Blair, political cartoon showdown and The Times dreadful website

Tony Blair is sectionable. If he was just an ordinary bloke in an ordinary job he would have been told to take some time off. He might have gone to see his doctor and the doctor would probably recommend he go see a friend of his. And then Tony Blair would be sectioned, such is his weak grasp of reality and his messianic vision of himself.

But that aside, it’s very rare to see Steve Bell, political cartoonist on The Guardian beaten to the punch. Yesterday, Sectionable Tony outlined his “Respect” plans, which appears to consist of rehashed ideas with a bit of Tony extra authority and threats. He got himself pictured spraying graffiti off a wall. It was too good an opportunity to miss and both Bell and Times cartoonist Peter Brookes went for it.

Brookes’ is much better and funnier. Bell’s in contrast is rather flat and lacking in real satire or point. Since I am a huge fan of Steve Bell’s I felt I’d take this opportunity to point out he is fallible.

I can supply a link to the Guardian one because The Guardian understands the Internet and has a separate URL for it. The Times however has what must be the most annoying website of any UK newspaper.

I have various articles on The Times website but I can only ever find them – even at the time they are published by following Google News direct links. It must be the most confusing, worst laid out site in the history of news sites. It took me five minutes of determined looking to find The Times cartoon. And it pops up in a separate windows that sits on top of your browser – and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve stripped out the JavaScript and here is a useable link.

The Independent’s website revamp was bad enough – in fact it appears to have been put together by an art student with guidance from an old-school journo, both of whom have almost no understanding of the Internet (it insanely managed to kill *all* previous URLs – utter lunacy for a news website), but The Times still wins for sheer maze-like madness.

I can’t imagine it will last long. Rupert Murdoch’s gaze – much like Sauron’s – is now on the Net and online services. He will only have to search for something on his newspaper’s website and you will find alot of very anxious people suddenly working on improving its design.