Lord Moghul

Your favourite blogger, Lord and master is moving to a new site

Visit me from now on at www.lordmoghul.blogspot.com/

However, while you are here, you may wish to view the old Moghul archives below.

While against people driving while under the undue influence of alcohol, I was surprised to see Merseyside police boasting that “18,000 drivers where stopped during the Christmas Campaign…with 311 drivers arrested for positive, refused or failed tests”.

Bearing in mind that conviction rates would be lower, is this really what the police should be doing with their time? Am I the only one aghast that the cops are harassing thousands of law-abiding motorists?

They say that every second a new blog is launched onto the internet, I would add that every other second, someone decides to let one die.

The internet is choc-a-bloc with blogs but only the best ones are being read. I’m a big fan of Guido Fawkes, The Southport Drinker, News Designer and a handful of others. They succeed because they are more like news services, less like the frightening prose of nutters with nothing better to do.

Looking over at our po-faced competition on the Southport Visitor, there are a mass of blogs most of which are a complete waste of time. I rather suspect that the writers have been told they HAVE to blog because it is considered “the future”. No one seems to care how boring these blogs are or – very much like this one – that no one ever leaves a comment.

I have been forcing journalists at The Champion to do the same, but one by one am letting them cry off. I carry on this blog because, as managing editor, I feel it is my duty to do so. The only other one surviving is Henry James, who has a refreshingly dry take on everyday things.

In my opinion, newspaper journalists shouldn’t write blogs for their newspapers. A blog is a completely different animal from a print column and it’s time those of us in the industry faced up to this.

A blog is only good if the person writing it is an expert or semi-expert on a specific subject they are writing about. They do best when they have a one-track cause that their readers agree with. A blog should be updated at least once a day.

Spare us from woolly blogs and forced think pieces on subjects boring but important. Give us Guido trying to take down political sleazebags – and getting results – and spare us from newspaper blogs like this one.

Anyway, I’m looking for good bloggers who fancy coming on board The Champnews.com stable and enjoying the amount of traffic we receive. Drop me a line at letters@champnews.com

Television, as everyone knows, was invented by Tuscan aristocrats as a way of keeping the hoi polloi in their place.

As Europe burned with one revolutionary outrage after another, the Marconi family came up with a ruse for keeping would-be revolutionaries in their homes each evening by beaming sentimental dramas, “big prize” competitions, some sport and the day’s news headlines to receiving TV sets.

The model was helped by the phasing in of the “TV dinner”, improved by the advent of the “lager four pack” and perfected by multi-channel satellite broadcasting.

We can now sleep easily in our beds, safe in the knowledge that nowhere are there rabble reading books or pamphlets or organising themselves into trade unions or communist cells.

If Her Majesty the Queen were to consult me on folk deserving knighthoods, I would certainly point to Noel Edmonds, Jeremy Kyle and the producers of EastEnders as the saviours of our nation. They also serve, who only rot the public’s brains.

I was disappointed by the Dr Who Christmas special. The writers can’t help but overegg the pudding with sentimentality and declarations of how great their hero is these days. The good doctor is becoming a bit of a bore.

Who was a triumph, however, compared to the sprouty old trump that was To The Manor Born revisited. This programme was a joy to watch in the 80s, when I had the hots for the young Penelope Keith and longed to see her in the nude.

Like all good things, it should have been left to memory. The Ballet Shoes programme was good, though and there were lots of interesting things on the wireless. Christmas rushes by so quickly these days.

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Penelope Keith in the good old days

Speaking of people leaving prison, I see that Dr Zaius has finally been released from Guantanamo Bay.

Seriously though, at least Kenny Richey had been charged with something – Jamil El-Bannah has not had a charge against him despite five years of torture, interrogation and opportunities to build a case.

Now he’s been arrested here and the Spanish want to extradite him, despite seemingly having no reason to do so over the past five years. No wonder El-Banna looks “dishevelled and bewildered”.

Moghul (in a previous incarnation) was in a small way involved in the campaign to free Kenny Richey, a Scot who has spent more than 20 years on an American death row for a crime that he clearly didn’t commit.

I can’t claim any credit for news of his release, but certainly welcome it. This man has gone through hell, all because of corrupt American politicians who decided to keep him on the electric chair waiting list despite tonnes of DNA evidence that he couldn’t possibly have done the crime he was fitted up for.

I only hope now that Kenny will somehow be able to rebuild his life.

UPDATE: Kenny’s release has been postponed today after he was rushed to hospital with chest pains.

So, how long will it be before the Lib Dems start plotting against Nick Clegg?

In the same week in which Rhydian Roberts was denied X-Factory glory, Calamity Clegg, as we must learn to call him, only just scraped home against some jumped-up councillor. At his acceptance speech he was outshone by Vin Cable (who everyone agrees would make a far better leader) then proved he has no sense of humour during a series of toe-curling interviews.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he has now denied all knowledge of The Pogues and the existence of God – just as old sluts on junk everywhere are preparing for Midnight Mass.

The fact is that Clegg is a professional politician, a Cameroon clone and a reactionary bore who is interested only in power for its own sake. No one in Britain will warm to his fake Liberalism. In about a year’s time they’ll be champing for Charlie Kennedy back.

To the Weekly Newspaper awards, a glittering ceremony where the best journalists of the country are honoured.

Following last year’s success for two Champion reporters, I went along on a tip-off from the Southport Visitor that they would win big this time round. The newspaper had nominated itself for weekly newspaper of the year, reporter of the year, photographer of the year and supplement of the year. The Champagne was on ice.

Imagine my surprise then when the names of the winners were announced and not a Visitor was among them. Perhaps there was confusion over the name of the title or perhaps something fishy went on with the judges.

If only there was an award for blog of the year. I would surely win it, although the main threat would come from Drab on the Web (formally Drab’s Diary). She has a way of putting things that sets the net alight.

A message on my answer-phone from a gruff-sounding Scotsman asking if I can help an old pal out of a jam?

Certainly, Brownie, my old China. It’s so simple. Just find a bigger story than all this David Abrahams /Harriet Harman stuff and flog it to death.

The row over that Gillian Gibbons woman, who named a teddy bear after Muhammad Ali, could have been easily resolved. So full marks for getting the Foreign Office to drag its feet and stoke things up.

However, it looks as if even that is not working. Labour’s only chance now is to kill someone famous. Evel Knievel has had a good innings. Time to cash him in for the greater good.

To Knowsley Hall, to speak to Lord Whatisface there about what to do with his Safari Park during the winter months when things are quiet and the elephants like to stay indoors.

He has the idea of turning the place into a Christmas winter wonderland extravaganza but I have a better idea. Why not turn the park into a golf course, leaving all the animals where they are?

Imagine the excitement of having to play a shot, knowing that a slight slice could put the ball in the lions enclosure. Or imagine trying to get away with a birdie if your ball landed in the baboon island. I barely managed to get my car through.

In fact, why not turn the whole of Knowsley into a giant golf course? Kirkby, its principal town, is greener than you’d think.

Having to play though a druggie housing estate without being mugged would be far more thrilling for the likes of Tiger Woods than poncing around Royal Birkdale. Š

I fancied sending Christmas cards to all children throughout Britain this year and told some white-haired oik at the Government to send me a computer disk with their names and addresses on. The buffer duly obliged, uneccessairly adding their bank details and National Insurance numbers.

After running out of spittle to lick the stamps, I abandoned the exercise. However the oik now wants his disk back and I can’t find it anywhere.

He seems very angry and tells me he may lose his job over this and something he calls the “Northern Rock fiasco”.

Moghul approaches television with a weary sigh these days. Apart from a handful of outstanding American programmes, there’s usually nothing on the box worth staying up for.

So it was with tremendous joy that I happened upon the new series of Trinny and Susannah Undress this week. In a naked attempt to grab the ratings, they have done away with their old magic lantern peep show and now encourage full frontal nudity among the women they advise.

A man in my position often has to fend off glamorous naked girls, so it was a refreshing treat to see average British women in all their sagging, pock-marked glory, pushing their bare bosoms out to the nation.

I know this post will have whetted your appetite for more, however I urge you to resist tuning in to see the show for yourself. Be patient, tender comrade. If this series is a flop, we can expect much harder stuff next time round.

Better than EastEnders any day

An email arrives from Purple Aki, asking me how I intend to pay for pictures of him on my blog. It seems that Purple is threatening to sue thousands of fans for breach of copyright after noticing that they had used pictures of him on internet sites without permission.

As you know, Purple and I go way back, but this time I think he’s gone too far. It is enough having to put up with his tuneless new records, we cannot tolerate this latest impudent attempt to grab money from the web.

The best bet for Purple would be to follow the example of Radiohead, a ‘pop’ band from Oxford, who have released their latest collection of songs on the internet, asking people to pay what they think it is worth.

The fact that most have donated £2.90 to the project shows that people on the web are firm but fair.

A picture of Prince: That’ll be 50p please

To Delhi and the World Toilet Summit, where leaders everywhere have sent their number twos to discus how we are all going down the pan.

But lavatory humour aside, there are serious proposals to create 700m new toilets in India alone, with no thought for the amount of new suduko puzzle books and pencils this will require, not to mention the livelihoods of midden men or the delicate eco-systems of India’s railways, where people now squat and squirt each morning.

Toilets are such a big issue in India, that you can only stand for office if you have one.

We should introduce this law here, adding the proviso that any member of the public should be able to visit the house of any politician at any time and demand to see evidence that they have a functioning toilet.

The Prime Minister of India tries out his new throne

Moghul is sorry to see that Graham Haywood has stepped down as leader of Sefton Council. He was the only politician who answered my call for a naked demonstration outside the town hall this week. Although it was dark, I definitely saw him there, clutching his cigar.

Our local councillors are under pressure to stop council pensions being invested in arms companies who make lucrative deals with high-spirited regimes like Burma.

But rather than waste good money, perhaps they can be persuaded to follow the example of the enlightened women of the “Panties for Peace” movement. These flirtatious girls are sending their knickers to Burmese embassies to protest against the police’s habit of giving thick ears to trouble-makers.

Burma’s iron-fisted - yet superstitious - military junta believe touching lady’s underwear will “rob them of power”, presumably in the trouser department.

In solidarity with these ladies, I call on all councillors, male and female, to remove all underwear, don Aung San Suu Kyi masks and stand naked with me outside the town hall in a push for democracy.

Come on girls, wave your knickers in the air

News that a scientific breakthrough will lead to the creation of 2.6 billion new toilets fills Moghul with dread.

Not that I begrudge the poor their brand-spanking bogs, nor do I feel queasy that number 2s in the new lavvies will be turned into fuel to cook dinner on. No, my qualm is that the new loos will necessitate billions upon billions of new toilet rolls, pocket suduko puzzle books and pencils. We have come to see these items as common or garden but in our brave new world, nations will fight bloody wars over them.

As I sit with a suduko on the toilet, working it out with a pencil, I shudder at the thought of what the future may have in store.

Ming Campbell got a measure of revenge by falling on his sword in private rather than under the lusty gaze of Simon Hughes.

Moghul told you that Ming would go. It was nothing to do with age and everything to do with the fact that he was rubbish and surrounded by backstabbing Machiavellians like Hughes and Vin Cable.

The Lib Dems need a new man, and Moghul hears that the party faithful are rallying behind Sébastien Chabal. Chabal has all the qualities required; he can face down Brown and Cameron, is sound on Europe, and is more likely to high-tackle the likes of Hughes than put up with any of his nonsense. If Chabal gets the call, I may be persuaded to help sweep him to power.

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Chabal: The Lib Dem’s have finally found their man

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