I sent on a joke web-page to a friend about the unfortunate whale that got lost and swam into the Thames and subsequently died. It was based around the BBCs news web-page and headlined "It's only a whale for fucks sake" - you might have seen it?
I thought that the page was sick but funny and highlighted a national tendency to weep (crocodile tears???) that has overcome us since the demise of Princess Diana. Never mind that this crying has nothing to do with the worth of the subject - blonde (looks nice in a frock, likes children, distinguishing features er.....none), whale, George Best, blah blah. I'm not saying that it wasn't sad, just that I can think of things sadder - you know like lots of whales being slaughtered every year by Japan and Norway. Do we cry about this? Nope, do we care - well not as much as we care about one lost little whale apparently. So, anyway that was what the gist of the joke was and I'm not saying it wasn't a bit sick but.....

So, sick humour is that somehting we are not allowed to do anymore?

Never thought I'd be feeling sorry for Sir Ian Blair, but here I am thinking 'poor bugger'. He rightly accused the newspapers of institutional racism and also pointed out that the news reaction to the little girls killed in Soham (and the witch hunting of Ian Huntley and partucularly Maxine Carr) might have been disproportionate. There are many more children killed by there parents every year than by psychotic strangers and the press do seem to like pictures of little girls more than, say, little boys or non-white children who go missing. But the unlucky Sir Ian could have phrased it better couldn't he? Invoking the sainted Soham martyrs was a big mistake EVEN if we all knew that he was right. And accusing the newspapers of any wrong doing is always likely to end in disaster - they are almost certainly going to take the hump and then they can print more or less what they like about you because they are the press. Never mind that the tabloids encourage racism - think about the last election and the treatment of asylum seekers and how they are encouraging hooligans to treat Germans at the football World Cup. Racism nooo, us? Let's not even get into homophobia (poor old Lib Dems) and sexism (page 3 anybody?) Yes, our British press are the finest in the country and let's not have any hot head saying otherwise....

Reasoned debate - what's that then?