Intermittantly I have watched bits and pieces of James Murdoch's interrogation today by the parliamentary committee of which Tom Watson is the fat, smug, publicity-hogging, leading lady! Alas, I couldn't listen to too much of it because young James Murdoch has a voice like a Dalek with a sore throat. However, I caught part of Mr. Watson's effort and it was pathetic. Having failed to even make Murdoch minor blink, he then produced what he thought was a deadly piece of evidence from his hat which consisted of a transcript of a conversation (supposedly confidential, so now you know how far you can trust Watson's word!) between Watson, himself, and some other supposed ne'er-do-well as they discussed yet another but absent ne'er-do-well. Watson, who will not even have to wait until I die to be proclaimed the worst actor in the world, was quite incapable of reading this "mess of pottage" in a manner which would have made it understandable. Even one of his colleagues had to interrupt to ask him to clarify who was saying what to whom! Needless to say, Murdoch Jnr simply steamed on gently straight over the smug little podger without the slightest deviation in his course. So utterly useless was Watson's 'interrogation' that in the end he was reduced to likening News International to the mafia and accusing James Murdoch as being a member of this mafia bound by the rules of omertà.
He was so bad I actually felt embarrassed for him!
Talking of smug, I've just been visiting The Economist website where I came across "(This content is currently unavailable in Internet Explorer. Please view it in Firefox or Chrome instead.)" Could you persuade SoD to explain what that might be about? I mean, I know what it means but I don't understand the inwardness of it.
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 10 November 2011 at 22:26
DM, I will seek confirmation of this from SoD but I think I know the answer. Like me and most of the world, you use Internet Explorer to, er, explore your way round the internet. However, others use Firefox or the relatively new Google Chrome. I know all this because I have been experiencing problems recently getting through to various sites, or even just changing pages within one site. The 14-year-old (well, that's what he looks like) expert I use suggested I try using Google Chrome but it made no difference and anyway I didn't like it as much as the old Explorer so I went back to it - at my age familiarity is all! Suddenly, a week later, all my problems disappeared and my computer now works perfectly. This flummoxed the expert - and me - but I suspect it was something to do with my Internet Service Supplier, Pipex, who have just been taken over by Talk-Talk. Even the thought of attempting a conversation with someone in Taiwan, or Bangladesh, put me off from ringing them and asking if they were fiddling about with the signal.
Anyway, it's very easy to click on Google and then onto their Chrome-thingie and you can continue to use Explorer for everything else. Mind you, do you really want to read the Economist that badly? Tedious magazine, I always think, and frequently wrong!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 11 November 2011 at 09:23
Thank you, Duffers.
As I tried to imply, I find the Economist insufferably smug.
Posted by: dearieme | Friday, 11 November 2011 at 12:05