Ashes to Crashes

"Did you know the Government is using the Icelandic volcano as an excuse to keep planes from flying?"

"Why?"

"Er....er...dunno. But you know what the Government's like"

"Do I?"

"Like, totally dude"

No, you're not reading an excerpt from the latest Dan Brown thriller, nor are you getting a sneak peek at the next Judd Apatow movie ("It's about a lazy jewish guy who's in an infeasible situation, then a stunning bird fancies him and his gang of stoner mates hang around. Nobody's done that before"), What you're reading is admittedly made up, but is a good example of the kind of cack being peddled by tired, annoyed travellers stuck in the nation's airports due to the aforementioned volcanic gubbins.

Put simply, planes + ash = dead. There's no hidden agenda; no cost-cutting exercise; it's just a scientific fact. Ash gets in the engines, melts, solidifies and (borrowing from the official Boeing 747 handbook) "proper fucks up the engines".

You can understand the airlines' reluctance to fly under these conditions. Ignoring the fact their planes might get a bit exploded in a firey pile, there's also the matter of the relatives of the dead, who'll quite reasonably enquire why they risked flying when volcanic ash "proper fucks up the engines". It's not worth the risk to life or hardware, so they're reluctantly having to sit tight on the apron until the ash clears and they can crack on.

It is an unprecedented event in aviation history to have a complete lock-down of air traffic. Even in the aftermath of 9/11 at least one plane carrying material removed due to Bush administration cover-up squad was allowed to fly, so this is something completely new.

Of course, that means the square root of knob all to the British public.

Quite rightly, they're annoyed, but I'd bet a sizeable chunk of money that they'd be a shite side more annoyed if they met their untimely doom thanks to engine up-fuckage. As I stated earlier, it's nobody's fault, but these tools are using the airtime afforded to them by bored BBC correspondents to have a right old moan. Multiple people have asked why they don't just fly a bit lower. That's a good idea, squire; it's not like there are any obstacles down here. The airlines fly extra high on purpose as a gag. In fact, why don't we go the whole hog and drive down the motorways, then sail across the Channel, Sullenberg-style?

The piece de resistance, however, was some no-mark suggesting that this was somehow a deliberate act by the Icelanders. No word of a lie, his quote was "first they ruined our banks, now they've taken our holidays". Such an ill-considered view was this that the newsreader had to apologise and clarify that they weren't suggesting the natural phenomenon of a volcano was some kind of vengeance for us asking for our money back (in case that's what we were thinking). Jesus Christ.

Now, I wasn't the interviewer of that simpleton, but I'm reasonably sure that had I been there, my succinct response would have been along these lines:

"Look, I'm sorry that your holiday's been royally buggered, but there's nowt you can do about it, and whinging to the press only seems to result in someone writing about it in a poorly-visited blog, so sit down, shut up and have a four quid cup of tea. Dick."

Facebook: The fallout

In recent months I've noticed that a great many social occasions were passing me by, as I saw on my Mrs' Facebook page images of my friends in various pubs and clubs seemingly having a right old whale of a time. I was initially put out at the notion of being discarded from my peer group, then I realised I'm not that arsed.

In the end, it transpired that the reason I miss these events isn't out of petulant hatred on the part of my friends (although that isn't helping matters). No, the issue is that they collude and instigate these events via the medium of that Internet, specifically Facebook. With me not being a member (in any sense of the word before you comedians get to work), I was missing out on vital social gatherings.

So I joined.

And what an epic waste of time it was.

Initially I have to admit I enjoyed the novelty of it. In the first day or so, I befriended all of the people I would usually speak to via text messages, plus one or two other 'friend of a friend' types who I'd met in the past. What was perhaps cleverest about it though was its ability to put you in touch with people you might not have seen for yonks, by matching your whereabouts and educational history to find people of a similar ilk. Indeed, within the first hour of joining I had remade the acquaintance of 2 University friends who I literally haven't seen or heard from in 10 years. The conversations went like this:

Me: "Alright"

Them: "Alright"

Me: "So what have you done in the last 10 years then?"

Them: "Not much. You?"

Me: "Ditto"

Them: "Seeya then"


It was at this point that cracks began to appear in the world of the Facebook.

Firstly, a very small percentage of the people you know actually act like they do in real life, which I don't get. I saw male friends saying "Fab", people quoting films, songs and self-help material, and all other manner of pointlessness. I was both bemused and disappointed at the sheer pretension and smoke and mirrors used by some frequenters to paint themselves in an alternative light. No amount of pointing out the error of their ways, beliefs or grammar seemed to change that either.

Then there's the games. I'm taken to believe there are various online games you can take part in, which seem to occupy the darkest, wankest corners of the gaming market, usually involving building a farm or finding a dinosaur or somesuch. If that's your bag, help yourself. However, Facebook's propensity to broadcast the player's achievements in said games all over your page do get on your tits slightly after a worryingly short space of time. Who gives a fuck if you have built a farm? Piss off and get a life, you square.

Again, offering my opinions on both the game and their character did little to dislodge their faith in such pursuits.

In the end, the straw what broke the camel's back was the willingness for people to tell you literally anything that occurs to them, mentally, physically or psychologically. I'm not kidding; the base premise of the site is to tell people what's going on in your life, but I stopped at "I think Facebook is unnecessary twaddle", while other protagonists told us of their tea, who they were missing, what they were watching on telly, even what time they were due at work tomorrow. Now, I'm not known for my human interest at the best of times, but I struggle to envisage a situation when you would visit or call a person on the premise of finding out what they had for tea. I doubt even the most feeble-minded of folk would struggle to give the shiniest of shites about such matters. WE DON'T CARE, IT's NOT IMPORTANT, YOU'RE NOT IMPORTANT SO FUCK OFF TELLING US YOUR EVERY WAKING THOUGHT, YOU POINTLESS IDIOT.

After a month of cock gags and grammatical pedantry I had to knock it on the head, if only for my own sanity. I'd given it a try, found it to be the biggest load of stagnant horseshit in Internet history, and quickly drew a line under the whole shameful saga. I'm not sorry I did it, cos at least then when somebody decides I'm wrong for not doing what several million people think is a right hoot, I'm armed with knowledge and experience to argue back in my inimitable, erudite style.

"Nope, it's shit" is what I'll say. "And it's got a stupid name"...