Bloody hell. Hot, innit?
It must be at least a month since you last used that enervated chestnut. Which presumably is itself an enervated chestnut. But yes, hotter than all-balls.
I might have said this before, but...
Hang on. Before you prattle on any further, at least be honest: Whatever you’re about to say, you‘ve definitely said before.
Some things bear repeating. The thing I like least about living here is the weather. It’s either Baffin Island or it’s Death Valley... with a fortnight of spring or autumn in between. If we’re lucky. Give me the mild, grey British climate, with plenty of drizzle, any day of the week.
I like a bit of heat, but then, unlike you, I’m physically active, not a saucepan of dripping. Completely unrelated, but did you read that CJ story about Bevin’s flights? Brilliant, in an I-do-whatever-the-fuck-I-want kind of way. Hats off to Sonka: Top job by my fellow Belisha.
Meh, I’m pissed off with the Kentucky press. There’s been a noticeable trend among prominent Kentucky reporters to use Twitter like PR Newswire, sharing political press releases as if they were news without any context or analysis. Desrochers at the Herald-Leader does it and to a certain extent so does Bailey at the CJ. Good journalists, though, they both are.
It’s just Twitter, mate — don’t get your knickers in a twist. If the unwashed want to read the news and want context, they can buy a paper.
Right, so we treat Trump and Bevin’s Twitter feeds as if they’re “just Twitter?” Of course not. And rightly so. All journalists worth their salt — and, more importantly, Tweeting in their capacity as journalists — should apply the same journalistic standards to what they Tweet as to what they print. In other words, you don’t share press releases to your followers without context or analysis. Besides, nobody buys a paper anymore. And you’re only whingeing because you’re not on Twitter.
Unlike you and apparently most of the Kentucky media, I’m not on Twitter because I work for a living. But I think newsrooms are terrified of being beaten to it, so editors demand that every hack Tweets something as soon as they get anything remotely newsworthy in their inboxes. Tweet first, ask questions later.
That’s probably true. Thankfully, my journalism days predate Twitter to a large extent, and I don’t think anyone on my old desk had a Twitter account, never mind any followers. But to me it’s sort of self-cannibalising: You have to beat the competition, but in so doing, you risk sacrificing what makes journalism valuable in the first place. It also amazes me to see journalists react to comments. “Never get into a pissing contest with people who have nothing to lose,” as my old editor used to say — before he went to The Daily Telegraph and became a shill for all-things-Boris.
Don’t Boris me. What a fucking clown car crash. I wonder if Bevin’ll repay all of that dosh he’s spent on flights, though. I’ll bet my last shilling, legally or illegally, that most of it’ll be fundraising jollies, Koch retreats and Trump groveling. They’re all as bent as those two rascals Schnatter and Cosby. A match made in heaven, by the way... all trying desperately hard to look more righteous and genuine than the other, rather than the shameless money-grubbers they really are.
Yeah, that race-centred quicksand will eventually take all three of them down. Still, back to Bevin: All of that profit in his manor house is going to get noshed up pretty damn quickly if he’s held to account. Which he won’t be, obviously.
I reckon he could end up doing a Tim Moore runner.
Hilarious, that one. As if anyone’s going to resign 57 days before an election, with immediate effect, because they believe in term limits and would rather take the cloth. Stinks to high heaven. I wonder what the scandal is.
As if a politician taking the cloth wasn’t ridiculous enough. As dirty as that nag that won the Derby. What’s it called?
He, not it. Justify?
That’s it. The Ben Johnson.
Mate, I don’t think anyone who reads LEO is old enough to remember Ben Johnson. But on the whole, I’m not totally unhappy that some poor horse is going to get a Barry Bonds asterisk by his name. As we wrote at Derby time, Kentucky and Louisville’s reliance on the gee-gees is a millstone around their necks. Maybe this’ll help break the cycle of addiction.
You’re having a tin bath aren’t you? The racing industry has this city by the short-and-curlies. If horses dying day in, day out for the rubes’ sporting pleasure isn’t going to change that, a minor drug scandal isn’t going to either. But at least we’ll have no more golf courses left before too long.
It’ll be Topgolf or no golf, and the NIMBYs who opposed the former will get their just desserts. Although I expect most of them wouldn’t be seen dead on a public course, so maybe not.
I say re-wild the lot of them. Insects, flowers, birds, trees. No pathways for twats on pay-as-you-go scooters, which I’m beginning to hate with a depth normally only reserved for the clergy and MAGA. If only they were as deadly as vape pens, we’d be shot of them by now. What a blight on this city those scooters are. People can’t even be fucked to walk on the pavement any more, and there was little enough of that to begin with.
I wasn’t expecting a tangent with such vitriol. All over some electric scooters. I know you’re out pounding the streets at God-knows-what-hour-of-the-day, but surely you’re up way too early for them. They’re harmless fun.
How would you know, you live on a tree-lined suburban avenue where nobody walks anywhere.
Right. But isn’t that the whole point of this column? Pontificating on subjects we know nothing about, but getting away with it because we talk funny?
Probably. Beats talking about the sodding weather. •
