The Currant Bun

Well, The Sun surpassed itself this weekend didn't it? From the paper which celebrated the death of 400-odd Argentinean sailors with the word "GOTCHA!" to the "YOU SCUM" headline which sees it still ignored in Liverpool, on Saturday we were greeted with "KILL THE BASTARDS".

Now, I'm not prudish about swearing. I swear all the time, and my feeling is "it's only a word, it doesn't mean anything". But having said that, I'm guilty of gross hypocrisy when dealing with newspapers. I don't think it's right that a paper should splash a swear word across its front page, no matter how bad things are. Imagine, you're taking your toddler son / nephew / cousin out for a walk and they say "Mummy / Uncle, what's a bastard?"

But I think it's the fact that the Sun did this that annoys me the most. The fact is, they've been trying to curry favour with the people of Liverpool all year, to try and "atone" for their mistake over Hillsborough (viz. they want more sales, and can't bear to think that a place exists where their paper isn't stocked). My theory is, Ken Bigley was from Liverpool, and so their "...BASTARDS" headline is basically trying to appropriate and jump on the bandwagon of one family's personal tragedy - they hope that by being jingoistic and gung-ho, people will go "hey, the Sun agrees with us, let's go and buy it".

It's sick opportunism, and I hope everyone has seen through it. The fact that it goes against what Ken Bigley's family have repeatedly tried to do, that is, ensure it doesn't damage Muslim-Christian relations in the UK, obviously doesn't matter an inch to the sub-editors at the Sun. Basically, they're not making any attempt to differentiate between the different groups in Iraq, and I think, like countless times in the past, the Sun is guilty of inciting racial hatred.

The most depressing thing though, is the fact that I come from somewhere (North-West England), where the Sun is rarely bought, apart from teenagers at school wanting to look at page 3. Yet here, in the South-East, virtually every single person reads it. It's depressing to think that their uninformed, biased bilge is being pumped into the brains of several million people.

Not that I'm bitter, but I really hope that some day, the Sun meets a really sticky end.