Newsround with Count Binface
FREEPOST! The week's big stories, via the Bincyclopaedia Britannica!
Hello humans!
It’s been a funny old week - I mean, when isn’t it? - and here for your reading pleasure, is my whistle stop, unpaywalled(!) tour through all the stories that have been catching my visor recently.
Spin Doctor meets Vote Master
The big news OF COURSE is that I dropped my exclusive new interview with Alastair Campbell, recorded and filmed for my podcast Trash Talk.
The supreme political strategist and podcast superstar - together with my guest Alastair - discussed all kinds of stuff, from where I should stand next to what’s going wrong with Labour to how the hell is he packing out the O2 with Rory Stewart. It’s well worth a shufti! Subscribe to the show here and/or watch the full video version here.
Taylor’s Love Story: Travis fancies a Swift (Better) Half
Even on Sigma IX we haven’t escaped the news that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have got engaged. When Travis popped the question, it was such a spontaneous and intimate display of love that there was a professional photographer on hand.
Unlike the mainstream news media, I can’t say I’m losing my shit over this development, but I understand that it makes Posh & Becks look like Lembit Opik and that Cheeky Girl, so it’s a big deal. What amazes me is that a UK national news bulletin included in its headlines the fact that the Prince and Princess of Wales had liked Taylor’s engagement post on Instagram.
Meanwhile the BBC called it a ‘pop emergency’. It’s things like this which - just once in a while - make me wonder if your planet is worth saving. Incidentally a pop emergency is when a piece of toast gets lodged in your toaster. Not when a singer gets engaged. Blimey.
‘Votes at 16' will help Corbyn’ shocker
I see a Sunday newspaper has done a new opinion poll which reveals that one in five 16-17 year-olds might vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s new left-wing party at the next election. No shit, Sherlock. The data also suggests that the new voters’ preferences would be split equally between Labour, Corbyn and Reform.
The good news is that this is hilariously bad for the Tories. The bad news is the idea that anyone whatsoever is considering voting for Farage, especially the young. But who cares? Give them the vote anyway. They can do it in Wales and Scotland, they can pay taxes and join the army, so why not?
Of course what’s missing from Labour’s new voting legislation is the Binface icing on the cake. Don’t just lower the voting age to 16. Cap it at 80!
Three Cocks Unfairly Snipped
I was fascinated to see that Three Cocks got unceremoniously cut - no, this is not some horrendous OnlyFans site, but the news that British Cycling has had to apologise after some software automatically censored the Welsh town of Three Cocks from a map on their website.
This calls to mind a story told by the excellent human Susie Dent, who recounts that when a book was being transferred from US English to UK English, automated software was used which clearly did a generic ‘find & replace’ job. This had the unintended consequence of changing the word ‘participants’ to ‘particitrousers’.
Incidentally, the superlative Susie will be a guest on an upcoming edition of my podcast Trash Talk, so that’s yet another reason to subscribe! (Future guests also include Test Match Special commentator Dan Norcross and comedian Richard Herring).
Which water would you like?
I couldn’t believe my visor when I read a story in the Guardian this week that there is a human styling himself as a ‘water sommelier’. This is a job that sounds about as useful as an oxygen chef or an astroturf florist.
The dude’s name is Dorian Binder (no relation) and he is quoted as saying, ‘Water is a beautiful thing and I just want people to experiment and enjoy it in a way that they’ve never done before.’ That sounds like another OnlyFans site. Didn’t Donald Trump get accused of something similar in a Russian hotel room?
Apparently you can now fork out at least £19 for a bottle of particularly good spring water. Well, you can for now, but now when I’m in power. It’s spring water. It’s yours. It’s free. How dare these bastards bottle it and try to convince you it’s a magnum of Don Perignon ‘95? Unbelievable.
When at the same time you’ve got water companies filling your rivers with human shit and grifters trying to make you pay exorbitant sums for the privilege of some clean H20 molecules, you need drastic action. You know what that is. Vote Binface.
I will make all water bossses (and this sommelier bloke Dorian) walk a plank and be tossed into the Thames, so they can see how they like it. With any luck, they might end up getting a chocolate flake with it too…
Chappell’s Moan?
Finally in the Binface round-up, we come full circle to the world of pop, and singer Chappell Roan. I confess I thought that Chappell Roan was a brand of mineral water, but hey, you learn something new every day.
It’s been reported that at a recent gig in Scotland, Chappell ‘demanded’ a menagerie of animals backstage to help her stay chill by having her very own ad hoc petting zoo. Fair play, I say. Rock ‘n’ Roll is far too anodyne these days.
What does Ed Sheeran put on his rider? A packet of Freddos and a nineteen-quid bottle of water, probably. (If you’re gonna call your albums after signs on a calculator, you’re surely not a barrel of laughs.)
It’s no wonder that those neanderthal Nineties throwbacks Oasis are quids-in - music fans want to see a bit of character, even if it is reheated from a band that itself was a badly reheated rehash of 1970s pub rock.
IMHO, if Chappell wants to give a few animals a bit of a stroke before her show, where’s the harm in that? Assuming that is all she was doing. People have made a big deal out of the fact that one of her big songs is Pink Pony Club… and she had a pony backstage. But it turns out another of her hits is ‘Hot To Go!’ so….
Were all the animals returned? Did she celebrate after the gig with a goat curry? I think we should be told.
Kaboom
Well there we have it. A review of the week like nothing you’ll find elsewhere on the interweb or beyond. All part of the intergalactic service. I dedicate this edition of Newsround to the Craven One, John Craven, whose news programmes for kids and range of knitted jumpers are both things that the world of journalism could sorely use right now.
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Here’s to a fantastic autumn. To Binfinity and Beyond!
CB x