Monday 17 December 2012

Fuel Rage

Why is it that the rest of the human race are such simpletons?

ASDA petrol station near me has its entrance placed in such a way that if muppets make a queue above a certain length, then the whole entrance to the retail park is blocked AND this blockage then spreads miles across town.

So, strolling past today, there was a queue of f-ing simpletons all lined up indicating to go into the petrol station and blocking the place solid again.

Why the f**k don't they just think..."You know what, since I'm not an inconsiderate C word, I think I'll come back another time rather than sit here with the arse of my car blocking the entrance to the retail park this close to Christmas."

These same f-ing simpletons then lazily fill their cars with zero sense of urgency, and/or fight with the card payment machine...And go and get somebody out of the superstore to fill the receipt machine because they can't read the f-ing instructions that say you can insert your card into another machine at a later date to get the receipt you so desperately need in order to claim your VAT back from the British taxpayer.

I watched them today...Oh yes I watched them...and I plotted to hang them with rope darts Assassins Creed 3 style. But seriously, having observed the simple lack of ability that people have regards thinking about the wider consequences of their actions...I wish for a great cleansing. A cull of the stupid, a slaughter of the blinkered and a mass burial of the great fuckwittery that infests my nation.

Saturday 15 December 2012

Another School Shooting


This. Time for much grief tourism me-thinks. Look at me, I've commented on tragedy, that makes me important...Can I have some views/likes please? Fucking idiots.

Tuesday 11 December 2012

Migration

So, the number of foreign-born residents in England and Wales has risen by nearly three million since 2001 to 7.5 million people, the 2011 census shows. As usual the left are busy saying "Daily Mail," over and over again, as though this is enough to stifle debate over how people are feeling regards this issue that began on Neue Arbeit's watch. The right are being mocked and told not to discuss it as always because a casual use of the 'racist' card = people rightly pissed off and wronged. Does make me laugh as to how some of the most racist and conservative people I know, are habitual Labour voters...Clinging to some bygone ideal that the Labour party are the party of the common man.

Most people find it hard to debate somebody once they've thrown the racist card onto the table. Partly because you want to knock the smug and wrong little shits teeth down their throat, but also because no matter how much logic and reason you use, the card players think they're Jesus and/or their shit doesn't stink.

As a former teacher, I used to love playing with people's opinions with regards these difficult questions. Phrase a question as something multi-culti and friendly e.g. "Should we welcome people from other countries here, to settle and escape hardship...Share the wealth Amen." and all the nicely Labour educated kids would nod and agree and pat each other on the back about how welcoming and understanding they are. Then I would play with it and ask "Should we build houses, power stations, sewerage works, motorways, high-speed rail?" and there would be a chorus of disapproval. So, how are we going to accommodate the needs of all these people we welcome to the country then...If we don't build anything? You could see all their faces drop...Does not compute.

I love to throw this into debates with token lefties the far gone ones and not the general nice people, who are educated liberal, but the twats...How many people who are in favour of mass immigration have opposed new housing developments in their area either on brownfield or green-belt land? In my experience there is a broad link between such immigration advocates and 'Nimbys'. They turn purple and try to play the race card, my answer being "put that shit back in the deck and address the wider issue...Our country is a rather full tiny little island...Judging by the amount of traffic on the roads, the amount of energy we use and the amount of turds we flush, we are near full-to-burst. It's not about race, colour, creed or gender; it's about space and looking after those we have already! Do you agree?"

Usually I have them marching off in anger to find somebody who agrees with them...Somebody who likes to live in their happy little box of multi-culti love, and yet who tends to live in the burbs and sends their children to an all white British school.

Sunday 9 December 2012

RIP Patrick Moore

Saddened to hear of the death of Patrick Moore. It'll probably surprise nobody that I like dishevelled opinionated amateur clever people. Watched Sky at Night for years with my dad, still watch it today, but have noticed him take less and less of an active role for the last 5 years or so...That's sadly what age does to you. We'll all get there some day, if we live well...Old and failing.

There's something humbling about pondering the vastness of the universe and I'll miss Patrick there as part of my continuing education re: the cosmos.

Can always remember the Beagle 2 Christmas fiasco when light entertainers were attempting to make Beagle into some kind of family event, and Clive Anderson ended up pissing Patrick off with his childish babbling. Science is science, there are shows to make it accessible out there that don't patronise the experts, and Patrick's show was one of them. Deep but accessible...How long will it last in its current format before they destroy it.

Friday 30 November 2012

Comedy musings

I've sort of turned my comedy into some kind of dark therapy these days.

I just can't seem to make idle observations about life and then spin-them ever so slightly to the left or right in order to make people laugh at the light stuff. I can't do it...Correction, I can do it, but I don't enjoy doing it. Surely comedy is also about the performer themselves having fun within their own carefully defined parameters?

I was discussing Youtube vids in front of a crowd of 15-20 people in a pub in North London, and in particular one clip of a pop video...You know, them pop videos you have today, on the internets and the wifis and the Android markets...it seemed to feature a lot of zooming in and out, I made the throwaway comment 'I thought..."this amount of zooming in and out is specifically reserved only for porn videos." Which, triggered the biggest laugh of my night. A casual remark, sold with enough nonchalance, seems to bring bigger laughs than a carefully thought out twisty turny routine built on callbacks, layers, and idiots answers.

There was another time when my routine about the death of the English language was going down like a maths test last thing on a Friday...So I began to berate the audience's lack of engagement and they loved it. They loved the fact that I lost my rag with them and began to mock them from a position of superiority. However, what sold that one was I began to put on my Yorkshire accent (half my family hail from Yorkshire so I can nail it) and say things like "Is this what you want? A northern man talking about things from the north in the 1980s? Like Dandelion and Burdock? and Swizzels-Matlow from New Mills Derbyshire...Ooo remember Sherbet Dib-dabs, I do. The stick was yellow wasn't it. It tasted like burning lemons. What is Burdock? It sounds like a chip-shop. Chips in newspaper. Burdocks fish n chips on a Friday, thanks mum. 5p a bus ticket. BFH that's your bus-fare home!" Basically I unleashed a mocking tirade of northern observational clang syndrome on them and it seemed to go down well. The barman said he'd not seen anybody get laughs like that in a while and that my 'act' was brilliant.

It was an act, but with 90% of it inspired by control freakery. John Richardson does this brilliantly, he gets angry over the little annoyances in life and weaves it into stories that people can relate to. I have a million and one similar stories that I'd like to turn into routines, but it seems that commercial success in comedy lies with simple observation of a halcyon northern childhood.

So the dark therapy is, simply playing up to this...Getting angry at the crowd for not liking my self indulgent ramblings, and so turning my thoughts into a mockery of the wants and needs of the crowd, that simultaneously refreshes them.

Follow any of this? I didn't.

Saturday 10 November 2012

Skyfall

Watched Skyfall last night...45 minutes of adverts before the film. Forty-fucking-five minutes of people trying to sell me shit. Half the adverts were those pretentious ones that try to sell you an experience instead of a product.

The one that annoyed me the most was for Levi's jeans, because it featured some *cough* inspirational urban poetry about seizing control of life...Because you buy some jeans. Carpe Diem, you're wearing Denim, like 70% of the human race. YOLO so you may as well do it in a hard wearing fabric that has a massive price premium slapped onto it because it is branded. I notice that their Youtube channel has "Go Forth," as it's motto...Well, that is the start of the clean insult we used to use at school when we feared teachers. "Go forth and multiply." So go do it Levi's. You have ticked the A of AIDA with regards me.

But I'll never buy your over-priced pretentious product ever. I am immune to the Veblen Goods effect it seems, I go the other way on principle. BMW, never. AUDI, nope. Rolex, bollex. Cavier tastes like Jizz ("how do you know? etc etc), Champagne is nowhere near as refreshing as Asti Spumante.

Once again I want to yell at you all for not seeing the Emperor is stark bollock naked. I am sick of Planet Earth, and want to see humanity destroyed on the basis of that one crap advert alone. I would link it here but Levi's smugly ask you to subscribe in order to see their latest commercial. Oh...piss off with that, you're not that important, you are chiefly known for making jeans for heaven's sakes.

Oh, and the rest of the shit they were trying to flog was along these lines "buy this watch, it has 007 on it, here's the James Bond music..." or "buy this fragrance it has 007 on the bottle, so it makes you a beefcake secret agent...Oh and here's the music!"

I was so pissed off watching the clock tick round, and there were so many false dawns when I thought we were getting somewhere. The overly loud "this cinema has some loud speakers in it, designed by some cock (THX)," adverts that usually promise the movie is here gave me hope, but no. "There's still time for a coke!" followed by "turn your phone off," followed by more movie trailers for shitty ones about teenagers singing and dancing.

 The film was good...But after paying nearly a tenner for a seat on a Friday night, I don't want 45 minutes of utter shite before starting. At least some arsebeard didn't sit in front of me this time. That would have really gotten my goat.

Saturday 13 October 2012

Jimmy Saville


It is my belief he is guilty as charged...Thing is, what with being dead and all that, there is very little we can do to him. Shall we dig him out of his coffin and put his mouldering corpse on trial ala Cromwell

I know...A touch of Damnatio memoriae is always good. Break out the chisels (already happening).

The staff at his charity will all be out of work soon...Other charities will have to move in to help since, people being f**king idiots, nobody will put into any of his trusts or charities anymore...Thinking that they'll somehow catch the peado' disease etc. Let's forget that the charity is innocent...Ugh, it's Saville...I am tainted by putting money into it.

I accept he was more than likely a dirty bastard but, how many of these girls are sniffing around for money and have thrown themselves on the bandwagon along with the rest? Shit, he leapt out of the TV and touched my no-no parts when I was 6, can I have a new car please to silence the mental anguish I have invented?

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Tin earring

School.

How come it was always the supposed hard-men, the badasses, who wore earrings?

I used to have trouble with this, great trouble...If you know me, you probably know that I tend to view the world slightly differently from what is considered normal. I also tend not to give a toss about falling into role or line as expected hence...I'm not autistic or anything, let's just clear that up now. I just have a healthy grasp of observing things and not bothering to get involved with things that don't interest me. Anyway, I used to have great trouble with the badasses wearing earrings.
They'd decide that it was my turn for a spot of attention, and I'd sort of look at them with a puzzled expression and cut them off halfway through their bluster with something like...

"But you're wearing earrings? My mum wears earrings...As does my gran...my aunties...You're attempting to threaten me whilst cross-dressing? Get stuffed."

Naturally they didn't get it and thought my reasoned observation was a request to have my head kicked in. That one was always phrased as a question.
"Do you want your head kicking in?".........
"Hmmm...let me think about that one...Wait one...Just chewing it over...Tip of my tongue...Phone a friend....No!"

Thing is, if they phrased it as a statement e.g.
"We're going to kick your head in!"
I would still be annoyed by the fact that somebody who walks like they have polio, or a startled cat...And wears a pathetic earring...Could assume they have the right to attack my person.

Since my reaction to their threats was one of casual, mocking, disinterest, I guess that it helped to have an older brother, and it probably also helped that I tended to become a psychopath if pushed when I was younger...Yeah I'm not autistic, but you should see my lampshades, real human skin. That or my logic caused the fuses to blow in their poor excuses for brains, and lead to them being unable to process the information required for them to actually harm me.

Always amused me that every gang of hard-men has their tiny mini badass. The little smug weedy shit, who for some reason the bigger ones look after. Thing is, these bitch-asses are like bait in the trap. You'd be in the supermarket and this little tosser toerag starts getting in your face, so you mock and or push past him...Then the polio kids all surround you and start showing you how wide they can stretch their arms and necks.

David Cameron, hug a hoody, remember that? He was nearly there...If only he'd said "tear the skin from hoodies in the town centre every Saturday morning, and then hurl their still beating hearts into a fire," I might have voted for the prick. As it was, Since no political party has promised this course of action in their manifesto, you and I will continue to have to deal with these tin earring wearing arses for the rest of our lives.

Although, since none of us will have a pension by the time we're in our 80s, I've decided I'll probably stab a thug to death and get free board and lodging off the taxpayer.

Saturday 22 September 2012

Apple Twats

So I see, another product launch from the favourite company of 'more money than sense' consumers has arrived. Needless to say these self same consumers, or Apple Twats as I like to call them, are all foaming at the mouth and queuing at the door of Apple stores.
This sickens me.
Queue for food? yes...queue for water? yes...Queue for a phone?...No!

Why do the media pander to this bullshit? Why take photographs of it? Why get the first people to buy the product to pose with a smug look on their face?
You wanna know what I think? Well you're reading this blog so I assume you do!
I think that this is a self exciting dynamo of media shit...You need somebody who is able to shout loud enough, to go down to the queue and yell "The Emperor is naked!" enough times so that people who have a smattering of knowledge, begin to think about what it is that they are doing, and perhaps choose to do something else more worthwhile with their cash, like buy a Samsung phone that is cheaper and better.

Apple always do this shit. They sell standard PC parts in a big special box, create a batch of hype about their OS and APs being better, and slap an enormous markup onto those self same PC parts. PC parts that if bought independently and assembled by yourself, can be turned into a dual boot Windows/MAC OS system for a few grand less than you paid for it. Hence if you buy a Mac, you have more money than sense. If you choose to use convenience as an argument, then you are thick and should learn how to use computers, it isn't difficult. A Mac will be equally confusing, bloated and unstable after your lack of knowledge has filled it full of shit.


Similar shit marketing is employed by most German manufacturers who rely on the 'German Engineering' tag to dupe the sheeple into falling into line and buying a BMW/AUDI, but we all know that if you choose to drive either of those cars then you're usually a wanker behind the wheel and fit only for rendering into cat meat.

Saturday 15 September 2012

Italia Driving



Lovely hols, lovely time.

A few observations about driving.


  • Signage is a joke, it just peters out in many places, bless the sat-nav. But then again, I say that about any country that isn't the UK...but I grew up in Europe due to father in forces so not too blinkered.
  • Men at work, usually stand around in live lanes, protected only by flags and Mother Mary.
  • The police are cracking down on the poor reputation of Italian driving. Everywhere with speed cameras.
  • Toll roads are nice and quiet except rush hour for obvious reasons.
  • Painting of Jesus and or Mary, are secured in little shrines that overlook blind and dangerous junctions...Yes, because cosmic beings will grant you grace to drive safely over a crossroads without beeping, flashing your lights, looking or even slowing down.
  • The National Trust would have a fit over there, beautiful Tuscan hill town, with a bloody great autostrada wrapped around it...Or the best one was the lovely church tower at Osia Sopra, that has a whopping great bridge over the motorway type Autogrill (services) slapped right in front of it.
  • Driving is very much 'Will of God' kind of driving, rather than it being the fault of the drivers. Saw plenty of over turned cars with confused occupants being helped by crowds. Low speed overturnings...How?
  • The authorities clean accidents off of the autostrada quickly. I only spent 45 mins waiting near Geneva, and then they convoyed us past tangled metal, over sanded surfaces. Not like the UK where it's 8 hours needing a piss before a surly policemen informs you that somebody has died. "Not my genes, you've probably taken them to the morgue by now and I need a wee!" is my ex-services answer. I'm never overly shocked by the attempted emotional punch. "Get the sand down and convoy us on our way please."
  • I was nearly killed, several times...



I'll just share one example, from a very very long list.

Car in outside lane, slowly attempting to over-take me at about 1kph faster, on cruise control no doubt. Lorries in usual slow lane, I am in middle lane overtaking lorries.
I see another lorry attempting to join the lane to the right, lorry in slow lane in front of me just pulls into my lane mega early to allow lorry on, no warning to allow me to bleed off speed, luckily though I was already anticipating a situation and was going to pull into the 3rd lane.

The guy in 3rd overtaking lane couldn't give a damn about my predicament and had started to accelerate in order to block off my only escape route. Why did he do that? The utter tossbag.

I still pulled into the 3rd lane though becase I'd rather have a Fiat rear-end me than hit the back of a lorry. Numpty gets mad. Idiots.

In the UK, 99% of us would see that situation develop and back off to let the middle lane escape. Yet in Italy it seems that there is an astonishing lack of awareness or ability to perceive hazards. Will fo God I guess.

Saturday 25 August 2012

Severn Barrage

...and it's back from the dead again There are some cracking statements from all the usual suspects the beeb wheels out in order to have balance. The RSPB, Friends of the Earth etc. Environmentalists always make me chuckle when it comes to the need for renewables. They harp on and on about the need for less CO2 emissions and more renewables, and usually demonstrate their scientific ignorance by photoshopping mushroom clouds behind pictures of Sizewell B, but whenever the government puts a proposal forward they change the record and start bemoaning the damage caused by this project.

Turbines, wah wah visual intrusion, noise pollution, think of the birds.
Solar, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing them, visual intrusion.
Hydro, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing dams, the landscapes lost forever, think of the fish.
Barrage, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing it, the landscape lost, think of the birds and fish and mudflats.

SHUT UP or get in the mass grave I've made you dig yourself. Progress is happening, and needs to happen to continue the species, either get on board or die out. What alternative do these environmentalists envision? Do they want progress to reverse? Or do they want nothing to happen, no baby steps, no progress, until BAM out of nowhere, replicators and fusion power...And Logan's Run.

Monday 13 August 2012

Olympic End

Well. Loved every minute of it. What an awesome show. I just hope that the younger generation are more inspired by the deeds of the worlds athletes and Olympians more than they are over-paid, over-hyped, fucking worthless footballers. I love watching the English football team having its arse handed to it. You do not represent me, you represent the hordes of sheeple whom I loathe.

Moving swiftly on.


The closing ceremony was a bit of a mish-mash, as promised by the organisers, but I enjoyed most of it, even the music I nomrally hate...Although the repeating the same songs bit when it took too long to filter the athletes into the stadium...That was just dull.

What were Muse up to though? Matthew Bellamy chucking himself all over the shop as usual...Can't do that in the Olympic Stadium, it's about the athletes and volunteers, not you. Plus the lyrics appeared to be taken from some soviet era mantra. Seemed to go something like "I'll fuck you up...You'll not shit on me...Because I'll tear you a new hole...You piece of shit...I'll fuck you up!" repeat ad-infinitum (I may have exaggerated for comic effect here)

George Michael turning the stadium into the worlds biggest gay bar was quite entertaining. I could see, in my minds eye, the more repressed and barbaric medieval nations on the planet getting a bit uppity and censoring the coverage with some religious wailing and pictures of their ruler.

Did anyone else feel bad for the athletes? I'd have been weeing into a pint pot after the first hour...I would have had to forgo a drink prior to being herded into the flag segments.

Oh. and stomp...I've always loathed stomp since I saw them on Blue Peter when I was a lad...I hated the whole "oh look at this new art form," vibe about it. It hasn't improved.

Letting Brian May dick around with the Red Special was a nice touch, and boy does the world miss Freddie.

Nice little bit of Floyd, Wish you Were Here...Very apt. Sadly I'm not a royal or important so I couldn't get tickets to be there. Nick Mason lurking on drums though...But where was Gilmour?

Sunday 5 August 2012

Olympic fun

The opening ceremony was awesome. Defused my cynicism....

The events so far have been pleasing. The media has been whipping everybody up into a storm and then losing their shit when the 'mere' athletes fail to perform. Asian countries have been caught out cheating...it's what happens when you get too competitive and see the Olympics as 'yet another' chance to prove the mighty West isn't as mighty was it was. Why don't you chill out Asia, and stop viewing life as one big dick comparison...We might then make our way to Mars and beyond united, instead of perishing in the inevitable oil shortage induced nuclear fire.

Borris is his usual ebullient self. Even getting hung up on a zip-wire couldn't make him suffer a ratings bashing...If anything, the very fact he doesn't take anything seriously, and holds his hands up when things go wrong, and swears at Livingstone when riled etc...Well it just demonstrates a certain honesty to me. I much prefer people who wear their hearts on their sleeves, than slimy bastards like Blair and Cameron...You never know what slimy bastards are trying to hide. With Borris, it's already out in the open, and he's trodden it up and down the mat.

One thing that does entertain me is this...Hollande having a go at the UK re: our shortage of medals, and our winning the Olympics bid.

Since this news broke, the UK has overtaken France in the medals table; and whilst I do not care about medals...the very idea that a French President is using it as a length measuring device...Get stuffed you jealous chode. I do not even care if France overtake us again and are above us in the table at the end. I would rather the French President grew up a little though.

Oh and, well done Team GB.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

My stand-up

Ah look.

I have been filmed now. Next time, I'll slow the pace down a little bit lol.

Comedy requires time to let people laugh, rather than steamroller them with the next gag before they've had a chance to process the info. Thing is, my mind was running at my normal air-traffic speed and thus, I outpace you peasants.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

It's here, it's finally here!

Finally, after months of torrid tedious rain, we have our dose of sunshine for 2012. Just makes me chuckle that when I last looked, thunderstorms were predicted to coincide with the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Ah British weather, you have to have the last laugh.

But, what did I hear today? Lots of people whinging about how hot it was, and how uncomfortable they felt. You utter toss-bags! Think back a week...Just remember it. Wall to wall drizzle, damp and cold! Think about how much worse your mood was. Think about how depressing it is to have to bundle yourself up at home and have to seriously consider putting the heating on in July. Now, look out of your window, see the wall to wall blue sky and just think "Mmmmm, nice!" Because I am. I'm going for an ice-cream. F**k you all you miserable bastards.

Thursday 19 July 2012

Advert Lol

Since I usually spend several hours a day shouting at how piss poor adverts are these days...I figured I'd share some from a simpler time.

Listen up gents, they're telling you how to get laid...And it seems to involve smoke.


No need for that diet is there?

But if you do need a little help.



Sunday 8 July 2012

Gun pulled during live TV debate

It writes itself doesn't it?

I mean...What the utter hell are you thinking of you stupid prick? It's all about face saving and pathetic machismo bullshit isn't it.

Stupid. Utterly stupid. They both want shooting...



(irony)

Wednesday 4 July 2012

The world is full of pricks

Scientists believe they have nailed it, and found a particle that corresponds to what they expect the elusive Higgs-boson to be...This news is popped onto the BBC news page, along with comments enabled for people to add their tuppence worth to it. Cue a bunch of scientifically illiterate arseholes who bemoan the money wasted on a needless experiment...People who feel that since it doesn't deal with climate change, it shouldn't have been funded, people who are so blind that they say "where is the practical value?" and whinge about starving children in Africa etc. I'll address the latter point, give a man a fish etc.

However, these complete toolbags are using the World Wide Web to register their disgust at the money wasted...They're using the World Wibe Web...Invented by Tim Berners-Lee who worked at CERN in order to allow scientists to communicate between distant labs. CERN where they've just found the Higgs-boson like particle (not confirming it yet). Take that fact, and stick it into your pipe, then choke on it you useless tossbag.

Secondly. Climate change...Hmmm...If we nail nuclear fusion, via scientific endeavour, we'll have a near limitless source of carbon free energy. Particle physics is very useful in all sorts of ways when it comes to cracking nuclear fusion. If we understand the very building blocks of nature, we can begin to think about manipulating them to create new and ever more useful elements and compounds...These may then be used to make cheaper and more stable shielding for nuclear fusion reactors.

You know what. Screw all you scientifically illiterate fools...People who wear their lack of knowledge as a badge of honour offend me by their very existence. I despised you when you refused to be educated at school, and I despise you now as you sneer at things you lack the intelligence to comprehend. Oh and, stop pissing money away on religion, pour it into science and reap true rewards. Why pray for the life of a loved one, when you can invest money into medical research?

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Euro 2012

Has anybody noticed anyone in the media eating humble pie over the appointment of Hodgson yet? Even Russell Howard got in on pillorying the FA for daring to go against the media and not appointing Redknapp. He's helping a team of over-rated millionaires play football in a none showy, dull, but effective way. I have spent years using the failure of England as a rationale for mocking the Sheeple and their slavish obsession with a bunch of thick twats kicking about a spheroid. Now here I am, admiring the down to Earth qualities of a man who appears to be making these self same twats play the game they're supposed to be worth millions for. I even find myself hoping he brings England great success, not as a victory for "our boys" (vomit), but as a victory for the quiet man who cares not a fuck for being some glossy media darling.

Saturday 16 June 2012

Bring on the Draconian Driving Laws

Drivers face £90 on the spot fine and three points for being in the wrong lane or tailgating

Despite the media slant, I am happy that these laws are being considered.

I am sick of middle-laners, tailgaters, Mad Alan McMad in his supercharged Audi who is weaving through the traffic on the motorway like he is playing Burnout; or Homicidal Harry driving his wagon whilst tucking into his sarnies and piloting 44 tons of metal and rubber through a damp D3M.

I'm all for having whipping triangles erected at every Motorway Service Area, so if you're feeling stressed out by all the poor driving around you, pull in, have a ginsters and a wee; and then enjoy the sight of several Numptys being horsewhipped for your delectation.

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Spider Bro

There is a spider that lives in the corner of a room downstairs. He is only little at the moment, so I don't feel the need to kill him. But I wonder where his life will lead or what he will do in future.

Also...The corner of the room is a shitty place to have a home surely.

Me: Mr Spider, may I ask you...What are doing in the corner of the room?

Spider: Well, it's warm, dry, cosy and I can see everything that goes on up here with my 8 eyes.

Me: Surely you can see that since I keep the house very clean, that there is nothing to eat in the corner of the room?

Spider: No no, you are mistaken my friend. I make my web in this corner everyday, and one day something will fly into here and I will eat it. It's the perfect location.

Me: But it isn't. I've never seen you eat anything.

Spider: Spiders, like me, don't need to eat as often as you humans do. I can survive for months without a single snack.

Me: But that defies thermodynamics surely? You require energy to exist. The only way you get it is by eating things.

Spider: Indeed, but I just don't bother moving, or growing if I can't find anything to eat.

Me: But, that's crap. Why not move outside, spin your web between a few blades of grass like that fat bugger over by the pond, and you'll be eating mossies all day.

Spider: But, him, out there, he's Steve by the way...That's what he's always wanted. I am happy where I am. I get by, and I'm content. I don't want to spend all my life chasing the mossies around the slack water.

Me: But,

Spider: The candle burns at both ends my friend. Be happy with what you have.

Me: Right. Screw the mystical bullshit. You've chosen a crap place to spin a web, and in an attempt to add meaning  to your failure, you choose to spin a web of deciet around the tragedy that is your life.

Spider: Think what you like, you are merely projecting your anxiety onto a spider who is happy with his lot.

Me: No, don't do this, don't spin this around...I am berating you for your failings and demanding that you move on, and out of my home. Go and see something of the world, make something of yourself before I find you half in and half out of your skin, dead from the effort of shedding.

Spider: Once I saw a wasp flying round the ceiling fan and I thought "I'll have him, if he comes over here!" But he proceeded to kill himself by banging against the window for 8 hours. That taught me something.

Me: What?

Spider: That wasp continued to repeat the same action over and over again, until he died. He couldn't see that, had he merely reversed course and went towards the patio, he could have escaped. He could have set himself free by seeing things differently. Instead, he trapped himself. It was tragic

Me: Enough spider. Enough. I see what you are doing...I cannot do what you will, for I lack the money to do it.

Spider: Is money the answer? Or is it will.

Me: Look, I will not take advice from a creature who, when confronted with a threat, falls to the floor and runs to hide under the nearest dark space. Naturally the dark space is my shadow, thus I kill you in primeval fear.

Spider: I choose not to do this. I choose contemplative inertia.

Me: Fine. I'm going to do to you what you want me to do. I'm going to move you on, and I will move on tomorrow...Deal?

Spider: Deal.

Alas, the spider, who had the voice of Ricardo Montalban, fell to the floor when I attempted to capture him in a glass...Thus I killed him in primeval fear. He looked up at me through his 8 dying eyes and whispered.

Spider: Be the man you know you can be.

Then the orchestra began to play, and it all faded out on me yelling. I awoke several hours later in hospital, the doctor told me that surviving on neat Absinthe and a diet of mint Matchmakers was probably not a good idea.

Monday 28 May 2012

Awwww Nostalgia




If you're of a certain age, you must have seen this. The Wizard...Like a childrens' version of Rainman...except heavily endorsed by Nintendo.

Incidentally the full film is here...And you may recognise a certain snipers nest from Fallout:NV.

Loved The Wizard, must have watched it about a dozen times, at my next door neighbours house, when I was about 10 or 11. The bitter sweet human interest ending had me all choked up, and the childhood love thing was at just about that time in my life when my head began to think that maybe girls were interesting, and not snot infested and crying  bags of inexplicable emotional failure...No they're not, before anybody thinks I'm going for a cheap gag. I value my testicles too much.

Monday 14 May 2012

I'm not perfect but

Saw the Avengers yesterday...Very good film...Very good. Inspires me to go out running in an attempt to chisel a Thor like torso.

So anyway, I'm not perfect but...What I would not do is bring a toddler into the cinema with me, and part with £20 for two people plus whatever you pay for the toddler. Why would I not do this? Because I have a brain and know that the rest of the cinema will want to lynch me the minute my kid inevitably freaks out at how loud/dark/confusing it is in the cinema.

Needless to say, about 2 minutes into the start of the film, the very young couple who committed this error of judgement had to leave the cinema. They attempted to come back in, and left within another minute because their spawn was having none of it.

What a waste of cash, and what an annoyance for everybody else in the cinema. Once you have kids, you're socially shafted! Learn this lesson 16 year old slappers (and your soon to be gone boyfriends). Don't inflict the noise your spawn makes on the rest of humanity.

Also, use your indicators correctly on roundabouts, don't stop dead in the high-street to talk to somebody you know without moving to the side of the path, oh and slow down gradually; don't open your umbrella in my face, and don't share your phone conversation with the train if you're a gobshite...This way you might just stay alive after I cease power.

Friday 11 May 2012

Mufit Day, or Dress Down Friday

I hate these.

I hate the enforced informality of it all.

I hate the assumption that if you don't want to rock up to work in jeans, you want children to die around the world. I've started baiting people on this one and saying "Read all about Thomas Malthus and his thoughts on the matter!"

I hate having to fork out every single time or be seen as a pariah.

They're just crap.

But I am reminded of one that happened many moons ago at school. It was a dress down Friday but this simple message somehow got twisted, in the mind of one particular chappie, into Fancy Dress Friday.

Needless to say, when Friday rolled up and everybody turned up at school in Jeans and whatever fashion wear was the in thing in the early 90s (think shell suits, lots and lots of garish shell suits)...This one poor chappie strolls up in a full on bad-ass Cowboy outfit complete with fake moustache, sheriff's badge and two cap guns slung casually from a very masculine pistol belt.

Now if I was him, once I had gotten close enough to school to realise that nobody else was in fancy dress, I would have run home and changed into my jeans. What I would not have done is commit social suicide by rocking into school dressed like the bloody Riviera Kid.

Can you imagine the humiliation of sitting in geography, soaking up all the laughter from your peers because you're wielding a pair of six shooter's with a 10 gallon hat balanced on your bonce? Hindsight being 20/20, what with everybody else wearing either stone washed denim or a loud, and probably turquoise, shell-suit, he was likely the least ridiculous looking person in the room.

Saturday 21 April 2012

Team Building

Surely many of you have been subjected to these...Events.

Some management fool decides that in order to assemble a good team, they must force together a bunch of strangers and make them do things.

Who the hell thinks this is a good idea? Do they not realise that every single shy person loathes them. They're not given enough time to suss the terrain before introducing themselves to people, they have to stand up in front of strangers and reveal things. Torture.

Nothing worse than subjecting risk averse people to abseiling or things like that, it isn't empowering, it's a subtle form of domination.

I never had problems with these courses myself even though I hated the artificiality of them, I care not for others until I know them, and have no real shame or boundary to honestly expressing myself e.g. "My name is X, and I hate this kind of activity. I hope to survive this week by doing as little as possible and sitting quietly in the corner of the bar. If anybody prefers chat over enforced jocularity, then join me." The trainer usually shits them-self at this point, but I make the usual one of two excellent friends out of it, and everybody else knows not to bother me.

When being forced into "Decision making" activities with a new group, I resent how some prig always tries to be the leader, and the sheep instantly turn to them. When it becomes apparent that they're making poor decisions, I usually speak for the first time and stop the self anointed leader in their tracks with a simple and direct solution. I'm usually ignored until the team fucks up, and then the sheep decide that maybe I am worth something.

Now I have just had to 'lead' one of these events and the feedback I have received from the participants has been superb. Why? Simple. I opened with a session in the bar, saw who sat together, ensured that everybody had a friend when it came to actually doing something. We went to museums, we went to a race meeting at night. We drove go-karts and the leader-board was an 'only if you want to,' affair. We went to a comedy club, and my lectures were all very matter of fact and free of bullshit and I invited people to give their own examples rather than simply talk at them with my ideas.

Saturday 14 April 2012

Religion. Hmmmm.

Various religious leaders are busy harping on about the decline of humanity because we are no longer the slaves of perverts and control freaks. Religion has put so many people to death over the years, and continues to do so in more barbaric parts of the globe, if you object to surrendering your free will to a none provable construct...And we're expected to tolerate religion in the West, by law, in the workplace etc. You can have your views, fine, but never ever dare attempt to tell me that your views trump mine if you believe in a god or gods because you are wrong. Simple as that.
No need for an enormous too and fro argument of circular reasoning on behalf of religion, because faith is the only reason many people need...And I don't care for blind faith as evidence. These are some amazing things Religious people think re: science

  • The moon is only two/three/four thousand years old, it can't be older because Neil Armstrong would have sank up to his neck in all the dust
  • The earth is six thousand years old. FACT. Some guy added up all the generations mentioned in the bible. This can't be disproved.
  • Continental drift is a lie
  • God put the dinosaur bones on earth to test us and make palaeontologists look stupid when they get to heaven
  • Carbon dating is a lie because some guy put a live moth under there(?) and it said it was a million years old
  • Molecules and atoms are a lie, there's no proof we or anything else is made of them. We're not meant to know, it's god's will
  • You can't explain gravity, or even the weather so don't even try. Nobody can say where rain comes from or what makes wind.

This is genius level trolling. Nobody can be this stupid for real.

Sick of trying to reason with religion, it is beyond reason and it is are holding back the development of humanity. People even think that prayer saves lives, as in the case of Muamba where apparently it was prayer that helped him through, not years of scientific research and medical training...If you want to help people recover from illness or strife then, next time the collection plate is passed around at Church, give your cash directly to a hospital or medical school, you'd do more good for your fellow man than simply praying.

Friday 13 April 2012

National Penis Envy

So North Korea decides to attempt to lob a ballistic missile, sorry Satellite, into space to show how much of a badass it is.

I say attempts...The rocket exploded shortly after take-off showering ego and mania all over the sea. I pray for the poor scientists who will probably be held accountable by some trumped up little retard, and punished accordingly.

Sadly I can only think that the rulers of North Korea must have very very tiny penises what with the amount of over compensation they always show the world.

One day, the people of NK will be free...Until then, they must crap themselves every day just in case their own children rat them out to the commissars or army in exchange for a bar of chocolate. Remember that failure to agree that the great leader has an elegant, long and thick penis is a shooting offence.

What a retarded system of government! China needs to take a step back and stop protecting these nutjobs or else they'll be the first ones to set off a suitcase sized dirty bomb in a major city somewhere...It's all about saving face in their culture you see. Failure to erect a massive f**k you in front of the world, swollen and bobbing about, means they'll have the do the paranoid dictator version of buying a sportscar, and hurting somebody in retaliation.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

A sign of the times?

Woman, 19, raped by footballers.

Having taught at a secondary, a few years ago now, that wasn't very good...The number of girls I knew of whose life ambition amounted to wanting to shag a footballer and snaring them was legion. Hence, I often have a very hard time seeing this from the female perspective. You're hanging out with a load of testosterone fuelled meat-heads...You're pretty, you're obviously drawing attention to your availability...You end up in close proximity to the footballers in a hotel room with them ...I will say no more.

I don't agree with rape, and I certainly do not condone boorish laddish behaviour, I view such people as arseholes in need of a good horsewhipping. But, there is one victim in this whole sorry matter, it's called self respect.

Friday 30 March 2012

Burned yourself?

Would you ever consider decanting petrol into a glass, in your kitchen when the gas hob is on?

If yes...

...You're an idiot. That's you. Not the government. Not the fuel tanker drivers. Not the media who have whipped you up into a frenzy. That's you = an idiot.


If no...You have just passed the common sense test, and do not deserve severe burns.

I imagine that an idiot burning themselves with petrol they caused to ignite via their own lack of forethought is the kind of thing that the media would love to put a spin on... oh look what is happening here?


I would vote Baroness Warsi a million times over if she'd have just laughed and said "What an idiot!"

Forgive me, but I would like to think we're capable of looking after ourselves as a species, and it triggers a darkly comic despair when people fail to live up to a minimum standard. Not saying I am perfect, but I tend to ask for help or look for guidance if doing something for the first time. If unsure, I would look up "How to decant petrol," on google or something similar. But fire + petrol? Give me strength, it is not the place of the government to wipe people's arses for them.

Thursday 29 March 2012

Fuel Shortages

If you have been out and panic bought petrol (or diesel) today, then you're a prick.

Simple as that.

7 days notice is required before any strike, the army are involved and the public will lynch tanker drivers if they destroy the weak and stumbling economy.

Buy fuel when it's time to do so, don't be one of the sheeple and do what the "telly people" tell you to do.

I am surrounded by fools.

The government haven't covered themselves in glory scream the papers...Well who is doing the screaming? The papers. Who is putting up on their website in HUGE fonts "Panic Buying at Petrol Stations!" The BBC and other news websites.

Fools lead by idiots.

Saturday 24 March 2012

London

What a beautiful city it is. Despite costing a Kings ransom to take a train into the centre, it's always much more relaxing than piloting the car into that melee of angry people who think they know how to drive, and demonstrate their skill to you by ignoring the entire 160 pages of the Highway Code.

Visited Greenwich and the Royal Observatory et al today in the glorious Spring sunshine. The ladies were not wearing much, the men were strutting their stuff in beach shorts and fucking stupid hats, and children were the badly behaved and the usual unselfaware little shits that society has bred today. Must have smirked at about 3 kids who got clobbered by the knees of the crowd...

When I were a lad, I used to stay close to my parents and ensured I wasn't in the way of other people. I think I had an understanding of physics that today's kids just don't...I was small, if struck by a larger body, I would be hurt. More likely, it's because kids know their parents wrap them in cotton wool and let them get away with anything, oh and they fly off the handle at the adult who accidentally has their stupid kid walk into them. I suspect the overreaction has something to do with them being 'oh so right on' that they never discipline their own kids, hence the natural instinct to lay into the badly behaved little shit is transposed onto the first available adult. Do remember when a kid ran out of a shop and into my knee once, and the mum rounded on me...She was rather upset when I told her to "piss off you cheeky mare" and advised her to learn to keep her kids under control.

Was also rather annoyed by the way modern human beings are unable to deduce that walking 5 or 6 abreast on paths, thus blocking them, is rather selfish...Forcing other people to walk on the grass or wait for you to pass is simple bad manners. Unperturbed by this, I knifed my way through them in a ruler straight line with stiff elbows and Pink Floyd's Live in Pompeii in my ears. Again people, physics, I am have mass and I am directing it at your solar plexus...You haven't earned the right to be treated with respect because you're deliberately avoiding my helpful eye contact that I am hoping to use to advise you that I will not walk into the bushes in order to allow you to continue using obvious and pathetic chat-up lines on the females in your group. The little look of surprise they give when struck is a pleasure to witness, and the ones who say something never quite expect the pre-prepared response I give along the lines of " I figured you must have thought you could walk through me or something since you blocked the entire path. Don't work like that sunshine!"


Those members of the human race under age 26, could do with about 15 minutes in a fire. Ah, the joys of mild sociopathy.

99% of the day was awesome otherwise, and the Shard is a beauty...As is watching the sunset almost directly behind the Houses of Parliament.

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Spiders are gits

I put my dressing gown on, and found out that some eight legged bastard had decided to hang out inside it. Oh, and it's not a tickly tiny little spider that would make me giggle, oh no...It's a hairy spindly long legged fucker with a big bulbous ass and visible eyes.

I know that it is wrong to anthropomorphise the animal kingdom, but seriously...It was inside my dressing gown for shits and giggles wasn't it!

Sadly, had to terminate it with extreme prejudice, I simply cannot abide monstrous arachnids.

Friday 9 March 2012

Words fail me, again

Is this video as racist as I think it is? It's a pro-EU enlargement propaganda video, paid for out of our taxes without asking our permission.

Thing is, it seems to show that if the countries of the EU combine, we can stop the Chinese, Muslims and generic Black people from causing trouble.

Words fail me! A friend commented that it would be much more entertaining if the woman in the yellow was Angela Merkel, yet another commented that there isn't enough spandex in the EU for that to happen.

But, where are the British media in all this? I would have expected the Guardian to be up in arms over this, pulling out the race card etc...But I think they're merely confirming my suspicions that their pro-EU bias stops them from objectively commenting on the bad things about the EU. They prefer to stay silent, and yet accuse the Daily Mail of X, Y and Z crimes against humanity if the Mail picks up on them. Go Guardian, it is yet another paper lacking in objectivity and yet held up as some sort of paragon of virtue by the ignorant. 

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Leaked Letter

So Vince Cable is being accused of attacking the coalition etc etc. Bullshit people, he is not...Read the letter, go on, read it! We'll discuss the ethics of the media reading a letter marked 'private' later...Have you read the letter now? Good.

  • Vince mentions many failings from the previous administration.
  • Vince spots a number of areas the UK does well in.
  • Vince eyes potential solutions for a few problems.
  • Vince is respectful and courteous to Number 10.
  • Vince is doing his job, suggesting ways that Number 10 can improve things to help UK business.
 
There is nothing in the letter that I see as being overtly threatening or wrong in any way shape or form.

Since the letter was supposed to be private, we shouldn't even be having this discussion. I wish the UK population would pull their heads out of the media's backside and stop being quite so drip-fed.

Wednesday 29 February 2012

Leap Year

So, in order to make up for errors in the Calendar, today is the 29th Feb, when an extra day is added to the year to straighten things out.

Great.

One thing I do loathe about Leap years is, people who are born on the 29th February like to have a good old laugh about being 'only 5 years old,' or similar when they're 20 chronologically.

I'd shut them up by saying "So you're 5 then? In that case it is illegal for you to drink, have sex, vote, drive etc etc!" Now pick your jaw back off the floor and go and play with your Lego, child.

Monday 27 February 2012

Pramface....

BBC3 isn't really aimed at me is it? No it isn't...I'm young, but happier on BBC4 where TV talks to me, not to my navel.

Give me a Meades documentary over Morally Bankrupt Women on Holiday series 2 any day of the week. But, since I enjoy Family Guy and American Dad, and these shows are broadcast on 3, I am forced to endure their advertising from time to time.

Now, forgive me if I am reading this wrong but, Pramface appears to be about a woman who gets pregnant after a one night stand with a 16 year old nerdy bloke. Great. What a premise. Now let's deal with this moral failure of society with light humourus overtones and...No please don't. This one should have died in the womb of creativity and been flushed.

I don't wish to be the arbitrator of the UK's values, who am I kidding I would love it! But I just find these kind of TV shows to be cheap, nasty and a poorly thought out excuse for mild titillation. Hey she's pregnant, just so all you people know that he ejaculated in her...Tee hee, and he's 16...tee hee...He got to see her lady bits and everything, just like all you people in our demographic are aching to do...tee hee.

The internet is out there...There is soooo much porn on it. Do yourself a favour TV bods, teenagers no longer need mild titillation thrown into TV shows, they need a break from a one handed work-out.

Sunday 26 February 2012

The Death of the Lunchtime Pint

The UK went up its own arse a few years ago, and became a nation ruled by the fear of paying the mortgage. Losing your job means losing your home, so people keep their mouth shut and follow the Draconian rules trotted out by HR departments in order to feel comfortable.

Having an opinion that differs from what is considered PC will end up in a meeting with some moron who thinks social engineering bullshit, is better than a free and democratic society.

The number one rule that I resent is the prohibition of alcohol, and the resultant sneering at the culture of nipping out for a pint...a single pint...over lunch. Alcohol is social grease, it helps people unwind, it makes work less stressful and it can overcome numerous problems that happen when people, for some reason, think a joke was serious and get butthurt over it. Sitting together as a group of workmates and having a pie and a pint is just the best way of forging bonds etc.

Yes I appreciate that doctors and people working heavy machinery etc should not partake of the alcohol, but if you're a back office worker whose job is mind-numbingly dull yet frightfully easy (have done a few myself), then where is the harm in having a single pint at lunchtime? Creative industries would thrive if people could sip a solo glass of wine over a nice lunch, and just talk. Plus it helps if the boss isn't seen as somebody with a rod up their backside, because you're then much happier to take them problems and suggested solutions, and they know enough about you to make an informed judgement when offering assistance.

As always these rules do not apply at the upper echelons of society, where you can get shit-faced on expensive wines over lunch, because you're working at the golf course that afternoon 'networking' or something equally insulting to the concept of the 6 figure pay packet you collect.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Ignorance is bliss

I like watching quiz shows, I like pub quizzes, and I like learning facts and interesting things. Always have done.

So, I do despair whenever I watch a quiz on TV in which the laughing contestants say something like "Oooo geography is not my strong point. So I think I'll pick celebrities!"

I just want to reach into the TV, grab them by the throat and say "Ignorance is not a badge of honour, and knowing what happens in the world of TV and celebrities, is something you learn by default by simply switching your brain off and watching the goggle box...It should not be a category used to test knowledge...ARGH!...Now die in flames."

Watched Pointless today, and 3 of the teams that were left, couldn't name which well known rivers flowed through a series of obvious UK towns and cities. They all avoided saying Thames because the contestants knew that the public would know the Thames flows through London...Great.  So they guessed at the others and, blow me...The answers were shocking. The Severn through Norwich. The Nori through Norwich...I almost hit the crack pipe then and there in order to cope with my blood pressure (I posses no crack pipe, for those who wish to take me seriously). The friend of the young lady who said "Nori," was attractive, so my manly rage subsided rather swiftly, to be replaced with mutterings of shallow approval.

But not knowing the Severn flows through Worcester, or the Aire through Leeds. Bloody hell. The others I did know, but wasn't so arrogant as to expect the average person to know.

I blame it on the decline of geography as a school subject. It simply bores the fudge out of most pupils these days, and that makes me sad. Some smiling government appointed wazzock used to inform us geography teachers (I was one) that geography was changing, to look at issues and not simply people and places. This failed to even come close to the point of what geography should be, it is the story of the Earth and the beings that live on it...And it can be a glorious tale that overlaps geology, history, sociology, psychology, literature, biology...The list goes on. It is a subject with vast potential, and to see it treated so badly makes me weep. I used to love playing with the more challenging aspects of geography when I taught! I'd have my yr 11 classes dabbling with issues such as 'should we stop people breeding?' in response to resource pressures and our inability to give a damn for the planet. Great, engaging stuff...But not the official NC and exam body sanctioned topics like 'copying out pictures of natives beating Manioc in hollowed out logs and then saying "Deforestation is bad m'kay," for 5 sodding years.'

I found teaching around the subject taught the relevant exam knowledge by proxy, because if it was interesting and provided enough examples, it would tick the boxes required by the regulators anyway and the kids would be enthused to read and digest more of the subject independently...and my students results were really rather good. But driven out by politics and fools who thought they knew better by being yes men...I am lost to that trade, and can only content myself with cradling my head in front of quiz shows and breathing into a paper bag when somebody thinks Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is in Dorset, and the Welsh speak Cornish, or that Asia is a country etc.

Next time I hear somebody say "I don't do science," on a quiz show, I'll want large men to rush onto the set and break their knees whilst screaming "Why, you ignorant git, why!" over and over again.

Friday 17 February 2012

Money after office

Gordon Brown earns £1.4 million after leaving office. Super, smashing, great. So it seems being a woefully inept Prime Minister still leads to decent rewards. Never liked the man because he sat in the background behaving like a spoiled kid during the latter years of Tony Blair, demanding that the top job be his because it was supposedly promised to him in a shady deal forged in an Islington restaurant. Since Islington is the home of Champagne socialism, any deals made there should be classed as treason IMHO.

Where does the money come from to pay people £74k for a lecture? Who would pay? More importantly why would they pay to listen to the epitome of the dour Scot reeling off no anecdotes and giving weak smiles? I have delivered a fair few lectures in my time, and not to be too modest but most of them get cracking feedback, and my yearly rate is substantially less than that. It's insulting. Especially since if you read any of the biog's dealing with the death of New Labour, Gordon comes out of it as some kind of control freak, trying to keep hold of power as it slips from his grasp...Plus why the frick were the cabinet scared of him? Being hauled in for a hair-dryer if they stepped out of line, come on what is this? (hair-dryer = a man shouting loudly at you in rage) wouldn't make me scared because I'd have stood smirking in front of him, videoed his loss of control via  button hole camera, then leaked it to the press and laughed. You don't need to keep on side with somebody if you have the means to destroy them. It would have taken a gnats fart to topple him at one point, and then perhaps the country might have had the chance to vote on him being PM as seems only fair and proper in a democracy.

Most of Brown's online Youtube speeches and lectures appear to be nothing more than fanciful codswallop, espousing unfundable socialist dreams...Now I want a Star Trek like Utopia of free stuff, no need to do menial tasks to exist etc, as much as the next man...But those dreams are sadly unfundable at the moment, until we develop simple near limitless sources of energy and massive scale 3D printing technology (and that will not come from social engineering and bullshit idealism, it will come from well funded hard science!). So standing in front of an audience saying "I want this to happen!" is merely a simple crowd pleaser...Only being able to say "And this is how it will be delivered in the next X years!" would make me pay attention.

The real scandal is Tony Blair earning £12 million a year on the same lecture circuit...Well...£12 million...What the heck for? Does he dish out sexual favours afterwards? Does he perform miracle healing? At those prices the buffet had better be bloody amazing!

I never fell for his bull. He introduced tuition fees on my generation within seconds of the 1997 election, after heavily implying that he would not...Instant tosser. But £12 million...Have you seen his speeches or his lectures? Why is he held up as some kind of quality public speaker? He frequently pauses in unnatural places, he sounds like some kind of insincere car salesman, and his quasi-evangelical facial expressions invite being worked over with brass knuckles. I suppose my criticism hints at the truth...The sheeple are seduced by all the simple bluster and charm this man possesses, they are unable to peel off the 'very' thin veneer to reveal that it's all style and no substance, and perhaps that comforts them.

Witness Blair vs Hitchens, a debate on religion to witness Tony having his ass utterly handed to him by a 'true' and now dearly departed public speaker.

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Actors. Keep your nose out of politics.

Actors of the world...If you achieve a certain level of success, wealth prestige and power is shuffled your way, undeservedly so IMHO...All you do is pretend to be somebody else for money. Great. There's a skill that the world really, really does need.

So anyway, after a few years at a certain level in society, you may feel you are entitled to voice your opinion on matters such as politics, charity etc.

Sean Penn is the latest one who has voiced his opinion, and has chosen to voice it re: The Falkland Islands. A few islands near South America that have been inhabited by British people since 1833, and who's ownership before that flitted between whichever nationality had a ship in the area at the time...But rest assured the UK was on them before the country of Argentina existed.

The UK couldn't give a toss about what Spain promised Argentina...The Spanish want us to give them Gibraltar against the will of the people as it is, so they like to stand shoulder to shoulder with you on this anyway since they feel they'll get something out of it. Woe-betide you mention Ceuta and Melillain in their presence though! They get all narky and defensive if you do that. Hypocrites.
 
Anyroad, whatever bollocks the Argentinian people are told about the Falklands, the UN enshrines in law that the will of the people in choosing their fate should be sacrosanct, and since the people who live on the Falklands are largely the descendants of those original British settlers of 1833, I think you'd find that their views about what should happen to them are pretty solid.

Since they have no wish to be Argentinian, or to cut the UK cords, then...well...Don't cry for me Argentina. Speaking about colonialism, as the Argentinian politicos are want to do, isn't Argentina an immigrant nation that kicked the original peoples out of power? Those 1833 British settlers on the Falklands merely displaced a load of penguins.

I can sort of understand why the Argentinians have such a boner for the Falklands, they're told from birth about the great injustice done to them by evil colonial Britain, as part of an elaborate cock and bull story, so the whole situation is almost a national hero myth that must be resolved with seizing back what was stolen from them (they weren't stolen btw). I've even seen road-signs on some two chicken town in the middle of nowhere that say "Welcome to (name of town), the Falkland Islands are ours!" In Spanish of course. This is like driving into Chipping Sodbury and being greeted with a sign saying "Welcome to Chipping Sodbury, the 13 Colonies are ours!" Since we have about as much claim to the eastern seaboard of the USA as that. If they're endlessly drip-fed such crap, then no wonder they buy it hook line and sinker.

I am sure that Sean Penn was told only the Argentinian version of events, so I don't blame him for believing it...But I wish he'd keep his ill informed opinions to himself. Who cares what a creased old actor has to say anyway? Probably the usual idiots who follow the cult of celebrity, but they're due an appointment with a wood-chipper if ever I seize the reigns of power so we can ignore them and their feeble brain power.

It's hard to see how Sean could be any more irritating and insulting to the people who inhabit those islands, short of turning into Bono and vanishing up his own arse in a self righteous solo circle jerk.

Monday 13 February 2012

Working your own food

I had a different, yet delightful, culinary experience the other day...Whilst suffering from the mother of all chesty colds.

Normally I cannot taste anything, other than the weird German sausage like taste of pungent bacteria and thick bloody mucus, when I have a chesty cold, so I wasn't especially looking forward to going out tbqfh. But I was promised something a little different.

The difference turned out to be food cooked using the black rock grill methodology. Large platters are brought to your table, with chips (or similar) on one side, veg (or similar) on the other, and in the middle is a piece of basalt, the aforementioned black rock,  carved into a perfect oblong. This basalt has been heated to some stupid temperature. Sizzling on top of this rock is the meat course of your choice. I opted for a weighty sirloin, and since I am always pissed off when the chef thinks he knows best how I want my steak cooked...I spit in your face if you expect me to eat near raw meat because I'm a civilised being, I do not 'do' flukes and worms thank you very much!...Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. I opted for the sirloin and am usually annoyed when the chef has underdone it because he/she cannot believe that I like medium or more when it comes to steak. Thus, the black rock grill, offering the customer the ability to choose how long to cook the meat for, is right up my alley.

There is something strangely satisfying about taking a seared piece of meat, and cooking it to perfection, whilst brushing on your own sauces and things in the mean time. I also got to grill my own tomatoes and mushrooms in the meat juice. Sublime.

I can see that the whole set-up is a win win since, the vendor spends less time cooking your food thus maximising efficiency, your dish is cooked as you want it...No more frowning when the medium is bleeding like a fresh kill, and it is great fun watching your companions each working their own personal griddles wearing masks of utter concentration.

Highly recommend a black rock grill

Wednesday 8 February 2012

It beggars belief

The Andrex company have released washlets, a brand new way to wipe your arse.

We British have never been too fond of the bidet, and tend to believe our arses are clean after we've scraped off the worst with dry paper and had a little polish.

Think you will agree that this doesn't always remove it all, and a good shower is really what is needed! Yet nozzles of hot water poking up our bums seem to bring out some latent fear of anal violation in most British males especially, and so it's just not on in our culture. Hence I am all for a solution that ensures that people with meaty buttocks don't start to hum after a few hours.

Cue washlets...Announced with some terrible docu-journalistic approach from some reporter who likes to join in swingers parties and/or titillate an audience with her style. Not Cherry Healey, the other one. Dawn Porter.

Essentially she knocks around with a portaloo, and entices people to try this new experience. Now advertisers, my imagination does not need any encouragement to go down dark alleys thank you very much, so even though the door of the loo is closed...I can hear and see everything and it disturbs me. Other people shitting is not one of my turn-ons surprisingly enough.

After they have shat, or wiped their bits, they pop out of the now reeking bog with smiles on their faces as though a wet-wipe on your never regions is something new and exciting. Anybody who has ever served in the forces will know that a wet wipe is better than 8 sheets of toffly paper in a ration pack.

All well and good, a jovial response to a human condition you may say...Yes...well...My ire is raised by the sight of 4 over made up women, sipping glasses of wine at what Dawn tells us is the Washlets Launch Party...The washlets launch party.

"Where are you going tonight?"
"I'm going to a party!"
"Oooo, can I come?"

"I don't think so...you wouldn't like it."
"Why not, I love parties!"
"Because I am going to pick up my equity minimum wage cheque at the launch party of a new form of arsewipe."
"See you about 11 then?!"
"Yep!"
"Yep."

T

Sunday 5 February 2012

Left becomes right, right becomes left.

In an ideal world, you would imagine that a democratic country would be best administered by a centrist party that attempted to walk the line between extremes of opinion, and that tries to please the majority of the people the majority of the time.

Thinking about it, and observing what is happening in western countries at the moment, I am inclined to disagree for the following reasons.

What is the centre ground? The centre ground is whatever the media says it is, on any given day. Witness the continued circling of Miliband by most newspapers...They slated him endlessly for not admitting that cuts were necessary and relevant, then when he finally says as much, he is now a flip flop politician afraid to defend his turf. Ditto Cameron, he will bend to public opinion and then be slated for doing u-turns. Surely it is the job of politicians to listen to advice and public opinion and respond to it?

Thus if the media decide they hate HS2, then any politician who backs it, is out of touch and away from the centre. Replace HS2 with anything really. Likewise, if the media suddenly decide that slamming shut the doors to EU immigration is flavour of the month, if you oppose that as a politician, you're shafted because the centre has shifted at the whim of the media.

Natural left wing people are not partial to right wing 'methodology'...Ditto the right is none too pleased with the left's 'way of doing things'. I will refrain from saying goals because often, when you dig into what left and right wingers want, it's often the same thing...They just disagree vastly on how to get to those goals.

So politicians who attempt to walk the centre line will just end up pissing off both the left and right equally, because both sides will feel that that politician is crossing too far over to the other side for them. I have seen some eminently successful ideas shot down in flames simply because neither side wants it, they see it as an alien idea to them, despite it trying simply to please all the people all the time (see Abraham Lincoln on that quote).

So why walk the centre ground? Set out your stall and stick to it...Surely it is better to have one side of the debate want to push you off a cliff, if the other side would be happy to follow you over it?

Saturday 4 February 2012

Rise of the HR Robots

We're told daily that youth unemployment is getting worse in western economies, and I feel bad for those poor sods fresh out of uni' who simply cannot get a foot on the first rung of life's ladder of employment.

I've heard all the theories about why this is the case, the economy is shagged, Keynes was right, no Hayek was etc. I've also heard politicians from the left and right sides laying the smackdown on each other...Saying that more taxpayers cash should be spent to give kids a chance or else we're heading for a lost generation and social problems.

The truth as always is a mish-mash of everything...But I have my own special theory as to why the young are suffering especially badly in this recession, and that is the Rise of the HR Robot.

Many years ago, HR were called Personnel, and their job was to look after the welfare of the personnel employed by the company or public body. Personnel was probably seen as a limiting title because for seemingly no other reason, Personnel decided to call themselves Human Resources. Personnel sounds nice, it sounds like that care about you as a person...Human Resources sounds like you're just a cog in a machine, a resource to be used and abused. You're no more important than the pallet fulls of raw plastic that the firm turns into car door inserts etc.

The HR department has also usually been farmed out from the parent business and given to some faceless firm that does nothing but specialise in HR...Naturally this is supposed to maximise efficiency and allow for economies of scale, but sadly means that you cannot simply wander along to the nice people in the personnel office and talk to them about what you want on a friendly level, oh no...You have to ring Darren at Fartwell & Piss Associates in Salford.

Darren is 25 and thinks he is the son of God...He also wears one of them pink stripy shirts with a white collar and cuffs...One of those shirts that makes you want to put him in the boot of your car, and push it off a cliff. Darren will tell you who you want to recruit and why, and will endeavour to get the best of the best for you.

Darren, like all the HR Robots having decided that you want the best of the best of the best all the time, (in order to maximise and incentivise the workforce and extract maximal granularity from the drilled down issue. He's probably also touched base with an SMT somewhere along the line in order to focus on your needs...Touched base! Touched cloth more like.) Darren will specify that any applicant will need a minimum of 3 years experience. Darren is advertising for your post online, as do most HR firms these days.  Hence a million and one people can apply for every job, without the hassle of putting together a letter, printing it out on the dot matrix (or heaven forbid hand-writing it), popping it into an envelope and affixing a stamp...Using your best hand-writing to make it look like a 12 year old hasn't written it etc.

Nope. Your CV and covering letter is one of hundreds if not thousands of near identical pieces going direct to Darren's inbox. So in order to reduce his workload, if your CV does not have 3 years experience so you are in the bin...Simple as that.

If you are a young person looking for work in the UK at the moment, and you don't have any connections, you will not get past the HR Robot. Your CV is worthless. Without being given a chance, you will never get the 3 years experience required...And even then if your experience is voluntary or heaven forbid something like building a Cisco network for the people on your street, then it's still worthless against somebody who has gained their experience for money.

My concern is, when the current generation of people who have the required 3 years experience etc, retire and/or die...Who will the HR Robots recruit then? Everybody fresh out of uni' of course. So for about 10 years you're going to have a generation of people who cannot got a job, and then when jobs are available, they will be 30+ with no experience and on the scrapheap again because firms will want dynamic cutting and thrusting young 20s. As if the 30+ scrapped people weren't cutting and thrusting 20 somethings when the arbitrary cut off of 3 years experience doomed them to a life of unmet expectations.

My other concern is, the HR robots are simply condemning people on a whim. They shouldn't have the right to do this. They are stifling creativity and killing off the culture of risk by not being prepared to take a chance on somebody. You might have the  worlds most gifted and talented middle manager ever to have existed out there sat in a bedsit or living with mum...But you'll never know they are because they haven't got 3 years experience. 3 years is not some magical age when the big book of life is handed to you. 3 years is enough time to develop bad habits, enough time to get cocky and arrogant, and enough time to piss off your co-workers...Yet the HR Robots would now consider you one of the anointed worthy of having your CV read.

I have a beef with these faulty valves in the employment system, limiting flow into the workplace, choking off opportunity. They're too far removed from personnel these days, and seem to think that some of my friends, who are recently redundant RAF personnel who have seen and done more than most people on this planet, are somehow not worthy of being training officers for a metal bashing company because they do not have 3 years experience as a training officer for a metal bashing company. No, but they have been a training officer for a large military college that churns out some of the best graduates in the country you robotic arse. They deserve more than you chucking their world class experience into a bin.

Friday 3 February 2012

First time stand-up.

Seems yesterdays post got quite a bit of following, bless twitter...

So have another tale, probably less cringe-worthy than being near lynched for mocking an illness that claimed a young life.

I am a public speaker, I have been an educator, and I deliver briefings and instructions daily, in clipped enunciated tones. So naturally, I thought I'd find comedy easy since I like to show off and I like my opinion to be heard...But my first time clutching the mic' was a nightmare. I shall share with you more of my first gig and how I felt.

Firstly, I over-wrote everything in order to ensure I didn't run out of things to say. All my jokes and stories were heavily rehearsed and verbose...I wanted to ensure that I had enough to last me the full 5 minutes. Before the open mic slots began, I was sat in the audience reading my notes and trying to act out my whole performance prior to delivery, in doing so I failed to gain an impression of the room and what was working and/or not working for the professionals.

Called to the stage, I did a clumsy double take and clambered into the spotlight, I failed to realise that the double take had already made people laugh, so didn't run with it...I was simply mortified and feeling very out of place and somehow I felt 'not good enough' to be on-stage.

All my planning and preparation didn't matter a monkeys fuck because the second I stood in front of that crowd, I completely forget everything I was supposed to be saying. Mumbling through the wreckage of the carefully planned routine you had envisaged didn't seem to bring me many laughs. Instead it brought a beetroot face, a large slice of humble pie, and a rapidly pounding heart rate that drowned out my thought processes. I thanked the crowd, said it was my first time and acknowledged that I had just committed the comedy equivalent of ejaculating after 3 thrusts, then left the stage and room in about 20 seconds. The compère was kind, and got me a bigger round of applause than what I believed I deserved.

I tried to remember what had just happened...I thought I had managed a few sympathy chuckles from my bit about using a hair-dryer to dry your balls if you're late for work and fresh out of the shower. But I wasn't really capable of cutting loose and leaping around like that part of the routine needed. Too insecure, too out of place, not in control of my thoughts.

I now know that I had simply overloaded my brain, in an attempt to pander to the great god 'control freak' who lives inside of me. I was trying to remember whole lines of dialogue, about 15 pages worth...To recall 15 pages is an impossibility for most normal people and I am no exception.

But...Afterwards, I was told I had done rather well, I mean who the hell was I to judge how my routine went? I learned an important lesson from the professional comics and that was, listen to the audience and react accordingly. You see, my brain told me I had done really badly, but nobody else saw it that way. Yes I wasn't as slick as the professionals, but by all accounts it really was rather competent and my embarrassed mumblings had been perceived as part of a character act by the crowd.

I was then given a list of simple rules to deliver entertaining stand-up...They work for some professionals, they might for you.
  • Gags must be natural and relaxed, delivered in a welcoming tone like matey pub chatter. 
  • Reading a script in a fluid and ever changing environment is doomed to failure. You're not really acting...Unless you're character acting and acting out.
  • It's comedy, remember the key points and riff off of them like you would with a pub story.
  • Involve the crowd. Ask them questions, get them to do stupid things, I had a room putting their hands up and down like kids in response to increasingly disturbing scenarios. I was left with one guy who swore he had made love to a swan.
  • If something goes wrong, roll with it. The mic stand fell over once when I forgot the mic cable was trailing round it, and dragged it over...Cue 2 minutes of improv' about the place being haunted by camp poltergeists who objected to my button down collar. I've since done this deliberately if I feel the need to inject some physical comedy into the room.
  • Hecklers are funny as fuck. They're usually pissed, and they're usually a lot slower than you. Repeat what they say in a mocking or surprised tone to give yourself time to construct a retort and then unleash it. I was stumped by one once, so I launched into a Who Wants to be a Millionaire scenario where I asked the audience which one of my comebacks I should run with. My 5 minutes was soon up, everyone was satisfied and I was show-boating.

Thursday 2 February 2012

Lynched at an open mic night

I had a couple of simple throwaway gags to use that linked together my more in depth raconteuring. One of them went something like this:
...They were interviewing some guy at the side of the road, he's knackered, he's running a marathon FFS yet the person with the mic expects them to answer a series of dull questions in between gasps and snorting snot into the drain. Anyway, they ask him what he was running for...He answered that he was running for Leukaemia. Funny, I run to get fit myself.

There's usually a brief chuckle, allows the slow ones to laugh before I launch into a story like the one about about buying the largest dildo in Anne Summers with a shy ex, and then walking back through the shopping centre with this...thing...writhing away in an Anne Summers bag. It's a good story that one.

This night nothing was going to right...People were eating, and I was the only open mic' guy they had in what was blatantly a pub eatery.

So I'm rattling through my Leukaemia throwaway as usual when suddenly there is this audible groan from a table towards the back of the room, shortly afterwards  what I imagine is some meaty women with a thick accent yells "No...No...You cunt! It isn't funny!"

I retort something like "Maybe, maybe not, but you don't get to decide what is or isn't funny for the room...We operate something called a democracy in this country. That's d..e..m..o etc. And people don't tend to vote for ugly women."

Another disembodied harsh female voice chipped in "Just Shut up you wanker, cancer, it's nothing funny!"

Being in the zone and thinking I was in charge of the room, shit this was my second gig and my first had gone well (or so I was told) I tore right back with, "look If you don't want to deal with cancer then I suggest you change your diet and start doing some exercise....And given that you sound like Ertha Kitt, giving up smoking helps too."

The original heckler screeched "That's her mum you cunt!" Perturbed by the venom I leaned forward to peer at the crowd through over exaggerated raised eyebrows, and saw a table full of sweaty larger sized women all wearing pink t-shirts...smiling angelically from the front of the T-shirts was the face of a young girl, no more than 14, surrounded with glittery words like "princess, darling, daughter, niece, never forget!" For those slow on the uptake, this is the universal symbol of being out on a night to the comedy club to raise money (and forget the pain of loss) for cancer research.

Fuck...Where to go from here? To retreat means the certain death of your act, to attack means a guaranteed lynching at the hands of mob justice. So I did what any human being would do, dropped my manic stage personae and said. "Right, I get it now...I apologise, I cannot see you all from up here...Since I've fucked my act, and probably the rest of the evening, I'll just say thank you for your time and I hope you can enjoy the rest of the night...I'll leave it to the professional comics back stage, who are now tearing up their cancer material, and wish you well. See you later." I didn't say my name.

What I wanted to say was something like "Can I have one of those t-shirts please, I need to inject some fresh capital into the wank bank." or "What a tragic a waste, she had such a pretty mouth!" or "How did something so beautiful, come out of something so butch?" or "Her dad must be good looking, because frankly...It's not your genes that are dominant!"

Such is the evil that lurks within a comical brain. You have to switch off your inner filter to generate humour...Sometimes it goes too far...But there is part of me that wishes I went down in a hail of fists, if only to win the comedy battle at the expense of my life.

So I left the stage...Did I feel bad? Nope. My skin has been tempered by many days of being abused as a teacher...I am Edmund Blackadder in a classroom, fuck you kiddies! I blamed the venues, as the landlord had clearly failed to grasp that a well lit corner of a room next to people eating meals is not the ideal performance space for somebody acting out a mental breakdown for laughs.

What made me feel damn good afterwards is a number of the professional comics praised my attitude and composure, some even suggested that that particular group was a form of cancer in itself, that it had sucked the life out of the room and killed the audience...And that perhaps they shouldn't have brought their overt statement into an environment that encourages mockery of life. Discuss.

P.S. Did I mention that this whole shower happened in a pub, when I was the only mic guy who turned up? So I was orating when everybody was eating a fucking hog-roast and expecting the laughs to start about an hour later when they'd had a bit to drink?