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.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
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.
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