The Name Game

I recently was forwarded a mail by a zealous pastor commenting on the US elections. Whilst I fully agree that everyone is entitled to their own opinions I was disturbed by the playground politics angle, where he chose to associate the name McCain as "son of Cain" and place it into a biblical context to denigrate the Republican candidate. Now, I do not suport McCain even in he slightest, but it makes me angry when people in positions of influence (like the pastor) try to whip up a frenzy of fear over NOTHING!!! Good Lord, there is enough legitimate shit to bash McCain and the Republicans over, why be so pathetic as to choose his name? It just makes you look as damn stupid as those who point out Obama's middle name is "Hussein".

Anyway... you know me, I couldn't resist... here is my reply:

Dear Sir,

I was forwarded this mail by an ex-colleague and was intrigued. Whilst being from the UK I am not a registered US voter, and despite the fact that I personally would like to see Obama become President, I find your analysis of John McCain's name not only gob-smackingly ludicrous in it's assumption that a name from a non-English background would have a literal English meaning without tracing the translations, but also borderline superstitious in the assumption that the name we are born with will dictate who we are.

The commonly accepted history of the name McCain is that it is the Scots equivalent of the Irish McKean, which is itself an anglicisation of Mac Iain, or "son of Iain" - not "son of Cain"!. With Iain / Ian being a variation of John the surname McCain is essentially the same as the surname Johnson. Another less likely origin is that it is a contraction of "McCathan", meaning "son of a warrior" which, whilst perhaps ironic in this case, certainly does not make all McCains violent!

But if you are going to judge a man on his name have you considered where the name Obama comes from? The surname Obama appears when the Europeans colonised Africa and enforced family names on tribes who had, until then, only had first names. What most did was (as in our own cultures) take their fathers name as a surname (I believe the word "surname" derives from the idea that it was your "sire's name" anyway), which in this case was first bestowed on Barack Obama's grandfather. The name is taken from the Luo verb meaning "to be twisted" or "to be slightly bent", probably relating to a deformity that B.O.'s great-grandfather may have been born with. In any case "twisted" and "bent" are two connotations with which the Senator probably would rather not be associated!

Please, please... vote Obama. But do not be so childish as to take McCain to task over his name! It just makes the whole thing petty.

Cheers m'dears!

On the Dole

In the current piece by Clairwil, about her hairdo, she makes some mention of the DSS (Department of Social Services) in the UK, which brought back a few memories that I have decided to share...

My first job on leaving school (I didn't go to Uni straight away) was actually working at the DSS (or rather the ESJ - Employment Service Jobcentre - as it was called at that point). I never graduated to be one of those desk jockeys who 'jobseekers' had to explain themselves to, I just did the signings for dole money and sometimes worked on the job search desk.

One thing that struck me was that everyone always banged on about the lazy youngsters who were happy on the dole or who were working and signing on, yet for the most part I saw young people genuinely desperate to get a job - to be able to move out of home, settle with a girlfriend, whatever. Those who came in dragging their feet actually tended to be those who had been made redundant from middle-management in their late-forties and who had adopted an "I'm better than this" attitude... those who were often the ones moaning about the young scroungers!Yet I felt sympathetic to them too - it's a bitch of an age to become unemployed, to be deemed 'obsolete'.

Since then I have been on the other side of that desk more times than I care to remember and, frankly, I find it humiliating. I hated having to queue up for cash that was barely able to sustain a bloody gerbil, especially when I was able and willing to work. It's depressing feeling your mind rotting as it goes unused... but, having worked at the ESJ and having a sense of ethics, I was always honest about my earnings. Until.......

Being the go-getter I was I signed on to a temp agency and secured a week long assignment pretty much straight away. Over the course of the week I would earn a half-decent wage and, although I would lose a weeks dole money and housing benefit, I would be a bit better off and feel able to hold my head high. Or so I thought, until I went in and declared my earnings...

My signing on day was a Wednesday. As such the week that I worked had stretched across TWO weeks of benefits. The amount earned was enough to cancel out my dole money for both those weeks. I looked at the figures and I was still slightly better off so, despite feeling this was a little unfair, I let it ride. Then my housing benefit envelope arrived...

...with no cheque, just a letter. As I had been signed off as working for two weeks I was no longer entitled to housing benefit for that month. I quickly did the maths and worked out that, with all my enthusiasm for work and my honesty and integrity, I was actually quite a bit worse off than I would have been had I just sat at home watching daytime TV.

So I will come clean. Since then, whenever I have been on the dole, I have not shied away from earning a few pounds here and there doing odd jobs for mates without declaring it. If I have had longer term or reasonably well paid contracts then, yes, I have told the relevant people - I am, at heart, an honest man - but I won't be shat on like that again for doing the right thing. Oh, and on one occasion I deliberately failed an interview that the ESJ had sent me to because I knew that it would lead to exactly the same situation.

So in their eagerness to clamp down on those abusing the system the bureaucrats have inadvertently created new abusers, ones who don't actually want to cheat or lie but who are getting the shitty end of the stick if they don't. Do they even realise that they are partly to blame...?

Cheers m'dears!

I hateses it, I do...

I hate people who get lazy and rehash old posts on their blogs to make it look like they have actually created some output. But, then again, I fucking hate Hallowe'en more... so here is what I said about it last year in my post entitled "Shallowe'en"...

"Call me a miserable old cunt, but I really hate Hallowe'en. Seeing all the twats dressed up wandering around pubs in devil horns and black capes thinking they look so cool and 'fun-loving'... bollocks, you look like wankers. Especially those men who use it as an excuse to dress as a schoolgirl. Look, I have no problem with cross-dressing or anything, but just admit who the fuck you are for the rest of the year too. Don't use this one solitary night as an excuse to let your repressed urges out. It's just sad.

And all that "trick or treat" bullshit... what does it actually teach our kids? That it's okay to go around essentially threatening old folks. "Give us some sweets or we'll do something bad to you" - that's what it translates as. And to do it all whilst hidden behind masks? It's Dick Turpin and his ilk all over again - "Stand and deliver, your money or your life"! Fucking bastards..."

(as posted at http://averagetosser.blogspot.com/2006/10/shalloween.html )

Over on her blog FatMammyCat expresses a love for the "Holiday" (although as All Hallows Day is actually today, November the 1st, perhaps it is then that is the "Holy-day"?). She says that it is nice because it is a short one... Bollocks. That's only because she doesn't live in Sinless City where it's been going all fucking week. Still at least we don't have to put up with a teddy-bear wearing a Jason Vorhees mask as a "Guy" on November 5th (Guy Fawkes night, to all you non-Brits). There's nothing like a good celebration of burning Catholics, is there...

Cheers m'dears!

Criminal Pettiness

Sinless City is a small place, in the grand scheme of things, despite it's inflated sense of self-importance. But it is a world leader (or certainly highly ranked) in many fields so it's ego is just about acceptable. One thing that seriously lets the place down, however, is the national press - not so much the articles and editorial (as biased as they usually are) but the Letters to the Editor.

Now, in Scotland there is a rag called The Daily Record, a paper I often used to buy when I lived in England simply because it was the only one with decent coverage of Scots football. In the letters to the editor in that publication you would often find quite pathetic gripes and parochial matters more suited to a weekly local paper than a national daily. But nothing, not one thing, compares to the crap that people feel compelled to write about to the Daily Propaganda, Sinless City's national broadsheet.

Okay, to be fair we have recently had a very worthy debate raging about the repeal of a law criminalising homosexuality. THAT is something deserving of national media! But last week, amidst all the passionate arguments, one letter caught my eye...

I did tear it out with the intention of reprinting it on this blog but, unfortunately, it has disappeared... so instead I will have to give you the gist of the content, which somewhat lessens the absurdity factor but should at least make the point.

This woman was complaining about bad behaviour in restaurants. Was it smoking that bothered her? The attitude of staff? Hygiene issues? No... the thing that disgusted her so much that she absolutely had to vent her anger to the whole nation was the way that people squeezed their napkin and hot towel packets to open them, creating a "pop" sound in the process.

Two words for you. Path. Etic. I know that, technically, that should only be one word but I feel that this case is deserving of the space in between the syllables.

My god, there are some cunts out there...

Cheers m'dears!

Spam, spam, spam, scam...

I received this e-mail today:

"Attention,the irish gaming board has held an online draw.the online draw is normally held once a month (october) and your email address has been selected along side five other winners,
contact coordinator: DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk )
file in your claims below as you have won one million three hundred and fifty thousand euros

Name;
Telephone:
Address:
Country/position:"

Now (even ignoring the fact that the grammar is fucking appalling) we all know that crap like this is a scam... or at least you would think we do. Yet dozens of people fall for them - usually the elderly, who are often less in tune with technology and more accepting of what they are told via it. And it fair fucks me off! So I replied...

Oh, I know I am not supposed to, that it opens the door to more of the same (etc., etc.), but once in a while I feel the need to just get arsey. So I sent back my details, as follows....

"Name; Mr U. R. Acunt
Telephone: 0800 FUCK-YOU
Address: 69 Youmustthinkimstupid Street
Country/position: Uranus"

Not the wittiest reply, but I feel better. And if anyone else would like to join me in return spamming DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ) please feel free to cut and paste my reply, or make up your own. Even better... why not forward all the other spam you receive to DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ), give him a taste of his own. That's DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ), by the way. He's a cunt.

Cheers m'dears!

(DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ))

Hasta la vista, baby!

Microsoft are cunts. Utter, utter cunts. Money-grabbing, time-wasting, monopolistic cunts!

It started a couple of months back when i bought my first computer. Yes, you read that right - my first computer. Until now all my blogging and other computer-related activities have relied on computers at net-cafes and work, as well as the sloooow one my mate Horlicks has. But my new job needed me to have a laptop so I bought one. Granted, it was a cheap one, so I have no right to expect speed or a massive memory for storing porn, but I should be able to expect to do basic office-type work on it hassle free, shouldn't I? Not according to fucking Microshit...

You see, all new computers now come with Windows Vista as their operating system. No choice in the matter, that's just how it is now. Having encountered the frustration that is Vista once before I was not hugely enamoured with the idea but I thought "What the hell... about time this ol' carcass was dragged into the 21st Century. Can't be that bad, right?"... fucking Micuntsoft!

It was only at home that I discovered that Vista does not come with Office as standard. No spreadsheet, no word processor... nothing that 99.999% of computer owners use on a regular basis. All I needed the thing for, aside from net access, was those two applications, but all I got from the fuckers was a 60-day trial version of the "new-improved" Windows Office... *sigh*. "Okay, I can live with this... use the trial for 60 days, during which time I have to save up enough to rival the economic spending power of a small country in order to pay for the full version. That should suffice for now, right?"... fucking My-cock's-soft!

I soon discovered that this spanking new Office wouldn't let me do simple tasks I had taken for granted (adjusting spreadsheet margins on the 'Print View' screen; Ctrl + Y to repeat an action; etc....). What the fuck? Why not? Why make a new version less usable than the previous ones? Then a friend pointed out that as this is the trial version it probably deliberately does not allow you to do these things, as blackmail - sorry, 'encouragement' - to buy the full version straight away. Now this, to me, is stupid. Isn't that what the time limit is there for? Why give out an inadequate tool? Doesn't really make me want to get the whole package... I would say it's akin to getting a free trial sachet of washing powder that does pretty much everything except get your clothes clean. "Try our brand - it smells great and bubbles nicely, but if you actually want to remove general dirt from your garments you'll need to buy the full packet".

Now, add in to this the fact that when I tried to open Word and Excel files that other people sent me I discovered that they are not compatible with my software. Neither are my files compatible with older Windows systems. They even have different suffixes. All of which makes the wonderful new and improved Office facility completely fucking useless to me.

Oh, and speaking of incompatabilities, my printer/scanner is also now of less use than the Scotland rugby squad, despite being less than two years old. I was given it a year ago, still in its packaging, by neighbours who were leaving the country, although my lack of computing facilities meant that it stayed in the box until now. Where it will also be returning shortly.

All in all I have wasted about 60% of my work time and another 30% of my free time this last week trying to decipher instruction manuals, following software upload procedures that result in "Unable to complete" messages, e-mailing tech support and getting answers to completely different questions from those I had actually asked and generally hurling obscenities at the wankers who designed all this. Fucking Microbrains!

Which is why I am not typing this from my laptop but from Lovely's, which has an older, more sensible version of Windows. And also why I have had to lock all my windows, lest I hurl it out of one of them in a fit of Anti-Gatesism...

Cheers m'dears!

For Auld Lang Syne?

Friday evening and, as usual, I am wandering into a bar to check out some music and sink a few jars. This particular bar is a regular haunt, the guy strumming guitar and crooning away a friend of mine, the bar staff well versed in my preferences and idiosyncracies. It is one of those places that feels utterly relaxing in its familiarity... so I was at first a little surprised when one of the barmen called out "Hey, Binty - where did you go to uni?". Not a question I am used to hearing from these guys... usually I get the progression from "Pint, Binty?" to "Do you really want us to call the cops, Binty?" over the course of the evening. But, being as sober as I was at that point, I answered truthfully. He then pointed to the other end of the bar and my surprise level rocketed.

There, in all his slightly balder, slightly fatter glory was an old acquaintence from the old Alma Mater. I do not use the word 'friend' because I can't say that we ever particularly were, although we certainly had many mutual buddies. Yet here he was beaming at me like he was my long-lost brother... and so began the unplanned evening of reminiscences.

I would not wish to bore you with all the details (that's a lie - I have no problem boring you all shitless, I'd just rather not bore myself again writing down all the "I can't believe it's been X years"'s and the "Did you hear about whatsisname?"'s), suffice to say long-forgotten and often cringeworthy events were resurrected and old names from the past bandied about... all the while with me sitting there desperately trying to remember what the fuck THIS guys name was! At some point in the evening I managed to introduce him to a local friend and all of a sudden, as they exchanged pleasantries (and names!) I was enlightened... except that the name still meant absolutely bugger all to me.

How many times do you find yourself in this kind of situation? Okay, maybe not on a daily basis, but even if it's just bumping into a kid you once temped with for a week at some dodgy office who then talks as if you and he were founding partners of the company, or finding yourself in line at the supermarket next to the mother of the boy you sat next to in playgroup (kindergarten, for non-Brits) as she tells you every detail of his life ever since... we cannot help but get locked down from time to time by these perfectly nice, totally well-meaning, yet ultimately time-consuming (and often dull) individuals. And this is where sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have become both a blessing and a curse...

Yes, I have been sucked into the mire of the Book of Face, as have several other bloggers listed here - although under my real identity of course. And it has been serving me well, illuminating me on my true past friends whereabouts and allowing me to re-establish several good relationships that had fizzled out simply because of distance and time pressures. As for the people I half-knew, I have no problem with linking up with them and checking their page once in a blue moon as it is something I can do at my own leisure, editing out the inconsequential bits that they tend to leave in when involved in face-to-face trips down memory lane. Yet whilst Facebook has proven to be a great way of keeping up to date with my friends all over the world I find myself constantly baffled by some of the friend requests I get. I mean, who the fuck are all these people? Did I really know them? Oh, right... so you were my ex-girlfriends housemates cousins friends uncle who I met for 5 minutes at a houseparty in Wigan in 1996... well, what are we waiting for! Let's be buddies!

(Another aspect I am very careful about is making sure that none of my students - past or present - are buddied with me, something which offends a few of them but I am not prepared to change my mind about... for fuck's sake, if they read some of the comments my friends have left me I would likely find myself out of a job!)

But that's all by-the-by... my half-point is really that for many people we don't stay in touch with there are reasons, even if those reasons are not ones of dislike but simply not being arsed enough. And as nice as it is to catch up and remember the good ol' days with your friends - your REAL friends - do we really want what little time we have left for making new friends and new memories to be eroded away by people and stories we had happily forgotten? And surely none of us want to simply be a contribution to some kid's pathetically sad claim to have a gazillion friends on MySpace... do we?

Cheers m'dears!

NOT an apology post.

I've been really busy, I'm afraid. Not that you are actually interested in my day to day life, but I just thought I'd let you know that I haven't forgotten about you all. I mean, I hate it when bloggers tell you all about their ultimately tedious reasons for having not sat at a computer screen trying to be witty. It's as if they are apologising for having the nerve to not entertain the rest of us, which displays a level of irony as the aoplogy posts themselves tend to have very little entertainment value. And, for gods sake, it's not as if you all want to know that I had fish heads for breakfast this morning before going to get my man-gina waxed...

Is it...?

Cheers m'dears!

What does TB stand for...?

In this case perhaps Total Bastard, although I would like to go further and state this for the record - Andrew Speaker, you are a cunt. After travelling on two transatlantic flights whilst diagnosed with a particularly bad strain of contagious, highly drug-resistant, tuberculosis you have the gall to express your dissatisfaction at the way the authorities have handled your situation. Well, I'm sorry but your dissatisfaction is nothing compared to what others could have felt if they had caught TB because of your selfish actions.

I understand the fact that you were geting married and going on honeymoon, and you didn't want to ruin the 'best day of your life'. But did you ever stop to consider how many other peoples entire lives you might have ruined? The fact that no-one appears to have contracted TB (yet) is irrelevant - they could have. In fact - and I am aware of how extreme this sounds, but it is true nonetheless - you could have started an epidemic.

I say it again. Andrew Speaker - you are a cunt!

Cheers m'dears!

Shit-faced ramblings...

Blogging. It's all well and done when you've got fuck all else to do, as a friend recently put on long term sick leave has demonstrated so well. But when you're working 572-gazillion hours a week and then trying to have a social life (one that does not involve going on-line, I mean) you don't really have much time to blog. The worst thing about this? Well, the irony that during any lazy period when you have nothing to do bugger all worth blogging about actually happens and you end up making mountains out of molehills just to rant about something, yet when you're busy events shape up in such a way that you are constantly composing blogs in your mind whilst going about your every day business but never get around to actually typing them...

This week I was going to write about the tragic Virginia shootings, linking it in to the obsessions that so many of us have with guns (do not deny this, especially if you have used Monstee's shooting gallery at Blunt Cogs - I am not a violent man, but...). I also wanted to write about whether I actually give a fuck about Prince William splitting from his bit of rough (I don't, although it amuses me that Woolworths had already manufactured crockery commemorating their impending engagement) and I also fancied having a bit of a bitch about the PM of Singapore upping his salary to S$3 million (1m Sterling, incidentally).

Suffice to say, all of the above have been amply covered by bloggers with better time-management skills than me. Which may explain why, having finally found a few hours, I am devoting my full attention to trying to forget the shit of last week (both globally and personally).

...which might just explain the title...

Cheers m'dears!

Valentines Day and the Card Companies...

... can fuck right off 'n' all. Cunts.

Arrrrrggghhh!!! You Motherffff.....

.....fffucker!!!!!!!!

Shitty wank stain bullshit cunting arse part 1:

If anyone ever tells you how wonderful it is to be a teacher, how rewarding it is, then do me a favour - grab the nearest large, angular object and ram it up their fucking arse! I feel like I've sold my fucking soul to the Devil... no, worse - this is a religious school so I must have sold it to Him upstairs instead!!!! Where did my fucking life go?

Shitty wank stain bullshit cunting arse part 2:

Blogger, you cunt. If I wanted a fucking google account I would have got one ages ago. Your dictatorial attitude is more likely to put me off using your shit than exploring it. It was nice and easy signing in with my name only but, no.... that's not enough for you. Now you want my full e-mail address. Well, fuck you, you arse-wipes. I'm using another search-engine from now on. Cunts.

Fire-coming-outta-my-ears, m'dears!

Suck on my Bah-Humbug!

Well, hells bells... Only one post this month? Fuck me, I am getting bad at this.

Sorry this is late but... no wait, I'm not sorry at all. I've been in hospital and not one of you cunts brought me any grapes or magazines with crappy personality quizzes in them. And don't use that old "we didn't know you were in hospital" crap on me because it just won't wash. If you'd cared enough you would have made the effort and found out. And before any of you wags get started I was not in for a liver transplant. Har-de-fucking-har! Anyway, as I don't especially dig Christmas (especially the overblown crap that goes on here) and my family is halfway around the world anyway hospital wasn't a bad place to be for the last few days. Lots of attractive nurses for one thing... and if Christmas does have one perk it's the mistletoe! Wha-hey!

But I digress... what I meant to say was Merry fucking Bah-Humbug to one and all. And I'll see you all (in the online not-really-seeing-you-but-you-know-what-I-bloody-well-mean sense) the other side of Hogmanay!

Cheers m'(rein)dears!

A short lecture to the following persons:

1) All you people who stand side by side on the escalator blocking the through-route for those of us whose underground trains are actually at the platform.

2) All you people who think that the turnstiles and the ends of the escalators in underground stations are the perfect places to congregate and chat.

3) All you people who get on to the underground train and then stop, at the entrance, because you are now on - despite there being a dozen people behind you who would also like to board.

4) All you people that sit on the underground trains playing very loud music on your mp3 'phones without using headphones.

5) All those people who think that it is perfectly acceptable to allow their child to sprawl across 3 seats when the train is jam-packed.

And lastly, 6) The surly teen who jumped into the seat that I had literally just vacated for a frail old lady and then sneered and shrugged his shoulders when I took him to task - you know who you are.

................

You're all cunts.



Here endeth the lesson.

Cheers m'dears!

Shallowe'en

Call me a miserable old cunt, but I really hate Hallowe'en. Seeing all the twats dressed up wandering around pubs in devil horns and black capes thinking they look so cool and 'fun-loving'... bollocks, you look like wankers. Especially those men who use it as an excuse to dress as a schoolgirl. Look, I have no problem with cross-dressing or anything, but just admit who the fuck you are for the rest of the year too. Don't use this one solitary night as an excuse to let your repressed urges out. It's just sad.

And all that "trick or treat" bullshit... what does it actually teach our kids? That it's okay to go around essentially threatening old folks. "Give us some sweets or we'll do something bad to you" - that's what it translates as. And to do it all whilst hidden behind masks? It's Dick Turpin and his ilk all over again - "Stand and deliver, your money or your life"! Fucking bastards...

Cheers m'dears!

Musical Interludes...

Can someone please tell me what the point is of all those television dramas now shoe-horning bands or musicians into their scripts for apparently little or no reason? Because I for one find it at best distracting, other times frankly tedious and nauseating. Okay, I know that comedy shows have a history of this, The Young Ones being a classic example, but that was the kind of bizarre and surreal programme where Dexy's Midnight Runners playing in the bathroom could actually be considered the norm. But The Killers playing the local bar in The O.C.?

Look, before you start, I absolutely do not watch that twattery. I was channel-hopping, okay? The point is, I know that the programme is supposed to be about a load of jumped up little rich shits who could probably hold a 'small party' with music provided by an entire Glastonbury lineup, but having The Killers play a couple of songs whilst the cast look at them dreamily and say nothing to each other just comes across as an exercise in time-wasting. You can't even blame it on the scriptwriters running out of imagination since the small bit of dialogue I did see demonstrated they didn't have any in the first place.

Unfortunately The O.C. and The Killers are not alone in this. The West Wing has once or twice managed to save themselves five minutes or so of actual drama by drafting in a past music legend, although I admit that since the U.S. Prez probably has to attend functions where these things happen the writers do have a degree of legitimacy. But he also takes a leak occasionally and possibly even takes it up the wrong 'un from Condie and her strap-on from time to time, but I don't need to see either of those either. Well, maybe the second one. Just for a laugh.

Add to the list Entourage, who did an entire storyline where one of the guys was desperate for tickets to see U2 and, sure enough, gets hold of them in the last reel. But why did I then have to sit through about 8 minutes (of a programme that only lasts about 25 without ad breaks anyway) of Bono? It's not like I don't appreciate the music but I already have it on CD. And if I wanted to see them live I would buy a fucking ticket myself and soak up the atmosphere. To cap it all Bono does a birthday shout out at the end to the character in question - I wonder how much he got paid for all that, the hoor!

The worst example I ever saw, though, was on that short lived science fiction version of Dawson's Creek (No, I never used to watch that either. Why the fuck are you raising your eyebrows at me?), the Dido-theme-songed Roswell (Okay, I admit to that one. But not religiously or anything!). Future scriptwriters, read on and learn how NOT to wriggle a musical performance into your storyline...

Imagine, if you will... something has gone terribly wrong and our heroes must find some random chick who may have the answers they are looking for. Off they head to some University a couple of hours out of town somewhere on a single-minded mission to locate her. She's not in her dorm? Bugger! Oh well, lets run around the campus frantically, with no real clue to where she may be. But wait, what's that tucked away over there in some random badly-lit corner? Why, it's a stage, with a couple of dozen studenty-folk milling about it looking mildly impressed. And who is that on the stage? Cue one of the heroes piping up... "It's Nelly Furtado!".

I shit you not.

Mission forgotten, for the duration of one song anyway, whilst they stand there dreamily watching old Nel', who (bless her!) is trying her best not to look too stupidly out of place. Of course, right at the end of the song one of the heroes turns and sees in the crowd... the girl they were looking for! Huzzah!

So there you have it. Nelly Furtado is secretly an undercover Alien using her music to assist her brethren here on earth. They don't write 'em like they used to!

Cheers m'dears!

Aholic-gate!

In today's society of addiction and greed we regularly hear about shopaholics, chocaholics, workaholics, sexaholics and any other type of "-aholic" you care to invent. But this randomly adding "-aholic" onto the end of a word has a tiny little flaw. IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!

Okay, this all derives from the term 'alcoholic', as in someone who is addicted to alcohol. So it's alcohol - ic. So why the hell is someone who is addicted to shopping called a shopaholic when the should be called a shoppingic? I mean, an alcoholic isn't someone addicted to alc's, are they? Why create the addiction suffix by culling a large portion of a word that itself has fuck all to do with the addiction? And even if you do, why is it "-aholic" and not "-oholic"? Alcoholism is an addiction to alcohol, not alcahol. They're alcoholics, not alcaholics.

I cannot quite explain why, but this blatant disregard for the way in which words are built annoys the living crap out of me. If I was an alcoholic I would turn around to all those other cunts and give them a piece of my drunken mind... "Oi! You there, fatso! Yes, you with the brown sticky stuff oozing down your fingers. You are not a chocoholic. Leave my addiction-title alone and get your own. From now on you are a chocolatic. Don't argue, bollock-face! Just admit it - it makes much more sense. I am reclaiming the 'hol' to reunite it with it's 'alco', and don't you dare try to stop me!"

And while I'm on the subject, why is every political incident now labelled something-gate? All this butchery of words must be part of a conspiracy by fuckwits to overthrow the English language and replace it with gobbledygook! Let's call it "fuck-wit-gate", that'll be nice and snappy...

... hey! Could the people who insist on putting 'gate' at the end of every singly political story be refferred to as "gateaholics"? Or should we keep it snappy and just continue to use "cunts"?

Cheers m'dears!

Boom! Shake, shake, shake the room / train / lift / etc...

TSsss TSsss TSsss TSsss...

Annoying, isn't it...?

TSsss TSsss TSsss TSsss...

The tinny drumbeat that emanates from the headphones of that inconsiderate bastard next to you on the bus / train / merry-go-round...

TSsss TSsss TSsss TSsss...

Still, at least it drastically reduced the number of arseholes who would parade down the street with a boom-box on their shoulders, blasting out their favoured musical genre to the whole world whether we liked it or not. And for that I choose to be thankful.

Oh, I know how off-putting it can be whilst trying to do your suduko / crossword / join-the-dots, and how even more annoying it can be when you half-recognise the song being played and just can't quite figure it out. Personally, however, I would rather that than having your whole world drowned out by music rendered unlistenable by having been played so loud on a crappy battery-powered player that the speakers have blown and the whole sound is distorted.

But wait... now we have a new menace... the dreaded MP3 'phone! Of course, at first this was no different than your average MP3 or personal CD player in that it came equipped with headphones and all you got was the same tinny beat. But then people realised that if the earpiece on your 'phone is loud enough to for you to speak on 'loudspeaker', then...

No, you motherfuckers! No, No, No, No, NO! Sitting opposite me on the tube, ambling behind me down the street, even walking into my school office (Try that one more time, boy, and you'll be scrubbing the bastard toilets in detention!)... If I wanted to hear the music you are listening to I would have bought the bloody CD or downloaded it onto my computer, where I can listen to it properly. And when I say 'properly' I mean 'being able to actually hear and understand the fucking thing'! Because that crappy little speaker in your 'phone? it is just as distorted and useless for music as the aforementioned overpowered boom-box.

The thing comes with fucking headphones, for Christ's sake! Why make me hear your (often lousy) choice of music when I would be content with just...

TSsss TSsss TSsss TSsss...

Cheers m'dears!

Sense or Censor-ability!

Anyone who has watched the excellent Thank You for Smoking may remember the end-credit sequence where William H. Macy's character, Senator Orton Finistirre, is spearheading a campaign to digitally remove all scenes of cigarette smoking from old films. According to the Senator he prefers not to think of it as changing history but as "improving" it. Oh, how we all chuckled at how ludicrous such an idea is...

Ludicrous? Stop chuckling and read this article - in a nutshell, some (although to be fair, not all) smoking scenes are to be edited out of Tom 'n' Jerry cartoons. Now, whilst I understand the sentiment and the fact that these cartoons are, naturally, aimed at a younger audience I have to ask - where will it stop? Will we end up with classic films butchered to appease our modern sensibilities? Will Sandie choke on a stick of gum in the pjama party scene of the "improved" version of Grease? Will Bogey puff away on one of those white plastic Nicorette things? And why stop at the smoking? Let's get rid of all scenes of gratuitous violence from the T 'n' J cartoons... oh, wait. That would only leave the scenes of the black maid standing on a chair afraid of the mouse, which would of course also need to be removed on the grounds of overt racism and sexism.

Television and film are the cave paintings, scrolls, works of art, first folios of the 20th Century. They depict who we were at a particular moment of time, in all our glory and in all our disgusting, violent, bigoted filth. If these cartoons are no longer suitable for kids then don't show them any more, create new works which better reflect our modern times, but have the decency to allow our history to stand. But having said all that how about we step back for a moment, stop viewing the situation through adult eyes, and give kids a little benefit of the doubt... do we really believe that a cartoon will make a 5 year old smoke? Kids may be (mostly) innocent but generally speaking they are not fucking stupid!

Now, I know an 8-year old nicotine addict who smoked since he was 5, but was it cartoons that got him started? Of course not! It was a combination of family situation, pressure from older kids he hung out with, and a variety of other social issues. To be honest even at 5 he would probably have described Tom 'n' Jerry as "wanky kids stuff", preferring to watch Schwarzenegger films and the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Parenting issues, yes. A cause for censoring - sorry, 'improving' - televisual history? I don't fucking think so!

This is not the first time retrospective censoring has been considered in the UK. A couple of years back the BBC were looking at editing classic sit-com Only Fools and Horses to remove a handful of references to "Paki's" or "Poof's". Yes, these terms are offensive. Yes, they grate with me when I hear them used in these programmes. But that's the point - let me be reminded of what life was like for the non-white and gay communities in the UK only 20 years ago, and let me see that despite my own personal attitudes differing there are still many who would happily still act in these ways. It's one of the ways in which we learn and move forward.

So listen up, Ofcom, and put your fucking scissors away. Let's be frank for a moment - if you follow through with this plan you are just one step away from Nineteen Eighty-Four's Ministry of Truth.

Cheers m'dears!

Western superiority complex - the absolute Pitts.

Some Jordanian con-man hit the news yesterday for trying to claim cash that wasn't his in the UAE... not that newsworthy until you discover that he had created fake ID using a random picture of a man he downloaded from the 'net. The man in question was Brad Pitt.

Okay, only mildly amusing. What prompted me to write about it, however, was the reaction of the 'trying-to-be-hip-and-trendy-by-making-sarcastic-comments' reporter on some random US entertainment channel... after stating that the Jordanian claimed he did not realise whose face he had downloaded as he didn't know who Brad Pitt was the journo' sneered "which is perfectly understandable - if you come from a planet not called Earth!"

Fuck off you patronising insular cunt! Culture comes in more forms than just 'Western' and, contrary to popular belief, no-one is known the world over. Not Cruise, not Beckham, not even Bush - and, even despite having a baby in Africa, not Pitt. Get your head out of your arse and realise that it's a big fucking world with a lot going on in it and not every cunt is glued to the TV watching your godawful TV programmes for tidbits and gossip about what brand of toothpaste each celebrity uses.

And before anyone asks why I was watching it - I was only channel-hopping!

Cheers m'dears!


Update - I just visited said channels website and read the phrase "apparently, Us Weekly has yet to hit the Middle East". Oh. Aha. Ha. Ha. Funny cunts, aren't you?