I'm please to announce the return of an old friend. A friend who was omnipresent during my early years in employment, but in recent times has been exiled for reasons not of their own doing. However, this year has seen a resurgence, and we can all rest easy in our beds that the glory days are back again.
Of course, that laboured introduction refers to the debauched antics of my colleagues at the company Christmas party.
As I said above, in recent times, antics, tomfoolery and the varying levels of horseplay have been at a worrying low. Refusing to blame the credit crunch, I believe it's because the ratio of single-to-impressionable staff has been skewed by the sheer number of married and shamefully unadulterous folk we've recently employed.
Skip forward to this year, and we're back on form, fuelled by a heady injection of youngsters, singletons and recently-divorced arsehats bent on alcohol-fuelled redemption. The following events back up these outrageous claims:
- 1 chap drank a bottle of champagne and 2 cans of lager. On the bus on the way to the hotel at 4 in the afternoon
- Said chap hit the karaoke at 7:15, and threatened to knock someone 'spark out' who he believed had a better singing voice than he did*
- 1 young man was propositioned by a much older, bisexual male colleague, culminating in the question "Have you ever shagged a man?"
- A free bar was declared at 7:45. By 9:45, £2,500 of drinks had been ordered (but not necessarily consumed)
- The free bar was closed when somebody ordered 30 pints of Fosters
- 2 of the more attractive members of the female staff enjoyed the pleasures of 2 salesmen sharing a room. One in the bed and one in the bath
- 1 young lady, who is well-known to have a boyfriend, was propositioned by a young chap along the lines of "Fancy going up to your room?". She needed no second invitation.
* I was the man he threatened to knock out. I was well scared, I tells you.
Good times. Personally, I much prefer this kind of party as a married man, as you watch the myriad perpetuators of the above carnage making the walk of shame on the Monday morning (or in some cases, setting new records in non-plussed arrogance). Let's face it, they're not doing any harm (apart from maybe tearing the occasional trouser press off the wall in the throes of passion) but isn't that the point of an all-expenses-paid Christmas soiree - to wreck possessions, reputations and the trust of the free bar cardholder in as quick a time as possible?
It isn't? Cripes. I'd better have a word with a few of the more 'energetic' staff before next year then...
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Thursday, 2 December 2010
It's double standard-tastic!
A colleague of mine once sagely opined that if a woman was to enter his office, open her blouse and enquire as to the contents' quality, said chap would be more than delighted. If however, he was to offer her the same right to reply on his trouser furniture, the local constabulary would be involved quicker than you could say "love truncheon".
This morning, a chirpy southern lady spent a few minutes on the radio explaining and ultimately defending her new website, which allows wives who are bored with their marriages to gather, converse and ultimately brag about the affairs they're currently enjoying.
Hmm.
Imagine if you will a world where a website existed solely for blokes to boast about their extra-martial doings; all hell would break loose. Woman's rights groups would go off the chart, slagging off the menfolk and displaying levels of penis envy previously uncharted. There may already be a site dedicated to this particular niche, but its proprietor hasn't been in the national press bigging it up, to my extensive knowledge.
I'm not naive enough to suggest that women aren't capable of initiating affairs, but it is my experience that it's usually the bloke who is doing the dirty, while the wronged wife sits at home, none the wiser, poring over a BettaBuy catalogue. The existence of this new website bucks that particular notion, but it seems to have taken it beyond a simple support group for women who are stuck in loveless marriages, and instead seems to celebrate their adulterous ways. And that's just bogus.
It subsequently turned out that this woman was very happy in every aspect of her marriage except the bonking bit, but rather than approach her husband about it, she went off with some other chap then founded this website to document her progress. Ignoring the moral ambiguity of affairs, doesn't she think that encouraging this kind of behaviour via an online support group is more detrimental to marriages than suggesting they actually talk to each other and sort their shit out?
My attitude to affairs needs no further airing here, but my attitude to marriage is similar to people in jobs they don't like - if you don't like it, fuck off and find a new one. Don't just stick with what you've got and moan about it. And certainly don't broadcast the various ins and outs (arf) of your affairs for like-minded harridans to gorge on like the sex-starved morality vacuums that they clearly are. Jesus wept.
This morning, a chirpy southern lady spent a few minutes on the radio explaining and ultimately defending her new website, which allows wives who are bored with their marriages to gather, converse and ultimately brag about the affairs they're currently enjoying.
Hmm.
Imagine if you will a world where a website existed solely for blokes to boast about their extra-martial doings; all hell would break loose. Woman's rights groups would go off the chart, slagging off the menfolk and displaying levels of penis envy previously uncharted. There may already be a site dedicated to this particular niche, but its proprietor hasn't been in the national press bigging it up, to my extensive knowledge.
I'm not naive enough to suggest that women aren't capable of initiating affairs, but it is my experience that it's usually the bloke who is doing the dirty, while the wronged wife sits at home, none the wiser, poring over a BettaBuy catalogue. The existence of this new website bucks that particular notion, but it seems to have taken it beyond a simple support group for women who are stuck in loveless marriages, and instead seems to celebrate their adulterous ways. And that's just bogus.
It subsequently turned out that this woman was very happy in every aspect of her marriage except the bonking bit, but rather than approach her husband about it, she went off with some other chap then founded this website to document her progress. Ignoring the moral ambiguity of affairs, doesn't she think that encouraging this kind of behaviour via an online support group is more detrimental to marriages than suggesting they actually talk to each other and sort their shit out?
My attitude to affairs needs no further airing here, but my attitude to marriage is similar to people in jobs they don't like - if you don't like it, fuck off and find a new one. Don't just stick with what you've got and moan about it. And certainly don't broadcast the various ins and outs (arf) of your affairs for like-minded harridans to gorge on like the sex-starved morality vacuums that they clearly are. Jesus wept.
Friday, 19 November 2010
"I wouldn't mind Twittering your Skype into next week"
Is it too cynical to suggest that Jason Manford using this sex text 'scandal' to engineer a move away from The One Show?
In the latest of what is becoming a bizarre procession of mid-ranking celebrities using technology to achieve orgasm, Manford has owned up to sending risque and/or downright rude messages to women through Twitter and Skype and what have you. I say 'owned up', but last month the first bird with whom he'd shared some e-shenanigans shopped him to the popular press and he was left without a leg to stand on. His defence was that he was lonely in a hotel room, but I'm not buying that. I've been on my own in hotel rooms loads of times, and not once have I thought "I know, I'll go online and flirt outrageously with birds. My heavily-pregnant wife won't mind".
His behaviour isn't exactly deplorable, but it's not on is it? If he'd said the same things to a woman in the flesh, it would be deemed inappropriate, so it's no different just because it's virtual. He rises slightly above the usual 'celeb-gets-caught-with-kecks-down' mire simply because he came clean (grow up), rather than carrying it on for months, getting caught then saying "Woe is me - I was in a dark place" or other such dreck which ends up in the sleeve notes on their next album.
He says there were '10 or 12' women in total, so clearly the first woman was just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently he's told his wife and they're working through it, but he's also quit The Beeb just to be on the safe side. Personally I think that's the shot in the arm his career needed. His stand-up was doing fine until he jumped on the gravy train, asking The Fonz what he thought of knife crime and listening to Gyles Brandreth's camp droning. He can get his head down while he sorts out his martial status, then get back on the road, further his comedy career and get some street cred back. Might be an idea to leave the laptop at home though.
On a wider note, this is a further example of fame going to blokes' heads. I can categorically state that in a position of fame, I wouldn't stray from the wife, simply because I've got what I want at home, but it does surprise me about the choices some of these chaps make. Vernon Kaye, for example. Yes, he's got an enormous face, but the birds seem to like him. He too was embroiled in a childish sex text scandal, but he's got the lovely Tess Daly at home, so something's amiss there. Likewise Tony Parker, who plays basketball for some reason. He's gone as far as having an affair, but all the while he's got Eva Longoria washing his underpants. As I mused to a friend, she might be a pain in the arse and we're doing him a disservice, but if there's a better put-together Latino woman out there, I don't want to know about it. I'm not saying that just cos they're fit then the husband shouldn't stray (let's face it, they shouldn't be dabbling under any circumstances) but if they're that unhappy, they should man up, own up and split up. At least then us normal folk get to have a crack at their other halves (providing the Mrs doesn't find out).
In the latest of what is becoming a bizarre procession of mid-ranking celebrities using technology to achieve orgasm, Manford has owned up to sending risque and/or downright rude messages to women through Twitter and Skype and what have you. I say 'owned up', but last month the first bird with whom he'd shared some e-shenanigans shopped him to the popular press and he was left without a leg to stand on. His defence was that he was lonely in a hotel room, but I'm not buying that. I've been on my own in hotel rooms loads of times, and not once have I thought "I know, I'll go online and flirt outrageously with birds. My heavily-pregnant wife won't mind".
His behaviour isn't exactly deplorable, but it's not on is it? If he'd said the same things to a woman in the flesh, it would be deemed inappropriate, so it's no different just because it's virtual. He rises slightly above the usual 'celeb-gets-caught-with-kecks-down' mire simply because he came clean (grow up), rather than carrying it on for months, getting caught then saying "Woe is me - I was in a dark place" or other such dreck which ends up in the sleeve notes on their next album.
He says there were '10 or 12' women in total, so clearly the first woman was just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently he's told his wife and they're working through it, but he's also quit The Beeb just to be on the safe side. Personally I think that's the shot in the arm his career needed. His stand-up was doing fine until he jumped on the gravy train, asking The Fonz what he thought of knife crime and listening to Gyles Brandreth's camp droning. He can get his head down while he sorts out his martial status, then get back on the road, further his comedy career and get some street cred back. Might be an idea to leave the laptop at home though.
On a wider note, this is a further example of fame going to blokes' heads. I can categorically state that in a position of fame, I wouldn't stray from the wife, simply because I've got what I want at home, but it does surprise me about the choices some of these chaps make. Vernon Kaye, for example. Yes, he's got an enormous face, but the birds seem to like him. He too was embroiled in a childish sex text scandal, but he's got the lovely Tess Daly at home, so something's amiss there. Likewise Tony Parker, who plays basketball for some reason. He's gone as far as having an affair, but all the while he's got Eva Longoria washing his underpants. As I mused to a friend, she might be a pain in the arse and we're doing him a disservice, but if there's a better put-together Latino woman out there, I don't want to know about it. I'm not saying that just cos they're fit then the husband shouldn't stray (let's face it, they shouldn't be dabbling under any circumstances) but if they're that unhappy, they should man up, own up and split up. At least then us normal folk get to have a crack at their other halves (providing the Mrs doesn't find out).
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Royalty: 100% gggrrrrrrreeeeeeeaaaaaat
Right, let's get a few things straight:
- I ain't no royalist, fool
- At best I'm ambivalent to their plight
- At no point could I be considered to share the views of the populace
With the joyous news that Prince Harry and Kate Middleton are going to tie the knot, some media outlets have gone into meltdown. The Daily Mail website, for example- usually a bastion of images depicting a myriad soap and music stars in their bikinis - has got its knickers in a right old twist, dedicating nearly all of its stories to the delectable Miss Middleton, lifting the lid on such fascinating stories such as which school she went to, what her parents do for a living and what her friends nicknamed her at school ('Kate Middlebum' incidentally - a new high for fans of creative wordplay).
As usual, such over-the-top hyperbole doesn't particularly bother me, as I couldn't give a shiny shite whether they got married, split up or performed complicated brain surgery on a maimed baboon (actually that's not true, the last one would be awesome). As always, there will be some people who are beside themselves with glee about it, others who will launch a series of well-aimed yet hopelessly vitriolic tirades against them and those (like me) in the middle ground, who pen overly wordy analyses of such events in the vain hope of become an Internet sensation.
The thing is though, it seems that all media coverage is implying that we were all gagging for this to happen; that we were counting down the days until he realised his hair has gone see-through and he looks like Uncle Eddie, so he'd better snare this dusky maiden before she does one to less plummy climes. More than one media outlet has written about how delighted the nation is, and how we're all bound to have spontaneous street parties to celebrate a soldier and an unemployed posh bird getting hitched. Call me a cynic if you will, but I'd be very surprised if all corners of this great nation are as fussed about it as the Home Counties and old ladies with plates depicting Charles and Di looking awkward in a garden.
What next? "Racist assault in London, the nation to put up white-only bunting"?
"Jordan tops "Best top bollocks on a broad' poll"?
"People watch 'I'm a celebrity' without vomiting in anger"?
You can't assume every part of the population feels the same way as you, you know.
At the end of the day, good luck to them. I'm sure all hell's going to break loose as people predict when and where they'll get hitched, and the media shit-storm on the day will do my head in, but I'd appreciate it, media types, if you specified exactly who will be wetting themselves about the news and who instead will be wearing a bowler hat and storming the stage at comedy gigs shouting 'Fuck the pound'*. You owe us that much.
* Visual gag borrowed from a politically switched-on friend.
- I ain't no royalist, fool
- At best I'm ambivalent to their plight
- At no point could I be considered to share the views of the populace
With the joyous news that Prince Harry and Kate Middleton are going to tie the knot, some media outlets have gone into meltdown. The Daily Mail website, for example- usually a bastion of images depicting a myriad soap and music stars in their bikinis - has got its knickers in a right old twist, dedicating nearly all of its stories to the delectable Miss Middleton, lifting the lid on such fascinating stories such as which school she went to, what her parents do for a living and what her friends nicknamed her at school ('Kate Middlebum' incidentally - a new high for fans of creative wordplay).
As usual, such over-the-top hyperbole doesn't particularly bother me, as I couldn't give a shiny shite whether they got married, split up or performed complicated brain surgery on a maimed baboon (actually that's not true, the last one would be awesome). As always, there will be some people who are beside themselves with glee about it, others who will launch a series of well-aimed yet hopelessly vitriolic tirades against them and those (like me) in the middle ground, who pen overly wordy analyses of such events in the vain hope of become an Internet sensation.
The thing is though, it seems that all media coverage is implying that we were all gagging for this to happen; that we were counting down the days until he realised his hair has gone see-through and he looks like Uncle Eddie, so he'd better snare this dusky maiden before she does one to less plummy climes. More than one media outlet has written about how delighted the nation is, and how we're all bound to have spontaneous street parties to celebrate a soldier and an unemployed posh bird getting hitched. Call me a cynic if you will, but I'd be very surprised if all corners of this great nation are as fussed about it as the Home Counties and old ladies with plates depicting Charles and Di looking awkward in a garden.
What next? "Racist assault in London, the nation to put up white-only bunting"?
"Jordan tops "Best top bollocks on a broad' poll"?
"People watch 'I'm a celebrity' without vomiting in anger"?
You can't assume every part of the population feels the same way as you, you know.
At the end of the day, good luck to them. I'm sure all hell's going to break loose as people predict when and where they'll get hitched, and the media shit-storm on the day will do my head in, but I'd appreciate it, media types, if you specified exactly who will be wetting themselves about the news and who instead will be wearing a bowler hat and storming the stage at comedy gigs shouting 'Fuck the pound'*. You owe us that much.
* Visual gag borrowed from a politically switched-on friend.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Only fools and Jordan
It's that time of year again already. I know, it only seems like five minutes since the last one and now the next one is around the corner.
No, not Christmas, or the final of that fixed, mime-riddled freakshow X-Factor; I mean it's time for Jordan to get divorced again.
Jordan (real name Kenny Price) is a former glamour model and philanthropist whose relationships are routinely splashed across the pages of this great nation's red-top publications. Recall how she got hitched to New Zealand's greatest export Peter Andrew, after the pair met in the jungle (not a euphemism). Within 36 minutes, the pair were married, had a series of aesthetically-unfortunate children and were divorced again.
Not one to rest on her laurels, Jordan set her sights on Alex Reid, who specialises in being reasonably skilled at a number of martial arts, although not enough at any one discipline to pursue it professionally. They too got married, and reluctantly signed a TV deal to show us the very inner workings of their stable and well-considered marriage.
Fast forward a few short months and apparently he's had enough, and has demanded time apart. Now, I'm not privy to the internal machinations of their latest marital debacle (it's not been on telly yet) but can we really be surprised that they weren't meant to be together and will soon be on the scrap heap? Let's face it, Price is an epic pain in the arse, mixing a thick-as-pigshit demeanour with a face so mangled you wouldn't let your cat lick it. He on the other hand looks to have been carved from a piece of damaged soap and will appear on television for as little as £32. In previous blogs I've commented on her entrepreneurial promise, as she created the Jordan persona to trade off her looks and further her career, but that horse shot it's bolt many moons ago, so she's now only left with her pitiful home life, which she trawls across the airwaves to keep the brass coming in.
I'm not playing the 'marriage is sacred' card in light of my own recent nuptial shenanigans, but was it really necessary for them to immediately tie the knot? Couldn't they have dated for a bit, maybe got to second base, even mixed their CD's, before charging down the aisle? I doubt the public's respect for them would have improved (apart from those orange folk who have a haircut for every possible weather phenomenon) but surely people would have realised that she wasn't just looking to feather her nest with more TV money and maybe even had genuine feelings for The Reidinator.
Don't get me wrong; I couldn't give two fucks either way, but you have to wonder who has any sympathy for her these days as she lurches from one impotent disaster to the next.
Jordan - if you're listening love, just because he liked it he didn't have to put a ring on it. It's not a fucking competition.
No, not Christmas, or the final of that fixed, mime-riddled freakshow X-Factor; I mean it's time for Jordan to get divorced again.
Jordan (real name Kenny Price) is a former glamour model and philanthropist whose relationships are routinely splashed across the pages of this great nation's red-top publications. Recall how she got hitched to New Zealand's greatest export Peter Andrew, after the pair met in the jungle (not a euphemism). Within 36 minutes, the pair were married, had a series of aesthetically-unfortunate children and were divorced again.
Not one to rest on her laurels, Jordan set her sights on Alex Reid, who specialises in being reasonably skilled at a number of martial arts, although not enough at any one discipline to pursue it professionally. They too got married, and reluctantly signed a TV deal to show us the very inner workings of their stable and well-considered marriage.
Fast forward a few short months and apparently he's had enough, and has demanded time apart. Now, I'm not privy to the internal machinations of their latest marital debacle (it's not been on telly yet) but can we really be surprised that they weren't meant to be together and will soon be on the scrap heap? Let's face it, Price is an epic pain in the arse, mixing a thick-as-pigshit demeanour with a face so mangled you wouldn't let your cat lick it. He on the other hand looks to have been carved from a piece of damaged soap and will appear on television for as little as £32. In previous blogs I've commented on her entrepreneurial promise, as she created the Jordan persona to trade off her looks and further her career, but that horse shot it's bolt many moons ago, so she's now only left with her pitiful home life, which she trawls across the airwaves to keep the brass coming in.
I'm not playing the 'marriage is sacred' card in light of my own recent nuptial shenanigans, but was it really necessary for them to immediately tie the knot? Couldn't they have dated for a bit, maybe got to second base, even mixed their CD's, before charging down the aisle? I doubt the public's respect for them would have improved (apart from those orange folk who have a haircut for every possible weather phenomenon) but surely people would have realised that she wasn't just looking to feather her nest with more TV money and maybe even had genuine feelings for The Reidinator.
Don't get me wrong; I couldn't give two fucks either way, but you have to wonder who has any sympathy for her these days as she lurches from one impotent disaster to the next.
Jordan - if you're listening love, just because he liked it he didn't have to put a ring on it. It's not a fucking competition.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Cat + Bin = Medicine?
The dopey cow who thought it would be a good idea to sling that cat into a wheelie bin has been charged today. And rightly so, says I. There isn't really any justification for doing something quite as retarded as that, despite her cast-iron excuse that it was a 'joke'. Bearing in mind she checked both ways before doing it, and clearly didn't realise she was on CCTV at the time, it seems unlikely she was trying to draw too much comedy from it, especially when you consider that she didn't actually tell anyone about it, thus missing out on the inevitable bragging rights such a clever piece of japery guarantees.
As you might imagine, I find the lady in question to be a bit of a dick-end. You don't expect such behaviour from a middle-aged person, and you can bet your bollocks (top ones if you're a bird) that if a similar level of offence had befallen her (like pushing her owl into a wheelbarrow), she would have kicked off, dragging the local constabulary in to feel someone's collar and/or hit them with a truncheon. Presumably.
What really gets on my gears though is her lame-arse excuse-mongering in court. Recall my brilliantly-argued blog recently, where I decried the attitude of 'celebrities' when caught with their pants down. Instead of holding their hands up to their wrongdoing, they witter on about how sorry they are and how much of a nightmare it's been pummelling some buxom wench into next week in a TravelLodge. While I can never truly say I would have anything approaching respect for Ronan Keating, if he'd just said "To be sure I'm sorry about the old adultery thing there. Tis a fair cop" at least I would consider him a realistic, if slightly wanky, human being. But when they start wheeling out these ridiculous reasons to justify their actions, it raises my ire like you wouldn't believe.
Anyway, the point I'm labouring is that this woman claimed she was in a state of stress at the time of CatBinSlingGate (TM) because her father was gravely ill. Now, if your old man's under the weather, I can totally understand you feeling sad, but I'm struggling to find the correlation between paternal illness and feline disposal. Why didn't she just say "Yeah, I'm a bit mental to be fair. I thought it would be a gag to lob the moggy in the bin, although right now I'm finding it hard to fully justify it"? Instead it's all "Woe is me, me Dad's poorly. If only there was some way to make him feel better involving next door's cat and a wheelie bin..."
As you might imagine, I find the lady in question to be a bit of a dick-end. You don't expect such behaviour from a middle-aged person, and you can bet your bollocks (top ones if you're a bird) that if a similar level of offence had befallen her (like pushing her owl into a wheelbarrow), she would have kicked off, dragging the local constabulary in to feel someone's collar and/or hit them with a truncheon. Presumably.
What really gets on my gears though is her lame-arse excuse-mongering in court. Recall my brilliantly-argued blog recently, where I decried the attitude of 'celebrities' when caught with their pants down. Instead of holding their hands up to their wrongdoing, they witter on about how sorry they are and how much of a nightmare it's been pummelling some buxom wench into next week in a TravelLodge. While I can never truly say I would have anything approaching respect for Ronan Keating, if he'd just said "To be sure I'm sorry about the old adultery thing there. Tis a fair cop" at least I would consider him a realistic, if slightly wanky, human being. But when they start wheeling out these ridiculous reasons to justify their actions, it raises my ire like you wouldn't believe.
Anyway, the point I'm labouring is that this woman claimed she was in a state of stress at the time of CatBinSlingGate (TM) because her father was gravely ill. Now, if your old man's under the weather, I can totally understand you feeling sad, but I'm struggling to find the correlation between paternal illness and feline disposal. Why didn't she just say "Yeah, I'm a bit mental to be fair. I thought it would be a gag to lob the moggy in the bin, although right now I'm finding it hard to fully justify it"? Instead it's all "Woe is me, me Dad's poorly. If only there was some way to make him feel better involving next door's cat and a wheelie bin..."
Friday, 24 September 2010
Ironic complaint alert
Before we start, and in the words of Sideshow Bob, "I'm aware of the irony of decrying people complaining in this blog, so there's no need to point it out".
Who are these people who complain to watchdogs when somebody says or does something apparently inappropriate? The latest is skinny hilarity-peddler Chris Moyles, who went on a limp-wristed rant about not being paid for 2 months. 61 people complained.
My question is, why?
First off, what do they think they will achieve? I'm all for free speech, and you can't please everyone all the time, but do they really think ringing in to say they didn't like it will make a blind bit of difference? In this case, Moyles won't even by disciplined, so how do they expect to change the BBC's charter with their hand-wringing and whining?
Second, and this is a long-standing bug-bear of mine, if you don't like it, turn it off. Nobody's making you listen to him (although I understand the CIA use it as a torture technique). Instead of sitting there waiting to be offended, put something banal and inoffensive off to avoid hurting your sensitive ears. I can't stand Moyles; I think he's a talentless toerag who uses shouting to mask his lack of humour, but I don't listen to him and bitch all the way through; I just don't listen.
Thirdly, what was so offensive about this anyway? If he'd littered his diatribe with a series of four-letter and/or swear words, fair enough, but he didn't. Personally I don't care what the fuck you say in any form of communication (subtle gag there), but I get how some people don't want to hear coarse language and mentions of 'frothing at the gash' while they're listening to their favourite disc jockeys. However, all he did was moan about not being paid; he didn't swear, he didn't have a go at the listeners, so I really don't see the need to complain. Ironically, the complaints should have been directed at him instead, as he used the position afforded to him by the British taxpayer to whinge about not being paid, instead of knocking on his gaffer's door to discuss it in private, like any normal person.
At the end of the day, there will always be people out there who can't wait to be offended, just so they can get on their high horse about it. With that in mind, feel free to comment on this and I'll give you a whole new perspective on what it is to be offended. Toodle oo.
Who are these people who complain to watchdogs when somebody says or does something apparently inappropriate? The latest is skinny hilarity-peddler Chris Moyles, who went on a limp-wristed rant about not being paid for 2 months. 61 people complained.
My question is, why?
First off, what do they think they will achieve? I'm all for free speech, and you can't please everyone all the time, but do they really think ringing in to say they didn't like it will make a blind bit of difference? In this case, Moyles won't even by disciplined, so how do they expect to change the BBC's charter with their hand-wringing and whining?
Second, and this is a long-standing bug-bear of mine, if you don't like it, turn it off. Nobody's making you listen to him (although I understand the CIA use it as a torture technique). Instead of sitting there waiting to be offended, put something banal and inoffensive off to avoid hurting your sensitive ears. I can't stand Moyles; I think he's a talentless toerag who uses shouting to mask his lack of humour, but I don't listen to him and bitch all the way through; I just don't listen.
Thirdly, what was so offensive about this anyway? If he'd littered his diatribe with a series of four-letter and/or swear words, fair enough, but he didn't. Personally I don't care what the fuck you say in any form of communication (subtle gag there), but I get how some people don't want to hear coarse language and mentions of 'frothing at the gash' while they're listening to their favourite disc jockeys. However, all he did was moan about not being paid; he didn't swear, he didn't have a go at the listeners, so I really don't see the need to complain. Ironically, the complaints should have been directed at him instead, as he used the position afforded to him by the British taxpayer to whinge about not being paid, instead of knocking on his gaffer's door to discuss it in private, like any normal person.
At the end of the day, there will always be people out there who can't wait to be offended, just so they can get on their high horse about it. With that in mind, feel free to comment on this and I'll give you a whole new perspective on what it is to be offended. Toodle oo.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Bigots: Presumptious
We've all been in a position where we've said something out loud assuming the others in attendance were in agreement, only to realise we'd completely misread the feelings of everyone else, making us look like a right royal doughnut.
Usually such an occurrence revolves around your opinion of the popular music scene, or maybe you're a Glee fan in the company of a group of normal people. Such events must be highly embarrassing for the bollock-dropper, so imagine how bad you would feel when you thought you were surrounded by like-minded bigots, only to realise you're actually amongst human beings.
Case in point - this past weekend. Long story short, the DJ at a leaving party I went to was a transvestite cabaret act. He was very entertaining, had a nice arse and gave the party the oomph it needed when it was going a bit flat. He was very well accepted (apparently he was a friend of the family) but there was no unpleasantness directed at the lad, and he ended the evening with most party goers on the dancefloor screeching 'New York, New York' in their regional dialect.
When we got back to the hotel afterwards, the bartender was asking another couple if they'd had a nice evening, and they were talking about this DJ:
Chap: "Yeah, it was....er....interesting"
Bartender: "Oh yeah?"
Chap: "Yeah..."
Silence, so I butt in
Me: "He was a transvestite cabaret act"
Bartender: "Right. Was he any good?"
Me: "He was great"
Chap: "I'll tell you something though, this kind of thing is becoming acceptable these days"
Bartender and I look at each other then him, wondering where it's about to go
Chap: "Er, which is good"
What a goon. He genuinely expected us to go "Bummers are gay" or something else suitably vitriolic, just because the DJ was from a social minority. Who gives a shit what he looks or dresses like? As he was drumming up dancers, he asked my friend and I if we wanted to join in, but upon hearing 'no' from us, he left us to it. He didn't overdo it, he didn't attempt to drag us up, and in the words of a world-class innuendoist, he didn't try to ram it down out throats.
On a serious note, people like the bar bigot need to be stamped out, and I'm glad he wasn't joined in his opinions by any of the other protagonists. Hopefully this episode made him realise how much of a weapon he is for a) expressing such opinions and b) having them in the first place. Maybe in time he might even learn to be tolerant of people just because their different to him, but given that includes right-minded people with morals, that could take some time. Dickhead.
Usually such an occurrence revolves around your opinion of the popular music scene, or maybe you're a Glee fan in the company of a group of normal people. Such events must be highly embarrassing for the bollock-dropper, so imagine how bad you would feel when you thought you were surrounded by like-minded bigots, only to realise you're actually amongst human beings.
Case in point - this past weekend. Long story short, the DJ at a leaving party I went to was a transvestite cabaret act. He was very entertaining, had a nice arse and gave the party the oomph it needed when it was going a bit flat. He was very well accepted (apparently he was a friend of the family) but there was no unpleasantness directed at the lad, and he ended the evening with most party goers on the dancefloor screeching 'New York, New York' in their regional dialect.
When we got back to the hotel afterwards, the bartender was asking another couple if they'd had a nice evening, and they were talking about this DJ:
Chap: "Yeah, it was....er....interesting"
Bartender: "Oh yeah?"
Chap: "Yeah..."
Silence, so I butt in
Me: "He was a transvestite cabaret act"
Bartender: "Right. Was he any good?"
Me: "He was great"
Chap: "I'll tell you something though, this kind of thing is becoming acceptable these days"
Bartender and I look at each other then him, wondering where it's about to go
Chap: "Er, which is good"
What a goon. He genuinely expected us to go "Bummers are gay" or something else suitably vitriolic, just because the DJ was from a social minority. Who gives a shit what he looks or dresses like? As he was drumming up dancers, he asked my friend and I if we wanted to join in, but upon hearing 'no' from us, he left us to it. He didn't overdo it, he didn't attempt to drag us up, and in the words of a world-class innuendoist, he didn't try to ram it down out throats.
On a serious note, people like the bar bigot need to be stamped out, and I'm glad he wasn't joined in his opinions by any of the other protagonists. Hopefully this episode made him realise how much of a weapon he is for a) expressing such opinions and b) having them in the first place. Maybe in time he might even learn to be tolerant of people just because their different to him, but given that includes right-minded people with morals, that could take some time. Dickhead.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
My E-tribute to a good man
When I started this blog, it was intended to be an amusing and thought-provoking study into the emotional overtones of owning one pair of shoes, which see you through all manner of life's big events (christenings, weddings, funerals, etc), and how they become synonymous with those events. I then realised what a crock of shit that was for an idea and settled on something far more worthy instead.
Kev Buckley was the manager of the Sunday league football team I played for in the nineties and early noughties, and this week I went to his funeral. He was 44.
I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, but I was informed of his incredibly untimely death whilst he was on holiday and made arrangements to be at his funeral. I'm glad I could be there to express my condolences and pay my respects, and am happy to report that a great many others did likewise.
He was a good man was Kev. Generous, amusing (often unintentionally), fiercely loyal and a strong family and community man. He leaves behind a wife and three children in their late teens and early twenties, and will be keenly missed by all around him.
His was a life you could measure by the amount of people there to pay their respects. More than 200 people crammed themselves into his local church, each one touched by him in some way. Away from football I barely knew him, but I was surprised at the impact he'd had upon me when I found out he'd died. I've known friend-of-a-friend types die before and I haven't made an effort to attend their funerals, but this was an event I wanted to be there for.
Sadly, with the service being on a Friday, a lot of people had to work in the afternoon so we didn't get a chance to fully celebrate his life. However, in the short time we were together, a few things were said about him, all of them good. It is a fitting tribute to him that I find it much harder to think of him not being at that kind of event than that he isn't around any more; at any other time he would have been in the centre of that get-together, having organised it at his own inconvenience.
If there's one thing I will always remember about him, it's his sense of humour, summed up when he said this to me shortly before coming on as a substitute (again):
"Go out there and use your pace"
If that's not a man capable of telling jokes, I don't know what is.
Rest in peace, Kev.
Kev Buckley was the manager of the Sunday league football team I played for in the nineties and early noughties, and this week I went to his funeral. He was 44.
I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, but I was informed of his incredibly untimely death whilst he was on holiday and made arrangements to be at his funeral. I'm glad I could be there to express my condolences and pay my respects, and am happy to report that a great many others did likewise.
He was a good man was Kev. Generous, amusing (often unintentionally), fiercely loyal and a strong family and community man. He leaves behind a wife and three children in their late teens and early twenties, and will be keenly missed by all around him.
His was a life you could measure by the amount of people there to pay their respects. More than 200 people crammed themselves into his local church, each one touched by him in some way. Away from football I barely knew him, but I was surprised at the impact he'd had upon me when I found out he'd died. I've known friend-of-a-friend types die before and I haven't made an effort to attend their funerals, but this was an event I wanted to be there for.
Sadly, with the service being on a Friday, a lot of people had to work in the afternoon so we didn't get a chance to fully celebrate his life. However, in the short time we were together, a few things were said about him, all of them good. It is a fitting tribute to him that I find it much harder to think of him not being at that kind of event than that he isn't around any more; at any other time he would have been in the centre of that get-together, having organised it at his own inconvenience.
If there's one thing I will always remember about him, it's his sense of humour, summed up when he said this to me shortly before coming on as a substitute (again):
"Go out there and use your pace"
If that's not a man capable of telling jokes, I don't know what is.
Rest in peace, Kev.
Monday, 13 September 2010
"One's dirty, the other's Coleen"
So ends the latest satirical swipe at a member of the celebrity fraternity; in this case, potato-faced razz-merchant Wayne "Always a Blue" Rooney.
I'm sure you've read by now that Mr Rooney has, borrowing from popular tabloid parlance, 'been up to his nuts in guts' extra-maritally. The lucky 'lady' in question is some high-class Mancunian prostitute (for 'high-class' read 'charges over a grand a night for her services and only hangs around in places were people are rich/stupid enough to fork out that kind of money for such a transaction'). Apparently, Roo (copyright: The Sun) met said tom in a casino in Manchester and, not to put too fine a point on it, fancied the arse off her. He subsequently paid for several nights with her, all around the time that both Coleen was up the stick with his firstborn and he was in the form of his life on the pitch (insert 'scoring', 'tackle' and 'in and around the box' gags here).
Of course, this is isn't on, as Coleen sat at home brewing his demon seed, while he allegedly chased this expensive piece of crumpet around, shagging her whenever his wallet allowed. And of course, she didn't say a dickie bird about it at the time, choosing only to bring it up once his interest had died down and the press were after someone else to go for in the event of John Terry's todger staying where it ought to.
Naturally, all hell has broken loose to the extent that he was dropped for the next league game (away to Everton; an event Sky would deem 'ironic' when it's merely coincidental) and the press have spent literally 10 days poring over his life, sticking up for the wronged wife (in no way linked to her status as a chav-level national treasure) whilst painting him to be the devil incarnate.
Now, he's done this kind of thing before. We all remember the infamous granny-shagging days when he was but a slip of a lad, and Coleen (rightly or wrongly) chose to forgive him and take him back. My lawyers instruct me to make it clear that her decision had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was trying to forge a media career and would be effectively skint and a nobody without Rooney's status and brass at the time. So what's she going to do this time? The pair of them have asked for privacy in this difficult time (borrowing heavily from the '21st Century Celebrity Couple's Guide to Manipulating the Press') while she presumably gives him a bollocking and throws a series of revolting yet expensive plates at him. One can only guess. Personally, I think she should kick him into touch now, as he's proven that he respects her enough to shag grannies and prossies while she's pregnant behind her back. Cynical though it may be, she's now got enough money and fame to make it on her own, and she could easily claim half of his possessions due to his adulterous behaviour. Surely she can't love the balding Shrek-a-like enough to tolerate this kind of activity, and if she does, he knows he's got carte blanche to do anything and anyone he wants in the future, knowing he can just put on his puppy-dog eyes and come back with his tail between his legs (for a change).
Either way, it always ends up coming down to an uncomfortable truth. At the end of the day, Rooney's despicable, immature and unpleasant behaviour can be explained as follows.
The hooker is fitter than Coleen. Much, much fitter.
I'm sure you've read by now that Mr Rooney has, borrowing from popular tabloid parlance, 'been up to his nuts in guts' extra-maritally. The lucky 'lady' in question is some high-class Mancunian prostitute (for 'high-class' read 'charges over a grand a night for her services and only hangs around in places were people are rich/stupid enough to fork out that kind of money for such a transaction'). Apparently, Roo (copyright: The Sun) met said tom in a casino in Manchester and, not to put too fine a point on it, fancied the arse off her. He subsequently paid for several nights with her, all around the time that both Coleen was up the stick with his firstborn and he was in the form of his life on the pitch (insert 'scoring', 'tackle' and 'in and around the box' gags here).
Of course, this is isn't on, as Coleen sat at home brewing his demon seed, while he allegedly chased this expensive piece of crumpet around, shagging her whenever his wallet allowed. And of course, she didn't say a dickie bird about it at the time, choosing only to bring it up once his interest had died down and the press were after someone else to go for in the event of John Terry's todger staying where it ought to.
Naturally, all hell has broken loose to the extent that he was dropped for the next league game (away to Everton; an event Sky would deem 'ironic' when it's merely coincidental) and the press have spent literally 10 days poring over his life, sticking up for the wronged wife (in no way linked to her status as a chav-level national treasure) whilst painting him to be the devil incarnate.
Now, he's done this kind of thing before. We all remember the infamous granny-shagging days when he was but a slip of a lad, and Coleen (rightly or wrongly) chose to forgive him and take him back. My lawyers instruct me to make it clear that her decision had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was trying to forge a media career and would be effectively skint and a nobody without Rooney's status and brass at the time. So what's she going to do this time? The pair of them have asked for privacy in this difficult time (borrowing heavily from the '21st Century Celebrity Couple's Guide to Manipulating the Press') while she presumably gives him a bollocking and throws a series of revolting yet expensive plates at him. One can only guess. Personally, I think she should kick him into touch now, as he's proven that he respects her enough to shag grannies and prossies while she's pregnant behind her back. Cynical though it may be, she's now got enough money and fame to make it on her own, and she could easily claim half of his possessions due to his adulterous behaviour. Surely she can't love the balding Shrek-a-like enough to tolerate this kind of activity, and if she does, he knows he's got carte blanche to do anything and anyone he wants in the future, knowing he can just put on his puppy-dog eyes and come back with his tail between his legs (for a change).
Either way, it always ends up coming down to an uncomfortable truth. At the end of the day, Rooney's despicable, immature and unpleasant behaviour can be explained as follows.
The hooker is fitter than Coleen. Much, much fitter.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Weddings: Ironic
When boys become men, they tend to be single, not least because the myriad disgusting habits they possess make them about as attractive as an acid enema to the fairer sex. However, as they 'mature', they change emotionally and physically, and often deliberately change their ways and appearance to make themselves more bonkable to the poontang.
Maybe, if they're lucky enough, they might snare themselves a comely broad, and with it the various carnal and argumentative delights relationships include. Eventually, the deafening tome of wedding bells may even ring out, as they stick on a whistle, say some vows and have a bit of a cry.
And this got me thinking; is their wedding day the ultimate ironic event for chaps?
Put it this way, what do women want?
- A man who dresses well
- A man in touch with his emotions and is not afraid to express them
- A man with a sense of humour who is able to mock himself and make others laugh
So on the big day, the groom is dressed in a killer suit, may be slightly tearful during the service (that would never happen to me, by the way) and give a speech displaying their humorous, easy-going nature. All in front of an assembled gaggle of mysterious and nubile women they've not yet had a opportunity to ruin their chances with.
What a gyp.
Maybe, if they're lucky enough, they might snare themselves a comely broad, and with it the various carnal and argumentative delights relationships include. Eventually, the deafening tome of wedding bells may even ring out, as they stick on a whistle, say some vows and have a bit of a cry.
And this got me thinking; is their wedding day the ultimate ironic event for chaps?
Put it this way, what do women want?
- A man who dresses well
- A man in touch with his emotions and is not afraid to express them
- A man with a sense of humour who is able to mock himself and make others laugh
So on the big day, the groom is dressed in a killer suit, may be slightly tearful during the service (that would never happen to me, by the way) and give a speech displaying their humorous, easy-going nature. All in front of an assembled gaggle of mysterious and nubile women they've not yet had a opportunity to ruin their chances with.
What a gyp.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
60 grand? You've gone and given it all awaaaaaay
There was a hilarious story on the radio this morning from some, and I choose my words carefully here, monumental arsehead of a woman, who was highlighting her recent plight in an attempt to prevent others from falling into the same trap and suffering the same heartbreak and ridicule as she had.
But what had befallen her? Had her feet fallen off due to overuse of tanning beds? Had someone raped her handbag? Surely she hadn't purchased a Lady Gaga single?
No, it was much more amusing than that. Put simply, some bloke had used an online dating service to con her out of some money by claiming his daughter was ill and needed an operation.
A couple of minor points:
- They had only known each other a couple of weeks at the time.
- They hadn't actually met.
- He managed to wangle £60k out of her.
- She's a fucking Idiot.
To be fair, she will now face all manner of abuse, ridicule and being picked on for coming out and admitting to her slight error of judgment. Her angle was that there was nothing any of the listeners could call her which she hadn't already called herself. Now there's a gauntlet I wouldn't mind picking up, but she probably had a point. However, can you trust someone to be that annoyed with themselves if they allow such a level of hoodwinking to take place? I mean, it's not as if they'd been together for a couple of years, got engaged, then he made up some tall tale about needing £1500 to fix his bike. They'd literally never met, yet he managed to manipulate her into parting with sixty large without seemingly breaking sweat.
It's highly feasible that being on a dating website showed her to be something of a desperate character, and was therefore ripe for the picking. I'm not for a minute suggesting that Internet dating means you're desperate and/or a lardarse (in fact, I know 2 married couples of my age who met that way), but she did sound as soft as shite and had probably been hand-picked by an established confidence trickster. Even so, wouldn't you have thought she might say "Er, hold on a minute, squire. Bearing in mind we're yet to meet, and your photo looks like you're modelling ill-fitting shorts in a Littlewoods catalogue, provide me with sufficient documentation and/or visitation rights to your so-called ill daughter and we'll talk", surely? If he was genuine, I doubt he would have taken offence at being questioned when his daughter's health was at stake, in which case you draw up a contract, get both parties to sign it and give little Chastity the iron lung she so desperately needs.
Instead she went "60 grand? Yeah, go on then" which quite frankly, is the work or an epic tool. "Got what she deserved" doesn't seem adequate enough somehow.
But what had befallen her? Had her feet fallen off due to overuse of tanning beds? Had someone raped her handbag? Surely she hadn't purchased a Lady Gaga single?
No, it was much more amusing than that. Put simply, some bloke had used an online dating service to con her out of some money by claiming his daughter was ill and needed an operation.
A couple of minor points:
- They had only known each other a couple of weeks at the time.
- They hadn't actually met.
- He managed to wangle £60k out of her.
- She's a fucking Idiot.
To be fair, she will now face all manner of abuse, ridicule and being picked on for coming out and admitting to her slight error of judgment. Her angle was that there was nothing any of the listeners could call her which she hadn't already called herself. Now there's a gauntlet I wouldn't mind picking up, but she probably had a point. However, can you trust someone to be that annoyed with themselves if they allow such a level of hoodwinking to take place? I mean, it's not as if they'd been together for a couple of years, got engaged, then he made up some tall tale about needing £1500 to fix his bike. They'd literally never met, yet he managed to manipulate her into parting with sixty large without seemingly breaking sweat.
It's highly feasible that being on a dating website showed her to be something of a desperate character, and was therefore ripe for the picking. I'm not for a minute suggesting that Internet dating means you're desperate and/or a lardarse (in fact, I know 2 married couples of my age who met that way), but she did sound as soft as shite and had probably been hand-picked by an established confidence trickster. Even so, wouldn't you have thought she might say "Er, hold on a minute, squire. Bearing in mind we're yet to meet, and your photo looks like you're modelling ill-fitting shorts in a Littlewoods catalogue, provide me with sufficient documentation and/or visitation rights to your so-called ill daughter and we'll talk", surely? If he was genuine, I doubt he would have taken offence at being questioned when his daughter's health was at stake, in which case you draw up a contract, get both parties to sign it and give little Chastity the iron lung she so desperately needs.
Instead she went "60 grand? Yeah, go on then" which quite frankly, is the work or an epic tool. "Got what she deserved" doesn't seem adequate enough somehow.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Make up: Wieners warpaint
In recent times, I've happened upon the Daily Mail's celebrity webpage. It is literally a collection of crappy stills of D-list celebrities and/or footballers going about their daily lives, while some paparazzo goon takes said photographs and flogs them to the Mail for idiots like me to gorge upon.
As usual, there are one or two flaws in their logic which need highlighting.
Put simply, if the paper likes a particular celebrity, then they are treated with respect and praised for their plight. If they're unliked for any reason though, they are praised slightly less. Case in point - the lovely Kelly Brook. Nobody can really say a bad word about her as she goes about her life which seemingly consists of walking towards photographers, past photographers, then away from photographers, as they photograph her. Being an exceptionally attractive young lady, such pictures are of greater interest to the public than others may be. Today, Miss Brook was pictured without make-up, having recently split up from egg-chasing injury-fan Danny Cipriani.
The headline - "Brave Kelly ventures out with no make-up"
Er, brave? What's particularly brave about not putting make-up on? I'm a fan of the New Romantic movement, but have never donned so much as fake eyelash. And where's my George Cross? It's who you know.
Another good example is tubby dick-magnet Kerry Katona. Bear in mind that her entire career spanned about 3 records 10 years ago, yet we still get to see what's she's up to on a day-to-day basis. Despite the fact that she drinks, smokes, turns up on national TV in a less than coherent state and was shown bawling at her kids on that car-crash documentary she participated in (for a small fee, I would imagine), the Mail believes we're desperate for footage of her walking down streets holding some odd-looking bloke's hand, while the reporter fawns over how thin she looks (she doesn't) and how happy she is (probably high, then).
Compare and contrast with ginger maniac Lindsay Lohan, who to a greater or lesser extent has had a similarly 'inconsistent' few years, yet the result is a massively sarcastic (and highly amusing) deconstruction of her cretinous existence, showing less-than-flattering press shots of her going flying or hanging around with Mark Ronson's brother. What? That's his sister? Never...
Anyway, the point is, these papers think they wield some kind of power, and seek to colour people's image of these various 'stars' to suit their own ends. They clearly don't have any sway over us normal folk, but some people seem to have an inability to form their own opinions of people until a right-wing rag has told them what to think. Let's face it, the majority of people who end up being photographed for this site don't actually contribute to society in an meaningful way, otherwise the pictures would be of them stacking shelves or cleaning oil off a cormorant. Instead, they get paid for doing fuck-knows-what and celebrate by pissing about in places where photographers frequent, sporting an outfit which somebody paid far more than you or I was employed to pick off a rail for them. Good luck to them as well; it's not as if they could actually do anything useful as a career if they wanted to. If you add up the brain cells available to every person on today's page (24 individuals by my count) the total is 17. And 15 of them are Kelly's. So brave and intelligent then.
In summary, anybody with a brain uses the site to have a look at the latest 11-out-of-10 bird Ashley Cole's 'dating', or to see the cellulite on Alesha Dixon's arse. And if that's not what the Internet was made for, I don't know what is.
As usual, there are one or two flaws in their logic which need highlighting.
Put simply, if the paper likes a particular celebrity, then they are treated with respect and praised for their plight. If they're unliked for any reason though, they are praised slightly less. Case in point - the lovely Kelly Brook. Nobody can really say a bad word about her as she goes about her life which seemingly consists of walking towards photographers, past photographers, then away from photographers, as they photograph her. Being an exceptionally attractive young lady, such pictures are of greater interest to the public than others may be. Today, Miss Brook was pictured without make-up, having recently split up from egg-chasing injury-fan Danny Cipriani.
The headline - "Brave Kelly ventures out with no make-up"
Er, brave? What's particularly brave about not putting make-up on? I'm a fan of the New Romantic movement, but have never donned so much as fake eyelash. And where's my George Cross? It's who you know.
Another good example is tubby dick-magnet Kerry Katona. Bear in mind that her entire career spanned about 3 records 10 years ago, yet we still get to see what's she's up to on a day-to-day basis. Despite the fact that she drinks, smokes, turns up on national TV in a less than coherent state and was shown bawling at her kids on that car-crash documentary she participated in (for a small fee, I would imagine), the Mail believes we're desperate for footage of her walking down streets holding some odd-looking bloke's hand, while the reporter fawns over how thin she looks (she doesn't) and how happy she is (probably high, then).
Compare and contrast with ginger maniac Lindsay Lohan, who to a greater or lesser extent has had a similarly 'inconsistent' few years, yet the result is a massively sarcastic (and highly amusing) deconstruction of her cretinous existence, showing less-than-flattering press shots of her going flying or hanging around with Mark Ronson's brother. What? That's his sister? Never...
Anyway, the point is, these papers think they wield some kind of power, and seek to colour people's image of these various 'stars' to suit their own ends. They clearly don't have any sway over us normal folk, but some people seem to have an inability to form their own opinions of people until a right-wing rag has told them what to think. Let's face it, the majority of people who end up being photographed for this site don't actually contribute to society in an meaningful way, otherwise the pictures would be of them stacking shelves or cleaning oil off a cormorant. Instead, they get paid for doing fuck-knows-what and celebrate by pissing about in places where photographers frequent, sporting an outfit which somebody paid far more than you or I was employed to pick off a rail for them. Good luck to them as well; it's not as if they could actually do anything useful as a career if they wanted to. If you add up the brain cells available to every person on today's page (24 individuals by my count) the total is 17. And 15 of them are Kelly's. So brave and intelligent then.
In summary, anybody with a brain uses the site to have a look at the latest 11-out-of-10 bird Ashley Cole's 'dating', or to see the cellulite on Alesha Dixon's arse. And if that's not what the Internet was made for, I don't know what is.
Child naming: Easy for chavs
Apropos to nothing, the Mrs and I have recently been going through potential baby names (calm down Mum, it was just a preparatory exercise). Anyway, we were taking it seriously at first, but by the time we'd got to H and I suggested 'Horace', we knew it wasn't going to end well.
You may recall in the past how I spoke of the dangerously low number of Marks and Graemes left, as new parents seek to name their offspring after celebrities or electrical items. With the greatest will in the world, I don't think many parents will be naming their children Colin or Brian any more. Don't get me wrong; I think they're good, solid names, but they appear dated now and I think we all know a Colin who's a bit of a weapon.
It is therefore now a case of finding a name which is both up to date and not cuntish, which is a minefield to say the least. Not for the first time, I feel myself peering enviously over to our cousins from the social underclass ('chavs' to the layman) who've managed to neatly sew up an entire genre of names by enforcing them on the adolescent fumblings they laughingly refer to as 'children'.
Apologies in advance if you've been burdened by one of the following monikers, but names like Kai, Tyler, Madison, Lewis, Morgan, Finlay, Kian, Kyle, Ashton, Taylor, Ellis, Paige and Lexi are all 100%, bona fide, SHIT. My surname doesn't particularly lend itself well to names anyway, so when you remove the aforementioned council names, plus those considered out of date, what are you left with? Andrew? Gavin? Adolf? It's slightly less difficult to name girls, but if you end up with a boy, you're screwed. The current top 100 names is a combination of biblical names, pet names and those associated with Channel 4's cretin-fest Big Brother. Strip that lot out and you're left with 'John'.
I think the only solution is to get your double-barrel on, and combine two previously unjoined names to form a new supername. I appreciate The Waltons had the idea first, but they can fuck off. How's about these for some envelope pushing trailblazers:
Duncanjohn
Billysteve
Alanian
Mollyholly
Carolalice
On second thoughts, some of these sound like creams to combat vaginal discharge. I'll just call them all Mork.
You may recall in the past how I spoke of the dangerously low number of Marks and Graemes left, as new parents seek to name their offspring after celebrities or electrical items. With the greatest will in the world, I don't think many parents will be naming their children Colin or Brian any more. Don't get me wrong; I think they're good, solid names, but they appear dated now and I think we all know a Colin who's a bit of a weapon.
It is therefore now a case of finding a name which is both up to date and not cuntish, which is a minefield to say the least. Not for the first time, I feel myself peering enviously over to our cousins from the social underclass ('chavs' to the layman) who've managed to neatly sew up an entire genre of names by enforcing them on the adolescent fumblings they laughingly refer to as 'children'.
Apologies in advance if you've been burdened by one of the following monikers, but names like Kai, Tyler, Madison, Lewis, Morgan, Finlay, Kian, Kyle, Ashton, Taylor, Ellis, Paige and Lexi are all 100%, bona fide, SHIT. My surname doesn't particularly lend itself well to names anyway, so when you remove the aforementioned council names, plus those considered out of date, what are you left with? Andrew? Gavin? Adolf? It's slightly less difficult to name girls, but if you end up with a boy, you're screwed. The current top 100 names is a combination of biblical names, pet names and those associated with Channel 4's cretin-fest Big Brother. Strip that lot out and you're left with 'John'.
I think the only solution is to get your double-barrel on, and combine two previously unjoined names to form a new supername. I appreciate The Waltons had the idea first, but they can fuck off. How's about these for some envelope pushing trailblazers:
Duncanjohn
Billysteve
Alanian
Mollyholly
Carolalice
On second thoughts, some of these sound like creams to combat vaginal discharge. I'll just call them all Mork.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Aggressive, even for me
I apologise in advance because I might fly off the handle language-wise as I prepare my latest literary masterpiece.
Sarah Fucking Ferguson. John Cocking Terry. Ronan Wanking Keating. Great people all, gracing society with their class, high moral code and rad skills.
All of them this year have been the 'victim' of either an undercover sting or having their personal lives dragged through the media. Being recognisable figures, it seems some 'people' out there actually give 2 fucks about in their dreary private lives when they're not hoofing a football vertically, lisping their way through a rancid piece of cock-pop or, er, whatever the hell it is that Fergie gets up to these days.
Now, my opinions on the methods by which this information is gleaned aren't what I'm trying to get across here. Just because these people are famous doesn't mean they deserve to be entrapped or stung or what have you. Sadly though, certain sections of this great nation's public think otherwise.
My ire has instead been raised by the way they react when they're finally brought to book after happily blagging, fucking and cheating their way through life for a few months, blissfully unaware that their uppence will come. At no point during these misdemeanours do they question themselves or their motives, instead enjoying the sights, sounds and, yes, smells of their adulterous behaviour.
Eventually, the great British press catch up with them and emblazon their antics across a myriad red-topped 'papers', complete with lurid alliteration and grainy photography. White Van Man nearly shits himself with excitement at the lid-lifting on show, while overtanned females in ill-fitting underwear decry the antics relying heavily upon words like 'slag' and 'he's still fit though'.
What gets me though is the next stage in this pantomime. Instead of saying "Bollocks - I've had a right laugh shagging this pneumatic dancer. Fair's fair though, I've been in the wrong since day one" they actually say "Oh woe is me. I'm devastated and regretful of my actions. It's totally out of character for me to do this, and I thoroughly regret any hurt or anguish caused to my family and friends"
Rough translation - "Shite, I've been caught"
Nobody can seriously believe that these cretins are actually sad about their actions. If they were so morally charged they wouldn't have been at it in the first place. It's about time they either stopped mid-affair and came clean to their other half and suffer the consequences, or when they are caught, admit they've been in the wrong but opine that they "would have got away with it, if it wasn't for those pesky journalists". Being caught isn't the same as having a moral epiphany, it just means the game's up. Nobody believes you, nobody likes you, so fuck off back to whence you came and admit that you just like sex and money. Bullshitters.
Sarah Fucking Ferguson. John Cocking Terry. Ronan Wanking Keating. Great people all, gracing society with their class, high moral code and rad skills.
All of them this year have been the 'victim' of either an undercover sting or having their personal lives dragged through the media. Being recognisable figures, it seems some 'people' out there actually give 2 fucks about in their dreary private lives when they're not hoofing a football vertically, lisping their way through a rancid piece of cock-pop or, er, whatever the hell it is that Fergie gets up to these days.
Now, my opinions on the methods by which this information is gleaned aren't what I'm trying to get across here. Just because these people are famous doesn't mean they deserve to be entrapped or stung or what have you. Sadly though, certain sections of this great nation's public think otherwise.
My ire has instead been raised by the way they react when they're finally brought to book after happily blagging, fucking and cheating their way through life for a few months, blissfully unaware that their uppence will come. At no point during these misdemeanours do they question themselves or their motives, instead enjoying the sights, sounds and, yes, smells of their adulterous behaviour.
Eventually, the great British press catch up with them and emblazon their antics across a myriad red-topped 'papers', complete with lurid alliteration and grainy photography. White Van Man nearly shits himself with excitement at the lid-lifting on show, while overtanned females in ill-fitting underwear decry the antics relying heavily upon words like 'slag' and 'he's still fit though'.
What gets me though is the next stage in this pantomime. Instead of saying "Bollocks - I've had a right laugh shagging this pneumatic dancer. Fair's fair though, I've been in the wrong since day one" they actually say "Oh woe is me. I'm devastated and regretful of my actions. It's totally out of character for me to do this, and I thoroughly regret any hurt or anguish caused to my family and friends"
Rough translation - "Shite, I've been caught"
Nobody can seriously believe that these cretins are actually sad about their actions. If they were so morally charged they wouldn't have been at it in the first place. It's about time they either stopped mid-affair and came clean to their other half and suffer the consequences, or when they are caught, admit they've been in the wrong but opine that they "would have got away with it, if it wasn't for those pesky journalists". Being caught isn't the same as having a moral epiphany, it just means the game's up. Nobody believes you, nobody likes you, so fuck off back to whence you came and admit that you just like sex and money. Bullshitters.
Fascinating Pop Story Alert!
Finally, after weeks, months and years of drudgery, non-stories and "RudeBox", I can finally bring you a genuinely interesting story from the world of British pop. This recently-broken story concerns scores of high-ranking members of British pop royalty, and will shake the UK music scene to it's very core with it's shocking revelations.
I can barely bring myself to type the words.
"The Sugababes are in a legal battle over their name."
There it is - I said it. I feel exhausted just re-reading it.
For fuck's sake, really? I mean, how does such epic non-storyness get anywhere near the popular press? In these times of coalition governments and protesters and cops having a scrap in the centre of Bangkok, do we really need to hear about the adolescent wranglings of a bunch of failed harpies?
Having forced my way through the 'article', it appears that since none of the original 'babes are in the group now, plate-faced former member Mutya Buena has decided she wants to register the name as a trademark. The current line-up (Alan, Derek and Colin) have complained about this, and new levels of pointless debate have been dredged up as a result.
First question - why does she want to register the name? Is she about to release a range of face wipes depicting their logo? I can't believe there is much money to be made from exploiting the brand, not least because it's synonymous with a rotating door policy to band members and employing the most vacuous, maladjusted talent vacuums as singers that it's possible to get. "You what, she used to be in Atomic Kitten? She failed to win Eurovision? Get her signed"
Secondly - why don't the latest incarnation of this once-great pop institution just start again with a new name. "Angels with dirty faeces" is available.
Thirdly - who gives a donkey's cock what happens either way? They're hardly giving Ivor Novello sleepless nights with their pop offerings; a collection of music so turgid and bland Sarah Harding considers them a waste of good eyeliner. And it's not as if they've got a message. When asked who she'd like to win the Monaco Grand Prix (while stood in the pit lane, it has to be said), the Scouse one with the fat arse giggled and said "I don't know". Then the piano-faced one tried to force a gag out of Jenson Button and their 'song' "Push the button" which was beyond cringeworthy. It nearly made Martin Brundle cry.
In conclusion, I've nothing against these odorous buffoons. If someone wants to employ them to squawk their way through another piece of musical dog dirt, that's up to them. But if Mutya was so bothered about the original line-up's good name being dragged through the mud when she left, she should have said summat at the time. It's no good coming back when you're skint to ask for your name back. And besides, why would you want it now? I'd rather trademark "Adolf Sutcliffe's Bumtouchers" these days.
I can barely bring myself to type the words.
"The Sugababes are in a legal battle over their name."
There it is - I said it. I feel exhausted just re-reading it.
For fuck's sake, really? I mean, how does such epic non-storyness get anywhere near the popular press? In these times of coalition governments and protesters and cops having a scrap in the centre of Bangkok, do we really need to hear about the adolescent wranglings of a bunch of failed harpies?
Having forced my way through the 'article', it appears that since none of the original 'babes are in the group now, plate-faced former member Mutya Buena has decided she wants to register the name as a trademark. The current line-up (Alan, Derek and Colin) have complained about this, and new levels of pointless debate have been dredged up as a result.
First question - why does she want to register the name? Is she about to release a range of face wipes depicting their logo? I can't believe there is much money to be made from exploiting the brand, not least because it's synonymous with a rotating door policy to band members and employing the most vacuous, maladjusted talent vacuums as singers that it's possible to get. "You what, she used to be in Atomic Kitten? She failed to win Eurovision? Get her signed"
Secondly - why don't the latest incarnation of this once-great pop institution just start again with a new name. "Angels with dirty faeces" is available.
Thirdly - who gives a donkey's cock what happens either way? They're hardly giving Ivor Novello sleepless nights with their pop offerings; a collection of music so turgid and bland Sarah Harding considers them a waste of good eyeliner. And it's not as if they've got a message. When asked who she'd like to win the Monaco Grand Prix (while stood in the pit lane, it has to be said), the Scouse one with the fat arse giggled and said "I don't know". Then the piano-faced one tried to force a gag out of Jenson Button and their 'song' "Push the button" which was beyond cringeworthy. It nearly made Martin Brundle cry.
In conclusion, I've nothing against these odorous buffoons. If someone wants to employ them to squawk their way through another piece of musical dog dirt, that's up to them. But if Mutya was so bothered about the original line-up's good name being dragged through the mud when she left, she should have said summat at the time. It's no good coming back when you're skint to ask for your name back. And besides, why would you want it now? I'd rather trademark "Adolf Sutcliffe's Bumtouchers" these days.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
It's a round-up
It's been ages since I've said anything noteworthy on the blog (some gag-merchants may wager I'm yet to do so). So have a round-up:
Why I could never be a teacher
You've got to feel sorry for that teacher who got so wound up by his class that he ended up trying to stove one of their heads in while bellowing "Die, die, die". It's yet to be proven whether he was using an unusually aggressive method of teaching him German for 'The', but you've got to wonder what they did to get him to react like this.
Apparently he'd recently been off with depression and had even warned his superiors that he'd gone a bit mad and might not be the best person to be teaching these reprobates, but they didn't listen and here we are. He was good enough to admit he meant to do it, and has subsequently been cleared of attempted murder, but he'll be doing bird anyway, because the powers that be (or 'nazis' as I would label them) frown upon kicking kids' heads in. It's who you know.
I have no urge to ever be a teacher, and have respect for those who opt to do it. I don't have what you'd call an explosive temper, but I could feasibly see a situation where a bit of 'meet K and O' would be better than making them sit in the corner or sending them to the head. The way I see it, work out who the ringleader is, take them down (possibly to Chinatown) and the rest will toe the line and behave. Yes, you might have to explain why one of your flock has suddenly lost certain letters from their alphabet, or has an irrational fear of bunsen burners, but that's a risk I'd be prepared to take to get a bit of discipline.
Little (interest) People
There's a documentary on at the moment called Little People, which basically follows the lives of a newly-married couple, both of whom suffer from some kind of dwarfism. They're perfectly nice people and seem to have a happy life, but the documentary makers seemed to have confused their unusual physical traits with an interesting life. Indeed, aside from them visiting a fertility expert to determine the medical ramifications of childbirth, they're just like any other normal couple, and as such are monumentually tedious to the layman. I can't confess to watching this programme avidly, having accidentally caught an episode the Mrs was watching, but there comes a point when you say "But they're not doing anything; they're just small". They don't deal with the hardships of being short, or face any discrimination or are seemingly held back in any way, so I fail to see what the interest is in them. After you get over the initial novelty of them both being shorter than average, the whole thing becomes an exercise in watching someone's home videos. And you would only ever do that if someone gets their tits out.
Give that lad a clap (test)
Having employed an incredibly complex scientific equation based heavily on me having a guess, the average age of staff at my place of work must be late 20's at least. In fact, when I think of the various simpletons who've carved a perfectly serviceable career here, it's highly possible that that age is nearer mid-thirties.
Coupled with that is the fact most people are either married or in long-term relationships, which makes the appearance of posters offering free chlamydia tests all the more puzzling. If this was a store specialising in young, single Saturday staff I could understand it, but it seems rather unnecessary here. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a number of the clientele like to indulge in a bit of extra-marital slap and/or tickle of an evening, but they're likely to be careful enough not to get their fingers (or other extremities) burnt, and are even less likely to trudge down to our laughable first aid room put their names forward for a free scrape.
Why I could never be a teacher
You've got to feel sorry for that teacher who got so wound up by his class that he ended up trying to stove one of their heads in while bellowing "Die, die, die". It's yet to be proven whether he was using an unusually aggressive method of teaching him German for 'The', but you've got to wonder what they did to get him to react like this.
Apparently he'd recently been off with depression and had even warned his superiors that he'd gone a bit mad and might not be the best person to be teaching these reprobates, but they didn't listen and here we are. He was good enough to admit he meant to do it, and has subsequently been cleared of attempted murder, but he'll be doing bird anyway, because the powers that be (or 'nazis' as I would label them) frown upon kicking kids' heads in. It's who you know.
I have no urge to ever be a teacher, and have respect for those who opt to do it. I don't have what you'd call an explosive temper, but I could feasibly see a situation where a bit of 'meet K and O' would be better than making them sit in the corner or sending them to the head. The way I see it, work out who the ringleader is, take them down (possibly to Chinatown) and the rest will toe the line and behave. Yes, you might have to explain why one of your flock has suddenly lost certain letters from their alphabet, or has an irrational fear of bunsen burners, but that's a risk I'd be prepared to take to get a bit of discipline.
Little (interest) People
There's a documentary on at the moment called Little People, which basically follows the lives of a newly-married couple, both of whom suffer from some kind of dwarfism. They're perfectly nice people and seem to have a happy life, but the documentary makers seemed to have confused their unusual physical traits with an interesting life. Indeed, aside from them visiting a fertility expert to determine the medical ramifications of childbirth, they're just like any other normal couple, and as such are monumentually tedious to the layman. I can't confess to watching this programme avidly, having accidentally caught an episode the Mrs was watching, but there comes a point when you say "But they're not doing anything; they're just small". They don't deal with the hardships of being short, or face any discrimination or are seemingly held back in any way, so I fail to see what the interest is in them. After you get over the initial novelty of them both being shorter than average, the whole thing becomes an exercise in watching someone's home videos. And you would only ever do that if someone gets their tits out.
Give that lad a clap (test)
Having employed an incredibly complex scientific equation based heavily on me having a guess, the average age of staff at my place of work must be late 20's at least. In fact, when I think of the various simpletons who've carved a perfectly serviceable career here, it's highly possible that that age is nearer mid-thirties.
Coupled with that is the fact most people are either married or in long-term relationships, which makes the appearance of posters offering free chlamydia tests all the more puzzling. If this was a store specialising in young, single Saturday staff I could understand it, but it seems rather unnecessary here. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a number of the clientele like to indulge in a bit of extra-marital slap and/or tickle of an evening, but they're likely to be careful enough not to get their fingers (or other extremities) burnt, and are even less likely to trudge down to our laughable first aid room put their names forward for a free scrape.
Friday, 16 April 2010
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."
"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."
Thursday, 8 April 2010
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"...
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"...
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Lineker's hosting is he? What a Relief.
Why can't the BBC get something as simple as Sport Relief right?
Obviously, it's a noble cause, and not for a second am I criticising the excellent work being done by the various correspondents in raising awareness of issues in underprivileged countries, but by Hell, they don't mind patting themselves on the back in the process, do they?
The entire exercise seemed to be a parade of their gravy train roster. Anyone who's anyone (and a great deal who weren't) were squeezed into the latest fashions and stuck in front of the world's most sycophantic audience to 'um' and 'er' their way through a series of piss-easy links involving another of their licence fee-taking colleagues.
Just look at the names - Lineker, Winkleman, Hammond, Corden, McCall, Bleakley. Each one a fully paid-up member of the Beeb's hip and happening presenting squad, all inoffensive and pretend fashionable. It's a sad indictment of that list when Corden is far and away the most charismatic person on show.
Lineker did his usual mugging to camera, looking like at any minute he might chuck a strop if something didn't go his way. Winkleman set new records in being an airhead. McCall seems to be imploding since the end of Big Brother, lurching around the stage like a drunken aunt, barely fighting back the tears after the same piece showing Moyles crying was churned out for the third time, while Annie Lennox beat the shit out of a piano. Like I said, it's a noble cause, but the whole thing feels like an exercise in self-congratulation, as even people like Alan Shearer were allowed airtime to put across their monotonous witterings.
By the end of the night I was cross; cross that every single presenter they had was from their A-list; cross that the only features mildly amusing (aside from Corden's admittedly brilliant rant at the Sports Personality awards) were existing programmes, rehashed for the evening (Question of Sport, Mock the Week, etc).
Perhaps the thing that grinds my gears the most though is the way they make the crowd whoop and holler, and lob Lemar and that bunch of trannies JLS onto the stage to put their soulful spin on a previously well-delivered song, then say "Now come on, serious faces for a minute" before cutting to Winkleman spectacularly labouring a point about child poverty. It's bad is it, Claudia? Thanks for the heads up.
At the end of the day, several million pounds will be raised, and that is of course fantastic. Not for a minute though should the BBC think that they achieved that. I have no doubt in my mind that I could toddle off the Africa armed with a cheap camera and bring back footage evocative enough to tug at the heart strings of this great nation. We're not stupid; we don't need Richard Hammond to tell us that famine is bad.
If Bono said it though, well...
Obviously, it's a noble cause, and not for a second am I criticising the excellent work being done by the various correspondents in raising awareness of issues in underprivileged countries, but by Hell, they don't mind patting themselves on the back in the process, do they?
The entire exercise seemed to be a parade of their gravy train roster. Anyone who's anyone (and a great deal who weren't) were squeezed into the latest fashions and stuck in front of the world's most sycophantic audience to 'um' and 'er' their way through a series of piss-easy links involving another of their licence fee-taking colleagues.
Just look at the names - Lineker, Winkleman, Hammond, Corden, McCall, Bleakley. Each one a fully paid-up member of the Beeb's hip and happening presenting squad, all inoffensive and pretend fashionable. It's a sad indictment of that list when Corden is far and away the most charismatic person on show.
Lineker did his usual mugging to camera, looking like at any minute he might chuck a strop if something didn't go his way. Winkleman set new records in being an airhead. McCall seems to be imploding since the end of Big Brother, lurching around the stage like a drunken aunt, barely fighting back the tears after the same piece showing Moyles crying was churned out for the third time, while Annie Lennox beat the shit out of a piano. Like I said, it's a noble cause, but the whole thing feels like an exercise in self-congratulation, as even people like Alan Shearer were allowed airtime to put across their monotonous witterings.
By the end of the night I was cross; cross that every single presenter they had was from their A-list; cross that the only features mildly amusing (aside from Corden's admittedly brilliant rant at the Sports Personality awards) were existing programmes, rehashed for the evening (Question of Sport, Mock the Week, etc).
Perhaps the thing that grinds my gears the most though is the way they make the crowd whoop and holler, and lob Lemar and that bunch of trannies JLS onto the stage to put their soulful spin on a previously well-delivered song, then say "Now come on, serious faces for a minute" before cutting to Winkleman spectacularly labouring a point about child poverty. It's bad is it, Claudia? Thanks for the heads up.
At the end of the day, several million pounds will be raised, and that is of course fantastic. Not for a minute though should the BBC think that they achieved that. I have no doubt in my mind that I could toddle off the Africa armed with a cheap camera and bring back footage evocative enough to tug at the heart strings of this great nation. We're not stupid; we don't need Richard Hammond to tell us that famine is bad.
If Bono said it though, well...
Sunday, 28 February 2010
"Well I'm not shaking his hand"
I think I've done pretty well to avoid losing my rag about a particular """"story"""" currently doing the rounds until now, but I'm afraid the latest instalment is very much the story what broke the camel's fat back.
Put simply, what the fuck is up with Wayne Bridge?
In the words of Lloyd Grossman, let's look at the facts:
- He had a relationship with a French underwear model
- They had a kid
- They split up
- She had an affair with one of his ex-teammates
- The end
Except it's not the end, is it? For some reason, people have all manner of sympathy with Bridge for his current plight. Now, I may be spectacularly missing the point, but IT'S HIS EX BIRD, SO WHAT THE FUCK IS HE MOANING ABOUT?
I don't have kids, so I can't put myself 100% in his shoes on this, but is he really so cut up about John Terry shagging her? Bearing in mind he gets paid thousands of pounds a week to be a mediocre footballer, and such a lifestyle puts him in contact with underwear models in the first place, shouldn't he just count his blessings and let it go? I'm not suggesting that being paid shitloads somehow negates your feelings, but if he loved her that much, why did they split up in the first place?
Terry is a deplorable man; I don't think even he could argue against that, but the issue is that he cheated on his wife with this woman, not that a former boyfriend has got a face on about it.
I'd just about come to terms with this, then Bridge goes and quits playing for England due to his position being 'untenable'. Now, if he'd said that 2 years ago I'd have nothing but respect for him, as he must have looked at himself and said "You know what, I'm bollocks at football. I'm only anywhere near the England squad because of an unbelievable dearth of quality at left-back. I should probably quit and stop embarrassing everybody". Instead, he's been whining about how his inclusion is 'divisive'. Fair enough, some of other squad members might be on Terry's side rather than his, but they're fucking grown-ups, and should start acting like it. I very much doubt this is the first time one of the England squad has shagged the ex of another. What about that Danielle Lloyd? At one point I thought she was being sponsored by Green Flag given her propensity to lie back and think of England with various members of the squad.
As is often the case in football, the next round of club matches sees Man City playing Chelsea, meaning the pair of them will come up against each other for the first time since this whole debacle unfolded. Am I the only one who's thinking "Who gives a shit if they shake hands, don't shake hands, perform the lambada or simultaneously fellate each other"? It literally doesn't matter. They're men who've fallen out because one diddled the other one's ex bird. Christ, there must be dozens of men out there who can be classed as 'shagged my ex-bird' but I wouldn't refuse to shake their hands (in some cases, I might be inclined to offer them a consoling hug for putting themselves through the ordeal). I certainly wouldn't quit my job over it, that's for sure.
I'm not sure quite how this has come so far, even in today's hyper-inflated tabloid state. Young men are killed daily trying to restore peace in the Middle East, we've got barely-human beings beating and starving their own kids, yet we're asking loads of dusty old pro's what they think about Bridge's decision to quit the national side over this incredibly uninteresting non-story.
In conclusion; Terry: fuck off, you ill-educated, slow, knob-end. Bridge; fuck off as well, grow a pair of testicles and act like a grown up, not least for the sake of your child. Pillock.
Put simply, what the fuck is up with Wayne Bridge?
In the words of Lloyd Grossman, let's look at the facts:
- He had a relationship with a French underwear model
- They had a kid
- They split up
- She had an affair with one of his ex-teammates
- The end
Except it's not the end, is it? For some reason, people have all manner of sympathy with Bridge for his current plight. Now, I may be spectacularly missing the point, but IT'S HIS EX BIRD, SO WHAT THE FUCK IS HE MOANING ABOUT?
I don't have kids, so I can't put myself 100% in his shoes on this, but is he really so cut up about John Terry shagging her? Bearing in mind he gets paid thousands of pounds a week to be a mediocre footballer, and such a lifestyle puts him in contact with underwear models in the first place, shouldn't he just count his blessings and let it go? I'm not suggesting that being paid shitloads somehow negates your feelings, but if he loved her that much, why did they split up in the first place?
Terry is a deplorable man; I don't think even he could argue against that, but the issue is that he cheated on his wife with this woman, not that a former boyfriend has got a face on about it.
I'd just about come to terms with this, then Bridge goes and quits playing for England due to his position being 'untenable'. Now, if he'd said that 2 years ago I'd have nothing but respect for him, as he must have looked at himself and said "You know what, I'm bollocks at football. I'm only anywhere near the England squad because of an unbelievable dearth of quality at left-back. I should probably quit and stop embarrassing everybody". Instead, he's been whining about how his inclusion is 'divisive'. Fair enough, some of other squad members might be on Terry's side rather than his, but they're fucking grown-ups, and should start acting like it. I very much doubt this is the first time one of the England squad has shagged the ex of another. What about that Danielle Lloyd? At one point I thought she was being sponsored by Green Flag given her propensity to lie back and think of England with various members of the squad.
As is often the case in football, the next round of club matches sees Man City playing Chelsea, meaning the pair of them will come up against each other for the first time since this whole debacle unfolded. Am I the only one who's thinking "Who gives a shit if they shake hands, don't shake hands, perform the lambada or simultaneously fellate each other"? It literally doesn't matter. They're men who've fallen out because one diddled the other one's ex bird. Christ, there must be dozens of men out there who can be classed as 'shagged my ex-bird' but I wouldn't refuse to shake their hands (in some cases, I might be inclined to offer them a consoling hug for putting themselves through the ordeal). I certainly wouldn't quit my job over it, that's for sure.
I'm not sure quite how this has come so far, even in today's hyper-inflated tabloid state. Young men are killed daily trying to restore peace in the Middle East, we've got barely-human beings beating and starving their own kids, yet we're asking loads of dusty old pro's what they think about Bridge's decision to quit the national side over this incredibly uninteresting non-story.
In conclusion; Terry: fuck off, you ill-educated, slow, knob-end. Bridge; fuck off as well, grow a pair of testicles and act like a grown up, not least for the sake of your child. Pillock.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Will you die soon? £3 and I'll tell you
"Are you about to buy a new car? Do you know whether it's been stolen, involved in an accident or - gulp - has ever been owned by Kerry Katona? Well now you can, simply by texting this number, at which point we'll charge you £15 to tell you"
OK, that isn't a verbatim account of these kinds of adverts, but you get my drift. For the avid viewer of Top Gear on Dave, such adverts are your staple diet until the next chapter of pre-staged spontaneity from 3 middle-aged men.
Apparently, these companies can tell you whether your car is a cut-and-shut, whether the mileage is accurate or whether it has ever been used to mow down a crowd of nuns at a Sting concert. There is, however, a slight loophole in this argument:
Who's telling them this information?
Let me paint you a picture; a less than reputable car dealer regularly reduces the mileage on his cars to increase their value. He might even say 'Lovely jubbly'. Once the illegal act is done, he gets on the blower to this company to give them a full and frank account of which cars he has altered, so future owners will be able to find out.
Well of course he doesn't, you dick. So how do they find out?
It seems to me the only way this information could ever enter the public domain is when the cops get involved, either by running checks on the roadside or busting dodgy car dealers. But surely, when they discover this information, they don't just wave the owner on their way? No, they impound the car and launch an investigation. Granted, it must be like trying to find a needle in a haystack when they try to track down the ne'er-do-wells who instigated the crime, but I'd be surprised if the car was allowed back on the road.
Maybe I'm doing the Feds a disservice; maybe the cops are given tip-offs about dodgy motors but due to the dealers being slippery customers, not to mention a crippling lack of police resources, they don't have the time to recover every vehicle. In that case, why do they give this information to some slimy company to charge us serfs for the pleasure of knowing how hooky our car is? Why don't they just publish the registration plates of the death traps on some kind of Internet-based site?
Then again, they might have some kind of back-alley deal to pass this info on for a reasonable fee. They've got to pay for the Christmas party champers somehow.
What next? Some low-life pulls you in a pub, you can text their description to a number and a run-down of their previous convictions, STD's and/or propensity to employ rough-housing in the bedroom is returned? Actually, that's not a bad idea...
OK, that isn't a verbatim account of these kinds of adverts, but you get my drift. For the avid viewer of Top Gear on Dave, such adverts are your staple diet until the next chapter of pre-staged spontaneity from 3 middle-aged men.
Apparently, these companies can tell you whether your car is a cut-and-shut, whether the mileage is accurate or whether it has ever been used to mow down a crowd of nuns at a Sting concert. There is, however, a slight loophole in this argument:
Who's telling them this information?
Let me paint you a picture; a less than reputable car dealer regularly reduces the mileage on his cars to increase their value. He might even say 'Lovely jubbly'. Once the illegal act is done, he gets on the blower to this company to give them a full and frank account of which cars he has altered, so future owners will be able to find out.
Well of course he doesn't, you dick. So how do they find out?
It seems to me the only way this information could ever enter the public domain is when the cops get involved, either by running checks on the roadside or busting dodgy car dealers. But surely, when they discover this information, they don't just wave the owner on their way? No, they impound the car and launch an investigation. Granted, it must be like trying to find a needle in a haystack when they try to track down the ne'er-do-wells who instigated the crime, but I'd be surprised if the car was allowed back on the road.
Maybe I'm doing the Feds a disservice; maybe the cops are given tip-offs about dodgy motors but due to the dealers being slippery customers, not to mention a crippling lack of police resources, they don't have the time to recover every vehicle. In that case, why do they give this information to some slimy company to charge us serfs for the pleasure of knowing how hooky our car is? Why don't they just publish the registration plates of the death traps on some kind of Internet-based site?
Then again, they might have some kind of back-alley deal to pass this info on for a reasonable fee. They've got to pay for the Christmas party champers somehow.
What next? Some low-life pulls you in a pub, you can text their description to a number and a run-down of their previous convictions, STD's and/or propensity to employ rough-housing in the bedroom is returned? Actually, that's not a bad idea...
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Touchy subject alert
For the first time that I can remember, I actually thought twice about writing this blog, mainly because the content might be viewed as controversial to some people. Then I thought "It's my blog, I'll write what I want". So I did.
This earthquake in Haiti is pretty bad. Now I've got my entry for Understatement of the Year out of the way, I can concentrate on the terrible goings on in one of the poorest nations in the world. Last week, a decent-sized quake more or less razed the capital leaving estimated thousands of people dead and many more homeless and/or injured.
Usually, when Peter Sissions says "Some viewers may find some parts of the next report disturbing" I tend to find said footage pretty lame. Yes, people are injured and crying and what have you, but it's all too easy to detach yourself from it when it doesn't affect you in a day-to-day context. The Haiti coverage however has actually had me feeling bad for the poor bastards stuck in what seems like a living hell. The number of little kids killed can't fail to have an impact, and once I've got the details squared up I'll be making a donation. It literally is the least I can do.
Of course, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't court a bit of controversy.
Last night I found myself shouting at one of the medical volunteers for moaning.
It started with some dramatic footage of a woman about to give birth. Given the utter knackeredness of the hospital, the maternity ward had actually been set up in the street, and this poor cow was about to deliver a nipper in the middle of the road. Being sensitive to the privacy of the woman, the cameraman shot over and starting getting a right eyeful, to the point that they had to pixelate her bits. In amongst this, there were anguished cries. However, expecting it to be the mother, I was surprised to discover it was actually an American volunteer nurse who was screeching. Apparently it was a breached birth (nope, me neither) and she was squawking about how she couldn't do a breached birth in these conditions, with her voice audibly filling up with tears.
"Hang on a minute", thunk I, "Isn't it your job to do this kind of thing? Yes, the conditions aren't exactly A1, but the entire city's fallen down. And lest we forget that you actually chose to do this. What did you expect to find - The Ritz?"
Now, not for a second am I decrying the obvious emotional trauma these heroic volunteers must be going through, but it is my belief that the type of people who volunteer to do this must be of sufficient mettle to cope with it. Fair enough, feel a bit sad when you first see the devastation but keep it to yourself and do the job you're not being paid to do. You're not helping anybody by carping on when the shit's hitting the fan, especially when you're surrounded by people who have lost life and limb in the last few days and are currently starving to death. By all means flip out when you're on your own, but right now these people need you to man up and sort this shit out because they don't have the tools or the skills to do it themselves.
A bit later she was back, bemoaning the fact that the only thing she had to cut an umbilical cord was an unsterilised knife. Fair enough, that's terrible, but the powers that be aren't doing it on purpose to make it more interesting. It's been widely reported that planes are being turned away because the airport is full of aid which they can't get off the apron because there's precious little fuel about to power the lorries. They're doing the best they can so you'll just have to hang on, and if you can't hang on, use the bloody knife.
As I said, I feel nothing but admiration and respect towards these people, but like all walks of life, it's the minority who spoil it for everybody else. If you don't like it, go home. At least you've got one to go to...
This earthquake in Haiti is pretty bad. Now I've got my entry for Understatement of the Year out of the way, I can concentrate on the terrible goings on in one of the poorest nations in the world. Last week, a decent-sized quake more or less razed the capital leaving estimated thousands of people dead and many more homeless and/or injured.
Usually, when Peter Sissions says "Some viewers may find some parts of the next report disturbing" I tend to find said footage pretty lame. Yes, people are injured and crying and what have you, but it's all too easy to detach yourself from it when it doesn't affect you in a day-to-day context. The Haiti coverage however has actually had me feeling bad for the poor bastards stuck in what seems like a living hell. The number of little kids killed can't fail to have an impact, and once I've got the details squared up I'll be making a donation. It literally is the least I can do.
Of course, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't court a bit of controversy.
Last night I found myself shouting at one of the medical volunteers for moaning.
It started with some dramatic footage of a woman about to give birth. Given the utter knackeredness of the hospital, the maternity ward had actually been set up in the street, and this poor cow was about to deliver a nipper in the middle of the road. Being sensitive to the privacy of the woman, the cameraman shot over and starting getting a right eyeful, to the point that they had to pixelate her bits. In amongst this, there were anguished cries. However, expecting it to be the mother, I was surprised to discover it was actually an American volunteer nurse who was screeching. Apparently it was a breached birth (nope, me neither) and she was squawking about how she couldn't do a breached birth in these conditions, with her voice audibly filling up with tears.
"Hang on a minute", thunk I, "Isn't it your job to do this kind of thing? Yes, the conditions aren't exactly A1, but the entire city's fallen down. And lest we forget that you actually chose to do this. What did you expect to find - The Ritz?"
Now, not for a second am I decrying the obvious emotional trauma these heroic volunteers must be going through, but it is my belief that the type of people who volunteer to do this must be of sufficient mettle to cope with it. Fair enough, feel a bit sad when you first see the devastation but keep it to yourself and do the job you're not being paid to do. You're not helping anybody by carping on when the shit's hitting the fan, especially when you're surrounded by people who have lost life and limb in the last few days and are currently starving to death. By all means flip out when you're on your own, but right now these people need you to man up and sort this shit out because they don't have the tools or the skills to do it themselves.
A bit later she was back, bemoaning the fact that the only thing she had to cut an umbilical cord was an unsterilised knife. Fair enough, that's terrible, but the powers that be aren't doing it on purpose to make it more interesting. It's been widely reported that planes are being turned away because the airport is full of aid which they can't get off the apron because there's precious little fuel about to power the lorries. They're doing the best they can so you'll just have to hang on, and if you can't hang on, use the bloody knife.
As I said, I feel nothing but admiration and respect towards these people, but like all walks of life, it's the minority who spoil it for everybody else. If you don't like it, go home. At least you've got one to go to...
Monday, 18 January 2010
FaceBook: It must be me
If someone came up to you and said "You know what I like? I like Anchorman and The Stig and Tobey Maguire and Swindon Town" you'd do one of 3 three things:
1) Punch them full in the face
2) Raise a quizzical eyebrow and question their mental integrity
3) Run away
In addition, if said person then started reeling off a list of everybody they were friends with, regardless of whether they could corroborate that fact or not, you'd be inclined to say "Look mate, I don't know who you are or why you're in my bathroom, but do one before I call the Feds", or something similar depending on your geographical location.
All of which makes me wonder why FaceBook is so popular.
FaceBook is a website on that Internet, and it appears to be a repository for people to tell us what they like, who they know and what they're doing in excruciatingly minute detail. Now I know you can find all manner of material and niche websites on the Internet pertaining to just about any fantasy, perversion or lust you may have, but I'm yet to find anything as pretentious and utterly pointless as FaceBook. Presumably somebody must care that a friend of a friend of a colleague's sister has a hangover, otherwise why would such a medium exist?
Back in the early days of MySpace, I had a page (the very page which launched my glittering blogging career, in fact) which I used purely as a soapbox to have a right old e-whinge. I set the background to be lime green, stuck 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter on as my signature tune and left it at that. It was purely a way of contacting friends who didn't answer their telephone or texts, and for the aforementioned blogs. However, after 18 months I realised it was completely pointless maintaining it, not least because I saw the very people who visited the page on a regular basis, meaning I was effectively repeating everything I had done when I next saw them. What a waste of valuable pornography storage space that was.
I must confess that I'm the least knowledgeable FaceBook user in the world, simply because my entire experience of it is via the Mrs' page, but all it seems to be is a series of arms-length face shots depicting the page owner in the best possible aesthetic light, then a series of their various likes and dislikes, a battery of ill-lit photographs showing them partying in the grim little backwater in which they reside and a catalogue of every person who has ever conversed with them on any level whatsoever.
I can see the benefit of locating old schoolfriends or checking how fat your exes are now, but once you've contacted someone again, you swap phone numbers and/or addresses and it's job done. You don't keep them on permanent record as someone you know. I’ve got nothing against regular FaceBook users (just as well really – there’s about a billion of them) but there must come a point when they wonder whether people give a shit that it’s ‘pie and mash for tea – again’. If not, then kudos for having the energy and time to update people on your gastronomic habits, but when someone with better things to do with their time (Mario Kart for a kick-off) questions how you’ve managed to accrue 225 friends despite being a complete tosser, don’t come running to me.
1) Punch them full in the face
2) Raise a quizzical eyebrow and question their mental integrity
3) Run away
In addition, if said person then started reeling off a list of everybody they were friends with, regardless of whether they could corroborate that fact or not, you'd be inclined to say "Look mate, I don't know who you are or why you're in my bathroom, but do one before I call the Feds", or something similar depending on your geographical location.
All of which makes me wonder why FaceBook is so popular.
FaceBook is a website on that Internet, and it appears to be a repository for people to tell us what they like, who they know and what they're doing in excruciatingly minute detail. Now I know you can find all manner of material and niche websites on the Internet pertaining to just about any fantasy, perversion or lust you may have, but I'm yet to find anything as pretentious and utterly pointless as FaceBook. Presumably somebody must care that a friend of a friend of a colleague's sister has a hangover, otherwise why would such a medium exist?
Back in the early days of MySpace, I had a page (the very page which launched my glittering blogging career, in fact) which I used purely as a soapbox to have a right old e-whinge. I set the background to be lime green, stuck 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter on as my signature tune and left it at that. It was purely a way of contacting friends who didn't answer their telephone or texts, and for the aforementioned blogs. However, after 18 months I realised it was completely pointless maintaining it, not least because I saw the very people who visited the page on a regular basis, meaning I was effectively repeating everything I had done when I next saw them. What a waste of valuable pornography storage space that was.
I must confess that I'm the least knowledgeable FaceBook user in the world, simply because my entire experience of it is via the Mrs' page, but all it seems to be is a series of arms-length face shots depicting the page owner in the best possible aesthetic light, then a series of their various likes and dislikes, a battery of ill-lit photographs showing them partying in the grim little backwater in which they reside and a catalogue of every person who has ever conversed with them on any level whatsoever.
I can see the benefit of locating old schoolfriends or checking how fat your exes are now, but once you've contacted someone again, you swap phone numbers and/or addresses and it's job done. You don't keep them on permanent record as someone you know. I’ve got nothing against regular FaceBook users (just as well really – there’s about a billion of them) but there must come a point when they wonder whether people give a shit that it’s ‘pie and mash for tea – again’. If not, then kudos for having the energy and time to update people on your gastronomic habits, but when someone with better things to do with their time (Mario Kart for a kick-off) questions how you’ve managed to accrue 225 friends despite being a complete tosser, don’t come running to me.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Wanted: High-powered MILF for shenanigans. Bring £50k
Finding a corrupt politician today is like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. The expenses 'scandal' (I'll continue to put it in inverted commas because it's not a scandal in the slightest - it's more of a 'piss-take') is the latest example of people in positions of power using their heightened status and connections to feather their next in exactly the same way any right-minded human being would do in the same situation.
The latest example of someone using their power for naughtiness is of course 60-year-old superminx Iris Robinson.
For those of you stuck between the pages of Heat magazine, Mrs. Robinson (a delicious irony) was a politician and is the wife of the Northern Ireland's first minister Peter, to whom she's been married for nearly 40 years.
A couple of weeks ago, a story broke when he popped up on the news looking all sad, saying that she'd been having an affair but that he'd forgiven her (why?) and would be working on patching up his marriage forthwith. A few people went 'Crikey'. I went 'Meh' because political affairs aren't exactly new are they? ARE THEY?
Anyway, the story became juicier when it transpired that the third wheel in this marriage was a 19-year-old lad, who she'd apparently known since he was nine and, when his father died, vowed to look after him. She's a woman of her word, that's for sure. Into the bargain, she got her hands on 50 large to help him start a catering business, and not to put too fine a point on it, the shit hit the PR fan. Big time.
We've had all manner of developments since then; she's apparently gone mad and is having 'acute psychological treatment', poor old Pete's had to step down from his post to clear his name (apparently he knew all about the cafe money and is trying to prove otherwise) and understandably she's given the old politicianing lark the elbow. Every day there seems to be a new revelation about her, as it becomes more and more clearly that she hasn't exactly been honest with her hubby and the general public in recent times.
Now, when I was a younger man, the thought of a glamorous older woman seducing me was quality. I can't speak for all of my friends, but if some 40+ young-at-heart cougar with the majority of her own teeth and/or hair wanted to educate me in the art of the woman then that would've been AOK by me. Furthermore, if she was prepared to chuck £50k into the bargain to help me start a company then quite frankly, we're talking happy days.
Alas, a combination of a side-parting and my Mum's mates being minging put paid to that idea. If I was to be a toy boy these days, I'd have to have a cemetery on speed dial, just in case.
In conclusion, if your own Mrs. Robinson straddles a movie camera and tries to seduce you, help yourself. However, it might be worth making sure she’s not married to the most powerful man in the country first. And if she offers you money but asks you if you want to ‘make a deposit’, suspect the worst.
The latest example of someone using their power for naughtiness is of course 60-year-old superminx Iris Robinson.
For those of you stuck between the pages of Heat magazine, Mrs. Robinson (a delicious irony) was a politician and is the wife of the Northern Ireland's first minister Peter, to whom she's been married for nearly 40 years.
A couple of weeks ago, a story broke when he popped up on the news looking all sad, saying that she'd been having an affair but that he'd forgiven her (why?) and would be working on patching up his marriage forthwith. A few people went 'Crikey'. I went 'Meh' because political affairs aren't exactly new are they? ARE THEY?
Anyway, the story became juicier when it transpired that the third wheel in this marriage was a 19-year-old lad, who she'd apparently known since he was nine and, when his father died, vowed to look after him. She's a woman of her word, that's for sure. Into the bargain, she got her hands on 50 large to help him start a catering business, and not to put too fine a point on it, the shit hit the PR fan. Big time.
We've had all manner of developments since then; she's apparently gone mad and is having 'acute psychological treatment', poor old Pete's had to step down from his post to clear his name (apparently he knew all about the cafe money and is trying to prove otherwise) and understandably she's given the old politicianing lark the elbow. Every day there seems to be a new revelation about her, as it becomes more and more clearly that she hasn't exactly been honest with her hubby and the general public in recent times.
Now, when I was a younger man, the thought of a glamorous older woman seducing me was quality. I can't speak for all of my friends, but if some 40+ young-at-heart cougar with the majority of her own teeth and/or hair wanted to educate me in the art of the woman then that would've been AOK by me. Furthermore, if she was prepared to chuck £50k into the bargain to help me start a company then quite frankly, we're talking happy days.
Alas, a combination of a side-parting and my Mum's mates being minging put paid to that idea. If I was to be a toy boy these days, I'd have to have a cemetery on speed dial, just in case.
In conclusion, if your own Mrs. Robinson straddles a movie camera and tries to seduce you, help yourself. However, it might be worth making sure she’s not married to the most powerful man in the country first. And if she offers you money but asks you if you want to ‘make a deposit’, suspect the worst.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Holidays: Triffic, Richard
You know you've made it in the blogging world when one of the swollen masses hanging off your every word makes a suggestion for a future blog topic. And by 'suggestion' I mean 'threatened to unsubscribe if I didn't do as I was told'.
So here we are.
Those of you who like this television lark will no doubt by now have come across Thomas Cook's latest offering. They've employed a good-looking bloke from the world of football and his moderately successful singer wife to give us their unique take on the world of foreign holidays.
Sadly, they haven't chosen David 'Goldenlegs' Beckham and his tubby wife, Victoria. Instead they've employed...wait for it....snigger...only the Redknapps!
That's right; they've forked out good money to hear the inane ramblings of Jamie "I sit like I'm having a shit, triffic" Redknapp and his wife, Louise Nurding (I refuse to acknowledge their marriage, much in the same way as you-would-although-she's-a-racist-skank Cheryl Tweedy).
The premise is simple (ironically); they wander about various sun-drenched resorts, sporting fewer and fewer clothes as they progress, spouting nonsensical statements that would make Steven Seagal's script writer blush. It's toe-curling stuff (cringeworthy, not orgasm-inducing), as they stare into each others eyes going "We'll never forget it" and other sentiment-laden twaddle designed to make the social underclass of this great nation say "I tell you what, Dean - we should go on an 'oliday like them Redknapps. Fook the mortgage, it'll be a rart laff". Or similar.
I'm all for celebrities promoting products. Sutcliffe's endorsement of Facebook was an unmitigated success; likewise Glitter's Toys R Us campaign. It goes to show that if you get the right celebrity mug behind your product, the results are literally* mind-blowing. Which makes TC's choice of Mr & Mrs Redders more baffling. Here we have an impossibly good-looking couple (worryingly bereft of their children, it has to be said) sauntering around like they've got all the time in the world. That's cos they have. She does the Clothes Show once in a blue moon (and probably Loose Women - every other harridan of a certain age does), while he rocks up for a couple of hours on a Sunday, suffixes everything with 'Triffic' or 'Richard' then fucks off with several thousand quid in his sky rocket. It's easy to flounce about in these high-class resorts when you're wadded and do less work than a teacher in a snowstorm.
Not for a minute am I begrudging them their rewards. Let's face it, if Ronseal called and asked you and your bird to front their latest range of weedkillers on the Costa Del Sol, you'd be all over it. I'm just surprised they've chosen a couple so banal and non-threatening they make Mr. and Mrs. Michael Owen look like MTV fly-on-the-wall documentary fodder.
In conclusion, in these financially buggered times, advertisers are under more pressure than ever to make every marketing pound count. To that end, following these industry-standard rules should ensure a safe voyage through the choppy waters of product promotion:
- Employ Kerry Katona to front your campaign
That is all.
* Before any pedants point out that it isn't 'literally' mind-blowing, this is a deliberate dig at Redknapp's propensity to use the word in the wrong context constantly. "He's literally been on fire in the first half, Jeff", etc. He is to the English language what Piers Morgan is to light entertainment.
So here we are.
Those of you who like this television lark will no doubt by now have come across Thomas Cook's latest offering. They've employed a good-looking bloke from the world of football and his moderately successful singer wife to give us their unique take on the world of foreign holidays.
Sadly, they haven't chosen David 'Goldenlegs' Beckham and his tubby wife, Victoria. Instead they've employed...wait for it....snigger...only the Redknapps!
That's right; they've forked out good money to hear the inane ramblings of Jamie "I sit like I'm having a shit, triffic" Redknapp and his wife, Louise Nurding (I refuse to acknowledge their marriage, much in the same way as you-would-although-she's-a-racist-skank Cheryl Tweedy).
The premise is simple (ironically); they wander about various sun-drenched resorts, sporting fewer and fewer clothes as they progress, spouting nonsensical statements that would make Steven Seagal's script writer blush. It's toe-curling stuff (cringeworthy, not orgasm-inducing), as they stare into each others eyes going "We'll never forget it" and other sentiment-laden twaddle designed to make the social underclass of this great nation say "I tell you what, Dean - we should go on an 'oliday like them Redknapps. Fook the mortgage, it'll be a rart laff". Or similar.
I'm all for celebrities promoting products. Sutcliffe's endorsement of Facebook was an unmitigated success; likewise Glitter's Toys R Us campaign. It goes to show that if you get the right celebrity mug behind your product, the results are literally* mind-blowing. Which makes TC's choice of Mr & Mrs Redders more baffling. Here we have an impossibly good-looking couple (worryingly bereft of their children, it has to be said) sauntering around like they've got all the time in the world. That's cos they have. She does the Clothes Show once in a blue moon (and probably Loose Women - every other harridan of a certain age does), while he rocks up for a couple of hours on a Sunday, suffixes everything with 'Triffic' or 'Richard' then fucks off with several thousand quid in his sky rocket. It's easy to flounce about in these high-class resorts when you're wadded and do less work than a teacher in a snowstorm.
Not for a minute am I begrudging them their rewards. Let's face it, if Ronseal called and asked you and your bird to front their latest range of weedkillers on the Costa Del Sol, you'd be all over it. I'm just surprised they've chosen a couple so banal and non-threatening they make Mr. and Mrs. Michael Owen look like MTV fly-on-the-wall documentary fodder.
In conclusion, in these financially buggered times, advertisers are under more pressure than ever to make every marketing pound count. To that end, following these industry-standard rules should ensure a safe voyage through the choppy waters of product promotion:
- Employ Kerry Katona to front your campaign
That is all.
* Before any pedants point out that it isn't 'literally' mind-blowing, this is a deliberate dig at Redknapp's propensity to use the word in the wrong context constantly. "He's literally been on fire in the first half, Jeff", etc. He is to the English language what Piers Morgan is to light entertainment.
Monday, 11 January 2010
The customer is always...in the way
As is the norm for the likes of me, I do a weekly big shop at a local supermarket. Depending on my mood, I either go to Tesco's (quick and cheap but the key protagonists are lazy-eyed poorly-cleansed genetic mishaps) or Asda (quick and cheap but full of people deemed "too council" for Jeremy Kyle) and fill up on all manner of own-brand fayre, all in the name of not dying.
Given the ongoing treacherous weather conditions we're currently facing, I found Asda to be surprisingly empty. I flew round the store without needing to utter a single profanity towards a member of the moronic underclass who thinks it's acceptable to leave their trolley straddling a lane while they piss off to find the Chicken Dippers. Having gathered my wares, I made my way to the tills and wandered straight into a free aisle, beginning to unload my stuff.
Alas, I was unaware that I wasn't supposed to disturb the staff by wanting to actually buy something.
Given the lack of customers, both the till I was at and the adjacent one were customer free (apart from me, obviously). Thinking this was a boon, my mood dropped slightly when I realised that not only did the two cashiers intend on holding a conversation throughout my entire transaction, but that they would also carry it out across me, as if I'd had the ignorant audacity to get in their way.
The rigmarole is standard; they say hello, offer you some carrier bags (go on then), offer to help pack (no ta), scan your stuff, give you the total, ask if you want cash back (no ta), you pay and you fuck off. However, given the in-depth nature of the feckless conversation these two imbeciles were engrossed in, I found myself practically offering her lines, as if we were both players in a stage production of "Asda: The Musical!", and she was struggling with the script. Admittedly the whole process took the usual couple of minutes, but the whole thing could've been a lot quicker if she's said "Hold on a minute, Trace" and actually concentrated on the job in hand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually arsed about a lack of customer service. At the end of the day I got what I wanted so I'm not too fussed. If I was queuing unnecessarily while they wittered on it might be different, but is it too much to ask that they shut up for two minutes and pay attention? Both before and after my presence there was a distinct lack of other customers, so it wouldn't have killed them. I tried to make my presence felt by making honking noises while gesturing at her breasts*, but she was having none of it.
So beware, potential shoppers. Don't make the same mistake I did and disturb two granite-faced battleaxes in full conversational flow. Put your stuff back in your basket and piss off out of it until they're ready to serve you. Who do you think you are?
* Not really. That would be ridiculous. It was more of a toot than a honk.
Given the ongoing treacherous weather conditions we're currently facing, I found Asda to be surprisingly empty. I flew round the store without needing to utter a single profanity towards a member of the moronic underclass who thinks it's acceptable to leave their trolley straddling a lane while they piss off to find the Chicken Dippers. Having gathered my wares, I made my way to the tills and wandered straight into a free aisle, beginning to unload my stuff.
Alas, I was unaware that I wasn't supposed to disturb the staff by wanting to actually buy something.
Given the lack of customers, both the till I was at and the adjacent one were customer free (apart from me, obviously). Thinking this was a boon, my mood dropped slightly when I realised that not only did the two cashiers intend on holding a conversation throughout my entire transaction, but that they would also carry it out across me, as if I'd had the ignorant audacity to get in their way.
The rigmarole is standard; they say hello, offer you some carrier bags (go on then), offer to help pack (no ta), scan your stuff, give you the total, ask if you want cash back (no ta), you pay and you fuck off. However, given the in-depth nature of the feckless conversation these two imbeciles were engrossed in, I found myself practically offering her lines, as if we were both players in a stage production of "Asda: The Musical!", and she was struggling with the script. Admittedly the whole process took the usual couple of minutes, but the whole thing could've been a lot quicker if she's said "Hold on a minute, Trace" and actually concentrated on the job in hand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually arsed about a lack of customer service. At the end of the day I got what I wanted so I'm not too fussed. If I was queuing unnecessarily while they wittered on it might be different, but is it too much to ask that they shut up for two minutes and pay attention? Both before and after my presence there was a distinct lack of other customers, so it wouldn't have killed them. I tried to make my presence felt by making honking noises while gesturing at her breasts*, but she was having none of it.
So beware, potential shoppers. Don't make the same mistake I did and disturb two granite-faced battleaxes in full conversational flow. Put your stuff back in your basket and piss off out of it until they're ready to serve you. Who do you think you are?
* Not really. That would be ridiculous. It was more of a toot than a honk.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Crymewotch
I frequent a perfectly adequate petrol station a couple of times a week on my way home. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that I used it to purchase more fuel for my car, plus the occasional impulse purchase of a cola-based drink, some kind of jelly sweets or the cheapest brand of Merlot available at the time. That's all you really need to know.
Anyway, an ongoing theme at this place is the penchant for the owner to print pictures of fuel thieves ('bilkers', for those who watch TV's Traffic Cops), along with name-calling and general abuse at their expense. I find it very amusing, not least because the word 'allegedly' is always included in a tiny font somewhere on the page to keep things above board legally.
The formula is standard; a still from the CCTV footage of the tea leaf (usually a chap), which is then embellished with digs at the protagonist's taste in clothing, a mention of the amount they stole and copious use of the asterisk to blank out the author's true feelings on the miscreant. I think it's a good idea, not least because it highlights the baddie to the general public and drags their name through the mud.
There is another reason that I enjoy these regular dips into the fuel-pinching underworld, however. The quality of the spelling is monumentally awful.
Case in point: the latest entry should say "Thieving chav b*s*a*d", but actually says "Thieve chave b*s*a*d". Without a hint of irony, the writer has successfully replaced letters in the word 'bastard' so it still makes sense, but spelt every other word incorrectly. Don't get me wrong, the point was made (complete with something like 18,000 exclamation marks to ram the point home) but the poor bugger makes himself look like a bit of a gimp with his basic lack of spelling nous.
Literally every one is in some way appallingly written, which unerringly lends to its charm. I think the next time I'm in I might pull him to one side and give him a bit of spelling and grammar advice. There's no way that would go wrong.
I can see the next issue now; a snap of me on the forecourt above the headline "Patrunisin cnut baned from this stashion".
It's not the worst thing I've been called. This year...
Anyway, an ongoing theme at this place is the penchant for the owner to print pictures of fuel thieves ('bilkers', for those who watch TV's Traffic Cops), along with name-calling and general abuse at their expense. I find it very amusing, not least because the word 'allegedly' is always included in a tiny font somewhere on the page to keep things above board legally.
The formula is standard; a still from the CCTV footage of the tea leaf (usually a chap), which is then embellished with digs at the protagonist's taste in clothing, a mention of the amount they stole and copious use of the asterisk to blank out the author's true feelings on the miscreant. I think it's a good idea, not least because it highlights the baddie to the general public and drags their name through the mud.
There is another reason that I enjoy these regular dips into the fuel-pinching underworld, however. The quality of the spelling is monumentally awful.
Case in point: the latest entry should say "Thieving chav b*s*a*d", but actually says "Thieve chave b*s*a*d". Without a hint of irony, the writer has successfully replaced letters in the word 'bastard' so it still makes sense, but spelt every other word incorrectly. Don't get me wrong, the point was made (complete with something like 18,000 exclamation marks to ram the point home) but the poor bugger makes himself look like a bit of a gimp with his basic lack of spelling nous.
Literally every one is in some way appallingly written, which unerringly lends to its charm. I think the next time I'm in I might pull him to one side and give him a bit of spelling and grammar advice. There's no way that would go wrong.
I can see the next issue now; a snap of me on the forecourt above the headline "Patrunisin cnut baned from this stashion".
It's not the worst thing I've been called. This year...
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