Friday Five News 3/6/16

                    
How did it get to be June already?  This year is flying by!

The INTERNATIONAL news continues to highlight the troubles in France which have now been compounded by flooding.  It seems several areas in Europe have suffered flooding but it hasn’t been headline news here.  All we seem to be hearing about is the EU referendum.

We’ve had quite a lot of rain here in London this week but fortunately no flooding.

The LOCAL news that caught my eye was this article on the Chilcot Inquiry which states that hard copies of the report will cost £767.  It led me to delve a little bit into what the Chilcot Inquiry is about (the Iraq war) and what generally happens in these cases.

This inquiry has dragged on for a long time but, as the article suggests, if the reason for it is to hold people accountable then it needs to be got right.   

Obviously the report needs to be in the public domain, which it will be.  It is a twelve volume report, over 2.5 million words long.  (To give that some context it’s about equivalent to reading the Harry Potter series of books TWICE and The Lord of the Rings.)

There has been anger at the cost of the report but it seems that the next of kin of all those who died in the conflict will receive a free copy of the Executive Summary and the entire report will be available online.  

Just shows how sometimes you have to look beyond an initial headline.  I’m not sure there is justification for providing all the families with a free hard copy of the full report given that they are getting the summary free and it’s available online. 

The SPORT headline that stood out for me was the story of how top FIFA officials (Football’s governing body) awarded themselves massive pay rises and bonuses over a 5 year period in the region of £55m.  There is currently an ongoing investigation into corruption and several top names have been banned.  The sooner criminal charges are brought the better if you ask me.  But when you look at the sums of money involved in big sports it’s not surprising there is corruption.  They are still finding fault with drugs tests done at the 2012 Olympics.  It’s high time sport cleaned up its act.

Not ENTERTAINMENT as usually quoted but I’m sure this story about competitive artwork on buildings in New York is keeping local residents entertained.   I’m always envious of creative people as I’m not very creative at all. 

Finally under MISCELLANEOUS  I bring you this clip of Michael Palin at the Hay Festival this week explaining how the great Monty Python show came to be named.  I wasn’t a great fan as I was a bit too young when it first came out but it certainly struck a chord with many people, (I know several who can quote various sketches etc from the shows) and of course the actors involved went on to become household names.

All links are courtesy of the BBC website. Opinions are my own.

Have a great weekend.