01 FEB 2019 . . . the correct Oscar percentage for female directors . . . knife crime in the Big Apple . . . new hope for forced marriage . . . the ludicrously secretive Winston Churchill . . . what Putin’s judo means for us . . .
Feb 2019
A NEW YEAR LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Our leading article about a little known facet of Putin’s judo career is, untypically, full of real facts and follows an earlier story under the same This One Is For Real banner in January about criminals joining the Prison Service to smuggle drugs. The prison authorities indicated they had only just discovered this but the organised crime thriller High Harm have shown they have known about it for years.
The rest of our content is typically on a more serious note including the revelation that newspapers and TV stations are stockpiling Brexit panic stories in the event of shortages arising from a No Deal Scenario.
Finally let me say we place the safety of our readers at the very centre of our concerns at all times.
The Editor
PROMOTION
Feb 2019SYNTAX, JOHN HUMPHRYS, r4 TODAY The great Humphrys ‘Historic Present’ Challenge
‘Jonty Humph’ – ready for action
Hurry now for your chance to win thousands of Chair Miles in our John Humphrys Challenge Prize Competition. The long unexpected announcement that John Humphrys will quit before the end of the year has finally been made. The Second Post is increased its prize offer to 5,000 Chair Miles to anyone who while being interviewed by the veteran presenter manages to include more than three uses of the historic present. Have a go. It drives him absolutely bananas!
NEWS
Feb 2019honours, phillip Green, footballThe House of Lords’s powerful all-party 1982 Committee are pressuring the Government to initiate proceedings to transfer Phillip Green’s knighthood to the late Gordon Banks. ‘The fact that Gordon is no longer with us is neither here nor there,’ said Committee Chairman, Lord Brentwistle of Hullside. ‘ It’s an outrage he’s been ignored and this will put great injustice to rights’.
HAVE YOUR SAY10 Jan 2018films, hollywood, diversity, oscarsWhat percentage of films on any acceptable Oscars nomination list should be directed by women?
29 per cent
or
6 per cent
or
84 per cent
JOIN THE DEBATE!
FEATURESFeb 2019Tags, automatically uppercaseWas this the UK’s first gay forced marriage? Bob Cowley looks at the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death last month of a Luton man of Pakistani heritage and discovers a shocking truth.
NEWS
IN THIS MONTH’S MAGAZINE
‘I NEVER TAKE YES FOR AN ANSWER’
Veteran US interviewer Kenneth Elmberg talks about his craft to Billie da Souza
COMPULSIVE CHARM DISORDER
Oliver Keystone meets Giles Brandreth and reflects on a very
contemporary condition
THE ILL TEMPERED CLAVICLE
Dr Ahmed Khan on a new treatment
for chronic shoulder pain
RACE REASSIGNMENT
Ty Blaine asks how bad is this fad?
SHAKESPEARE’S CELEBRATED
SCREWBALL TRAGEDY
Milton Hardwick on the enduring allure
of Tittus Andronicus
ALL IN THE LATEST MAGAZINE
FREE with THE SECOND POST
NEWS IN PICTURES
Feb 2019SOCIETY, KNIFE CRIME
Young New Yorkers from the West side of the city attend a ‘Knife Awareness’ evening class in their local community.
THIS ONE iS FOR REAL
Feb 2019
PUTIN, JUDO, FOREIGN POLICY RUSSIA
Vladimir Putin and judo – the little known truth
Commentators cite judo’s guiding principle as a possible influence on the Russian President’s tactics. MARK LAW argues that they have got it wrong 
newsFeb 2019BBC TODAY PROGRAMME, NICK ROBINSON, WINSTON CHURCHILL
‘So where exactly will the
D-Day landings take place, Prime Minister?’
Nick Robinson – repeatedly rebuffed by a secretive Churchill
An historic recording of BBC reporter Nick Robinson interviewing Winston Churchill for the Today programme in 1944 has just been discovered languishing in Corporation’s archive. In the course of the bad-tempered encounter, Robinson suddenly asks, ‘So where exactly will the D-Day landings take place, Prime Minister?’
Churchill appears to be reluctant to answer and, clearly irritated, mumbles, ‘We are considering a number of options . . .’
‘Considering! Options!’ barks Robinson. ‘You’ve been trying to wage this war for five years and now you are telling us we are no further forward. You must have some idea where you’re going to strike?’
Churchill, who was notoriously secretive about his plans for the conduct of the war, continues under further questioning to be shifty and evasive, refusing to take the Robinson into his confidence. In his final salvo the plucky but exasperated Robinson asks. ‘So if you wont tell us the location of the D-Day landings will you at least condescend to tell us the date?’
QUOTE OF THE DAYFeb 2019IRELAND, POLITICS, BORDER, POLICE CHASE ‘They say there can be no hard border between North but the current one is hard enough to stop a speeding police car dead in its tracks.’
Ian McCulloch, Chairman of the Brandon Committee
LETTERS
Feb 2019textile rights, tortureDear Sir, Your picture and caption on your January article on the Towels Without Torture campaign suggests this abuse is happening only in authoritarian states, but you neglect to mention that this abuse is routinely perpetrated in our own capital.
Maureen Bicknell, Haverstock, Herts
NEWSFeb 2019SOCIETY, WATER COOLERWith parents and children no longer coming together at traditional meal times an East Midlands firm is marketing a Chinese made domestic-scale water cooler ‘to restore family life by enabling families to share face time and enjoy those ‘water cooler moments’
NEWS
Feb 2019SOCIETY, DIGNITASTwo EJOs (Extra- Judicial Outcomes organisations) say they are confident they will be able to trace the identity of an anonymous caller who tipped off social services about a Buckinghamshire couple’s plans to travel to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland.
news
Feb 2019MEDIA, BREXITNewspapers and TV stations are stockpiling Brexit panic stories in the event of shortages arising from a No Deal Scenario ‘We have substantial reserves of food and medicine stories,’ said one news manager who preferred to remain anonymous, ‘so we’re confident we’ll be able to pander to any panic the general public throws at us from that direction, but a sudden demand for scarce items could well present a challenge.’ A massive shipment of This Will Be An Economic Disaster For The Country arrived yesterday morning and is now being distributed on a just-in-time basis to politicians up and down the country but analysts point out that this is barely three days supply. Meanwhile high value items such as Where Have All Our Plumbers Gone? are now being freighted in by air as a safety precaution and suppliers are struggling to cope with an overwhelming demand for Meanwhile The Clock Is Ticking. Some media outlets are warning that any serious interruption to the supply of panic stories could prevent them running We Could Face Civil Unrest or even Royal Family Could Be Forced To Eat Members Of The Palace Staff.
BLOGROLL
Ohnowhatnow.co.uk
Dontgetmestarted.com
Thehandcart.com
Noproblem.net
Anddoyouknowwhat.com
HIGH COOKING
14 Feb 2019
COOKERY, OFFAL, HEARTS
St Valentines Stuffed Hearts
Stuff two lambs hearts with bread pistachio onion and dried apricot or orange and bake in a little red wine in small casserole pot.
Serve with Charmaine by Mantovani and his orchestra (My dear Gerry reckons the 1958 recording to be the superior!)
(Taken from Jacaranda Finch’s High Cooking, the No-nonsense Book of Haute Cuisine Ravelin Books £7.99)
NEXT WEEK: Crow Tail Pie
LETTERS
Jan 2019MENTAL HEALTH, HOME DECORATING DISORDERDear Madam or Sir,
Lulu Shayler’s article on Home Decorating Disorder in your December issue (see below) was valuable as far as it went but we need to educate people to appreciate exactly what these ‘perfect homes’ have been through before they are allowed to appear before the cameras. Unsightly blemishes are concealed by subtle lighting and digital manipulation, their proportions are enhanced by wide-angle lenses, and they are often deprived of essential furniture and possessions. I can even show you cases of HDD resulting in serious self-harming with some people getting rid of essential possessions just to achieve the minimalist ‘look’. The industry needs to take action now.
Maureen Greenock, Hertford.
features
Feb 2019UNITED STATES, MEDIA, DEATH PENALTY
Wayne Kirst’s widow, Kathleen
In the Summer of 1981 Wayne Kirst, a junior reporter on the Dewsberg Recorder volunteered to experience the last days of a prisoner as he faces the death penalty. In a horrendous administrative error that shocked the nation, 24-year-old Kirst actually met his death in the electric chair at Chicksaw Valley Termination Facility. All next week in The Second Post we serialise A Most Regrettable Error, Clifton Woziaks’ gripping account of one of the astonishing cases in modern penal history.
WHAT THEY SAY
ABOUT US
‘The Second Post records the verbal imagery of our media’s discourse, our national conversation.’
Helen Cordey ACADEMY MAGAZINE
‘It calls itself a work of art. Pretentious? Maybe, but also accurate. Using techniques of mixed media it sketches pictures of our world today in soft pencil, graphic charcoal and perceptive oil. These are cartoons in the purest sense, sketches for a greater work, but one which is perhaps never yet to come.
Algernon de la Croix in PUBLIC ARTSCAPE
‘The Second Post is tapas, canapés – no, it is amuse gueule!’
Carmen Spinoza on INSIGHT RADIO
OPINIONFeb 2019MEDIA, PRESS, BREXIT‘At a time of crisis like this we need a media of national unity’ according to Prof Ted Peasely. ‘It is quite unacceptable for the journalists and experts who constitute the commentariat to be so hopelessly divided. Now is the moment for them all to reach out to each other in the national interest. It is not enough for them just to agree that the clock is ticking.
Read the Professor’s perceptive analysis in full in The Second Post TOMORROW.
FROM THIS TIME LAST YEAR Feb 2018RECIPES, BREAKFASTARBROATH PORRIDGE
When Gerald and I stay with our dear chum, Hamish, Duke of Arbroath, his wonderful cook Mary – an absolute poppet – always serves us this treat for breakfast in the winter months. You need it. Dounrary is one very cold castle!
To your hot porridge add a little milk, quite a lot of cream, some walnuts or pecans, yellow raisins, Muscovado sugar, maple syrup and a generous splash of whisky, brandy or rum. Yum! Serve in elegantly hearty bowls accompanied by An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise by Peter Maxwell Davies. Gerald, Bless him, prefers Hieland Laddie from Kenneth McKellar .
(Taken from Jacaranda Finch’s High Cooking, the No-nonsense Book of Haute Cuisine Ravelin Books £7.99)
NEXT WEEK: Soupe en croute
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as used in the region's fabled eateries. (Subject to availability).
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