Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

100 reasons why the Express isn’t the world’s greatest newspaper

In the spirit of the Express front page today

and the ill-advised decision from the self-proclaimed 'World's Greatest Newspaper' to back a list of 100 fairly flimsy (and often repetitive) reasons why climate change is not man-made (and often not even reasons at all, just saying "Wurrrgh, someone told me so, and by the way, wind farms don't work, so there!"), I've decided to produce a list of 100 reasons why the Express isn't, in fact, the world's greatest newspaper. For a bit of a laugh, I've backed up some of my claims using evidence, rather than 'because I said so'.

1. Batshit insanity in the comments section including the demand to kill everyone who agrees with man-made climate change.
2. Diana obsession, on front page all the time, occasionally with photo of her wearing a seatbelt, which would ironically have saved her life even without the intervention of the evil Fiat Uno assassins, or whoever it was who was supposed to have killed her this week.
3. Speaking of Susan Boyle being bullied, despite having accused her of having 'cracked up' and printed unflattering photos.
4. Scientists have actually proved that newspapers incorporating a man in a suit of armour on the front page are less good than all others, in fact, although there's a conspiracy to tell you otherwise.
5. Employing Richard & Judy as columnists. They are not as good as other columnists, specifically all other columnists.
6. It's like the Mail, but worse. It's as if someone had seen the Mail and thought: "That looks quite entertaining, but can we possibly make it less good, more racist and more comically awful to look at? Let's really go for it!" - er, according to some scientists somewhere.
7. Running a front page about mushrooms.
8. And breakfast cereals.
9. Employing Leo McKinstry, as if he's any good at writing or something.
10. The news, sport and all other sections.
11. Wind farms are rubbish anyway! So there. OK so it's not strictly relevant to this discussion, but neither are 14 and 51 in the Express's own '100 reasons'.
12. Banging on about the 'immigrant baby boom' as if people who were born abroad should be sterilised as soon as they cross the border, or something (on the way to getting their free house, car, speedboat and taxpayer-funded palace, obviously)
13. Basing an entire front page about 'transgender police want YOUR cash' from a Richard Littlejohn column
14. Saying that 'Muslims demand full sharia law' implying that all Muslims were doing the 'demanding' and not just a tiny minority of extremists.
15. Then just doing the same story again.
16. Juxtaposing a picture of a Muslim who doesn't want to 'kill us' with a headline saying £113,000 FOR FANATICS WHO WANT TO KILL US
17. Saying 350 PEOPLE WILL DIE EVERY DAY from swine flu, when it didn't quite turn out that way.
18. The Paul Thomas cartoon. What the hell is all that about? Why do people always seem to be vibrating? I believe there are better cartoons in national newspapers.
19. Saying, wrongly, that the HPV jab is AS DEADLY AS THE CANCER.
20. Saying that BRITAIN IS FULL UP, KEEP OUT - almost exactly the same as a BNP slogan
21. and then doing it again on the international edition.
22. The miserably bad story about Dunblane survivors
23. which led to them getting a stingy smack across the back of the legs from the PCC
24. and even left them saying sorry
25. but which has now been swept under the carpet, as if that was enough.
26. Saying that 'MUSLIM SCHOOLS BAN OUR CULTURE'
27. Doing a front page about bread and butter using a picture of a plate of toast to illustrate it, just in case you weren't sure about what bread or butter were.
28. No, I'm not kidding. Have a look for yourself.

29. Yes, they put in a photo of a plate of toast.
30. In case you didn't know what toast looked like.
31. Phew! I mean, thank goodness for that. I might not have known how to think in terms of bread and butter unless someone gave me a handy illustration of what it looked like.
32. So now we're all clear about what bread and butter is, yes?
33. And toast.
34. Although obviously you'd be better off with breakfast cereals and mushrooms, but not eggs. And maybe tomatoes. Just to make all that clear.
35. This:

36. Not some. Not half. Not a quarter. Not even 'most'. No. ALL.
37. Not just ALL. But ALL in BIG RED LETTERS so you're left in no doubt as to the completeness of the allness of it all.
38. ALL.
39. Which is odd really, because I had a new job at around that time, and yet I don't think I'm a migrant. But according to them, I must be. Oh well, you learn something new every day, don't you?
40. Oh hang on, eggs are good for you now. Or were they bad for you? I can't work it all out. It's too complicated!
41. Saying that 'Swearing is the blight of Britain'. The fucking twats.
42. Saying that Gordon Brown and a 'secret squad' were preparing Britain's entry to the euro, back in, let me see, December 2008. Oh. Maybe they haven't quite got around to it yet, then. Or was it entirely due to the pressure of the World's Greatest Newspaper that we're not paying 0.4 euros for it?
43. Setting up discussion questions which are just the teensy-weensiest bit skewed towards a particular outcome.
44. Implying that 1940s black marketeers selling chocolate and nylons were responsible for smashing the British economy.
45. That it is no good at writing articles about things.
46. Windfarms, though, who wants them? Someone somewhere once told me there was something bad about them.
47. Of course in these PC times the climate Nazis are forcing us all to put our rubbish into separate bags, whereas in fact we can relax, knowing that nothing we ever do will ever affect the planet in any way whatsoever.
48. Someone once said: "The Express isn't very good."
49. It is far from understood how the Express still exists as a newspaper.
50. It is a myth that the Express is good. In fact it is bad.
51. The Express claims it is the 'World's Greatest Newspaper' but I have it on good authority that it isn't.
52. It's actually a good thing that the Express is bad.
53. In the old days, the Express was bad, and everyone was happy. Look at medieval times - no Express to speak of, and yet people were blissfully deliriously happy, drinking wine and walking round in bermuda shorts all day with surfboards and sunglasses. And they didn't complain!
54. The 'Express-gate' scandal says that the Express isn't as good as it claims to be, so therefore it isn't.
55. Back to wind farms for a minute, because they're at the heart of this argument. Wind farms aren't very good, and could indeed be considered not as good as other things. This means that the Express, journalistically, hasn't reached the heights of previous years, and no mistake.
56. CHEESE, EGGS AND MINCE SOAR, TOO
57. AND THEY GO TO THE FRONT OF THE HOUSING QUEUE
58. Concocting 'fury' over a plan to teach some aspects of the Koran in OUR schools.
59. It would simply be too expensive to make the Express any good in the fucking slightest.
60. And it's not in our national interests.
61. Employing Neil Hamilton.
62. A proper analysis of ice-core records for the past 10,000 years indicates long periods of happiness, joy and delight for human beings which coincided with there being no Daily Express newspaper in existence.
63. I find the TV guide limited and slightly disappointing.
64. Hang on! Tea and coffee are going to stop you from being diabetic now!
65. And coffee could help you with prostate cancer, according to someone, somewhere.
66. I'd go for coffee then, wouldn't you?
67. Unless you're not worried about prostate cancer, in which case go for the tea.
68. Or maybe have a couple of cups of tea a day and the rest coffee. Why not? Push the boat out. It'll be fun. Mix things up a bit.
69. I don't want to labour the point, but wind power? Who thinks that's a good idea? Not me.
70. Australia has voted against having a Daily Express in Australia, thereby negating all arguments in favour of it being a good newspaper.
71. It is a myth that racism is a pollutant, as it forms quite a lot of discussion around the world.
72. Some claim that racism 'pollutes' our workplaces and societies, but it has been shown to be beneficial, and actually a good thing, providing a 'buffer' between racists and everyone else.
73. Higher levels of racism and suspicion towards immigrants and Muslims could actually make the world a better place, somehow, probably, in a sense, or something.
74. Those polar bears? Shithouses. Eat their own children and that. Who wants to save them?
75. The amazing thing is that the Express - the Daily Express - are having a go at people for slightly changing statistics and trying to represent their own agenda. I mean, it's the brio of it that you have to admire. The sheer nerve of it.
76. Studies have shown that people who have never read the Express are much happier, less racist and less capable of writing GOOD RIDDANCE JOCK MCBOTTLER as a nervous reaction when typing anything on a keyboard.
77. Someone once read the Express and died shortly afterwards. Which is just about almost certainly the same as saying that the Express causes death in people. In fact, let's just say it.
78. The Express is owned by the charming Richard Desmond, who has no qualms about printing pictures of soon-to-be-dead people.
79. And the Daily Star as well. Which I kind of like to think of as a pre-school Express, for people who hate immigrants but haven't got a purple rinse yet.
80. This:

81. I don't know about you, but I've got a lawn, and it hasn't been banned yet. Maybe the lawn-banning brigade are about to leap through my garden gate like Richard Burton in Where Eagles Dare and machine-gun my lawn as I type this? I hope not.
82. Though if they accidentally shot my next-door neighbour's dog, I wouldn't be complaining.
83. But that's beside the point.
84. Have I mentioned wind farms?
85. I think I did somewhere, but I don't know if I made the point three times. It seems like that's the best way to make a point. If you've got a list of a hundred, it's worth saying the same thing three times, just to be sure that people are going to see it in there.
86. It's certainly not a way of padding out a list, in any way, shape or form. I'd like to make that absolutely clear.
87. And anyone who says that I am will be severely dealt with, somehow, though I'm not sure exactly how or why at the moment.
88. To be frank with you, since I started looking back through the archive and seeing all those Express stories, I've become a little queasy. I've started hating life a little bit more.
89. It's like all the birds have fallen out of the sky and started dying on the ground, and giant fluorescent evil cats have feasted on their giant entrails, and I've been sitting there watching it, and the cats have been looking at me as if to say: "So what?"
90. Do you know what I mean?
91. The first phase of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which ran from 2005 to 2007 was a failure. Huge over-allocation of permits to pollute led to a collapse in the price of carbon from €33 to just €0.20 per tonne meaning the system did not reduce emissions at all.
92. Sorry, that's actually number 72 from the real "100 reasons" list. And yet it bears as little relationship to the existence or otherwise of man-made global warming as does this blog post.
93. "To be truthful you only need one reason to see that Man made Global Warming is a hoax: hundreds of politicians are advocating it." says Jpfife poster on the 'top 100' list at the Express website. Wise words, Jpfife. Or, on the other hand, a pointless aphorism that adds nothing to our understanding of the issues in the slightest. But you be the judge.
94. The Express actually makes the Mail look good.
95. It makes having your face caved in with a big wooden bat look good in comparison, mind.
96.
Holly? On your logo? Please!
97. Every other newspaper in the entire world is better.
98. On every level.
99. In every way.
100. So there.

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