#Features Murdoch University Village

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Pete Hamill, Legendary Street-Wise Columnist Who Chronicled His Love of New York, Dies at 85

(NEW YORK) — Pete Hamill, the self-taught, street-wise newspaper columnist whose love affair with New York inspired a colorful and uniquely influential journalistic career and produced several books of fiction and nonfiction, died Wednesday morning. He was 85.

Hamill died at a Brooklyn hospital from heart and kidney failure, his brother Denis confirmed in an email.

“Pete was truly one of the good guys,” Denis Hamill said.

Pete Hamill was one of the city’s last great crusading columnists and links to journalism’s days of chattering typewriters and smoked-filled banter, an Irish-American both tough and sentimental who related to the underdog and mingled with the elite. Well-read, well-rounded and very well connected, Hamill was at ease quoting poetry and Ernest Hemingway, dating Jacqueline Onassis or enjoying a drink and a cigarette at the old Lion’s Head tavern in Greenwich Village.

His topics ranged from baseball, politics, murders, boxing and riots to wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Ireland. But he would always look back to the New York he grew up in, a pre-digital age best remembered through the dreamscape of black and white photography — a New York of egg creams and five-cent subway rides, stickball games and wide-brimmed hats, when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn and there were more daily papers than you could count on one hand.

“I have the native son’s irrational love of the place,” Hamill wrote in his 2004 book, “Downtown: My Manhattan.” “New York is a city of daily irritations, occasional horrors, hourly tests of will and even courage, and huge dollops of pure beauty.”

A Brooklyn-born high school dropout, Hamill was a columnist for the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire. He wrote screenplays, several novels and a bestselling memoir, “A Drinking Life.”

His 2003 novel, “Forever,” told the story of Cormac O’Connor, an Irish Jew who arrives in New York in 1740 and is granted eternal life as long as he stays on the island of Manhattan. His novels “Snow in August” and “The North River” also served up nostalgic and critically acclaimed tales of Old New York.

His memoir covers his childhood in Brooklyn to the night he gave up drinking at a New Year’s Eve party in 1972.

Hamill had a brief and disheartening turn editing the New York Post. When financier Steven Hoffenberg gained control of the tabloid in bankruptcy proceedings, he hired Hamill as editor in chief in 1993. Hamill quickly hired four Black reporters and promoted a number of women and minorities, recalled fellow columnist Jack Newfield in his memoir, “Somebody’s Gotta Tell It.”

But when Hoffenberg was unable to buy the paper, ownership fell to Abe Hirschfeld, who fired Hamill. The paper’s staff revolted, publishing a mutiny edition that kept Hamill’s name on the masthead as he supervised from a nearby diner. Hirschfeld rehired Hamill, giving him a kiss that the hardened newsman called “the single most ignominious moment of my life.”

Rupert Murdoch eventually purchased the paper, leading to Hamill’s dismissal. A few years later, Hamill spent a short stint as editor-in-chief of the Post’s archrival, the New York Daily News. He also worked for a few months in 1987 as editor of The Mexico City News.

Hamill worried that journalism had become too focused on celebrities, but he was well acquainted with some of the most famous people of his time. He met the Beatles before they played in the U.S., interviewed John Lennon when the ex-Beatle was living in Manhattan, hung out with Frank Sinatra and with the Rolling Stones, and won a Grammy for his liner notes to Bob Dylan’s “Blood On the Tracks.”

Hamill lived with Shirley MacLaine, dated Onassis and was linked to Linda Ronstadt, Susan Sontag and Barbra Streisand among others.

As a young man, Hamill was a passionate liberal. His open letter to Robert Kennedy helped persuade the senator to run for president, and Hamill was one of a handful of people who wrestled the gun away from Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan in 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Hamill found his way onto President Richard Nixon’s “enemies list.” In a column, Hamill said the president shared the blame for the 1970 shootings at Kent State University by calling campus dissenters “bums.” Vice President Spiro Agnew called the column “irrational ravings,” and Hamill borrowed the phrase for the title of a 1971 collection of his columns.

In a 1969 column for New York magazine, “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class,” he seemed to anticipate the rise of Donald Trump as he warned of men “standing around saloons talking darkly about their grievances, and even more darkly about possible remedies. Their grievances are real and deep; their remedies could blow this city apart.”

In a 1991 Esquire column, he criticized Black people for blaming everything on whites. “You have retreated defensively into the clichés of glib racialism,” he wrote in “Letter to a Black Friend,” a column that ran in Esquire in 1991.

Hamill’s first marriage, to Ramona Negron, ended in divorce. He retained primary custody of his two daughters, Adrienne and Deirdre.

In 1986, Hamill married the Japanese journalist Fukiko Aoki, whom he met while touring Japan to promote his collection of short stories, “Tokyo Sketches.”

In 2019, Hamill and one of his greatest contemporaries, Jimmy Breslin, were featured in the HBO documentary “Deadline Artists.”

Born William Peter Hamill on June 24, 1935, he was the oldest of seven children of immigrants from Northern Ireland. His brother Denis Hamill is a novelist and columnist for the Daily News.

At 16, Pete Hamill became bored with high school, dropped out and went to work as a sheet metal worker in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, while honing his skills as a comic book artist on the side. At the yard, he developed dormant tuberculosis.

While in the Navy, Hamill finished high school and, afterward, attended Mexico City College in 1956.

Returning to New York, Hamill opened a graphic design store in Hell’s Kitchen. After reading a 1960 memoir by Post editor Jimmy Wechsler, the young Hamill wrote Wechsler, saying that newspapers had no room for people like himself — working class, no Ivy League degrees. The editor suggested a meeting.

“He took me into his inner office and I sat beside a desk littered with newspapers clippings, magazines, letters from readers, copies of his book,” Hamill later wrote. “While we talked, he smoked cigarettes and sipped coffee. Near the end of our chat, he leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘Have you ever thought about becoming a newspaperman?’”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[olehistorian]

Almost unrecognisable from her role as the dowdy housekeeper in Downton Abbey, Phyllis Logan is starring in an exotic new medical drama. She talks to Judith Woods about seizing the day and those Downton movie rumours… 'Obviously I never had a career to speak of before Downton Abbey,’ says Phyllis Logan drily, raising an eyebrow for further effect. ‘I sometimes wonder how on earth did I fill my time?’ It’s not true, of course, but we all know what she means: sometimes a jobbing actress is swept away by a juggernaut of a role that takes her a very long way from where she used to be. The Downton effect has had an impact on the career of every member of its award-winning ensemble cast. Lily James has starred in the BBC’s War & Peace and the movie Cinderella, Michelle Dockery landed a role as a criminal in the gritty US show Good Behavior, Joanne Froggatt played a serial killer in the ITV series Dark Angel – and now Phyllis is set to star in a new ITV drama series, The Good Karma Hospital. But it’s her years in service to the Crawley family that have made her a poster girl for ladies of a certain age who refuse to accept that life holds no more adventure. When her doughty but warm-hearted character Mrs Hughes finally found love with the pompous but kindly butler Mr Carson, it struck a blow for midlife love. In those days ‘Mrs’ was an honorific title bestowed on senior female staff, regardless of whether they had ever wed, so Mrs Hughes’s comical angst about whether he would be expecting ‘a full marriage’ struck a chord with any woman over 40 who has ever fretted about going to bed with a new partner. ‘Mrs Hughes was aerated about the sex thing because she probably hadn’t had much experience, but that turned out to be the least of her bloomin’ worries,’ acknowledges Phyllis. ‘God preserve us all from nitpicking middle-aged men who can’t abide change.’ In the phenomenally successful series, which ran for six seasons, Mr Carson (played by Jim Carter) turned out to be irrevocably stuck in his ways – the routines of the big house where he had been serving for many years. Ironically, it was his new wife’s performance in the couple’s kitchen (as opposed to the bedroom) that proved his greatest source of disappointment. Eventually, with affectionate pragmatism, the pair decided he should eat his meals at the Downton kitchen, cooked by Mrs Patmore, as before. ‘It’s a very identifiable scenario,’ says Phyllis, 61. ‘When a more mature couple makes a life together, each brings certain expectations and baggage and of course there’s always need for compromise, which some men in particular find difficult. Phyllis, once best known for playing posh totty Lady Jane Felsham in the 1980s and 90s series Lovejoy, was a late starter herself when it came to settling down. She met her husband, Pirates of the Caribbean actor Kevin McNally, in the 1993 miniseries Love and Reason when she was in her late 30s, but they didn’t get round to tying the knot until she was 55. ‘I had always sworn I would never have an actor in the house because they are so much trouble and so vain, but you can’t legislate for Cupid’s bow,’ she says. When she got together with Kevin, theirs was not a series of careful compromises but a classic coup de foudre. ‘I never thought real love – the sort where your blood tingles and your world explodes with joy – would happen to me at my time of life. I believed I had missed out. But I’m ever so glad it happened.’ A couple of years later, aged 40, she had their son David. He is now 20 and studying music and music production at university in Leeds. Once upon a time, reaching six decades was a milestone to be dreaded rather than celebrated, but, in well-cut jeans and a flattering floaty top, her burnished hair hanging loose, Phyllis provides incontrovertible proof that though life may not begin at 60, it sure as heck continues at a rip-roaring pace – as long as you have the right attitude towards the rollercoaster. ‘We packed David off to university not so long ago and as we drove back to our house in West London we were listening to the Elaine Paige show on Radio 2,’ recalls Phyllis. ‘She played Peggy Lee singing “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” and as soon as I heard the line “and when the kids grow up and leave us” I burst into absolute floods of tears and spent the rest of the journey splashing about in the passenger seat. But since then I’ve thought a lot about empty nest syndrome and how once your chick flies the coop it gives women the freedom to stretch their own wings once more, too.’ And as fate would have it, Phyllis’s new role in The Good Karma Hospital has allowed her to do just that and will doubtless prove a source of inspiration to a great many female viewers in a similar position. Set in India, the series features another estimable actress, Amanda Redman, 59, who plays an eccentric expat running a ramshackle cottage hospital, which is short on resources and long on compassion. ‘It’s a cross between Holby City and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel but with dark secrets, so it should be right up everybody’s street,’ says Phyllis. ‘I play Maggie Smart, who has come to India for her daughter’s wedding and becomes unwell, so ends up in hospital and falls deeply in love. Not with a man – she already has a husband – but rather with the community, the culture and the way of life. She’s a fascinating character who has such humour and joie de vivre and it was great to play a woman finding herself and connecting with a wider spirituality.’ Phyllis spent months filming the six-part series on location in Sri Lanka. She, too, found herself smitten with the place and the people and at one point Kevin flew over from the US where he is in the cast of the US television series Turn: Washington’s Spies and they managed a 12-day break together. ‘We stayed in a hotel on the beach and it was bliss. The majority of the population are Buddhists and seemed so calm, open and thankful for whatever life gave them; I think we could all learn from them.’ All the same, Phyllis isn’t entirely convinced she believes in karma as a concept. ‘It would be nice to think that if you are a decent human being then eventually things will turn out right,’ she says. ‘But fate can intervene and pull the rug out from under you without warning and there might be nothing you can do.’ It is something she and Kevin can speak of from personal experience. Phyllis’s mother died from a dementia-related illness aged 90, but it was the agonisingly slow decline of Kevin’s mother over many years that proved more devastating. ‘Kev’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in her early 60s and from then on his father became her carer and it was so hard for him. She reached the point where she didn’t recognise her own son and was agitated and upset because she had no idea where she was or who she was; that was heartbreaking to witness.’ Phyllis is an ambassador for Dementia UK and does what she can to support the charity’s work. ‘It’s such a cruel disease. I am aware there’s a genetic component so I do brain-training on my phone every day. Will that help stave it off? I have no idea; I think of Iris Murdoch – such a clever woman who dealt with words and complex memories all her life, and yet all those things that made her so creative and unique were taken while she was still alive. Ultimately, all you can do is cross your fingers and make the most of every day.’ Phyllis is certainly doing that. Last year was a veritable Air Miles bonanza; as well as her sojourn in Sri Lanka she went to Sydney for a Downton DVD launch, Los Angeles where the ensemble cast of Downton won yet another Screen Actors Guild Award, and then to New York to receive the prestigious Great Scot Award from the US branch of the National Trust for Scotland (previous recipients include comedian Billy Connolly and actor Alan Cumming). She wore a dress bought in John Lewis embellished for the occasion with a tartan sash and matching ribbon. ‘I’m not interested in fashion,’ Phyllis confides. ‘It’s just not on my radar. Whenever I’m doing a contemporary role, the wardrobe mistress will usually say, “Let’s go to Selfridges and get a personal shopper.” Most women would probably love it, but my face falls because I absolutely hate trying on clothes. One of the things I loved about Downton was the fact I had two outfits and maybe a coat if I got to go into the village; the girls in the Crawley family kept having to go for fittings every time there was a big dinner, which would have driven me mad.’ Logan loves… Reading Alan Bennett’s Keeping On Keeping On. I love him; my husband Kev played him in the stage version of The Lady in the Van. Listening to The Today programme on Radio 4 and Classic FM. Watching I do enjoy a good nature documentary. Planet Earth II was spectacularly good. Guilty pleasure A whole bag of Kettle Chips with a crisp glass of Picpoul de Pinet. Beauty product Boots No7 moisturiser; it’s not fancy but it does the job. Desert island luxury A karaoke machine, stage, lights and all the songs from the 70s. I’ll make a row of coconuts for an audience and there’ll be no stopping me. The ongoing international popularity of Downton means Phyllis and various other cast members are still asked to appear at events to meet the fans and launch DVDs. She’s often asked about her wigs and whether she kept one; she had three identical hairpieces all of which she affectionately dubbed Elsie. ‘People ask me if I was tempted to take a wig or that big bunch of keys I carried, but that would be theft, because these things aren’t my property,’ says Phyllis emphatically. ‘Besides, if there’s a Downton movie, which I hope will happen, all the props and costumes will be needed.’ Ah yes, the Downton film; rumours still swirl but so far there’s been no confirmation. According to Phyllis it may yet happen if – and it’s a huge if – the cast members can ever be gathered in one place long enough. ‘It’s like herding cats!’ she laughs. ‘We’re all so busy and in different countries, but it would be such fun to get together again. The camaraderie on set was extraordinary.’ Phyllis was in every episode of the family saga. Her husband even appeared in a handful of episodes as Horace Bryant, the stern father of an army major who fraternised with housemaid Ethel (Amy Nuttall), getting her pregnant before he died in action. Horace persuaded her to hand over his grandchild to him, which was brutal but necessary as she had been sacked from Downton in disgrace and had taken to prostitution in order to survive. ‘I was quite miffed that the producer had offered Kev a job without even consulting me,’ laughs Phyllis. ‘I wouldn’t dream of queering his pitch – although I do think I’d be great as Johnny Depp’s mother in a Pirates of the Caribbean film [in which Kevin plays Joshamee Gibbs]. And every lad needs a cuddle from his mother now, doesn’t he?’ Her eyes glitter with the sort of mischief Mrs Hughes would most certainly not approve of, but now Phyllis has emerged from the shadow of her fictional alter ego, she is keen to push boundaries. Last summer she resolved to challenge herself by taking on a theatre role in a dazzling touring production of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, alongside Samuel West. ‘The prospect of going back on stage was a bit frightening, but that is exactly why I embraced it,’ she says. ‘I can be a bit of a scaredy-cat so I have to push myself and I was so very glad I did. It took me right back to my early days as an actress: booking my own digs, sitting on the seafront on my day off eating fish and chips. I also got to see fascinating places such as Canterbury, Cambridge and Brighton.’ Seeing the world – be it near or far – is something she gently urges all women to do once the kids have left. ‘Travel does broaden the mind and fill the senses,’ she says. ‘It gives you a new perspective and there are so many beautiful regions in Britain that I can think of no better way to spend time than exploring them because you’re a long time dead – so carpe diem, ladies!’ The Good Karma Hospital will be on ITV next month. Phyllis is an ambassador for Dementia UK and is supporting its campaign timeforacuppa.org Styling: Natalie Read. Hair: Alex Price at Frank Agency. Make-up: Lucy Gibson at Frank Agency using Clinique. Table and vase, both Habitat Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-4128572/Interview-Downton-star-Phyllis-Logan.html#ixzz4WSbvI2CF Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[simonestudyabroad]

2/20/2017 Greetings from sunny Western Australia 🇦🇺 We have settled into our apartment in Perth, Australia. The first few days were very hectic. We explored the nearest shopping center for necessities and found a strange Kmart. It had a very limited selection, but we were able to find the basics. Everything is pretty expensive down here; Maybelline mascara is $22. After finding as much as we could at the Kmart, we went next door to Coles, the local supermarket. The selection here was very limited as well. The supermarket I frequented when I was in Swaziland had more of a selection than the supermarkets here. We bought enough food to last us the week and we returned back to our room to make it livable. Our apartment is in the center of the south village of Murdoch University. It has a kitchen and a common area and then a hallway that has 5 rooms. Isabel and I are in the only double and at the end of the hall. Currently, two of our flat mates have moved in. One is from Singapore, Sarah, and the other is from Japan, Kana. Both girls are very kind and they will be excellent flat mates. We are assuming the other two flat mates are locals because they didn't attend the international orientation. Our second day was orientation. It was long, hectic, and filled with many ice breakers. We met other Americans and chatted with them through lunch. After orientation, we went to this room called the "Treasure Chest" that was filled with items left over from other international students. We were able to buy kitchen supplies for virtually nothing. We ate and soon collapsed, exhausted from the day. On our third day we slept in. For awhile. We haven't been able to do that since we left the states. After slowly waking up, we went and got our student IDs and smartrider cards. These cards would get us on and off the public transit Perth provides. Once we got the cards, we found the bus stop behind our village and took it to Target. The Target was nothing like the one we have at home. It was mostly clothes with a few home office supplies. There were a few necessities left we had hoped Target would have, but no such luck. We were mostly on the hunt for a tape measure because we needed to dispute the claims that our bags we had shipped exceeded the sizes we had previously told the company. They wanted us to send us pictures of the bags with a tape measure next to them, or else we would be charged upwards of $200. We hopped back on the bus and took it to Kmart. Luckily, the Kmart had a tape measure. The company didn't charge us after being sent pictures of the bags. We ate dinner with our flat mates and hung out with them before turning in. On our fourth day, we finally were able to see the white sand beaches that Western Australia brags about. We went to Cottesloe Beach, a popular beach for locals and tourists alike. We first walked away from the crowds and tried to swim but realized the reason no one was swimming where we were. The ocean floor was filled with sharp rocks, one which I cut my foot on, and we were afraid that we were stepping on coral. We joined the crowd of people on the other side of the beach and walked on the smooth sand into the water. It was a hot day and the water felt refreshing. The water was warmer than East Coast water but not incredibly warm. The waves were big at times and Isabel and I enjoyed swimming in them. We spent the day going in and out of the water until we felt we had had enough sun. We found some food and found the train back. At the train station, we took the wrong bus back and got lost. We got off at a random stop and decided to call an Uber to take us back. We will get better at the public transit. Hopefully. The next day was unbearably hot and both of us were a bit lazy. We decided to do a bit more grocery shopping and deal with our phones. We needed to get Australian numbers. We took the bus back to the strange Target and next to it was a grocery store called Woolsworth. It had more of a selection than Coles, but still not much. We bought ice cream and SIM cards. The Ben and Jerry's ice cream cost $12 and we couldn't believe it. We returned home to eat a lot of ice cream and converse with our flat mates. Our sixth day, today, we took the train into Perth. We originally had wanted to go to the beach but it had cooled off considerably and wasn't a great beach day. We took the train in and finally got to see the skyline of Perth. We decided to go to King's Park, a place filled with memorials and botanical gardens that featured a nice view of Perth's skyscrapers. As we made our way to the park, we passed through a smaller park, and passed waterfalls and a playground. We were surprised to see the amount of greenery that Perth and Murdoch have. We were expecting a desert, and while it is hot, it certainly isn't filled with cacti and rocks. We, of course, played on the swings and went down the enormous slide. We then continued onto the park and found many people laying on the grass that overlooked the bay and the skyline. We relaxed here for awhile until we started to get hungry and made our way back to the train. We got on the right bus this time and were soon back in the kitchen, making pasta.

[stuwilson]

You are more than the newspapers you read.

When I was growing up in 80’s Bradford me and my sister went to my gran’s house for our school dinners as my mum had gone back to work at Bradford Royal Infirmary. My gran was wonderful. She made the best dinners, looked after us but most of all on a Monday lunch she let me read the News of The World colour Sunday supplement (magazine) she had kept from the day before. She loved gossip my gran. She watched Coronation Street and smoked between 20 and 40 Benson & Hedges fags a day, depending on stress or boredom I suppose. Her second husband died years ago when I was a nipper, so being on her own in that house off Moore Avenue all the time was no doubt tough at times. She regularly had a bottle of Bell’s whiskey in her drinks cabinet next to the telly. I loved the News of The World colour magazine back then partly because all newspapers were black and white so a flash of colour felt like 3D technology, not to mention the salacious photos of Madonna or images of Michael Jackson in an oxygen chamber asleep. Those reporters with their long lensed cameras were like flies on the walls of celebrity and I loved that. Opening the magazine each week was like christmas morning. My window into a more exciting world and a cerebral point of view on the glamorous aspects of life on planet earth. Hollywood!

‘They’ accessed and stimulated a part of my brain and once it was switched on I was hooked. Hooked on the stories and hooked on the brand of NOTW and that of course, as time passed, led me to the sister paper The Sun. By the time I left school in 1988 and was put on a YTS scheme in Windermere, I was buying The Sun everyday. I felt like a man, holding that paper under my arm, earning my £27.50 a week as a working class northerner. At weekends I would buy it before I went to meet up for football matches with the local village team in Milnthorpe and pass it around the team bus or car for away games. The Sun I loved was the adult comic that entertained me like a court jester. I was a clown back then and The Sun taught me that doing stupid things were funny and that laughing at celebrities or individuals who had made mistakes, like Abbey Titmuss or a member of the general public caught having sex with a donkey, were deemed ’newsworthy’ and put on the front page to attract a sale that day. Peak interest over hard news. By the time I was 19 years old I was a pretty despicable individual who had no, or little respect for women and basically felt the world was there to serve me, and that nationalism was the way to go. Germany lost the war and Britain (England) was ‘GREAT’ for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with me or my tiny life or my tiny consumption of a particular strand of popular media.

By 1997 I’d been a regular reader of The Sun and The News of The World for around 15 years and by then I was clearly aware of what ‘they’ (Murdoch & the Paparazzi) were doing but I was addicted to it, like my gran was in the eighties. By the noughties, mobile phone technology was easily ‘hacked’ and the stories garnered every Sunday got so salacious and were so close to the bone, it was like they were bugging every famous person on the planet. As a reader I remember thinking to myself one morning after buying my copy from a paper shop, “Jesus Christ, all these celebrities and footballers are having the life of riley! I love hearing about their misbehaviour and I love hearing about their downfalls once it’s all been made public. They deserve it. It’s part of being famous this. It comes with the turf so if you’re gonna be rich then you’d better behave yourself.” That was my silly little moral compass from my tiny little vantage point. By now (in 2004) I had been reading another type of newspaper for around 7 years. It was The Observer. And I started reading that paper because I happened to be featured in it myself in 1997 after I graduated from University: http://www.apinchofsalt.co.uk/observer.html

Sort of by accident I read subjects like Oliver James the child psychologist and in the colour magazine ‘This Much I Know’ as a format of journalism helped me not only see celebrities and sportspeople as humans, but also they were actively sharing their wisdom of life with me so I gained wisdom and a healthier perspective on the world, rather than just the News of The World’s world view.

By 2007 when the iPhone came out I stopped buying newspaper’s altogether, reading on-screen and since then I have followed wider mainstream media news outlets from Washington Post, New York Times, The Independent and Huffington Post. I still keep an eye on The Mirror, The Sun, The Mail and The Express but only because everyone I follow from the UK on Facebook shares their own version of propaganda or others revile the manipulative nature of the owners of each newspaper when their agenda becomes clear. To some this lifting of the veil is frightening and they won’t do it. Like I say, I was brainwashed and obedient to The Sun and The News of The World for 15 years and it negatively affected my behaviour towards women and to my world view that Britain and the British Empire are ‘Great’ when there are clear alternative perspectives on that which are contrary, as time passes and awareness of the propaganda thaws out in an individual, such as me.

Try not to be an Ostrich. The strong passionate views that we all have about the world are not only based upon what our grans or granddads pass down to us or our fathers or mothers pass down to us, these views are implanted in our psyches by the media. And the media is owned by individuals such as Rupert Murdoch. We shouldn’t believe everything we read. Ask yourself, why do you read the paper you read? What if an individual media owner such as Murdoch wants his readership to do him a favour? Is that possible in your mind? Could it be that you are being coerced to have particular beliefs through a lifetime’s consumption of a particular brand of newspaper? Who’s telling the truth? Could your whole world view be someone else’s? Planted in your brain over years and years of propaganda? Ask yourself. Deep down.