Monday
Career death via “offensive WhatsApp group” is a modern iteration of a longstanding tradition of public figures being felled by loose talk. Where once it was Jane Austen being busted – albeit posthumously – for making bitchy remarks in a letter about her neighbour’s miscarriage, now we enjoy the spectacle of two Labour MPs and 11 Labour councillors being suspended for comments made in the WhatsApp group Trigger Me Timbers.
That’s right, Trigger Me Timbers. The clue, as they say, is in the title, making the shock-horror of some of the group’s non-contributing members an amusing case of: what exactly did you think you were joining? Some choice remarks made by suspended members include, “the public are arseholes. I know, I’ve met them”, references to a constituent as a “grade-A wanker”, and speculation about the possibility that a non-Labour voting pensioner might “croak” before the election.
It’s definitely awkward, although still several leagues less fraught than the A-list version of this phenomenon – the Sony email hack of 2014 – in which Amy Pascal, the then head of the studio, was revealed to have called Leonardo DiCaprio “despicable”, the producer Scott Rudin called Angelina Jolie “a minimally talented spoiled brat”, and, more deliciously, “a camp event”, and the writer Aaron Sorkin furthered the opinion that no one had ever heard of Michael Fassbender (wishful thinking).
Anyway back to the spicy Labour WhatsApp group, which is thought to have contained about 44 people, many of whom have scrambled to condemn the unearthed remarks as “completely unacceptable”. Those feeling unfairly maligned because they lurked without posting should, clearly, henceforth limit themselves to groups called things like Pothole Subcommittee and We Love Local Gov.
Tuesday
Another updated version of an old classic: mislaying your bitcoin fortune as the new lost lottery ticket, except much worse because bitcoin numbers are so improbably huge. (Also: there is no central bitcoin authority to appeal to.) This week, a man in Wales whose girlfriend mistakenly threw away his computer in 2013 has been trying to win access to Newport landfill to recover the hard drive and what’s on it: the only copy of a 51-character passcode to a digital wallet containing bitcoin now worth £598m. Bummer!
Newport council, rather stingily, turned down his initial request to go dumpster-diving in the tip’s 1.4m tonnes of waste, holding firm even when Howells offered to split the value of the bitcoin with them. This week a high court judge sided with the council, leaving Howells with one final move. As the council announced the closure of the landfill, Howells proposed buying the entire site after talking to “investment partners” willing to go in with him. I guess they’ve run the numbers and are betting that data recovery from a hard drive – even one that has marinated in bin juice for more than a decade – has higher odds of working out than buying a lottery ticket.
Wednesday
The odds of a new stage musical taking off, meanwhile, are at least as small as finding a needle in a landfill site. The improbable success of the West End musical Operation Mincemeat was cemented last week when it transferred with the original cast to Broadway, but I turned up at the theatre with low expectations. The already well-told story of the British wartime intelligence wheeze that got one over the Germans all sounded a bit ‘Allo ‘Allo! to me.
Anyway, I was totally wrong. I loved it so much I’ve been listening to the track Dear Bill on a loop ever since, have gone down a wormhole on the gestation of the show and its obsessive fans known as “Mincefluencers” – musical theatre people are like dogs with a bone (remember Rent) when they decide to commit – and wondered about the secret ingredient that sent this show over the top. Most new West End musicals are spinoffs of 25-year-old movies that sound as if they’ve been written by AI or, worse, Elton John (I love Elton but he shouldn’t be allowed to write musicals). This show is funny and silly and sharply put together but the key ingredient is the one thing you can’t fake: real heart.
Thursday
You can’t, as they say, get the staff these days, a truism as deeply felt by the Sicilian mafia as any other organisation with HR problems. Transcripts from wiretaps placed by the Sicilian police this week revealed that what remains of the Cosa Nostra consists of a bunch of guys sitting around bemoaning the state of job applicants pursuing a life of organised crime. “The caliber these days is low, a miserable level,” said mob boss Giancarlo Romano, who was one of 150 alleged mafia members rounded up in dawn raids.
“If you watch The Godfather,” he went on, “the connections he had … he was very influential because of the power that he built at a political level.” Like hacks dreaming of the hey-day of All the President’s Men, Romano despaired, “but us – what can we do? We’re on our knees, guys.” He advised young people to look elsewhere for a career, perhaps in medicine or the law among “the people who run Italy, Europe”. Sounds like he needs a good therapist.
Friday
I’m clinging to my 40s by the merest 10 months, but perhaps there’s no need to worry. A new study from University College London reassures me that over-50s in England enjoy greater life satisfaction than they did five years ago and are broadly happier than before the pandemic. Is it happiness? Or is it a state of low-fret living brought on by general exhaustion? Either way, I’ll take it.
