Britain's Parky slams late TV star Goody

British veteran chat show host Michael Parkinson slammed late reality TV star Jade Goody as "all that's paltry and wretched about Britain".

Goody found tabloid fame after appearing on the British edition of Big Brother in 2002 and transforming her 15 minutes of fame into a full-time celebrity career.

She died last month of cervical cancer aged 27, milking the media spotlight until the last in deals with broadcasters and publications to make money for her two sons.

"Jade Goody has her own place in the history of television and, while it's significant, it's nothing to be proud of," Parkinson wrote in the Radio Times weekly magazine.

"Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di," added Parkinson, known as Parky in Britain, Australia and elsewhere.

He added: "When we clear the media smokescreen from around her death, what we're left with is a woman who came to represent all that's paltry and wretched about Britain today."

Goody's example has been hailed by cancer charities as well as Prime Minister Gordon Brown for prompting a surge in the increase of young women taking tests for cervical cancer.

She released an autobiography, a perfume and an exercise video, and saw her notoriety go global when she subjected Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty to racist bullying on Celebrity Big Brother in 2007.

ninemsn 8 Apr 2009

Said it the way it should be said.

The Mass Media DELIBERATELY focuses on this type of 'trash' entertainment.

AFL club investigates chicken sex film

AFL club North Melbourne says it will not punish the player responsible for posting on the internet a degrading video that depicts a toy rubber chicken performing sex acts.

Chief executive Eugene Arocca this morning confirmed that an internal investigation is underway and once identified, the player at the centre of the tasteless video would be "re-educated" rather than disciplined.

The four-minute video, posted on video sharing website YouTube, features the rubber chicken, always wearing a condom on its head and manoeuvred by an unidentifiable hand, seeming to sexually penetrate a real chicken carcass, The Age newspaper reported today.

The real chicken, depicted as a woman, is hurled into a wall and run over by a van before the rubber chicken returns to again penetrate it, The Age said.

Mr Arocca today said the video was "stupid and thoughtless".

"We pride ourselves on being an inclusive club. Most of our employees are female, in fact many of the volunteers who come to this club are female," he said.

"We really take umbradge to the suggestion that this club treats women poorly or is disrespectful to women."

Parts of the film, titled The Adventures of Little Boris, were recorded in the club's locker room, including the locker of senior player Brady Rawlings, on the desk of a staff member, at a supermarket and in a hotel toilet.

The film's soundtrack is Move Bitch, a song by US rapper Ludacris. No players, coaches or staff are seen in the video.

Mr Arocca said he was "embarrassed" about the video and ordered it to be removed from YouTube when alerted to it by The Age.

"Foolishly, one of the younger members of our group placed it on his Facebook (page). It then found its way onto YouTube. It's now been removed," he said.

"I'm furious to say the least that it's gotten out, though I haven't had the advantage of seeing it."

AFL corporate affairs manager Brian Walsh said the video was "infantile and inappropriate".

8 Apr 2009

Do NOT expect any ROCKET SCIENCE Brain work from a bunch of Infantile Neanderthals handling a ball.

Just more Quality News to keep the plebs amused.

Banks need a kick up the bum, says Swan

Banks that fail to pass on the latest interest rate cut to borrowers need "a good kick up the bum", federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

The Commonwealth Bank has said it will only pass on a cut of 0.1 percentage points from the 0.25 point cut in the cash rate announced by the Reserve Bank on Tuesday, while the National Australia Bank says it will not pass on any of it.

Westpac and the ANZ have yet to make a decision.

"Certainly I'm pretty disappointed with their decision or the decisions that have been announced so far," Mr Swan said on Wednesday.

The banks would have to justify their commercial decisions in the court of public opinion, he told Fairfax Radio Network.

"You know what they're like, they do need a good kick up the bum occasionally," Mr Swan said.

The failure of the banks to pass on the latest rate cut had blunted the effectiveness of monetary policy, he said.

"It's not helpful when we're trying to get everyone in the community working together to deal with this global financial crisis."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had asked the two banks to reconsider their decisions, Mr Swan said.

But he said he would not contemplate a suggestion that the government could put pressure on banks by withdrawing its guarantee of their deposits.

"The beneficiary of the guarantee is not the banks, it's the Australian people," Mr Swan said.

"(Ending it) would in fact fundamentally rebound not just on the banks but on the Australian economy and that is absolutely something that we can't consider.

The guarantee had been essential to the stability of the Australian financial system, Mr Swan said.

Meanwhile, Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is demanding Australia's big four banks pass on the latest interest rate cut, saying they are doing "very, very well" at the moment.

"The least they can do is pass on these cuts in official rates," Mr Turnbull told ABC Radio.

"The banks are doing very, very well at the moment, particularly the big four, they are doing well competitively and in every other way."

The banks had received enormous support from the government, through the deposit guarantee and a wholesale term funding guarantee, he said.

Mr Turnbull warned that monetary policy would not work if the banks did not pass on rate cuts.

"The rate cuts are only effective in terms of stimulating the economy if they are passed on by banks," he said.

Government pressure has helped keep Australia's banks honest and home buyers in reasonable shape, federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says.

"And we'll keep that pressure on," he told Sky News on Wednesday.

The government had kept up a constant "drum beat" of pressure on the banks to cut rates, Mr Tanner said.

"That pressure has had an effect, it's helped to keep the banks honest, to keep Australian homebuyers in reasonable shape."

ninemsn 8 Apr 2009