Words of the week from a bereaved father

From the thousands of words written and spoken about this week's riots, these from Tariq Jahan, the bereaved father of a victim stand out as exceptional.

On YouTube, it's already been watched by about 100,000 viewers. Another 100,000+ have seen other versions of it and/or other statements by Mr Jahan on YouTube.

If you haven't seen it already, you'll find it as impressive and moving a two and half minutes as you could ever hope to see - and as time better spent than watching and listening to the hundreds of hours of reportage and 'expert' discussion on the media (e.g. on Newsnight) since the troubles began.

Horrible historian David Starkey has also got it in for the Scots, Welsh and Irish

Editors of TV current affairs programmes believe, probably correctly, that guests who can be relied upon to say outrageous things are a sure-fire recipe for making their shows more entertaining - and may even help to increase their ratings.

Rentamouths

In reporting on this week's riots, BBC's Newsnight brought quite a few such 'experts' to our screens, including former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie and historian David Starkey.

Last night's performance by Dr Starkey (which you can watch in full HERE) set Twitter alight for a quite a while, with accusations ranging from claims that "he's a 'racist" to "he's bonkers".

I tweeted that I don't think he's 'bonkers' because it's difficult not to be impressed by the way he's managed to carve out a niche for himself as an all-purpose rentamouth. Like Mr MacKenzie, he can always be relied on to say controversial things that will shock, irritate or amuse a substantial proportion of any audience that happens to be watching.

For Starkey himself, an important spin-off of his 'celebrity' status is that he presumably sells far more history books than most professional historians.

Horrible historian?

As for how good a historian he is, I have no idea, as I've never read any of his books.

I also have no idea where he gets the idea that the English "don't make a great fuss about Shakespeare" (Question Time, 23 April, 2009), unless he went to a very different school than the ones most of us attended.

Nor am I convinced by his glib dismissal of Robert Burns as a "deeply boring provincial poet".

Whether or not his performance on last night's Newsnight exposed him as racist about black members of our community, the above clip shows that he not only thinks that it's jolly funny to make racist-sounding noises about the Scots, Welsh and Irish among us, but that he also revels in the boos and laughter his calculated insults attract.

Most depressingly of all, such 'entertaining' episodes inspire the editors of Question Time, Newsnight and other current affairs programmes to inflict him on us again and again and again...

Cameron's "up & running" (twice in 50 seconds)

So far, the PM has had a good press on Twitter for his performance in the House of Commons today.

But, although my books and courses recommend certain forms of repetition, I don't think he gained much by using that over-used phrase from management jargon - 'up and running' - twice within 50 seconds.

If it isn't already on the #BannedList being compiled by the Independent on Sunday's @JohnRentoul, it surely ought to be.