brewers.) Good to see the Women’s Institute has finally woken up to Little Britain, even if they had to be prompted. (Key message: there’s more to the WI than jam.)

Complaining Little Britain… challenging Peter Kay

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‘Well I guess that Thailand’s out for holidays,’ said an older gentleman in sauna earlier today. ‘Yeah, I never much fancied it. It’s a shame though. My sister’s off to Tenerife Monday,’ replied the dozy woman. I guess you could say they were just making conversation, but I have a low tolerance of people who talk in the sauna and this exchange further confirmed my prejudice.

Yet as the death toll hits 114,000, there’s very little to say. Somehow the irritating sauna couple prove that life just goes on, whatever. But I suspect the enormity will come home early in the New Year, when certain colleagues just don’t turn up.

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It’s Christmas and the bay window is covered in cards, which is nice. But while we did receive a particularly nice hand-made eCard from an artist friend of ours, I’m pleased to say that, in general, eCards have been thin on the ground and have been fairly corporate in nature. And now I see Royal Mail’s delivered 100 million more items than expected, so it looks like the whole eCard thing is a novelty that’s had its day.

But if eCards do have an advantage, it’s that there are times when you realise you’ve forgotten someone and/or they live abroad. Even here I feel a bit cheap. So I’m pleased to discover that Telegrams are alive and looking wonderfully old fashioned. That’s right. Telegrams are not just something the queen sends out on a hundredth birthdays (although they have been updated with flower, chocolate and fruit basket options). And they can go almost anywhere in the world, reaching the recipient by courier. Which I think is rather cool and far more exciting than yet another e-mail. They add a kind of drama to receiving a message that hypes up its importance. Good for announcements like weddings (better; elopements), births and, I guess, deaths (better; declarations of love, so think Valentines day).

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I found myself pondering the Jennifer Ellison brouhaha this morning as I waited for my Christmas haircut. She finds herself all in a tizzy over Maxim presenting pictures of her naked, allegedly. ‘It’s awful – they’re not my boobs,’ she says in the Mirror. ‘That’s not my belly button. I’ve got a sticky-out belly button and that’s a sticky-in belly button.’. But then ‘Maxim is a huge fan of Jennifer Ellison,’ explains a spokeswoman. Like one of those ‘number one fans’, presumably and not the type Jennifer would prefer. Handily the Mirror includes a genuine photo for comparison. But there’s no reason the readers should care, so long as the pictures do the job.

Magazines like Maxim and FHM, used to play a useful role to young female starlets. Right alongside pics of the man with larvae infested gums, an arm severed in a freak tug-of-war accident and a frost-bitten maggoty toe, people like Britney Spears and Cat Deeley would pose in their underwear (nipple free zone). It gave them an opportunity to shake off their otherwise safe and sexless images (didn’t always work). Now though, it’s all Page3 girls and Abi Titmuss. So Jennifer’s missed the boat. But even if she hadn’t she’s no real prospect of being treated as a ‘serious actor’. That’s all one way traffic; serious actors can play at modelling, but models can’t act. And she’s doubly cursed, because her famous acting role was in a now axed soap. As the Mirror points out, her subsequent career’s had her play a Barbie doll ‘who routinely poses in raunchy outfits that leave little to the imagination’. Perhaps she should be glad someone’s prepared to airbrush her bits and so give her career a touch more longevity. After all, most people with a sticky-out belly button would prefer a sticky-in.

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It turns out Manchester has something of a hero in its midst in the form of Mansoor Hassan, an investigative journalist from Pakistan. This is quite an unusual occupation because, as the US State Department explained in its last country report, Pakistani ‘Journalists were targets of harassment and violence by individuals and groups… [and] practiced self-censorship. But in a country where ‘corruption and inefficiency remained acute’ and ‘government publicly criticized the practice of “honor killing” but such killings continued’, there’s been no shortage of stories for someone like Mansoor.

Scoops have included a company owned by a Minister of Agriculture selling toxic substances to farmers and a member of the provincial assembly killing his own daughter (the only ‘honourable’ thing to do, apparently). Consequently, Mansoor’s suffered beatings, been shot at, had his car rammed off the road, house burned down etcetera. But it seems the last straw came when Mansoor took his young family out for a meal and all came home with a bout of severe barbiturate poisoning.

Anyway. You’d think that a country like the UK, with a long and cherished tradition of freedom and a strong commitment to spreading democracy around the world, would be proud to offer asylum to someone like Mansoor, who’s walked the walk. But no. While suggesting the barbiturate poisoning may not have been deliberate, the Home Office accepts all of the above and further suggests Mansoor (case H1093727) may be suffering ‘anxiety’ as a result. This anxiety, the Home Office believes, could be relived by simply moving to another region of Pakistan. Thankfully, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), doesn’t agree.

If you’ve two mouse clicks to spare, why not tell the Labour Party (who are on the lookout for reasons to be Proud of Britain) and the Home Office, that you’d be proud if Britain were to offer asylum to Mansoor and his family. Simply click this e-mail link, read it over and click send.

Control Arms

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I’m afraid the Harry Potter thing has largely passed me by, but Amazon is already taking orders for Harry Potter 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with a hefty discount (41 per cent at time of writing) helping to take it the top of the chart. So I’m obviously missing something.

But beware of rushing over to Amazon to join the queue. There are some who think these books evil enough to be banned! But given that Amazon don’t charge you until the book’s dispatched, I guess there’s no harm in placing an order now, if you must.
Visitors from the USA: click here for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

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Like the Daily Telegraph, I’m not surprised that the Diana memorial has done so well in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘Icon Of The Future’ poll; beating off stiff competition from the Coronation Street set. But I’m equally sure it will never be remembered in the way Diana fans imagine. She may have done some sterling charity work, but any Royal can do that. Diana’s unlikely to make much more than a footnote a hundred years hence: ‘Estranged, but hugely popular, first wife to Charles. Died with her lover in an automobile accident in Paris’. It’s not like she achieved anything.

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A missed by a mile attempt, so we’re told, to understand the terrorist psychology. They have ex-Italian PM Aldo Moro, but director Bellochio is damned if he’s going to give us any clues as to why, resorting instead to uninspired dream sequences to get into a trouble terrorist’s head.
A nothing much 2 out of 10.
The Incredibles……Vera Drake

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I do think our would-be religious leaders sound a little more shrill each year as they desperately attempt to put the Christ into Christmas: Pope thinks it’s ‘Crass-Mass’, apparently. Not believing never stopped me partying, and centuries after Tommaso Laureti painted this image of Christ toppling and smashing a pagan god, we’re still constantly reminded that Christmas is when it is because of the pagans.

Artistically, this image is no more impressive in-situ at the Vatican than it is here. But it’s greatly symbolic. Wikipedia uses it to illustrate the Dark Ages, connecting the rise of Christianity with a retreat from reason. It illustrates an aggressive Christianity at the height of its powers, confident it’s the one true faith and determined to crush all others. No wishy-washy pragmatic tolerance here.

Yet each year, we seem to move a little closer to the pagan concept of Yule: a big party to make the worst of the winter tolerable. And despite all the black propaganda, I think that’s a good thing. And wasn’t this the best nativity scene ever?
Baton down the hatches… it’s Black Friday!

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