Is he trying to tell us something?

From the BBC

Mr Murdoch asked: "Aren't beautiful young women more attractive in at least some fashionable clothes?"

Unless by "fashionable clothes" he means a pair of stockings and high heels, no.

Phone hacking verdicts

From The Evening Standard and Harry Potter Wiki

Rebekah Brooks was today sensationally cleared of all charges in the phone hacking trial. But Andy Coulson, the former Daily Prophet editor and spin doctor, hung his head in the dock at the Old Bailey as he looks set to go to Azkaban.

He was found guilty of conspiring to hack muggle communication devices and the Wizengamot continues its deliberations on charges of him plotting to make illegal payments to Ministry of Magic officials for stories.

Coulson’s ex-lover Rebekah Brooks, a trusted protégé of Lord Voldemort, is now free to resume her career as a Death Eater. The flame haired high flyer* punched the air in the dock, hugged her lawyers and fellow defendants and then left on a broom stick.

* That phrase is straight from the Evening Standard article, they didn't dare write "The red haired witch" or say that she cackled as she left the Court.

"BBC uncovers ‘criminal’ organisation offering full sky packages for £80 a month"

Newsthump on top form.

"Scientologists brand Rupert Murdoch creepy and evil"

From The Daily Mail:

Prominent Scientologists have taken to Twitter to urge people to "watch" the News Corp/Sky TV demerger, even labelling Rupert Murdoch "creepy and evil". Leading members Tom Cruise and John Travolta tweeted: "Watch the News Corp story develop. Something creepy, maybe even evil, about that man."

Their warnings come as Vince Cable and other Lib Dems claimed that their every move has been tracked by a team of mystery men - who they believes have been sent to spy on them by the octagenarian. Leading Scientologist Tom Cruise also posted that Murdoch was "number one" in the "very weird cult".

The actors risk a media backlash as a number of newspapers and television channels are controlled by the cult. Cruise has previously starred in a number of films made by Murodch's 20th Century Fox, including Rain Man and Minority Report, but the most recent was the critical and commercial flop Knight and Day in 2010.

Cruise first tweeted yesterday morning: "News Corp back in news. Very weird cult, but big, big money involved with Rupert Murdoch number one in [hierarchy]. Refers to his workers as Children and calls his most senior director his Son". Cruise was quickly attacked for his comments with one user throwing the "creepy and evil" insult right back at the 49-year-old soon-to-be four times divorced heart throb.

However, Travolta refused to back down tweeting later: "Since Murdoch tweet hundreds of attacks. Expect they will increase and get worse and maybe threatening. Still stick to my story." After one user asked Travolta for his views on Mormonism, he replied: "Mormonism a mystery to me, but Mormons certainly not evil."

Oi! You're nicked!

"Gordon Brown was in 'unbalanced state of mind' when he 'declared war' on me"

From The Daily Mail:

Rupert Murdoch today recalled when an 'unbalanced' Gordon Brown 'declared war' on his media empire after [it switched] sides to support the Tories at the last election. Mr Murdoch, appearing before the Leveson inquiry, dismissed claims that Mr Brown had ‘roared at an aide for 20 minutes’ as a 'colourful exaggeration'.

But he did recount in detail listening in to a private telephone conversation between the former Prime Minister and a civil servant. The 81-year-old media mogul recalled how Mr Brown asked "Do you know what's going on here?," when the front page of the Sun was published declaring support for David Cameron in September 2009.

Mr Murdoch, 93, said the civil servant replied "I was not warned of the exact timing, I'm not aware of what they're saying, but I'm sorry to tell you Gordon, that Aussie bastard will support a change of government if there is an election."

Mr Murdoch, 105-year old NewsCorp chairman, said that he subsequently hacked into Mr Brown's email account and found an email declaring "Well, that wrinkly old f- has declared war on the government. We have no alternative but to declare war on him."

The 117-year old Mr Murdoch chuckled as he recounted the scene between Mr Brown and his wife later that evening, filmed using a secret camera which Scotland Yard detectives had installed for him in the master bedroom at No 10.

Hunt sabotages self

Big Brother Is Hacking You

Fun Online Polls: The Sun, Iran etc.

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

The Sun on Sunday: did you buy a copy?

I don't buy a Sunday newspaper - 83 votes
I boycott every part of the Murdoch empire - 61 votes
I stuck to my regular newspaper - 22 votes
Yes - 19 votes
No, but I read a copy - 3 votes
Other, please specify 11 votes

There was a very high turnout of 190 voters, thanks to everybody for taking part.

PS, it appears that some people still don't quite grasp the concept of "Other, please specify" (which is there because I sometimes miss something obvious when I set up the poll). Eleven people chose that option but only seven left comments, how am I supposed to guess what the other four thought?
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One thing which politicians like to do to take people's minds off bad news is attacking other countries, verbally or literally. There has been a lot of blustering recently, so that's this week's Fun Online Poll, which country do you think David Cameron would most like to declare war on?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Haye vs Chisora and The Sun on Sunday

Thanks for casting your votes, I hereby declare David Haye the winner of last week's finest publicity stunt, two boxers fighting outside the ring. Three-quarters didn't see the funny side and voted "Neither won. They are a disgrace to boxing", to which I say "Oh for Heaven's sake, lighten up".
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Rupert Murdoch managed to get loads of free publicity from all the other media for his re-launch of News Of The World under its new name "The Sun on Sunday", so for this week's Fun Online Poll, I'd like to find out how many people actually went out and bought it?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

The BBC's explanation of corporate structures

From an article on whether Greenland is experiencing global cooling:

The Times Atlas is not owned by The Times newspaper...

Ah, there's something I didn't know. So who does own it then?

... It is published by Times Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

As is "The Times newspaper", of course.

Fun Online Polls: Boring news and The Saturdays

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

I'm now tired of the endless coverage of...

Murdoch phone-hacking - 112 votes
Amy Winehouse dying at 27 - 92 votes
'Tory cuts' - 82 votes
Murderous Norwegian nutcase - 59 votes
US Federal debt-limit - 32 votes
Greek default - 26 votes
More please! I can't get enough of this stuff! - 14 votes
Other, please specify - 12 votes [Curmudgeon and Bastard Panda suggested the 2012 Olympics, which was a good shout]

Number of votes cast = 154, so only the top three items beat the 50% threshold. I'm surprised that more people weren't bored silly with the US Federal debt limit doolally, given the whole thing was politicial posturing from start to finish, although I admit to being surprised that they wrapped it up 36 hours before the self-imposed and completely meaningless deadline; I had expected them to leave it until 36 minutes before the deadline.
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I let last week's Fun Online Poll run on far too long, so this week's is a quickie: "Who is your favourite out of The Saturdays?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Care home fees and News Of The World

Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll, results as follows:

Who ought to pay for the long-term care of 'asset-rich' pensioners?

They themselves and their likely heirs - 74%
The taxpayer generally - 20%
Other, please specify - 5%

Crikey it seems like a long time ago since that was the hot topic. Anyway, it's nice to see that I'm with the majority on this one.
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This week, let's do a Trial By Internet. To save time, let's put them all in the dock in one go.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Andy Coulson

Rebekah Brooks

C-cksucker Blues

It turns out that journalists working for Rupert Murdoch routinely gave cash to police officers for inside info to use as the basis of their articles. It is broadly agreed it is a gross dereliction of duty, borderline corruption etc. for a police officer to accept such payments.

Which reminds me of the Gillian Taylforth saga: the only really hard (sic) fact to emerge from her libel action against The Sun (the weekday edition of The News Of The World - both of them are Rupert Murdoch newspapers) was this:

Here was one of the best-known stars of EastEnders [a British television series] suing over allegations that she and her lover, a wealthy businessman with a criminal record, had been having oral sex in their Range Rover when they were spotted by a policeman... The couple's case was not helped by the fact that Mr Knights signed a caution admitting the offence of indecency after being taken to the police station.

It struck me at the time that the only way The Sun could have found out about this was if a police officer told them, no doubt in return for cash in a brown envelope - there were no other witnesses. Unlike criminal convictions in an open court, the details of cautions (= an admission of the alleged offence in exchange for charges being dropped) are not made public.

So while Ms T lost her libel action (the court appears to have decided that, as a matter of fact, she did give Mr K a blow job, and telling the truth is absolute defence against a defamation case), isn't there a police officer somewhere who ought to be locked up and/or have his pension rights taken away etc?

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