Deja Vu

DK is running this rather amusing picture of Hillary Clinton:


Which is rather droll, but not 100% realistic I fear. Mainly because I saw this picture a few years ago of the incumbent President:

Real or not, you could argue that both are true...

The Diana Inquest: No, really?

The Diana Inquiry has found no evidence that Duke of Edinburgh, or MI6, had anything to do with the death of Princess Diana. I cannot be alone in thinking "you reckon? I could have told you that a loooong time ago." After all, any woman, being driven at high speed through Paris by a drunk driver, is at risk. And when said drunk driver hits a concrete block, and said woman isn't wearing a seat belt, you don't need an assassin. At the risk of being brutal, simple physics will intervene and kill.

But this big, fat, pointless waste of time has cost £7m. £7m? Christ on a trike! A small fortune spent investigating a mad as a badger conspiracy theory. We may as well have spent the money investigating the theories of David Icke. At least they are more credible. Or, failing that, at least they are more fun...

Hopefully now Al-Fayed will shut his mouth and stop spouting this nonsense at all and sundry. After all, as the coroner points out, his theories are ""so demonstrably without foundation" that even his lawyer was no longer pursuing them." Although I think I'm being optimistic there. I'm tempted to run a sweepstake on when Al-Fayed will denounce the verdict, or vow to fight on. My money's on by close of play to day...

Tired, old, out of touch - they know it, you know it

Ivan Lewis, a Nu Labour Minister:

"But we have been in government 11 years and instead of being on the side of the people, too often we simply defend the status quo, even when it is unacceptable. It is right we focus on the great challenges of climate change, globalisation, security and poverty at home and abroad and the nature of public service reform. However, we are too often silent on the daily realities facing hard-working families."

The emphasis is mine.

Of course, this assessment doesn’t go far enough for me. It lacks the words "thieving", "bastard", "arrogant" and "cunts" for a start. But as a condemnation from a politician, it is quite damning. And as a comment from a Nu Labour minister, it is staggering. They know they are tired and old. Yet in May, and at the next election, they will expect us to vote for them.

If you agree with Ivan, let him know. Vote for someone else the next time you get the chance to vote.

Sausages = Evil

Yes, oh yes, sausages are the new evil that will, in full on Daily Mail style, give you cancer. But it is not just sausages that may kill you through consumption. Oh no. As some medical type (referred to as "Prof" by The Metro, natch) notes:

'Whether you are talking about bacon, ham or pastrami, the safest amount to eat is none at all. You can make a positive difference by cutting out as much as possible.'

Jesus H Christ, I will never have another sausage again! Or ham! Or Pastrami! I wonder whether Spam is okay? Fucking hell, I think we all need to know whether Spam is ok! How come the Prof didn’t mention Spam? It has got some ham in, but loads of other stuff as well. We need to know whether it is ok! There are going to be hundreds of processed meat obsessives, following the advice of the Professor, desperately seeking Spam as a substitute for processed meat! And the negligent fucker didn’t even bother to tell us whether it is ok to eat Spam. What a cunt.

More seriously, The Metro gives a slightly more tangible target for those of us who are not going to drop processed meats like a shitty stick. Apparently:

"Eating just one sausage or three rashers of bacon a day can increase the risk of developing bowel cancer by a fifth, it is being claimed."

At first, it sounds like not a lot. But sit down and work it out. One sausage a day is 7 sausages a week. Or 365 a year. Three rashers of bacon a day is 21 a week, 1092 a year! 1457 bits of processed meat a year increases your risk of bowel cancer. No, really? Crazy stuff.

This front page story should be news to precisely no-one. It can be summarised as "being a greedy bastard may affect your health." But ultimately anything consumed to excess could damage your health. Even water and stuff. But if you have most things in moderation then you should be ok. Both common sense and even the most basic levels of education should make this obvious. Which makes me wonder which of those two the British public is lacking in. And, with a sinking feeling, I realise that, for some people, it will be both.

*Obviously I’m not advocating having things like cyanide, even in small quantities. Oh no. Not going to risk opening that can of worms.

Kevin Spacey and the Free Advertising

What the fucking hell has happened to the BBC News website? It looks like it has been redesigned for simple people with poor eyesight. I haven’t seen such a poor redesign since I changed the template for this blog just before Christmas!

Anyhoo, Kevin Spacey - thespian, director and theatre promoter - is bellyaching about the BBC showing those endless, dreadful audition programmes for those endless, dreadful musicals. However, his complaint isn’t about the quality of these shitty, sub-Pop Idol shows, but rather a whine about how unfair life is:

"I felt that (a musical audition programme) was essentially a 13-week promotion for a musical - where's our 13-week programme?"

Yeah, it probably was a promotion for the musical. I haven’t watched any of these endlessly tedious audition shows. To be honest I would rather destroy my own eyes with hydrochloric acid than sit through 40 minutes of precocious, talentless, attention seeking fuck faces screaming/whining/squawking/doing-anything-other-than-singing their way through a collection of musical standards that make me wish for the long, slow death of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. However, someone, somewhere finds these sort of shows entertaining. Believe or not, millions of people do. I don’t know why - maybe something to do with poor diets; maybe something to do with inbreeding. But millions enjoy these shitty shows, which is why the BBC broadcasts them. I rather doubt that millions of people would tune in for a 13 part audition series for Speed-The-Plow, or whatever bag of crap Spacey is promoting at the moment.

In fairness, he has started to flesh out his ideas for a TV programme. It would be:

"…to help kids find their own sense of self-esteem, confidence and ability to collaborate. These are interesting ideas, now they're not sexy so maybe they don't want to put them on air."

Probably best that Spacey doesn’t try to make kids sexy; that would open up a whole world of trouble from the likes of the News of the World. However teaching kids to feel more confident and collaborate would not just be tedious, it may be best covered off by institutions other than Spacey’s Old Vic. Like, you know, schools.

But Spacey is pushing for his dull version of a shitty programme format:

"I have spoken to your chairman but he has yet to get back to me"

Possibly because he has better things to do (although Lord knows what) than reply to hissy actors belly-aching about how unfair life is. I’d like the Chairman of the BBC to come back to me on my idea for a TV series, called You’re a Cunt, but my grip on reality appears to be slightly more sound than Spacey’s. I accept that the Chairman probably cannot reply to every ranting twat with a half-baked idea for a TV series.

*Seriously, it would be a winner. Basically it is a 26 episode TV programme where I go round and call every single politician in the country a cunt. I mean, it must be good. I’d watch it!

Our Speaker - that clueless, beached whale of the man - has spent £700,000 of taxpayer's money on his official residence since 2001. The money has gone on furniture, art and air conditioning.

Gorbals Mick has spent on average £100,000 a year on his official residence - funds he gets from us. Basically, the repairs to his official residences could be what stops you from doing the repairs to your actual references.

I could shout and swear about this, but I am too tired. Too tired and sick of the endemic corruption displayed by our leaders. They piss on the country - we do nothing about. Every member of parliament is complicit in the scandal of the Commons gravy train, nothing will change whilst the Commons is controlled by the ruling oligarchy and presided over by that uber cunt Martin.

And unless that radical change occurs, the gulf between electorate and elected will grow until we have the dystopian scenario where each side stands viewing each other across a chasm - one side laughing, their fat bellies rocking with gleeful giggles, whilst the other side looks at those pigs at the trough, filled with a quiet, impotent rage.

"Council bosses 'get more than PM'"...

...screams the BBC, egged on by the Taxpayer's Alliance. And yes, paying Peter Gould, chief executive of Northamptonshire County Council, £215,000 a year does seem a tad excessive and I think the good people of Northamptonshire - and indeed anywhere else where the chief exec or whatever those in charge of County Councils call themselves these days is earning a small fucking fortune - would be well within their rights to say "give us some of our money back, you money grabbing whorish fuckers."

But I have no issue with anyone earning more than Gordon Brown. In fact, I think everyone in the country should earn more than Gordon Brown. Even that crack addict at the end of the road who is urinating on a lamp post. In fact, I think that, given the damage Brown has done as Chancellor and PM to this country, he should work for free. However he clearly isn't fit to be Prime Minister, even for no salary whatsoever. So let's demote him. Let's make him a street sweeper in some depressing, drab town centre somewhere. And let's all go and eat the hottest curries, then defecate on the streets of whichever suburban crap hole we've sent Gordo to. Let's make him literally clear up our shit. For free.

Because this is his fault. It is all his fault. One of the main reasons why these council execs feel they can claim such extortionate salaries is because Brown has created a culture in this country where government (both local and central) has the right to spend as much of the tax payer's money as it likes. On whatever they want. Think back to Ed Balls and his "So What?" - they think they deserve your money. It is the mindset of government. And the buck stops squarely at the top on this one. With Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown - good God, how I hate that rancid cock of a man.

Update

The Moai doesn't quite agree with my analysis. He says:

Paying people in high levels of responsibility is not per se a bad thing. Council bosses do a complex job, involving detailed finance, IT and HR issues, and the job should be highly paid to attract good candidates. The problem here is not the pay level itself; it is the fact that failure in the job is not swiftly punished with the sack, and that these sort of jobs generally goes to timeserving jobsworths.

Yes, it is the timeserving jobsworths that are the problem. If you had someone who was paid £215k to change a council into a lean, mean service providing machine and as a result cut back council tax, no-one would really give a fuck. The problem is that the people on £215k for running a council are, largely, morons who do nothing other than sit on their (probably) flabby butt cheeks and wait for the cash to roll in.

I maintain that Gordon Brown is a rancid cock of a man. And the public finally seem to be realising this.

Gordon Gets Lost

Officially:

Downing Street has insisted Gordon Brown was just "doing what he was told" after apparently getting lost at the state banquet for Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Queen apparently commented:

"The prime minister got lost. He disappeared the wrong way...at the crucial moment."

Sounds like a sage comment not just for the banquet, but pretty much everything Brown has been involved in since he became Prime Minister.

Liberal Democrat Election Strategy

A leaked document reveals what the Liberal Democrat strategy would be in the event of a hung parliament. If you particularly want to read what looks like a load of Lib Dem powerpoints, then you should go here. Be warned, though, it really isn't as exciting as it sounds.

What really struck me, though, was the phrase in bold:

Boring is good.

Sheesh, I knew that I found the Liberal Democrats boring, but I never realised that they had such self-awareness. "Boring is good". If that's your strategy, Mr and Mrs Liberal Democrat, then hearty congratulations. It is working a treat.

A *Special* Anniversary

Yep, Happy 2nd Birthday to The Appalling Strangeness. Two years to the day since I began this blogging odyssey into bad spelling, nonsense posting, liberal profanity and very limited wisdom/wit.

I can very proudly boast that The Appalling Strangeness has achieved every one of the objectives that I laid down when I started it. Mainly because I didn't lay down any objectives when I started it.

It is tempting to go through and do a "Best of" linkathon to some of the posts I've written over the past two years. I'm not going to do that, because what constitutes best is deeply subjective and if you really want to trawl through the rants of the past two years, then the archives are over there, in the sidebar, on the right. I considered calling them the Archives of Pain in an obscure reference to a Manic Street Preachers' track, but abandoned this idea as people might not "get it".

And it is safe to say, despite an aborted attempt to stop this nonsense, this blog will be going on for a while longer. Slating Gordon Brown, sniping at Cameron and snickering at Clegg, it is safe to say that whilst the names of the politicians have changed over the past two years, the cynicism and sarcasm of this blog will continue.

Bar Darling

A blogging campaign has been picked up by the national media. Mr Eugenides tells the full story of the attempts to have that badger faced bastard, Alistair Darling, barred from the nation's pubs.

I haven't thrown the inconsiderable weight of The Appalling Strangeness behind this campaign. I mean, I think the campaign is worthwhile, but I don't think it goes far enough. I'd like to start a campaign to have Darling, and his evil overlord, torn apart by a pack of wild dogs. But, whilst such a campaign might get some support, the mainstream media probably won't pick up on it. At least not until after the security services have picked up on it, anyway.

Still, nice to see that the media does pay some attention to what happens elsewhere on the internet. And hopefully Darling will find it tough to get a beer. At least, beer that isn't a can of Special Brew from the local Costcutter.

Hillary Clinton (War Hero)

Hillary Clinton came under fire from a sniper in Bosnia, you know. Fuck me, she's brave. She's like that John McCain - she's seen violence on the battlefield, she's put her neck on the line. Ok, she's never been the prisoner of the Vietcong and faced crippling torture, but she's seen conflict, alright? So she gets my vote (which would probably be a tiny comfort for Hillary, if I had a vote in this election).

And I should know about conflict. I've just got back from fighting in Iraq, and I hot footed it to Iraq straight from the Afghan battlefield. Prior to that, I fought in the Falklands, did a couple of tours of duty over in Northern Ireland during the "troubles". My time in France during the Second World War is the stuff legends are made of, but the horrors of that war have nothing on the terrible memories I have of the First World War. And I'm still proud of my part in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Of course, the above is all bollocks. My natural cowardice will always keep me away from any battlefield; hell, I'm the first out the door if I fight breaks out in a pub I'm in. I'm as likely to be found on a battlefield, under enemy fire as, well, Hillary Clinton.

Which is the problem with her story about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia - as footage released by the Obama campaign shows, it is basically bollocks. But that's ok, it is ok you see - because Clinton misspoke. Just misspoke, that's all. She just said the wrong words. That placed her in the middle of a violent conflict situation. Which is fair enough. I just miswrote when I claimed to have been in a load of the most famous conflicts of the past century and a half.

Except had I genuinely made those claims, no-one would allow me the defence of writing the wrong thing. I would be, quite rightly, a stupid lying bastard. So why isn't the media debunking Clinton as a stupid lying bastard (albeit in more polite terms)?

Because she's a politician, silly. When you lie, when I lie, we are liars. We rightly get slated. When a politician lies, they "misspoke" and we should take their "misspeaking" as proof positive that they are just fallible humans, like you or me. But they don't lie to better their positions. Oh no. That would be impossible.

And they wonder why we regard them with such deep contempt.

UPDATE:

Oh, now it is a mistake! Still not a lie, but a mistake. And "It proves I'm human". Yeah, Hillary. Proves you're human. Worrying you need to clarify that point, but there we go.

I must be losing it a bit, but whenever I see George W. Bush, and then the people running to replace him, I hear the lyrics to Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival running through my head...

PM to launch local poll campaign...

...reports the BBC.

The world waits with baited breath for the man who can make failed terrorist attacks seem boring to announce how he is going to fight an election that won’t really change anything at all. I’d love to be at the launch but unfortunately I have something more interesting and fun to do. I’m going to sit in the corner and hit myself repeatedly in the face. With a tyre iron.

It is telling that the BBC can’t make this news exciting. All we have is the same phrase repeated over and over again – basically that Brown would like a better showing in these elections than what happened last May. No, really? A politician wants to do well in an election? Crazy stuff.

I thought it would be an impossible task to make the endless Democrat primary season over in the US seem interesting. But I reckon that these local elections might just manage the impossible…

Poetry! Poetry! Everywhere! And It All Stinks!

Seems the new fad for our elected oligarchs is to pen lines of verse that rip into the awful idiot who is currently PM. Following on from last week's sadly lacklustre effort about Downing Street, Teresa May - a woman previously most famous for her (terrible) choice in shoes - has picked up the quill as well. According to the BBC her verse runs as:

"At Downing Street the other day, I met a man sent on his way.
Close to Gordon for many years, the PM's rants brought him to tears.
But for all this he didn't care. He was pleased to see his minister there.
He'd been important once, you know. Now Carter told him: 'You must go.'"

Again, not quite strong enough for me, but any poem that stops short of calling Gordon Brown a "total fucking cunt" is not going to be strong enough. Nonetheless, it was enough to rile that terrible blend of android and woman, Harriet Harman:

"I don't know about her constituents, but mine are more interested in sound management than soundbites. They would rather have competence than her version of comedy."

There may be an element of truth in what Harman is bleating. But so great is my disdain for Nu Labour's answer to The Stepford Wives that I support May, if only because her poor attempt at comedy verse has created such a piously indignant response from Harman.

Still, this is just the Easter silly season. No doubt soon British Politics will return to normal. Where Gordon Brown fucks up at Prime Minister's Questions, Cameron fruitlessly calls on him again and again and again to answer basic questions and Nick Clegg stands in the Chamber, mouthing words like a guppy fish, but nothing of any worth spills from his mouth.

Thinking about that almost makes me wish we could have the poetry every day.

Easter Demystified

For Christians, this is one of the most important days of the year. The death/return of Jesus is central to the Christian cult - sorry, faith. For non Christians, it is a Sunday where all of the shops are shut, mercifully bookended by two bank holidays. It is a lot like Christmas, except without presents and with no Doctor Who Christmas special to enjoy.

Around Easter there are always lots of programmes and articles about the true meaning of Easter. As a break from all this Christian brow furrowing, I give you Easter Demystified, by a sarcastic atheist:

Good Friday was in someway good: No it wasn't. If you were Jesus, then you had a really shit day. Flayed half to death, then nailed to a cross before being left to die? Black Friday would be more accurate. Although these days it would be more associated with a dip in the stock market rather than the death of a self styled Messiah.

Jesus was the first zombie: No he wasn't. Yeah, he rose from the dead like a zombie, but the first zombie was actually Lazarus. Jesus's resurrection of that particular leper denied the "Son of God" the chance to be the first zombie.

Easter is in some way more important than Christmas: No, really, no. It is not just the lack of presents and Doctor Who Christmas Specials. This is a classic Chicken And Egg scenario. Yes, the Christian faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus, and he had to die for that to happen. But guess what? Had he never been born, he would never have died and risen from the grave. And since he was born at Christmas, Christmas is more important.

Now, with that half baked nonsense off my chest, it leaves me to wish any atheist readers of this blog a very happy Easter. And any Christians reading the above and feeling offended by it, "Happy Easter" and "Get a sense of humour."

Go Boris! (Sort of)

In order to celebrate, if celebrate is indeed the right word, the beginning of the campaign to unseat that fucking bastard Red Ken… sorry, sorry, the campaign for London Mayor, the Moai and I went to see young Boris speak at a dinner on Tuesday. The scene was slightly surreal – we were clearly the youngest people at the dinner, and probably by between 10 and 20 years. The rules of the club where we ate required gentlemen to wear jackets on all times, except in June, July and August, or when the club allowed them to by putting up notices saying the temperature has risen above 24 degrees. However, a notice informed me that gentlemen were no longer required to wear ties at all time in the public areas of the club, which would have been a ground breaking development had this been the 1920’s.

Anyway, to Boris, and I’ll hand you over to the Moai – a self described recovering socialist - for his verdict on the uber Tory Boris:

"As The Nameless One says, he and I went to a dinner engagement two days ago that marked the beginning of Boris' formal assault on the mayoralty. So, how convinced were we? Well, even the pre-scripted parts of his speech were not utterly dull, and the description of the execrable Londoner as 'Pyongyang style' went down very well, indicating that his minders (who notable by their presence) have not made the fatal mistake of de-Borising Boris. However, in open questioning, he wobbled. He appears to believe that all of the changes he proposes can be funded by slashing Ken's admittedly enormous marketing budget, and, when asked a question on schools policy and underachievement, he was obviously unprepared. Whether or not the Mayor has any control over schools is irrelevant; when required to go off script, he didn't look convincing, which may be a problem in open hustings. The Moai verdict: entertaining, but not - yet - fully convincing."

See, the interesting thing is I felt it worked the other way round. I found Boris’s speech boring, light on policy, and delivered far too fast and with more than a hint of nerves. When it came to the questioning, I felt he came into his own. He didn’t have all the answers, and was clearly developing some policy ideas on the hoof, but he seemed to build up a real rapport with his (albeit quite friendly) audience and also seemed to relish the chance to go off script and think on his feet. He came across as far more likeable than that poisonous little twerp that he is fighting against. And whilst Red Ken clearly sees going for Boris’s jugular is the way forward, Boris slipped in a couple of jibes against Red Ken without really mentioning the man’s name. He seems to be using the classic politician’s trick of not mentioning his opponent’s name for fear of giving that opponent free publicity.

My verdict? Well, he came across ok, but I don’t think anyone would expect anything less from Bozzer. He didn’t really give me a reason to vote for him. My vote is most likely to go to Bozzer simply because he is not that nasty, anti-Semitic, crony loving pseudo-Marxist Ken Livingstone. Equally, he is not Brian Paddick – a man who seems to be even more lost in his own navel than your standard Lib Dem. In that respect, Boris is the perfect candidate to represent modern politics – and in particular the modern Tories. You don’t vote for him, but rather by supporting him you are not voting for any of his opponents. It is a shame he didn’t have more to offer, and I hope if he does win the race, then he has an agenda ready and waiting to go. The last thing we need is another politician popular with the media who wins an election – then sits on his hands, wondering what to do.

The Future: Cutting Your Own Hair

Most habits from my student days I've managed to get over. I no longer idolise the shitty detective programmes shown by the BBC at lunch times, like Quincy and Bergerac. I no longer buy Safeway Saver's Coke - which can only be a good thing, as it looked like sludge water dredged from a ditch somewhere. It also tasted like sludge water, dredged from a ditch somewhere - albeit with added sweetners. I don't wear military style clothing in the hope that I look cool - or failing that, like a former member of Echo and the Bunnymen. Let's face it, there is nothing wrong with leaving most of you student habits behind. A failure to do this will make you maladjusted as you go grow old. Or, even worse, it will make you join the Liberal Democrats.

However, one habit I haven't managed to get out of is cutting my own hair. Even now, working for a FTSE 250 company in Central London on a not too bad (although not too great either) salary, I still cut my own hair. Which a lot of people find strange, but actually makes perfect sense to me.

Cutting my own hair was a neccessity when I was at uni. At the college bar, a pint cost £1. A hair cut cost £10. Therefore, getting my hair cut professionally would cost me two quiet nights out or one big night out. Never, ever going to happen.

After leaving uni, I tried these fancy barber people, who seem to be able to charge a small fortune for doing what I could do in my room in college for free. And, without exception, it went wrong. The barbers I visited seemed utterly unable to understand the simple instruction of "I want the same style of hair, but shorter". They seemed to interpret it as "gimme a crew cut". I would end up looking like a refugee from the Marines. And the Marines look really isn't me.

Things reached crisis point when I went to a new barber. He got out his clippers, and started cutting my hair right at the top of my forehead. A great big wodge of hair fell into my lap. Now, I had quite long hair at the time, but I knew it wasn't long enough to allow for the amount of hair that had just fallen into my lap. I asked him, feeling slightly panicked, to check the grading on his clippers. He reassured me that everything was ok. And another lump of my hair fell from my head. This time I demanded that his check the grading on his clippers. He did. And fell into an awkward silence.

His manager explained to me what had happened. It was an intricate story, and a deeply unconvincing story. I can summarise, once you cut through all the "fucking bullshit" in the following way - the barber fucked up. And since he started at the very top of my head, the rest of the hair had to come off to prevent me from walking from the barber's shop with a hillbilly mullet. I was enraged - and looked it too, because the lack of hair made me look like an angry bouncer. I was even more enraged when they demanded a fee for practically scalping me. I not only told them to go and fuck themselves, but also how to do it in a reasonable amount of detail.

Since then, I have always cut my own hair. And you know what, it works. It is free. I can get my hair cut when I want. And it happens in the (relative) comfort of my own home. Sure, it took a while to fully work out the best ways to cut my own hair. But now I know them, it is a quick and easy operation. And if the barber fucks up, it is me fucking up. And I can be very forgiving. Of myself anyway.

So I reckon cutting your own hair is the way forward. Although I will accept not responsibility whatsoever if any reader of this blog tries it and it doesn't go well...

Poetry In Politics

Apparently there is a mystery poet operating in Downing Street. And the poet isn’t a fan of our very own Prime Minister. According to the BBC the rhyme goes:

"At Downing Street upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't Blair,
He wasn't Blair again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away."

That’s how bad things have got, even within the Labour government. Brown is so unpopular, even with his colleagues, that a return to that grinning shit Blair seems like a good idea.

The chief suspect is John Hutton, who (again according to the BBC) once said "blooming awful prime minister - and I translate for the sake of decency". Now, I heard a slightly different version of the statement – namely that Brown would make a "fucking awful Prime Minister". Which makes me think that Hutton didn’t write those lines. Not profane enough. And that would be my main criticism of the poet – frankly, it doesn’t lay into Brown enough. I think it should read:

"At Downing Street upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t that lying, slippery horse’s arse Blair
It was that evil thief they all call Brown,
So I kicked him down the stairs, battered his head with a baseball bat, and trod on his throat until he breathed no more."

It doesn’t rhyme or scan as well as the first poem (hell, it doesn’t rhyme or scan at all, frankly) but I think the sentiments are more in line with the thinking of the British public. And the central message is something we can all get behind.

PMQ's

Prime Minister’s Questions is an odd sort of a beast. It can either be horrifically dull, or quite entertaining – in a school yard, name calling, "I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?" sort of way. Today’s instalment firmly falls into the entertaining category.

Some highlights from the BBC:

"Mr Cameron asked Mr Brown to answer some of the questions he has "failed to answer" over the last few weeks - such as whether MPs should have a free vote on the human embryology bill.
"Mr Brown said the bill was vital to dealing with life-saving diseases and he would come back to the House with proposals to take it through at a later date. Mr Cameron asked why it was so difficult to answer the question."

I wonder why it is so difficult to answer a simple question. Brown’s answer of "I’ll come back to you on that" would not be accepted from a supermarket shelf-stacker. Quite why the bloody Prime Minister thinks it should be an appropriate answer is beyond me.

"Mr Cameron asked "again" whether Mr Brown would vote in favour of ID cards - "yes or no?". Mr Brown said he was in favour of ID cards and asked Mr Cameron whether he was in favour of compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals. Mr Cameron said if the PM wanted to ask him questions, he should call a general election now."

Now that is a good retort. Not really ending the "Punch ‘n’ Judy" approach to Prime Minister’s Questions, but when the quips of that calibre, who really cares?

"Mr Cameron congratulated Mr Brown for taking "exactly the right decision" on meeting the Dalai Lama and for not delaying it. Mr Brown responded that "We make the right decisions at all times"."

Ha haha hahaha ha hahaha. Ha. Ha. "We make the right decisions at all times." Ahaha hahahaha. Hahaha. Ha. Ha. "The right decisions at all times". Seriously, that is fucking hilarious! And Brown wasn’t even joking!

Prime Minister’s Questions have again shown that the Leader of the Opposition can throw the occasional barb that is both entertaining and sticks to his target. It has shown that the Lib Dem leader can speak (probably) at PMQ’s, without ever really being memorable. And it has shown that out Prime Minister is not just a cunt, but a self-deluded uber-cunt. A self-regarding, foolish, deluded cunt of the highest order. The "right decision" for Brown would be to write a letter of apology to the nation before jumping into the river with his pockets filled with stones. But he won't do that - he won't make the right decision - because he is a cunt. As I might have already mentioned...

The "M" Class

The arrogance and greed of some people is absolutely staggering. Heather Mills McCartney, or whatever the fuck she's called now, is one such person. I don't know whether her divorce award of £24.3 million is justified, too little or too much and I don't think I ever will, given that would involve trawling through endless documents about a failed marriage I have no interest in. However, this comment makes my jaw drop open:

"Miss Mills, 40, said the couple's daughter Beatrice, four, was now "meant to travel 'B' class while her father travels 'A' class"."

This crass statement from this shrill, demented woman defies belief. It really does. £24.3 million - a figure most people in this country could only dream of - is not enough in the warped world of Heather Mills to put her daughter into the "'A' class". Now a multi-millionnaire after four years of marriage, Mills thinks that the vast fortune that has fallen into her lap makes her a "'B' class" citizen.

Christ knows what she would make of me, since I earn just a mere fraction of what she *earns*. If she's travelling in the "'B' class", then fuck knows what I am travelling in. "'M' Class" or "'N' Class" I reckon. And God help the people who earn less than me. They must be "'U' Class" or something.

Tibet Troubles

China is blaming the current unrest in Tibet on the Dalai Lama. This is an audacious claim to make about a man who has committed his whole life to peaceful regime change in Tibet. It is a staggering claim when you consider that one of the fundamental rules of Buddhism is the commitment to peace, and the refusal to hurt others. It becomes even more of a mind-blowing head fuck when you consider that the claims are coming from the Chinese government - a totalitarian regime with no real concept of what either honesty or basic human rights are.

Needless to say, your humble author is not convinced by the story from the Chinese government. This attempt to paint the Dalai Lama as a cross between a Bond villian and a sub Castro pseudo revolutionary would be funny, if it weren't the backdrop to a story where people are dying.

The Dalai Lama has risen to the claims of the Chinese government by stating he will resign if the violence worsens. Fair play to the guy (and I realise he probably wasn't seeking my approval, but he has it anyway). But this probably won't be the only challenges that China gets this year. That's the problem with hosting the Olympics, see? The eyes of the world tend to turn to you, when you are hosting an endless parade of repetitive athletic events. And, particularly if you are a brutal dictatorship with a reprehensible record in the area of human rights, some of what the world sees ain't going to be positive.

Ghandi changed the world through peaceful protest. The Dalai Lama may not achieve that, but he may yet further show what a mendacious, awful regime currently rules in China. And, for that matter, Tibet.

Diary Of The Dead (Or What The Ruddy Fuck Has Happened to Zombie Movies?)

A zombie movie should be a pretty easy one to write. Basically, the dead come to life, take over the world, and a rag bag bunch of misfits frantically try to survive in increasingly impossible conditions. You don't have to let anyone reach the end of the final reel, if you don't want to - the nihilism of the zombie movie means there is nothing wrong with killing everyone in the cast. You don't even have to explain why the dead are returning to life - rage filled monkeys, killer viruses, satellites getting too close to the earth - the average zombie fan doesn't give a flying fuck. Explanations are needless exposition before the gut ripping begins.

But something odd seems to have happened to zombie movies recently. For some reason, those making the movies now seem to feel a need to make the movie far more complicated than it actually needs to be. Zombie movies seem not just to have jumped the shark, but rather have jumped the shark, then made friends with it before losing an arm wrestling game to the shark in some tacky bar somewhere.

George A. Romero's (the very king of the zombie movies, natch) Diary of the Dead is a good example. The script is just fucking crap. For example, there is the English film professor - a drunk, lonely old man who is constantly on the look out for another beer, at the same time as being cynical about just about everything in an apocaylptic scenario that really doesn't require anymore negativity. He went to Eton (of course), is able to fence (as every English gentleman can) and is a dab hand at archery (like that Robin Hood fella). At one stage he takes a book from a shelf in a library, opens it and says "A Tale Of Two Cities! A first edition! 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'." (probably the latter, given the cannibalistic zombies munching their way across the population, prof). The script is that corny - and our lecturer friend is not the least convincing character.

But it is not the corniness of the script that bothers me - shite lines and poorly drawn characters are par for the course in a zombie movie. It is rather the heavy handed moralising that does my head in. For example, the last scene of the movie sees two red neck twats tie a female zombie to the branch of a tree. By her pony tail. And then shoot in her in the face with a shotgun. So all that is left of her is a forehead. And two still twitching eyes. Which would be fine for a horror movie, if it wasn't for the terrible voice over, explaining exactly what is happening. And how awful if it is. Pointing out that the rednecks are being bastards. Except, of course, they are shooting a undead killer. The awful moral of the film - that people, are you know, bad when society collapses and no-one has to obey the movie - is forced down your throat like the letters of the day in an edition of Sesame Street. PEOPLE ARE BAD, shouts the film. PEOPLE CAN BE REALLY BAD, it goes on. HAVE YOU NOT NOTICED THAT PEOPLE CAN BE BAD? Then it bangs on and on, still shreiking PEOPLE ARE BAD! Until you wish you had gone to see Juno or something.

But Diary of the Dead is not alone in the new trend of zombie movies trying to flesh out their run time with needless complexity. The Zombie Diaries (yes, as similar to Diary of the Dead as it sounds, right down to the deeply unconvincing reasons for the characters filming absolutely everything at the bastard end of the bastard world) doesn't see the zombie apocalypse as a scary enough scenario. No, the idea of shambling monsters taking over the world and stalking you to rip out your intestines, is not enough. Oh no, we need to throw a couple of serial sex killers into the mix as well. Because then, and only then, will this zombie fuelled world become truly terrifying. Just zombies? *Meh*. Too cosy. Zombies plus serial killers? Now that's scary!

And The Stink of Flesh - a film so awful that I wanted to wash in bleach after watching it - doesn't just have zombies (one of whom looks oddly like Dennis Potter), but also co-joined twins, the rape of a zombie, paedophiles and lots of unconvincing sex amongst really, really ugly people. Again, the story about a world infested by dead cannibals is not scary enough. The film makers needs to throw in a whole bag of random shite to make their film more scary, and at the same time make it completely unwatchable.

The premise is simple - the world ends, owing to something horrific. The standard zombie movie is in fact no different from The Day of the Triffids. It can be scary - if you make it simple. However, if you throw in lots of crap, it becomes, well, crap.

So let's have another great zombie movie - something like 28 Days Later. Simple, terrifying. And let's try to avoid what would be the nadir of the zombie genre - a film that contains both an Amish zombie killer and a man-eating clown. Hang on, we've just had that film. Congratulations, George A. Romero. You've made the worst film in the fucking genre you fucking created.

Blink: I missed it (the point, that is)

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. You might not be aware of Gladwell, or his international bestseller. If that is the case, I am somewhat envious of you. Because reading Mr Gladwell's work is a bit like watching an Adam Sandler movie: mildly diverting when you start out, increasingly frustrating as you go on, before leaving you enraged and bitter that you wasted your time on such an annoying piece of shit.

The alarm bells should have started ringing when I read the short biography of Gladwell in the book. He is described as an "intellectual adventurer." I think you can roughly translate that from publisher's doublespeak into the more accurate description of "total tool". All he has managed to do is find obscure facts and link them together using a deeply unconvincing, ill researched and ultimately illogical theory. In that respect he is not unlike Richard Littlejohn, albeit far less offensive.

For those not in the know, Gladwell's central argument is that what you automatically process when you first view or are exposed to something contains a great deal of useful information. To put it another way, "first impressions count". Gladwell cites a number of largely irrelevant examples of how people have been able to harness that first impression into something useful.

Unfortunately for Gladwell's argument, there is also a fuck of a lot that first impressions don't help with. Basically, for every example of someone using first impressions (or "thin slicing", as he calls it - not doubt to hide the facile nature of his theory) to their benefit or for the benefit of others, there is another example of someone truly fucking up using "thin slicing".

Perhaps the best example of someone truly screwing up is Amadou Diallo. He panicked when he was approached by four armed NYC policemen, and fled, despite having done nothing wrong. The police fucked up, saw him as a threat. They thought he pulled a gun on them - actually, he was trying to take out his ID - and they shot at him. 41 times - hitting him 19 times. Needless clarification, perhaps, but Diallo died. And the police officers concerned were put on trial. An appalling, tragic fuck up. That happened because the officers concerned trusted their first impressions when in a hysterical situation that spiralled out of control in just seconds. The situation made those officers "temporarily autistic", according to Gladwell's book - a staggeringly offensive claim, I'd argue, to autistic people, who are not generally known for shooting people 19 times.

Of course, even in the US, the police can't go around shooting people randomly. Action had to be taken. And so Gladwell praises situations where police officers "mind read." Yep, that's right, "mind reading." Fuck me, Mal, old boy, but to try to cure temporary autism, or however you try to classify mindless, adrenaline fuelled panic, with mind reading in highly dangerous situations involving armed police is staggeringly stupid. Do you know Sir Ian Blair, Malcolm? 'Cos I reckon you would get on very well with that slack-jawed moron extremely well.

The police have adopted a slightly different approach to Gladwell's mind reading, you'll be pleased to read. They are experimenting with sending officers out solo, rather than in pairs. A solo officer will take more time to think about what to do next, will take fewer risks and be less aggressive. Ultimately because they will take the time to think, and will rely less on the gut instincts and first impressions so beloved of Gladwell in his half baked work.

So, to summarise, to minimise the risk of innocent people being shot at over 40 times because police officers panic, the police seem to be doing the opposite of what Gladwell suggests. And such is the idiocy of our "intellectual adventurer" (or "fucking twat", if you will) that he actually illustrates this in his fucking book. A moron. A moron of staggering proportions.

The tag line (and since when did intellectual works require a tag line, for fuck's sake?) for Gladwell's book is "The Power of Thinking without Thinking." It seems to apply to the process of how Gladwell actually managed to come up with his theory, as well as to the content of the book. Gladwell didn't seem to think whether his theories actually made sense before he published them. But why let common sense impact on a potentially lucrative pseudo-theory?

LPUK - Snouts Out Of The Trough

With all the righteous (and absolutely right) rage flowing freely about the newest revelation about the utter corruption and shameless, naked greed of our elected ruling elite, I thought I would point out this policy from the UK Libertarian Party:

"Sadly, we're all so used to corrupt politicians saying one thing and then doing another, that we would understand if you were to wonder why you should trust in our integrity. Don't—test us. Until some honesty has returned to public life, we will require that any candidate standing for election in the name of the Libertarian Party will make the following commitments:

• the full details of any and all expenses that they claim in the execution of their duties will be disclosed in their entirety on this website within 30 days of being incurred
• they will not employ their spouse, or any other member of immediate family, using public funds
• they will not participate in any pension scheme associated with their public position
• they will not accept offers of hospitality, travel junkets or similar freebies, which could be seen as an attempt by any individual or organisation to gain influence or favour

Whilst placing restrictions over and above the current state of the law on our candidates is distinctly unlibertarian, as a party we are prepared to swallow our principles on this to ensure that you, the public, don't have to keep swallowing yours in respect of how the political class currently abuse our trust."

It is ok to feel cynical when you read the above. After all, we are so used to hearing about the corruption of our leaders that anything like the above needs to be taken less with a pinch of salt, but rather with a hefty fucking chunk of rock salt. But the LPUK are actually demanding change in this area, and are prepared to sacrifice their chance to get their snouts in the trough to do it. Whatever you hear from those in the Tories, in the Labour Party and the Lib Dems over the next few weeks, remember this - they only start to fight corruption when it is exposed. Every MP will have known about this John Lewis list. And they all chose to ignore it, to hide it, to profit from it. And whatever you think of the LPUK, at least they are standing up from the outset and categorically stating "we will not do this." The challenge of resisting temptation will come if/when the party actually achieves power, but given the endemic corruption in the corridors of the Commons, now might be the time to consider a genuine alternative to the political mainstream in our country.

Doing up the old (second) homestead

Think about your salary. And then think about your package. You might get a pension. Perhaps a bonus, possibly discretionary. Car allowance? Maybe. If you are really lucky you might get a relocation bonus.

What you are unlikely to get is £10k to change the kitchen in your second home. Or £6k to do up the bathroom in your second home. Or £700 on TV’s and £300 on fucking stereos. For your second home. And £795 for a sideboard for your… oh, I could go on, but you get the gist. You aren’t going to get that sort of package from your current employer, I’d imagine. In fact, if I asked my current employers, I rather think they would laugh at me then swear at me (if they didn’t bounce my sorry ass onto the pavement) rather than even entertain such a package for a moment.

The only way you are going to make that sort of package is if you are an MP. That’s right, the servants of the public in this country can spend £22k of your money on doing up their second home. Read that sentence again. And if you don’t feel waves of disgust rising through you then you need to check you still have a pulse.

Entering the House of Commons now is actually jumping on a gravy train. It gives you the right to cunt away a fortune of someone’s money on perks for yourself. And let us make no mistake about this. MPs are paid for by us. So the next time you go to John Lewis and can’t afford to buy what you want, remember that will be partly because an MP somewhere wanted a new bathroom for his or her second home.

Words fail to truly express the utter, withering contempt that I hold these total and utter fucking bastards in.

The Budget: God, I hate them

I didn’t live blog the budget. I struggle with the concept of live blogging. Partly because I think in the 24/7 news cycle in which we currently live there is enough commentary floating around to make my opinion absolutely irrelevant. Also because I have a very short attention span, and there is no way I could concentrate on anything for long enough to live blog it. And something as boring as Darling speaking is never going to hold my attention for more than 15 seconds, no matter how much his actual words wind me up.

So, another budget, another raft of tax increases. It really fucks me off that it is going to cost even more if you want to buy something alcoholic to drink. Just as it would really piss me off if I had to use a car to drive anywhere, and the government was fleecing me even more for the privilege. It really fucks me off that Darling bounces around the concept of spending the excess (and excessive) revenue on child poverty. What is interesting is that he uses child poverty as a catch all phrase – something he thinks we can’t argue against. But I want to know exactly how this money will be spent. I want to know how much the extra tax burden on anyone who fancies a pint or a glass of wine will be spent? How about a little transparency in your accounts, Darling, you skunk faced cunt?

But what really, really pissed me off about the budget was not Darling. Rather, it was Ed Balls. Balls managed to sum up everything that is wrong with this government. How? When Cameron commented on the "highest tax burden in history" Balls replied with "So what?" That is the mindset of the people in the cabinet. The money you earn is not your money. It is actually their money, and they have the right to take as much of it as they want. You can argue against it, scream that it is not right until you are blue in the face. But that is what they believe. And it ain’t going to change whilst total fucking arseholes like Ed Balls darken the corridors of power.

Pledging Allegiance!

Something weird seems to have happened. Somehow we have slipped back to the 1950’s America. Where people pledge allegiance to the flag (well, the queen, but same difference), blindly, like reactionary fools:

“Schoolchildren may have to swear allegiance to the Queen under proposals aimed at promoting British citizenship.”

What if you are not a royalist? Or not a nationalist? Suppose you just want to live quietly in the UK, without pledging allegiance to anyone? Suppose you find pledging allegiance to an out of date institution like the monarchy hopelessly insulting? Yet again, there is no place for the individual in the world of Nu Labour. Even though some reports talk of being encouraged, we all know what “encouraged” means. “Do it or we’ll fuck you up in some way”.

Why, oh why, are they doing this?

“Prime Minister Gordon Brown commissioned Lord Goldsmith to lead a review into a bid to strengthen national identity.”

Let me rewrite that sentence: “Prime Minister Gordon Brown commissioned Lord Goldsmith to lead a review into a bid to strengthen Labour support amongst Sun readers and knuckle faced nationalistic meatheads.” Of course, they are never going to come out with that sort of honesty. But we all know what they’re trying to achieve.

“Last October, a preliminary report published as part of Lord Goldsmith's review said that schoolchildren should take part in the same kind of ceremonies for foreigners taking British nationality.”

So, rather than trying to make young people feel more included, the government is going to lump them in the same category as what Sky News terribly dubs as the “foreigners?” And how is this rule going to be enforced? If someone refuses to pledge allegiance, how will the government stop them from growing up? Massive doses of hormone suppressants? Actually, I’ll stop there. The last thing we need to offer this government is even more fucked up ideas on how to make the population utterly miserable.

“The style and content of the events should be "re-energised", perhaps with a rendition by schoolchildren of the pop song We Are The World - the US version of 1984's Band Aid single - last year's report said.”

We Are The World? You WHAT? I can’t imagine anything more twee. I can’t imagine anything sadder. Anyone attending such an event should be given a sharp knife. So they can rip open their own guts and use their intestines as a noose.

But it gets even worse. Via The Telegraph:

“And a "small" council tax rebate would be available to those who help out in their local neighbourhood. The discount could be earned by organising recycling projects, helping children learn to read in schools, or setting up a residents' association.”

When, precisely, am I going to get the time to do the tedious work involved in getting this rebate? I work full time to get the fucking money to pay the Christing council tax in the first place!

Still, there is some good news:

“A new public holiday could also be introduced to celebrate Britishness, under recommendations being published today.”

Well, I’m all for that. The extra holiday I mean. Watching random skin heads whack the crap out of each other in the nation’s pubs over who loves the Queen the most (from a safe distance) will also be an entertaining way of spending the holiday.

Saving The Tube!

I'm not sure whether these adverts are meant to be taken seriously or not, but there seems to be a new way of saving the tube. It is a strategy of preaching peace, love and understanding to all tube users. And it is communicating the message through patronising posters with trite little trade offs, like "If you won't listen to loud music... then I won't eat my smelly food."

It is a bold strategy, particularly when you consider that the real problems of the tube are overcrowding, escalating prices, irregular services and generally terrible standards. Perhaps a more accurate appraisal of the strategy might be "shit". It certainly isn't as great as my plan for tube recovery, in my humble opinion. Which is basically to rip out all the tube trains, remove the rails, and then push herds of donkeys into the tube. When a passenger wants to go somewhere, they get strapped onto a donkey. You then give that donkey a shot of adrenaline, and hit it on the hind quarters with a stick. It races off into the darkness of the tube tunnel. Sure, they might be teething problems, and it is not really taking into account the welfare of the donkeys involved. Some people might not make their correct tube stops. But it sounds a lot more humane for the tube passengers than the frankly dreadful experience I had this morning. And pretty much every time I step into the Tunnels Of Doom (TM).

The adverts (you'll know them if you've seen them - sorry, can't source a link) are going to do precisely nothing to help with the situation on the tube. Let's have a look at three of them:

"...you don't eat your smelly food..."

Frankly, I couldn't give two fucks about what you are eating. In fact, if you can force you way through the masses of tube users to actually find some space to eat, then you've earned your meal.

The smell that really worries me is that guy. That fat guy over there. You know, the obese oaf who looks like a brick shit house. If that brick shit house has let itself go. A lot. The guy who fills the air with a radius of about 100 metres around him with dank BO. The guy with the sweat stains on his T-shirt - not just under his pits but also under his sweaty bitch-tits. The guy who looks like he is going to create a sweat monsoon, and wipe out the carriage in a flash flood. The smell of him worries me more than the smell of your food.

So feel free to eat your smelly grub. Go for it. All I ask is that you occasionally waft it under my nose, to help me drown out the smell of Fatty McFat Fat Fat Fat over in the corner.

"...I won't talk on my mobile..."

Again, feel free to. If you can. If you can actually find a signal on the tube, then you've won the right to talk on your mobile. You can even have sordid phone sex with your lover for all I care. At least it reminds us all that there is life - and therefore hope - outside of this rattling tin sarcophagus.

"...I'll say thank you if you give me your seat..."

Well, I would give you my seat, but unfortunately I don't have a seat. In fact, I barely have standing room, what with Fatty McFat Fat Fat Fat taking up half the carriage. The only time when I am actually on the tube and have space to sit is after closing time in the pubs. When no-one will sit near me anyway because of the twitching - twitching because I'm dying for a piss at the same time as wishing I had been to the toilet before I left the last pub.

"...I won't play my loud music..."

Actually, I will play my loud music. For two reasons. First of all, it drowns at that terrible shrieking of the chavs on the carriage. Get them to shut up, then I'll think about turning down my music. Although I probably won't. On the grounds my music is just about the only thing that is keeping me sane on the hellish, claustrophobic tube. It is the only one thing that stops me from beating the next person who jostles me to death with my shoe. Or strangle them with the strap of my man bag (my one concession to metro sexuality). See, it is actually in every one's best interest if I listen to loud music on the tube.

In fact, it would be in every one's best interest to follow the same strategy as the one I use on the tube. It can be summarised as follows: get on only when you really have to, and get off again as soon as you possibly can. Anything else, on an out of date mass transport system in a hopelessly over crowded city, is a mad - and money wasting - dream.

New Look Seven Deadly Sins

The seven deadly sins have been updated by the Catholic Church. I'd have loved to have been on that committee. I'd have made watching reality TV a deadly sin, obviously.

So what have they decided on as the new deadly sins?

Mgr Girotti (some random papal spokesman) said genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs were all mortal sins.

What a stupid list. What a really, really stupid list. It is like the church went to Polly Toynbee, and asked for her wishlist of random hippy crap. And since when has the Catholic Church not been "obscenely wealthy?"

And what do you get if you break the rules above?

Eternal death.

Which sounds pretty fucking scary. Until you realise that all death is eternal. What's the alternative? Coming back as a zombie, shuffling around with lumps of flesh falling off you whilst muttering "brains"? Because if that is the alternative to eternal death, then I'm off to do some genetic modification through carrying out experiments on humans, to make a shit load of socially unjust cash that I will use to increase the misery in the world. And once I am done, I'm going to throw everything I own that is not biodegradable into the sea. Whilst high on drugs.

Alcohol Taxes

The Tories are planning to increase taxes. No, no, don't panic - they haven't gone completely insane. Only partially. Because they are going increase the taxes on booze. And to avoid the risk of upsetting too many people, they are only going to increase the taxes on alcopops and super strength drinks.

"A can of Carlsberg Special Brew or Tennents Super would cost 32p more and a three-litre bottle of Diamond White strong cider would be £1.25 more expensive under the plans."

And why?

"The Conservatives say the price rises would target younger drinkers, many who consume alcopops and super-strength beers and ciders to excess, while not hitting "the vast majority of law-abiding, responsible drinkers"."

That's a bit unfair. The taxes will also hit some adults as well. For example tramps. This proposal seems really hard on them as well. I mean, if you were a tramp wondering through life wearing crumpled, stained clothing and trying to live through this horrifically cold winter, Special Brew might be the only thing you have to look forward to. And the only thing that will be keeping you going. And now it is going to cost you an extra 32p. It may not sound like too much to some, but if you're a "gentleman of the road" then you have to make every penny count.

Which means this proposal might have a knock-on impact on the electorate as a whole. Each can of alcoholic poison that a wino needs to obtain will cost more money. This will create more begging. And the tramps will be more desperate. So it might cause more aggressive begging. The upshot of this Tory policy is more begging. This is what happens when you don't think your policies through!

I'm being tongue in cheek, of course. Sort of.

But this policy is going to impact on people other than the younger drinkers, and is an example of a major party increasing taxes (even if they are revenue neutral) when they don't need to. And really, they don't need to, you know. The laws are already in place to stop young people binge drinking. Just enforce the laws that makes drinking illegal if you are under 18. Simple. As. That.

Because if you are over 18 and still drinking Diamond White, then you are twat. And we really shouldn't care about you.

The Times has an article on why the Democrats must choose Hillary Clinton for their nominee. Nothing like a few tentative victories to bring out the supporters, is there?

This is one of the problems I have with the US election. It has been so unpredictable that it practically cries out for the sort of mindless speculation and band-wagon jumping that the media excels at. Christ knows what journalists will do once this election is over. Think of all the column inches to fill...

Except, we know what they will fill them with. Because both the joy and the curse of the US election system is we know that there will be another Presidential election in 2012. And as soon as the media has to stop speculating about the 2008 election, they will move on to 2012. All the talk will be about another Romney bid. Or maybe Huckabee trying again. Or whoever eventually loses the Democratic contest trying again. And what it would have been like if the loser of the 2012 election had actually won. The speculation, and the counterfactuals won't stop. The dates will change; the content of the articles won't.

So a special prize for the first reader of this blog who flags an article about the 2012 Presidential Election to me. The cash value of the prize won't be more than 0.0001p, and I make no guarantee that I will even remember I even created this challenge. But it can't be too long before someone, somewhere, sees that first article about the 2012 election.

It is like seeing the first ever Christmas decoration in September, or the first Easter Egg in January. Exciting, depressing, and utterly premature - all at the same time.

Spammer's Paradise

I'm (still) ill. I've been ill all week. And whilst I thought I was getting better yesterday, today has seen somewhat of a relapse. And all day at work I have had a bastard with a claw hammer raking it against the inside of my skull, whilst my lungs have felt like they have a rabid, but strangely lusty, porcupine rubbing up against them. I kind of figure this is how Amy Winehouse feels, 24-7. Except I haven't had the dubious pleasure of smoking crack.

Illness increases my general air of grumpiness and misanthropy. Rest assured, though, I haven't taken it out on anyone at work. Although I did learn today that the model for effective coaching isn't "kick-kill-kick", but rather "kiss-kick-kiss"*. Still, that trainee got off lightly. A kiss from me today might pass on whatever plague has descended on me. And created some HR issues, no doubt.

Anyway, I'm losing my way with this post, so let's get it back on track. One of the things I do when I am under the weather is look at the titles to the e-mails in my spam folder. Rest assured I don't open them. Oh no. I read in The Daily Mail, or some other hatefilled, repulsive rag that anyone who reads a spam e-mail will have an illegal immigrant send paedos round to their house to give them AIDS and gayness, at the same time as robbing their bank account and reducing their house value through a Facebook party. Or something like that. All the hate in those sort of papers blurs into one for me after a while.

Sorry. Off track again. Seriously, though, some of these titles - and the senders's names - are great. The biblically named Isiah David has sent me "Best offer in gambling history!" Thanks, Isiah. If this turns out to be a massive con, do I get my money back? Thought not... Irene Connor, who sounds like a member of the cast of Last of the Summer Wine, wants to inform me of "Real Penis Enlargment". I'm assumong Irene wants me to undergo a penis enlargement, with is frankly both rude and judgmental. Then we have GENEVA Andel, who has sent me an e-mail with the title "too sexy for youtube". Not sure whether they are referring to their e-mail, themselves or me. Natwest are also doing a sterling job, advising me of their security measures. A fact made doubly nice by the fact I don't bank with them! And finally, my favourite: the titles that just say "Re:". That could fool me - after all, I don't title all my e-mails, so the reply won't have a title either. However, I know I have never e-mailed someone called "ezri tran". I just wouldn't. On principle. The principle that it is a fucking stupid name.

All I can say is thank God for my spam filter, protecting me from these evil spammers. Now, let's open this e-mail in my inbox from the Canadian Pharmacy. Not contacted them before, so I like their proactive aproach. And I will be intrigued to see their prices for Viagra....

*Sometimes known as the shit sandwich. We can't call it that at work. Well, more properly, we shouldn't call it that I work. I do. Which is why I sometimes get into trouble.

ID Cards - A Softer Sell

According to Sky News, government ministers are changing their tack on ID cards. Instead of blatantly trying to ram them down our throats through fear, they are going to use a softer sell to ram them down our throats.

Instead of government ministers and police officers talking tough and insisting they need us to carry ID cards to beat terrorism, the emphasis will shift to persuading us that we'll be missing out if we fail to sign up to the scheme.

My gut instinct says "I’ll miss out then, thank you very much."

But the government has anticipated that sort of response. And now we have the muted threat behind the ID card scheme – that you are just going to miss out on some things, but really miss out on crucial things:

'Entitlement' seems to be the buzzword. The card being portrayed as the way we can access the state benefits and public services that we're entitled to.

Right. So I still have to pay for an ID card to access services that I am already entitled to and have already paid for. Jesus Christ, that is a bit of a mind fuck. It is like Tesco saying "I know you’ve just bought your weekly shop, paid for it ‘n’ all, but we’re not going to let you take those goods until that you are entitled to and have paid for until you have signed up for a Clubcard. Oh, and we are going to charge you a small fucking fortune for the Clubcard as well."They'd be out of business within a week.

It doesn’t matter how you try to sell ID cards; it doesn’t matter whether you use a soft or hard sell. It doesn’t matter if you market them using Bob the Builder singing "Happy Talk". They are still an expensive mistake. They are still a shit idea. Ultimately, they are still a very dangerous idea.

The government seems to think it can change the minds of those who oppose ID cards using this sort of mindless, facile tactic. No, you won’t change our minds because we know ID cards are wrong.

It is Civil War!

For the Liberal Democrats anyway. And civil war for the Liberal Democrats is like civil war in the Shetland Islands: terrible for those involved, but the rest of the world struggles to give a fuck.

Still, it is nice that the Liberal Democrats are again getting some of the limelight. After all, the only really get attention when they ditch one of their leaders with all the dignity of a Tory peer wiping tramp scat off his shoe. Perhaps this has all been part of Clegg's plan: to win column inches by getting people-whose-names-I-can't-remember-despite-looking-at-the-above-link -just-moments-ago to resign.

Those who might describe the Liberal Democrat resignations as a political earthquake are actually describing the political equivalent of the Lincoln earthquake: terrifying and unsettling to those involved, but everyone else fails to see what has happened at the same time as wondering what all these strange people are doing on the news when we actually had no real idea they ever existed.

See, the Liberal Democrats are the third party in this country. They are also about as politically important as a discarded flyer from the 2005 election. They don't really matter. They remain a forum of those who play at political power.

I appreciate the immediate irony of someone who has just joined the very definition of a minor party dissing the Lib Dems for being irrelevant. But they are. Seriously, they have had their go, and they should just fuck off. They used to be a major force in UK politics. Of course, that was around the time of the First World War, and when they were a different party called something different. Since then, on every occasion when they have had the opportunity to become the opposition in the UK (again - like 1983 or 2001) they have taken the opportunity, and pissed it up the wall. They seem incapable of doing anything other than cannibalising their own leaders every couple of years, and should really step out of the lime light. So I say, "Go on, Senior Lib Dem leaders. Go on. Go and do whatever it is former Lib Dems do. Like work in a call centre. Or push trolleys around a supermarket car park. Or wipe the dribble off grannies in a home. Just go and do something else. Your time has been and gone. And stop crying, Chris Huhne. We know you never got your time as leader. That's because you are odious."

Of course, there is not a hope in hell that the Lib Dems will actually do as I ask, particularly if the next election creates a hung parliament. Then you will see that insufferable prig Nick Clegg prancing his way across our TV screens, wielding the sort of power that no pompous twit should ever have. Part of me almost wishes that is there is a hung parliament that Gordon Brown and David Cameron reach some sort of accord*, and elect to support each other if only so they can rub Liberal Democrat faces in just how much of an irrelevance they are.

Of course, such a union will never happen. But let us always dream of the Liberal Democrat disappearing (even further) up their own arseholes, and vanishing altogether, leaving the way clear for a genuinely radical third party. It is a long shot, but it is worth hoping for...

*I don't actually wish for this, as it might keep that total fucking bastard Gordon Brown in power. And that is in the Top 10 of worst case scenarios. Right after viral apocalypse.

The Toolbox Murders

Sometimes I think that there is something wrong with me.

Regular readers of this blog might be surprised that it has taken me so long to work that out, and may be disappointed when they realise that I am talking about a very small part of my personality. However, my interest in horror films sometimes makes me wonder what on earth makes me tick.

No, I am not one of those people who sits furtively masturbating along to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or scouring the Hallowe'en series for tips on mass murder, or wondering why I wasn't allowed to be born with the same hellish powers as Damien Thorn. I'm very aware of the difference between fiction and reality, and am glad that the reality I live in seems to have a merciful lack of masked psychopaths wanting to chop you up because you have a beer or a bit of rumpy-pumpy or some other mindlessly reactionary reason. However, whenever I am on Amazon looking for DVDs to rent, I some how end up gravitating towards the horror section and end up renting the sort of torpid slasher movies that should have stopped being produced circa 1989*. I then watch said movies ('course I do - I've paid for the frigging things), tutting and shaking my head throughout before ejecting the disc from my DVD player and wondering why the ruddy fuck I bothered with the film in the first place.

Take last night's offering. The remake (as if a remake was necessary) of The Toolbox Murders. It sounds just as clever as the title would suggest - as intelligent as a hillbilly with no arms and only one eye trying to work out quantum mechanics. It looks, on every level, cheap and nasty. The script appears to have been written by a manic teenager on crack, who ran out of plot after half an hour and deciding pointless padding was the way forward. The killer can't be killed (ho hum), even after being shot and hanged, no doubt to make way for a sequel. Yep, that's right. A shit sequel to a shit remake of a shit B-movie. A sure sign that Hollywood has run out of plots. Hell, if this sort of thing continues, I can't wait to see the remake of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. That will be a bleeding humdinger of a movie.

In a movie so filled with pointless fucking mayhem and stupid action, it should be tough to choose one moment that seems more crass than the rest of the picture. However, so moronic are parts of The Toolbox Murders that one scene does manage to stand out. The killer (I forget who he is or why he was killing - something to do with being a coffin baby I think) stabs one of the more tediously cliched characters in the back. With some industrial clippers. He lifts the tedious character off his feet, whilst that character screams "just please, kill me!". I wanted to scream at the TV screen "Yes! Kill the fucking prick! Whilst you're at it, kill the rest of them! Preferably with some sort of bomb that takes you out as well! That would both entertain and cheer me up!" Needless to say, the killer does end the days of the moron, before stalking the rest of the cast for what felt like two to three days but was actually closer to 25 minutes.

Now I can feel at this point, dear reader, that I am losing you. I can practically hear you screaming "But, The Nameless One, it was called The Toolbox Murders. What were you expecting? A Clockwork Orange? Shaun of the Dead? On the Beach? Friday the 13th Part Six: Jason Lives?"** But that's my point: why would I go online and request to rent such a film?

I think it is an automated response to my teen years. I was never allowed to watch these sort of films. So they were built up in my mind as something forbidden, and a bit dangerous. Now I can rent such films with impunity I do so as an almost knee jerk reaction, without thinking just how shite the end product is likely to be. So I can blame the lack of crappy slasher movies in my teen years for my intermittent desire to rent shitty horror movies. On the plus side, I can also credit it with not feeling the need to furtively masturbate by way through The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So it is swings and roundabouts, really.

But have I learnt from the terrible mess that is The Toolbox Murders? Have I learnt from this blog post, that I have spent the last 15 minutes writing? Have I bollocks. I've just been onto Amazon and added Saw IV to my rental list. Despite the fact that I found the first three jaw-droppingly awful and utterly cliched.

*Sighs*. Some people never learn, do they?

*Not just slasher movies. Other recent rentals include marginally more mainstream fare like The Prestige, The Host, The Proposition and Blades of Glory. Sure, they aren't all singing, all dancing family flicks, but at least they aren't Good Friday 7: Stupid Masked Psycho Kills More People. For No Reason. Again.
**Seriously, I love that film. I really do. Watch it. It is a slasher sequel, but it realises it. And manages to be thoroughly tongue in cheek.

Election 2008: McCain Wins in the Republican and Democratic Primaries

McCain has won the Republican nomination for President! I mean, like, wow. We actually have a nominee for President. Mind you, it has taken him long enough. After all, he first ran for President in 2000. Eight years is a loooonnnngg run for the Presidency. I guess that’s what happens when you get old. Had he run in 1988 or 1992, he might have got the nomination in just months. Now he’s an older man, it just takes longer to do everything, what with the aches and pains, and just not being able to walk as fast as he once could. Shame he didn’t win in 2000 – he might have saved us from the terrible Bush Junior Administrations. But fair play – he’s won now. Well done, John. I’m proud.

I’m particularly pleased that he has knocked the ludicrous Mike Huckabee from the race. Huckabee’s campaign strategy, of waiting for a fricking miracle, has been proven to be a sack of shit. I’d love to run up to Huckabee now and scream in his face "Where’s your God now, Huckabee? Where’s your God now? You cunt!" Furthermore, the fact that he has dropped out of the race means that he no longer has Secret Service Protection, which is good for me as I would be less likely to be shot in the face for screaming at a would-be President like a demented loon.

The Democrats are still fighting, though, after Clinton managed to resurrect her Presidential bid like Frankenstein in a shitty Hammer Horror sequel. If I was Obama, I’d be really pissed off about now. The Democrats are flirting with him like a dog on heat, only to reject whenever he seems poised to deliver that knock-out blow. I’d be angry and frustrated if I was him, and irritated like hell at Clinton.

Which may yet be Clinton’s strategy – to irritate Obama out of the race. Never to quite kick his ass, but to deny him victory for long enough to make him leave the race in a frustrated huff. It may not be the best strategy, but it pisses all over Huckabee’s.

But the continuation of the Democratic bitchfest means that McCain is the clear winner of both the Democrat and Republican primaries yesterday. He is now able to concentrate on attacking the Democrats and planning his General Election campaign. He must be chuckling with laughter, and rubbing his podgy little belly as he watched Obama and Clinton rip into each other like hysterical lovers on The Jeremy Kyle Show. They could be making his passage to the White House really easy…

The Jersey Horror

The Moai sent me this article earlier today. And in one of those sure signs that I am going to burn in hell for all eternity because of my sick sense of humour, it made me laugh out loud. It basically suggests that the investigation may be uncovering props from fucking Bergerac:

“The field was turned into a graveyard. They used fibreglass gravestones but they were going to have a burial scene, so they also actually dug a number of full graves. The full graves go quite deep. They were filled in, and the places where there had been digging registered on the radar. No-one realised until one of the local officers pointed it out."

And this comment really cracked me up:

“When Lenny (Deputy Police Chief of Jersey) was told the real reason the radar had found so many suspicious spots was because of Bergerac, he put his head in his hands and uttered a few choice words”

I'll bet he did... If this explanation proved to be correct, then Lenny has turned the attention of the world to Jersey owing to the props from a long defunct BBC detective series.

And yet... all of the above is making light of a terrible scenario because of a deeply unlikely explanation. On a purely practical level, do you really think the penny pinching BBC of the 1980's would spend cash on digging real graves for a quirky detective show?

Also, the Bergerac scenario doesn't explain the hundreds of people now claiming they were abused as children.

It also doesn't explain why Edward Paisnel, the kind of man who nightmares are made of, continually visited the home.

And finally, as Caren from Shropshire points out in a comment on the article:

BBC graveyard props dont leave a cadaver scent and bones. Whilst the former is possibly a reason for radar finds it still remains there were child bones found.

Quite.

Something terrible happened at Haut de la Garenne. It may have been child abuse. It may have been paedophilia. It may have been both of the above, combined with child murder. But whatever it is, the police are absolutely right to continue to investigate, especially in the face of such an unlikely explanation.

Recruiting

Over at I Am Livid, the wonderfully named Mr Angry muses what a shit job it must to work in recruitment for Al Qaeda. Too true. Not least for the reason about the way recruitment works. You tend to only get your fee after the person you have recruited spends 3 months in their new organisation. That would be a real shitter when working with Al Qaeda. Recruiter: "How is X working out?" Employer: "Oh, bad news I'm afraid. He blew himself up in a public square." Recruiter: "Oh, for fuck's sake! Not again!" Employer: "Yep. And he was still in his probationary period, so you owe us a free replacement. Says so in your terms and conditions."

However, even if you aren't recruiting for a mass murdering terrorist organisation, recruitment can still be a shit job. Take it from me: I used to be a recruitment consultant. Ignoring the mind-numbing, soul-sapping work that is involved in a lot of recruiting, and instead focus on the reaction people have to recruitment consultants. Try telling someone you are a recruitment consultant at a party or something. Seriously, try it. People will look at you as if have murdered their grandmother, burnt the corpse, and are now dancing a merry Irish jig on the smoking remains.

Which is more than a little unfair. I mean, yes, some recruiters are mindless morons who you wouldn't trust to raise the toilet seat before taking a dump. And they do indulge in the unholy art of cold calling: a task that is seemingly designed to wind up everyone in the known universe in mere seconds. But ultimately, they are just doing their jobs. And as a result, there is no need to treat them as the equivalent of a virulent 'flu virus. Or an estate agent.

You could argue that recruiters charge massive amounts of money for simply finding people to do jobs. Yep. But the only reason why they are able to charge those large fees is because people are willling to pay those fees. Likewise, you might find yourself hassled by a recruitment consultant. But if you don't want a recruitment consultant to hassle you, then don't give them your frigging details. Do you really think that, as money hungry sales people, they aren't going to call you? Of course they are. Unless you are really, really, really shit. And if you are important enough to be headhunted, and don't want to be headhunted, then tell whoever is trying to headhunt you to fuck off. They will simply move on to someone who is more open. Don't bitch about sales people trying to sell. It is their job. If you want an insider's view of how to deal with recruiters, then take at look at this from the Moai (another person who proves that those who have worked in recruitment can still be solid chaps). But don't bellyache about people who are just trying to do their jobs.

Ultimately, recruitment consultants are trying to make some money. Some of them will do it well, some of them will be obnoxious arses. It is pot luck as to which type of consultant calls you. And the next time someone tells you that they are a recruiter, try not to look like you want to spit in their left eye at the same time as stabbing them in their right eye with a plastic fork from Pret. Because, you never know, that recruiter might actually turn out to be an *ok* person*.

*I accept no responsibility if they are not. Oh, and a little disclaimer, I am no longer a recruitment consultant. But I still work for a recruitment company. And deal with recruitment consultants on a daily basis. They are like everyone else. Make of that what you will...