bitter youngish man

Bye Scotland, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out

2012-01-25T14:16:00.003Z

It appears that we are moving closer to the very real prospect of an independent Scotland, and I have seen lots of pictures of the Union Flag sans the nice blue background and I must say that it looks a bit rubbish. Other than this, I am struggling for any reason why we shouldn't help them on their way. I would even go so far as to cut Scotland off of mainland Britain with a massive laser and let the miserable buggers float up to Antarctica.

For me, in order for any relationship to work, there has to be give and take. And by give and take, I mean some sort of mutually-beneficial arrangement, not England giving Scotland loads of money, and Scotland taking the massive piss. Generally, the Scots hate the English, and this is fine - we are a bunch of small-minded detestable shits who live on a horrible, rain-soaked island in the arse end of nowhere. I hate us too.

I believe that Scotland hate the English because we get better weather, with some summer days registering above 0º c. They hate us, because as poor at football as we are, we are millions of miles better than them. The Scottish Premier League is an absolute joke, full of talentless cloggers who would struggle to play in the 2nd tier of English football. The players that are good there are foreign, and soon fire their agents when they realise that actually Glasgow isn't around the corner from London.

Scotland also hate us because we happened to steal a bit of their land a few times but so what? it was crap land anyway, full of peat and shit. Sure, we wanted the North Sea oil and fish, but those have gone now so give it back, I say. Scotland have long been England's embarassing little brother anyway, managing to bring the British mortality rate down by a whopping 20 years what with all their deep-fried mars bars and haggis and that. England don't need Scotland, and Scotland HATE England so let's make a clean break.

I remember the good old days when Scotland were nice to us - they gave us Russ Abbott, the Krankies, plus hosts of other brilliantly funny comedians. Us English used to smile thinking about the luminous vibrance of ginger hair, the tangy taste of a fresh glass of Irn Bru, the lovely aroma of Buckfast pickling under the weak Scottish sun. All was well as we learned to love their alcoholism and general lunacy, so long as they let us use their tiny little province to experiment on before implementing policy changes to England.

But then it all went wrong in the 1990's; we dumped them out of Euro 1996, and an egomaniacal madcap anti-semite decided to make a film about William Wallace, and turn it into a Hollywood blockbuster. Braveheart ended all hopes of an Anglo-Scottish love-in, as the bitter Scots turned their backs on us in droves. With most of Scotland being barely literate, thank the heavens that a deluded Australian with no time for history books was there to enlighten our Scottish brethren to their spectacular mistreatment.

Looking back, a break-up has been on the cards for some time. First they went and got their own parliament which is like a Fisher-Price version of a real parliament. We let them have say on their internal policies and promised not to interfere. But then, the canny wee gits decided to keep their say on what happens in England which seemed a bit of a silly thing to allow. That said, I've never known of a Labour government that hasn't flied in the face of common sense. Perhaps if I was older.

England subsidise Scotland's miserable existence to the tune of billions of pounds per year, and in return we get lambswool sweaters and a handful of potato cakes. And in these austere times, that simply isn't good enough. I've thought about the flag thing too. Even though we all know that Wales is a pretend country, we could integrate their flag into ours. So we will end up with a groovy green background, and a big bastard dragon on the front of it. Sounds better already.

Cray-z in Lurv

2012-01-19T10:57:00.001Z

OK, so everyone knows that the whole world is going to hell as the capitalist engine grinds to a halt and the commies take over. Vast swathes of Europe and other less important continents are due to be submerged under metres of water as the infernal Chinese machine gathers pace, choking the whole world in smog and melting the ice caps to boot. And if you believe the Mayans, we have less than a year to enjoy the planet we have tried our level best to ruin before it is all blown up anyway.

So thank God or whichever heathen deity you have given your immortal soul to for the shining beacon of hope that is Jay-Z and Beyonce's bloody baby. I already hate the kid which is obviously a bit unfair, but if she grows up and is only ten times as arrogant as Willow Smith then I will be amazed by her humility. The poor kid is already being groomed for international stardom, as her shrill screams have been immortalised on one of Jay-Z's banal tracks.

The only positive I could derive from Beyonce being pregnant was that perhaps for 5 minutes she would go away and leave us alone, and refrain from singing more vapid, candy-coated sexist bilge at least for a bit. But no, being a strong and independent woman she thought ahead and seemingly recorded about 8 billion songs and accompanying videos before her precious offspring ruined her vagina, so she is now more prolific than ever before.

Her latest effort basically consists of her singing the exact same arrangement about 10 times, with each 'verse' growing more and more annoying, as each verse is accompanied by a key change to the point where my ears start bleeding and my brain turns to goo. It's like she's given up even pretending to try and make good music. Such is her fame now that she could release a track entirely comprising of her bloody sprog crying backed with an odious R&B track and her fans would still propel it to number one, providing she wobbled her arse around a bit for the video.

Meanwhile, her bovine-faced chump of a sellout husband has professed that never again shall he use the word 'bitch' in any of his future records, because apparently now he has a daughter of his own he realises that, as a general term to describe 51 percent of the human population it's not the best. Quite what that says about his respect for his wife or even his mum, I wouldn't like to say. I love the fact that Jay-Z has been blubbing about how great it is to be a dad, all the while conveniently forgetting that he already has a 9-year old child who he barely sees.

So what next from the couple who are seemingly intent on capitalising on every event that transpires in their pampered lives? Perhaps we can look forward to bidding for signed photos of Beyonce's placenta on eBay. Or next time Jay-z has his prostate examined we will be treated to a dreary rap about it. Given what we have to look forward to, maybe the end of the world isn't such a bad thing. At least when we're all screaming as we are consumed by the fire of a thousand suns we can take solace in the fact that there will be no more music, merchandise, or self-aggrandising interviews from the smuggest couple in Showbiz.

The biggest stars of 2012

2012-01-12T09:07:00.001Z

The beginning of any year is usually when all the gay people predict who will have an impact in the celebrity sphere in the coming year and than write their findings into whichever bitchy Heat clone they happen to 'work' for. Being the philanthropist that I am, I will provide you with my insight gratis, which is far more valuable that that of a bitchy queen, because I am a bigger bitch than all of them. My focus for this year will be to predict the stars that I think will gain the most weight. However, like the majority of publications sneeringly written by 10 stone gay men and withered, bitter childless spinsters, I will be sugarcoating my scathing predictions by using flowery words such as 'curvy' or 'voluptuous' when 'fat' would usually be appropriate, because apparently if these words are used instead women don't mind.

Adele

Thanks to her ~~fat~~ bootylicious frame, Adele has the appearance of a greek statue, as moving anywhere is too much of an effort. Burly roadies wheel her out onto the stage, where she manages to belt out out one half-hearted rendition of 'someone like you' before her voice becomes crackly and she is ushered backstage to eat loads of biscuits and smoke 200 Bensons. Here's hoping that Adele will give up the smoking in 2012 so that she can become even more ~~fat~~ womanly. The great thing about Adele is that her ego grows in direct proportion to her ~~fatness~~ ample curves, and if there's anything we need in 2012, it's another diva. You go girlfriend!

Gemma from The Only Way Is Essex

Gemma, who is from Essex and stars in a reality show confusingly called The Only Way Is Esex, lost a lot of weight at the beginning of 2011. But, thankfully by the end of the year she had ~~given up and become a massive dumper again~~ realised that beauty is on the inside. Men must be queuing up to date her, given that most skinny and unwomanly women can only boast one pair of breasts, where Gemma has several, front and back.

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson has a set of ~~fat folds~~ smokin' hot curves that most skinny minnies would kill for. Pouring her feminine assets into dresses several sizes too small, her porcine lower half has become so ~~huge~~ curvy of late that her toes have fused into trotters! I predict a year of immense growth for the former 'American Idol' singer in 2012, as she becomes even more ~~obese~~ voluptuous by continuing to flitter away her earnings by eating cream cakes, iced buns and racks of lamb.

Christina Aguilera

In 2011, a miracle happened, and that miracle was managing to squeeze the ~~bloated~~ curvy Ms. Aguilera into a corset for one of her shows. Sadly, her ~~massive~~ bodacious thighs billowed out from where the restrictive material ended, giving her the silhouette of a bag of potatoes. The sassy blonde diva is representing all those ~~fatties~~ real women out there who also spend every spare minute of their lives eating cakes made entirely of lard. Xtina should probably cut back on the carbs this year though, because her ~~pudgy~~ curvy face will eventually obscure her eyes and mouth. That said, thank the lord for her humungous nose!

Khloe Kardashian

Khloe Kardashian klearly loves to karb load, as her weight ballooned to 13 stone at the tail end of 2011, and there only seems one way that her shape will go this year. Like ~~Alice the Goon made flesh~~ a latter-day pre-raphaelite goddess, Khloe truly epitomises ~~plump~~ kurvy chic. Standing at an impressive 7 feet tall, and sporting thighs that would intimidate a sumo wrestler, Khloe is representing all the ~~morbidly obese~~ natural women who no doubt make up her considerable fan base. Let's hope that her hubby is a fan of ~~huge~~ real women, lest Khloe's ~~huge~~ sexy arse gets kicked to the kurb.

New Years Resolutions for 2012

2012-01-04T14:10:00.001Z

Get out of this job before it all comes crashing down

Make bare cash moneys

Eat more blue food

Sell the stuff I don't need

Sell the stuff I do need

Play more Xbox 360

Spend more time on my own, in a ditch

Be kind and accommodating to those who deserve it, and be a massive cunt to everyone else

Rebuild my shattered arms and bicycle and start cycling again

Hate Apple even more than last year

Get down to 200 Facebook 'friends'

Delete all my photos off of Facebook

Do some decorating and stuff and ting

Clear all of the useless crap out of my house (excluding myself)

Consolidate my media empire

Teach the hamster to do handstands

New Years Resolutions for 2011 - A Retrospective

2011-12-30T14:03:00.001Z

I made some pretty bullish claims about what I hoped to achieve during 2011 and predictably enough, I failed in almost every one of them. Share my incompetence in bite-sized chunks of disappointment below...

Hate more people for even pettier reasons - FAIL, HATRED HAS BECOME APATHY, ACCEPTANCE WILL FOLLOW

Kill myself - FAIL, ALTHOUGH I AM ONE YEAR OLDER THUS CLOSER TO DEATH

Hunt down and kill everyone who I have said I hate during 2010 - FAIL, I AM TOO FEEBLE TO KILL ALL BUT THE SMALLEST OF MAMMALS

Stop making silly internet death threats that might be misconstrued by any agencies with too much time on their hands - FAIL, MY BUMHOLE HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME SINCE

Destroy Sony - FAIL, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE DOING THEIR LEVEL BEST TO KILL THEMSELVES ANYWAY

Burn my eyes out with a rusty poker so that I never have to watch Jools Holland smugly look back over his shoulder as he plays a terrible jazz fusion number with his sycophantic cronies EVER AGAIN - FAIL, I DON'T HAVE AN OPEN FIRE SO THE HOT POKER THING WAS A NON-STARTER

Vow to stop giving any money to TFL on a regular basis, they are all wankers - !!!PASS!!! I MAY HAVE BEEN A VICTIM OF THEFT AND NEARLY KILLED BY A DEER, BUT SO WHAT

Fix my car so it can propel itself with an engine instead of my legs - FAIL. IT IS STILL IN THE GARAGE, CAN SOMEONE STEAL IT FOR ME?

Spend less time with humans and more time with animals - FAIL. ALTHOUGH SOME HUMANS ARE SO FERAL NOW THAT THEY RESEMBLE MONGREL DOGS. BUT I DID GO ON SAFARI THIS YEAR, AND A ZOO AS WELL

Do some gay stuff - !!!PASS!!! I SPOKE ABOUT MY FEELINGS FOR SEVERAL HOURS IN ALL OF 2011

Build an exoskeleton with loads of missiles and that on it, and then attack Primark - FAIL, SUPERGLUE LET ME DOWN AGAIN

Eat more soup - FAIL, I FORGOT TO BUY ANY

Learn to write joined up - FAIL, I AM EVEN FURTHER REMOVED FROM BEING ABLE TO WRITE SANS KEYBOARD. I AM FOREVER DESTINED TO BE BOTH A SHIT TYPIST AND A SHIT CALLIGRAPHER (AND A SHIT PERSON)

Fart more - FAIL, I FARTED 20% LESS THIS YEAR, MAINLY DUE TO NOT ENOUGH RED MEAT AND BEER

Play more XBox 360 - MASSIVE FAIL. I WAS NEVER GOING TO REALISTICALLY BEAT THE FALLOUT 3 AND GTA IV GLORY DAYS, GIVEN THAT GAMES LIKE 'MODERN WARFARE' AND THOSE KINECT GAMES ARE UTTER TOILET. THANKS FOR TRYING TO MAKE XBOX 360 AS SHIT AS A WII, MICROSOFT!

Merry Pissedmas everyone!

2011-12-22T13:48:00.001Z

Christianity is dead. No-one who says that they are Christian actually are these days. The standard answer from your average Brit when asked about their own allegiances will be 'Church of England'. They will only say this because of the IRA and because they are retarded. It is laughable that our official religion was made up by a fat philandering cunt who, when it was revealed that the Pope decided not to bless his many carnal unions instead decided to do whatever the fuck he liked and make his own one up. Most people in this country only care about religion if you threaten to make something secular. Like every year, there's this clamour to take the 'Christ' out of 'Christmas' and people who have never been to church suddenly start bleating about 'political correctness gone mad' etc.

People pretend that Christianity is awesome and decry other religions on the grounds that they are barbaric and regressive. Proper Christianity is just mental as other religions. 'Adapt or die' was the mantra of the Catholic, as they rode roughshod over far-flung parts of the world bringing their 'crusades' with them. But Christianity is a total pussy these days. I have more respect for the loonies who still adhere to their batshit crazy religions to the letter - better that than a bunch of marginalised softies pandering to middle class idiots who are only there to get little Jake into the Catholic school around the corner. The church must be well pleased about their schools - it's the only way that they attract anyone into their churches who are not either octogenarian or disabled.

Do people really think about the supposed birth of a jewish baby who probably never existed when Christmas comes around? Or do they think about eating loads of food, getting wasted and arguing with the inlaws. If you are reading this and think the former, then you are a massive liar, or you are a hard liner who should probably not be on the internet with all its temptations in the first place. All the good things about Christmas have nothing to do with Christ, and everything to do with spending time with your friends and family, being nice and getting presents and stuff. The church occasionally whinges about Father Christmas, just because they know that kids would rather have videogames and stuff than mouldy bread and wine.

Let's just call Christmas pissedmas and be done with it. And ban all religion from our shores, because all any of them contribute to society is to present reasons to hate people from other religions. They are all laughable and built on 'faith' which is really a manipulated doctrine forced upon the proletariat to stop them asking tough questions and keep them in line, and it's about time that we all woke up and stopped pandering (or pretending to pander) to them. We should set aside aside our religious differences and instead argue about things that matter like oil and football.

Stop, Look, Pray

2011-12-15T14:01:00.000Z

There were two prevailing messages which were drummed into kids in the '80's. One was to not talk to or accept sweets from strangers, and especially, never, ever, go and see any puppies for you shall be RAPED and KILLED. The other was being safe when crossing the road. There were numerous campaigns featured during my formative years from the sublime (a cracking egg being used to symbolise a careless child's shattered skull) to the ridiculous (A huge David Prowse accompanied by a R2D2 ripoff who to my tender brain seemed to tick ALL the boxes associated with message #1).

Learning to cross the road was considered to be very important. You might not think so today, given that most teenagers cross the road as slowly and nonchalantly as possible, kissing their teeth and staring at you as your right foot threatens to accidentally mow them down if they don't get the FUCK out of the road, but it used to be drummed into our tiny brains on an hourly basis. Everyone knew the rules - even the special needs kids in school who could barely say their own name knew them. They were like religious commandments. Of the rules, there were three, as I shall now tell thee. STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN.

STOP - pretty obvious, because just bowling out onto the road like a drunken Mancunian fishwife would inevitably get you flattened by an XR2 racing a Renault 5 turbo. LOOK - because you need to look at things to know that they are there, innit. And laugh as an acne-ridden boy racer stacks their Metro into the nearest bus shelter. And LISTEN. Listen used to be the easiest, which your ears could attest to as a poor 1.3 litre engine was thrashed to 7000 rpm by an aftermarket turbo charger, while being amplified by an exhaust wider than a sewage pipe. Or savour the nostalgic sound of wheel arches crunching into huge alloy wheels as a lowered, fibreglass deathtrap was forced over a speedbump at 70 miles per hour.

Of these, Listening is destined to become a problem. Even Petrol and Diesel Cars are much quieter than they were 20 years ago. Not to mention larger and significantly heavier. Fear the undignified demise awaiting those who insist on using those trendy 'Ear Violator' (TM) headphones - death by electric car. Electric cars are nearly silent - all you can hear emanating from them is a low electric hum coupled with the expletives uttered by the occupants who have just realised that they are down to 2% battery life and face a 12-hour recharge. More and more of these cars are now afflicting our roads, trundling along like the pieces of shit that they are, and this will soon be a very real problem.

One solution proposed to address this issue is to add speakers to the engine bay so that pretend car sounds can be heard, which is fantastic - for as well as having to actually drive the axles and operate all the electrical systems, these retarded cars will have to use their meagre reserves of power to run an extra loud stereo in the bloody bonnet. And why stop with actual car sounds? What if I wanted to make my car sound like a Harrier Jump Jet, or better yet, a constipated walrus? Is there any reasonable argument to suggest that this won't happen? But, for the time being, I urge everyone to be extra vigilant because the silent killer is already on our roads. And having your existence ended by a pious wanker in a glorified milkfloat is perhaps the worst way to die of all.

Leave me alone. I don't want it. Whatever it is. Please. Go away.

2011-12-06T15:14:00.002Z

I never answer the home phone. I don't know why we bothered getting one. Whenever the home phone rings, it is invariably bad news. It is always someone trying to extract money or free information from me via various means. It will be a gadget that I can't possibly live without. Or perhaps sir would like to throw 2 grand down the drain in exchange for double glazing today? Some shingle for the roof? Whatever it is, I just don't care. I am never, and will never be interested. When pressed, I always answer surveys wrong on purpose, just to render their market research useless. Victory to me!!

I went to America recently and something very disconcerting happened to me. The people who work in the shops talk to you. If you spot them in your way as you approach and deviate they crab walk to intercept you. They act so nice. They ask if you require any help. Then you politely decline. So they inform you of their name and other interesting factoids, along with the fact that they are available should you need assistance for anything at all. Which I suppose is OK. I mean, they're not too in your face. But I find it really creepy and odd. "Leave me strange people!" I think as I embarrassingly spurn their advances. I'd even rather your average British shop worker, chewing gum and sulkily kissing their teeth when you aks them where to find some jeans to try on that don't immediately render you infertile.

If I could be bothered, I 'd do a graph or something but suffice to say that it will show that the more I am hassled the less likely I am to buy something. It could be the best thing ever. If I was a gay porn star and you were selling me an assmaster 3000 hydraulically-actuated dildo for 10 quid I would hang up, simply because I don't like having things shoved down my throat. Boom boom. I can't stand salesmen. I wish they'd go away and die, like Miley Cyrus's career. Boom boom.

I understand that times are hard. I understand that we are in an economic downturn. But please understand this: If I feel I want or need something, I will, of my own volition, research it. I am fully aware of the existence of loans, double glazing, mortgages, cleaning products and every other piece of tat you are trying to hock. So ask yourself this before you badger someone at home when they are enjoying being LEFT THE FUCK ALONE - have you just invented or are you selling an entirely new product? Something that isn't already common knowledge? Something revolutionary that hasn't been reported or widely advertised or already done a trillion times before? No? Then please feel free to fuck off and LEAVE ME ALONE.

I know that this is a rambling diatribe but I can't really be arsed today. I do realise that good posts should be like a structured story, with a beginning, middle and

I should put this on Trip Advisor

2011-12-02T15:53:00.001Z

Brighton is a theatre of ruined and forgotten dreams. Full of monstrous buildings erected in the '60's and older buildings which are literally falling down, Brighton is one those places that could be cheaply used if 1984 was ever remade. It's vast, depressing soviet-era sink estates puncture the dull grey skyline full of clouds which mirror the monotone heartbeat of the city. The beach is full of pebbles, each greyer than the other, as if God got bored when creating the seafront and just took a massive dump there instead. Two piers extend from its overcrowded shoreline like jagged daggers in a child's face. One pier is burnt down, and on the point of collapse, while the other should be burnt down, if only to slightly improve the depressing vista of Brighton seafront, frequented as it is by thieving pikeys who pray on the middle-class idiots foolish enough to believe the area to be anything other than an open sewer.

Dishonest, jobless idiots are everywhere - dishonest because instead of keeping to themselves in their bedsits wanking and playing XBox they spend their days being eco-warriors or protesters, spilling out onto the streets with their humourous placards to harass organisations and companies which they perceive to be indicative of the decadent ruination of the west without ever realising that they themselves are the decadent ruination of the west. Moaning about everything for no good reason while lapping up the handouts from the state, these ravenous parasites are a drain on everyone's resources other than their own. Clad in Doc Martens and covered in a thick veneer of dirt, rancid flesh and hair unwashed for months, their faces are constantly set to 'sneer' mode as they regale against anything that doesn't conform to their own selfish expectations.

They want every shop to be an independent co-op, where they can barter and trade for goods with carrots and empty cans of Strongbow. They hate the motor car but are secretly resentful that they can't afford one of their own. They despise whichever government happens to be ruling at any given time but quite happily reap the benefits of their hated, autocratic fascist leaders every 2 weeks when they pick up their dole money. They want everything to be organic and chemical-free but still spend the lion's share of their dole on Booze, drugs and cigarettes. They are lazy and feckless yet pretend that they exist on the periphery of society ostensibly because they are not sheep when the ugly little secret they all contain within is that they know they are too lazy or stupid to be employable. Brighton is awash with these people, strangulated by their odious presence which only pulls the city further down into the doldrums from which it will never rise.

Brighton was probably an OK place to live until the 1960's, when the most selfish generation ever seeded it with listless, illiterate drug addicts and ponces, abandoning morals and any semblance of decency or responsibility along the way. Now, it is stuffed to the brim with feral human scum who pretend to be politically-minded in order to mitigate against their own personal laziness. Like a senile braying donkey, defecating onto it's own leg and a mere shotgun blast away from sweet oblivion, Brighton teeters on the brink; subsidised by all the Londoners who for whatever reason continue to migrate there. None of them realise that it is too late for Brighton - the only thing that can improve it now is to erect a massive grey wall around its perimeter and let the stupid morons fend for their own stupid selves.

Newspaper headlines that I hope I see in my lifetime but never will

2011-11-29T17:03:00.000Z

Jeremy Kyle found beaten to death in a Manchester back alley

Bono ADMITS that he is a pretentious, hypocritical, short-arsed twat

RONAN THE BARBARIAN!!! - Down-and-out ex-boyzone star jailed for beating an old lady to death for her pension book

Jeremy Kyle found eviscerated outside a newsagents in Filey

Kim Kardashian EXCLUSIVE: "I have no discernible talent whatsoever"

Planet of the RAPES!! Sex-mad monkeys rule the roost at Whipsnade Safari Park

England Rugby Team "We are a bunch of fat cloggers who enjoy stripping naked and touching each other's tiny cocks"

DAILY MAIL EXCLUSIVE: We hate all brown people, Eastern Europeans and gays and can't be bothered to mask this fact with sloppy journalism anymore

Jeremy Kyle found beaten to death with rubber dildos in a Warrington sex shop

Carol Vorderman: "Why my eyes are no longer on speaking terms"

RONAN THE LIBRARIAN!!! - Ex-boyzone star eking a living in Macclesfield mobile library

John Terry WORLD EXCLUSIVE: "Even my mum thinks I'm a cunt"

"FAT TAX!" - People to be taxed for every additional Kilo they are overweight

KATIE PRICE MISSING - Feared disappeared up own arsehole

Jeremy Kyle accidentally fired into the moon during routine sound check

RONAN THE SEPTUAGENARIAN!!! - Forgotten ex-boyzone star celebrates his 60th birthday at Wimpy in Buckinghamshire

Oh Deer.

2011-11-16T13:35:00.002Z

I'm one of those people who are as lazy as I can possibly be. If I can't arrive home from work and just mong out on the sofa for at least a good hour then I consider my life too hectic. I could never be one of those people who hotdesk and walk around with their blackberries trying to look important. I love doing nothing. It is the best thing that has ever been invented, even though it is not a thing. Sometimes I just wish I could stay in bed all day doing absolutely nothing worthwhile. It's funny what happens when you get your wish.

As you may know, my pathological hatred of public transport has led me to extreme lengths to avoid it; I bought a car which I don't really need to restore it, then I thought better of it and bought another car which I didn't really need but at least runs and is actually safer than Colonel Gadaffi in a drainage pipe. So now I have 2 cars I don't really need but at least one kind of works so I guess that is ok.

I also decided that cycling to work would be a great idea! So I bought a bike and then it was stolen after 6 weeks. A mere setback! I decided and I went out and bought another bike. I will admit that there are pitfalls to cycling, which include and are surely not limited to the following: Other cyclists, pedestrians, motorists, potholes, nails, rain, wind, snow, humidity, hills and low branches. I can now add one more pitfall to the list, which I like to call megafauna.

For it was megafauna I struck while making my way back from work on that fateful Halloween - a large stag who decided that our fates were to become intertwined by perfectly intersecting my path with his sudden urge to go for a stroll in the road. I was travelling downhill in Richmond Park, which is always a relief after going up lots of hills beforehand. But I was unprepared for how quickly I would run out of momentum as I struck what felt like a huge punchbag made of meat and sailed through the air with all the grace of John Terry doing, well, anything.

Cat-like, I quickly sprung back to my feet to - if need had been - punch the Stag in the face, in case he wanted to fight or do sex on me. Luckily the Stag buggered off pretty sharpish, which was a relief to me as I was feeling even more pathetic and ill-equipped for violence than usual. I ended up having to walk to the nearest hospital in pitch darkness, my stricken bicycle being pushed by even more stricken arms, bleeding profusely from my leg and earning admiring glances from gormless trick-or-treaters who thought I was in costume.

So now I have knackered arms and a bike which has seen better days, with the front wheel looking particularly Dali-esque, but never mind. My injuries meant the rest of the week off of work, which would have been great had I been able to do anything at all. But I couldn't. I had a X-Box sitting there, looking at me accusingly, as I used all my meagre strength to draw the covers up around my face, and tried not to dream of oversized animals acting like improvised speedbumps. "Play me" it begged, suggestively winking and opening its filthy slot to show me Duke Nukem.

I now know that doing nothing is overrated. But, I am back, and reflecting on the inconveniences that not wanting to use public transport have bought to me. And even after all that has happened, I'd still rather get knocked off my bike every other week than spend another second on a train. So I guess I haven't really learnt anything at all. Oh well.

I call it the art of writing without writing

2011-11-10T10:00:00.000Z

The art of writing is dead. When was the last time you actually wrote something on a piece of paper? For me I only ever write if I am sending a card, and since I hate so many people this is a rare occasion indeed. My handwriting has atrophied so badly that I can now only write in capitals. If I attempt something as sophisticated as joined-up writing it looks like 2 warring factions of spiders have both lost.

If I commit something to writing it actually looks like a secret code. The only trouble is, I often can't decipher it. When I write my signature, it's never the same twice. Thank god for chip and PIN, no more eyebrows raised in my direction when trying to use my card to buy shopping with. My signature also becomes worse, depending on the magnitude of what I am signing. A cheque for 20p will be fairly neat, whereas my mortgage application resembled the output of a heart monitor during a cardiac arrest.

Not to say I was ever good at handwriting though. When I was in school, handwriting was considered extremely important. I'd say more important than something like maths. I'd be told to stop wasting time with silly things like quadratic equations and instead concentrate on my writing. I think the teachers imagined that anyone with handwriting less pretty than the finest calligrapher would be out on their ear at 12, and in the poorhouse for the rest of their pathetic little lives. When I was about 13, a fellow pupil ridiculed my handwriting in front of the whole class, and one of the less-well adjusted nutters in my year leapt to my defence, saying that I was dyslexic and that he would beat people who made fun of me. Because of his psychotic nature, I elected not to correct him.

So for much of my time at the school it was a common belief that I was dyslexic. I was even given special handwriting pens which were basically normal pens with translucent blue rubbery grips. I used to try get high off them because they smelt a bit like marker pen. It was only when my English teacher realised that I had absolutely no trouble whatsoever with reading or using one of the few computers we had that I was rumbled. Unfortunately, If I had played along a bit longer I would have been in line for a free laptop.

That's another thing, I really wanted to put a sad face at the end of that last sentence. I am officially incapable of expressing emotion without smileys (also known as 'Emoticons', if you're a c**t). In the future, if there are still printed novels, they will have to incorporate smileys into their typeface. I can imagine poetry books and trashy romance novels where smileys are more commonplace than words :(

I've always prided myself on being a reasonable speller. However, since writing this blog I've realised that this is not the case. The problem is, that I didn't realise that composing e-mails using Microsoft word automatically corrected things like 'teh' as you went along. This is because I still can't touch type, and me using more than 2 fingers at any one time (matron) can be considered a rare event. So all those years of not looking at the screen has left me blissfully aware of my staggering ineptitude. It's only through writing straight into this blog without any automated correction shenanigans that I've realised quite how retarded I am.

Luckily, I use the following online spellchecker before publishing anything which you can access using the link below. This enables me to omit my myriad typos which otherwise would fall into the hands of the pedants (metaphorically of course). Although a note of caution regarding hyperlinks. If you paste anything into the spellchecker the finished and spellchecked text will be copied back in as plain text. So don't do what yours truly did, and put loads of links into an article before you have spell checked because you'll have to find and re-link everything again. And that would make you a poor speller and stupid.

http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/English_united_kingdom_spell_checker.html

The link above will take you to the Queen's English spellings, so you won't be offered bastardised 'corrections' like 'color', or 'aluminum'. Americans, if you want to come across a bit more cleverer, just click thru the link above also. One more note on blogs. they're great. No more messy HTML or CSS (unless you are a sadomasochist and really want to), no more having to upload new files to FTP sites for a one-word amendment, and you can write little bits and pieces as and when you can. I wrote a couple of paragraphs of this when I was on the bog. Which is entirely appropriate given the amount of (albeit correctly spelt) crap I write.

Desperate Spinsters

2011-11-02T12:50:00.000Z

I read women's magazines. They help me poo. At the moment, I can't read these magazines without seeing Jennifer Aniston on the cover. You know the type of mag I'm referring to; tomes like 'Heat' and 'Now', written in the main by gay men and barren, childless and bitter forty-something women. It is perhaps due to the latter that there is such a fascination with Ms. Aniston at the moment. Here is a woman who for all intents and purposes epitomises bland. She starred in one of the most banal and cliquey sitcoms this world is ever likely to see, which somehow ran for a decade. The only reason she became popular is because of the 'Rachel' haircut she sported for the duration of the show, which was actually designed to hide her vast jaw. She has since distinguished herself in various bland romantic comedies, in which she takes the radical step of playing Rachel all over again, but with a different name. It's hardly Monster's Ball, is it.

So perhaps there was an element of surprise in her marriage to Brad Pitt; the one-time subversive star of several decent indie films, getting hitched to the all-American (once that troublesome Greek nose was removed) and wholesome Jennifer Aniston. She spent a lot of her time whining as the spoilt Rachel from friends, and it soon became evident that she wasn't actually acting per se, just honing an innate talent she probably discovered when moaning at her rich daddy for another dose of rhinoplasty. After a few years, the couple split, fuelled by the rumours that Aniston didn't want to have a baby, and that Pitt had been boning his less boring and more attractive co-star, Angelina Jolie. The divorce was finalised, and Pitt hooked up with Jolie. End of story, you'd think. Two people who were not suited to each other get divorced. It wasn't a bad innings for a Hollywood marriage, after all.

But rather than keeping the last shred of her dignity intact, Jennifer gave interviews to anyone who would listen about what a big meanie Brad Pitt is. I won't directly quote, as I can't be arsed, but suffice to say she bitched about Pitt and Jolie’s liaisons, and how it hurt to see him with Jolie's kids - the very kids (ok well not the exact kids, that would be odd) that Jennifer Aniston refused to have, on the grounds it would sideline her 'career'. How boring. That's the kind of topic you bore your single and bitter thirty-something mates with, not the rest of us. The multi-millionairess continues to regale magazines with stories of her impossibly hard life. If Charles Dickens were alive today, no doubt he'd champion her miserable existence in a collection of novels.

Now the woman with the smallest forehead and biggest chin in showbiz is fighting back, desperately squeezing into any dress recommended for 16 year olds. Pretending to see various eligible bachelors left, right and centre. Hanging of Gerald Butler's forearm like a performing monkey. But I fear she will forever find herself on the shelf because she is obviously a boring hag, which she sees fit to enforce with every subsequent magazine interview. ZZZ.

The End Of The World Is Nigh! Better have the premiere soon, then

2011-10-27T07:36:00.000+01:00

*MULTIPLE SPOILER ALERT*

Over the last decade or so, disaster movies have got bigger. In the '70's and '80's you had fairly localized disasters. The maximum potential casualties hovered in the low thousands. The unholy trinity I remember from that era are:

The Towering Inferno

A tower block goes on fire. Some Americans die of fatness. Ollie Reed plays a bastard. Probably a few hundred deaths. The film justifies at least half of them as the 'baddies' get their comeuppance via the allegorical death in a pit of fire.

The Poseidon Adventure

A big boat goes tits up. Some Americans die of fatness. Everyone has to walk around on ceilings. Some people fall from great heights and drown. Others just drown. The boat sinks. The purest of heart survive to tell the tale and get their story syndicated.

Earthquake

My favourite of the old disaster movies. The biggest death toll by far, in places it was actually scary as well. Lots and lots of wobbly camera work and people falling into chasms. Again, the people with the most steadfastly American characteristics live to tell the tale.

These films were fun, for sure, but lacked a bit of scope. I guess annihilating a larger segment of society than a city would be prohibitive cost-wise, in an era when CG was not available. So it should be no surprise, then, that the advent of better-quality CG meant that a whole new glut of American-centric disaster movies would be released. Add to this all that nonsense about the Millennium (remember that?) and some shonky Mayan prophecies, and these films just keep coming. I have reviewed some of these below, and arranged them by death toll. The ones where everyone dies being the best.

Armageddon (<1000)

Probably only a few hundred deaths, this abysmal, Aerosmith-soundtracked abortion of a movie was helmed by Michael Bay, my absolute favouritest director evar. Unfortunately a christ-like Bruce Willis saves the day by using his skills honed on an oil rig (really) so that the earth is not torn a new one. This film is also notable for putting the first nail on the coffin that has become Ben Affleck's career. So emotional does he become that his future dad-in-law will soon be solemny sacrificing himself for AMERICA, I was surprised he didn't start dry humping. He said 'I love you' about a hundred times. Bears all the staples of a Michael Bay classic - lots of slow motion, ridiculous action sequences and very terrible all round.

Deep Impact (>500,000,000)

This is a bit like Armageddon, only well-written, intelligent, properly researched and believable. Morgan Freeman is the black president of the United States and has the grim task of preparing the earth for utter destruction. Did I mention he is black? So screw you Dennis Haysbert, If anyone blazed a trail for Obama it was Morgan Freeman. He done it first, see? But at least you did Mandela before him, so you guys are quits. Sorry about that. Deep Impact is really a very good film. A bit emotional for my tastes in places, but I guess if you were faced with imminent destruction you'd get a bit teary. The best thing about this film is that, while the main asteroid is diverted from the earth via the sacrifice of the whole space shuttle crew (not just one chiseled guy in ludicrous circumstances a' la Armageddon), a smaller asteroid does indeed hit and wipe out the entire Eastern seaboard. Poor old Eastern seaboard. It always gets destroyed. I reckon at least a 50 million dead in the USA, and a Tsunami that size would no doubt wipe out poor old Blighty and Western Europe too. So hundreds of millions. Not bad for a film with an ultimately happy ending.

The Day After Tomorrow (>2,000,000,000)

To me, the day after tomorrow is when I'll get round to doing that work thing I keep putting off . But really I should think on. The premise of this movie is that at any time, icicles travelling hundreds of miles an hour could kill us all. Already expertly lampooned by South Park, this sanctimonious pile of junk is a double-pronged morality tale: Hey guys, let's stop raping mother earth, and while we're at it, let's be nicer to the brown people, because they will soon have the only inhabitable land left on the earth. This film is somewhat rescued by a decent death toll; probably about a third of the planet perishes.

2012 (Everyone, but probably not John Cusack, a token love interest, and his kids)

I haven't seen 2012 yet. I will see it when it's free. But the Mayan prophecy says everyone dies, so it needs to be here. Correct me if I'm wrong, and if you care that I'm wrong.

Knowing (Everyone, sans 2 kids and some rabbits. And presumably 2 of every animal. Why let silly science like Minimum Viable Population get in the way of a good yarn)

I saw this and had no preconceptions about it. I hadn't read about it, didn't even know what genre it was. But the synopsis seemed to have promise. So the fact that I knew I would have to endure Nicolas Cage extensively did not deter me from watching it. Imagine my joy when I realised that, what first appeared to be a clone of 'Next' (which also stars Nicolas Cage, how does Francis Ford Coppola's nephew get so much work?), turned into the extinction of the human race, via solar flare. The film does have silly aliens in it, and at points you have to suspend your disbelief via an intricate system of ropes and pulleys. It is also dangerously Christian at times. But the Director, Alex Proyas, just about gets away with it, in my opinion. If you want to see a great, and equally odd Proyas film, watch Dark City. Nicolas Cage's best role is surely in The Wicker Man.

Southland Tales (Everyone, plus every planet, solar system and galaxy (I think))

Not sure what's going on with this one, to be honest. I can't help but like this film. I even got the graphic novels to enhance my understanding but it's still a bit vague. Not a disaster movie as such, but I think that everyone dies at the end, right after the guy blows up the blimp while standing on the side of the ice cream truck which is floating hundreds of feet in the air. Then the 2 guys that were thought to be twin brothers but are actually the same people from divergent universes occupying the same space at the same time which happens to be in the aforementioned floating Ice Cream truck cause the entire universe to implode. So it's not just the Earth that buys the farm, but also the entire universe.That's the way to do it.

Travellers: My 10 - Point plan for integration, happiness, and well-being

2011-10-20T10:14:00.002+01:00

It looks like common sense is finally prevailing and that the thieving, scrounging scum affectionately known as travellers will be evicted from Dale Farm today. Well, some of them. Because of some outright stupidity, only the structures/caravans mentioned explicitly in the order can be removed. Therefore there will still be 2 buildings and 3 caravans left on what is greenbelt land. Although hopefully the assembled protesters will fuck off, who are even more objectionable than the pikey scum they profess to support.

Travellers claim that they are misjudged by people unfairly, that they are an ethnic minority and the persecution they face now is no different than that faced by black and Asian communities over the years. Their right to travel should be protected by constitutional law and they should be treasured instead of vilified, like the Masai Mara in Kenya, or the Native Americans in the USA (Ha!). I wholeheartedly agree, and in order for the travellers to be accepted into British culture, they need only do the following to make the transition from pariahs to saints easier.

1) Travel

Travellers by their nature are a migratory species, turning up in packs in various towns like the littlest hobo, and strangely disappearing again when everything that has not been nailed down has been stolen. The poor travellers in Dale Farm seem to have lost their way in this respect, having occupied it to various degrees since the 1960's. The government should issue each traveller a long stick and a tablecloth, and allow each traveller to put as many of their possessions in said cloth before hitching the cloth to the stick and sending all the travellers on their merry way with a baton to the face.

2) Stop stealing stuff!

You have to love the cheeky rascals as they scamper about the place, ripping up copper from railway lines or liberating lead tiles from people's roofs! Descending into towns and villages en masse and effectively picking them clean of anything of value before defecating everywhere, the charming traveller will also threaten to kill anyone who objects to them 'exercising their rights'

3) Stop forcing yourselves on young girls!

Nowadays, women are confused by having the freedom to choose a partner and vote, read, etc which is obviously beyond the capabilities of their tiny little minds. There is no sight that brings a nostalgic tear to the eye more than a podgy 17-year old lad with a mullet and string vest forcing himself on a 14-year old girl. And they say romance is dead! Well, not to the traveller, whose courting ritual employs as much sensitivity and grace as their grasp of the English language.

4) Learn to read

Perhaps the issue of theft would be less associated with travellers if any of the men could read. They probably quite innocently steal from building sites, barns, gardens, vehicles and houses because they cannot read the signs saying not to trespass or steal so they can't really be blamed for this one. We should install loudspeakers in our properties which continually spout Irish gibberish at high frequencies to ward them away.

5) Slow down with the old breeding lark

With the exception of domestic violence, the confines of a caravan is a very boring place. Therefore the travellers like to entertain themselves by making the beast with 2 backs bareback all the time, until their caravan is so full of sprogs that the male does not even have room to move his fat arse in a back and forth motion to procreate. This does have the unfortunate effect of producing dozens of ill-mannered, thieving and disgusting feral kids who then each have dozens of ill-mannered, thieving and disgusting feral kids themselves but that's ok, the government can pay, and any misbehaving is the fault of the teachers!

6) Start paying any kind of tax

I know this is controversial but there are some radical schools of thought who believe if you want to be supported by your government and local authority then you have a duty to pay a fee to said government in order to provide healthcare, infrastructure and roads etc. This is generally known as 'tax', and, amazingly most people pay this. Generally a pre-determined percentage of earnings is the way this happens. Although there is an argument that theft should be tax exempt, as generally this is not considered to be a form of employment.

7) Pistols at dawn

Obviously, nothing will ever be quite as elegant a method to resolve a dispute as bare-knuckle boxing but pistol duels have their good points too - for a start, there will be no annoying rematches once said duel has been settled, and everyone's caravan will suddenly feel more spacious, as, every day, more and more rat-faced thugs will meet their makers.

8) Learn to speak English proper like

As charming as a cockney mashup with a tick Oirish accent is, some people may struggle to understand what's being said. This probably leads to misunderstandings with the locals, which are really needless. If they understood that you merely wanted their car keys and any spare metal you have lying around, they would be much more compliant and you wouldn't have to set your dogs/kids on them.

9) The protesters are not your friends

Look at the protesters who are supposedly supporting you and engage your few firing neurons to divine why they are supporting you. You will find the answer disquieting, and if you listen hard enough you will hear plummy, public school-educated vowels occasionally escaping from their stupid mouths as they try to confuse you with their best cockney accent. These parasites are not your friends. They are a collective of incredibly spoiled little brats with enough money and time on their hands to generally get narked about anything they see as an excuse to get their very gormless faces printed in the papers.

The so-called 'Activists' traipse up and down the country from one dispute to another like the world's most ineffective vigilantes, and, things being what they are, it won't be long before they up sticks and get very angry indeed about something else. Soon, you will be yesterday's news, and then these Etonian fuckwits will return home to mummy and daddy for a jolly good wash, after which they will regale their equally clueless friends about their adventures over a skinny latte. These Che Guevara wannabes are actually your enemy and, seeing as they are barricaded into your cesspool of a caravan site you have the ideal opportunity to kick their heads in with extreme prejudice, then blame the Police. Simples!

10) Go 'Home'

It's not called the 'emerald isle' for nothing. The Irish accent may be there (for some reason) but lots of the younger travellers have never left the shores of Britain. Ireland is so much better than Britain. The accent is similar enough as to not be rendered unintelligable. There is an abundance of unspoilt, greenbelt land just waiting to be covered in tarmac, caravans, faecal matter, and wild children kicking the shit out of each other. Scrap metal grows in fields in abundance in Ireland, so any 'Scrap Metal Reclamation Engineers' would fill their boots there. Every pub you walk into has a shire horse at the bar and the lakes are full of Guinness, and what's more, no-one cares if you steal, because everyone's blind drunk!

Steve Jobs is dead. But Apple will never die

2011-10-13T13:00:00.001+01:00

Right now I should be writing a post about Steve Jobs being that he is dead and that I am one of the most vociferous opponents of any stupidly overpriced device which is rendered essential because of the inclusion of an 'i' before it. But as I said, he is dead, and while he lived as a savvy and Machiavellian corporate git he no doubt died as the same. However, the ugly face of revisionism is rearing its head once more as sections of the media (particularly the left) are proclaiming him to be a latter-day saint, a philanthropist, the 21st-century embodiment of Jesus Christ. A genius, up there with the likes of Einstein, Edison, Newton etc.

That is the only thing that prompts me to write. I can live with the fact that gibbering loons dribble at the prospect of the next iteration of a device which is approximately .2 millimetres thinner and a bit shinier and queue up round the block to get it. I can live with the fact that iTunes is the singular worst piece of software that I have ever used in my miserable existence. I can even live with the fact that Apple supposedly offer a 'cool' alternative against the faceless corporate might of Microsoft, despite the fact that no-one exerts more control over vendors or suppliers than Apple does. Apple is a behemoth, a monstrous entity which constantly tries to convince the world that it is not, endlessly plying its' subtly improved wares like clockwork at vastly inflated prices. But I can live with that, good luck to the shifty nobends.

But Steve Job's fans are driving me nuts. Leaving half-eaten apples and candles all over the various faceless identikit shops which plague our highs treets with their smugness and enormously inflated prices. I'm waiting for the launch of the iPhone 5, which I'm sure Apple will somehow dedicate to Steve Jobs, and adjust the price to ever more bewildering amounts accordingly. I'm waiting for the special 'Steve Jobs' edition of said phone, which will have his signature on the back of it, along with an embossed version of his death mask. Something tells me this man will never go away.

I said I wasn't going to write about Steve Jobs in the opening paragraph and in a way I haven't - preferring instead to concentrate my ire on the company itself and the uselessly stupid people who would buy a lump of turd from you put it in a plain white cardboard box and affixed a £500 price tag to it. You are all so stupid and bereft of anything approaching common sense. I hate all of you. Steve Jobs was credited with having the foresight of knowing where the market is going, and he was absolutely right; he knew, back in the '70's, that by now we would all be completely incompetent luddites with pretty much no idea about anything, so he set his mind to building devices which even retards or women could use without several hours of one-to-one instruction.

And if this was his aim, he certainly succeeded. He deserves acclaim for being the face of a corporate juggernaut that has hoodwinked so many people. It is staggering that there are actually people out there who think that Apple invented the mp3 player, the touch screen, the tablet pc, the mouse, even Graphical User Interfaces. In fact, it's not staggering, because Apple pretty much claim to have invented these things in their self-satisfied adverts. There are some people who have never transferred a music file from their computer onto a mp3 player without the disgusting inconvenience of itunes. Imagine that! These poor cretins don't know what else is out there, and probably never will, as they are incapable of even seeing any gadgets which do not have the Apple logo on them.

So, there you have it, Steve Job's true legacy is an entire generation of unfortunates who actually think that Apple is some groovy, San Francisco indie company, where the R&D guys chill out on beanbags while they nonchalantly redesign the world before lunch. His legacy is local councils spending all the money that should be spent on fixing potholes or crime prevention on iPads instead, because people are just that incapable that they can no longer use actual pads, or laptops, or far superior and cheaper tablet devices that are not made by Apple. His legacy is morons who snort with derision if you produce an android phone, or express a preference for Microsoft or Blackberry. His legacy is all the twats who clog up Starbucks with their iMacs as they pretend to write the next 'Catcher in the Rye' and not just look at girls they vaguely know on facebook. Well done Steve, you've turned us all into dense, image-obsessed fuckwits. Jobs done. LOL

The ZZZ Factor

2011-10-03T11:39:00.000+01:00

After a few weeks of relative banality, (and I use the term 'relative' because, taken in isolation, ALL of the 'X Factor' is banal) The X Factor is finally to go 'live' next week. So this weekend we were treated to two episodes of the Judges houses. Saturday's episode had all the singers perform songs in their entirety, apart from those who were destined to not go through, who instead were allocated 30 seconds of singing which was further intercut with their own pathetic proclamations that they would have no idea how to rebuild their shattered lives if they were not to make it through to the live shows. I really felt for them and I'm sure all the people who are starving or being ethnically cleansed felt for them too.

Everyone cried during the first show. It was amazing. You'd think that the precocious little brats had just lost a parent, such was the depth of their despair of perhaps not getting through. I found this all very difficult as I normally have a couple of people I champion each year - as even I find it difficult to dislike everyone - but I really struggled this year. As it is, I do quite like the scouse hairdresser and one of the girls, who looks like a hybrid of Grace Jones and a hungry hippo. But, nonetheless, I do think that she can sing very well, which I guess is important in a singing competition? She can also do the rapping and whatnot so she's probably trendy or whatever.

The second show spawned no major surprises, with the exception of the Scottish fat mess who bowed out, presumably because it would be very difficult to shift an album with someone so desperately ugly on the front cover. I know that, being a fat lump, things are already against her, but couldn't she at least wash her hair or face? Normally contestants scrub up as they get further into the competition. She looked like she had a superstition that washing or otherwise caring about her appearance would jinx her. The surprise call-up for the girls had to be the one with a hairline that Phil Collins would be proud of. At the end of show 2 she was shown 'made over' and the production staff were obviously concerned about all the stage lights bouncing off her massive forehead so they used a great dollop of her own hair to disguise it.

The 'girls' category is annoying me quite a lot, as it happens. There is the geordie lass who is way too serious and has so much makeup applied it is completely impossible to discern whether she is attractive or not. She must have skin like the dark side of the moon is she really needs all that slap on. And then there is the Irish twit who, to put it kindly, 'polarises opinion'. I hate her already. I really do. It's her awful mop of hair that looks like it hasn't been washed in a decade. Her horrific yellow teeth. Her 'dirty street urchin' attire. Her 'Ooh I don't like to wear shoes' whimsical charm. Her voice that sounds somewhat like the lead singer of the cranberries, if she were forced to sing while being hit repeatedly in the throat with a baseball bat. I FUCKING HATE HER, the doe-eyed fey bitch. Fuck off back to Dale Farm and get evicted already.

The 'boys' category is all a bit 'meh' really. There's the fat scouse lad, who is a bit shouty and fat, the hairdresser scouse lad, who is, to my eternal surprise, quite good AND likeable (so he has no chance of winning), the one with the hat who has a very odd way of singing but might turn out ok and then there is Frankie. Of all the contestants, he is the only one whose name I remember. Frankie Cocockface. Frankie who must have a collapsed lung as he pathetically tries to eke out a song from his rasping little voice box. He is SO BAD at singing he makes Katy Perry sound merely average as opposed to the worst singer to get anywhere near a record deal. And what a dislikable little turd he is too. This 'cheeky chappy' shit has been done to death. If Chewbacca raped Jamie Cullum, this little runt would be the resultant offspring. He has the silliest haircut I have ever seen. I need to sit down.

Louis Walsh has cemented his reputation of being pretty awful by putting through someone in the final throe of AIDS on helium, A soldier who cannot sing (but because he is a human killing machine the dopey public will forgive him of that and get him over half way in the competition) and an oriental lunatic with a Tina Turner fixation. Unfortunately the aforementioned loony had to go back to the zoo with all the other Golden Lion Tamarins (look it up) so instead big bertha from Wales was allowed to fit her huge posterior into the last remaining slot. This is a girl who can't get through a single song without sweating from every pore in her bloated body. She sweats so much because as well as being clinically obese, she also shouts every word as if ordering ham hocks from the local market.

There is one more of Louie's acts but she is such a detestable, attention-seeking CUNT that I refuse to name her here, as I wish not to fuel her ego with more publicity. Suffice to say that I hope the crazy-eyed twat with no earlobes is kicked out sometime before week 3 and becomes universally hated and hounded for the rest of her miserable life. I should talk about the groups but it really isn't worth it. suffice to say that the girl band are destined to be first out. The only thing noteworthy thing to mention about any of the groups is that one of the Essex girls is pregnant. That's right, only one. I will be using the live shows to try and work out which is, and which is just a fat duffer. Any way you look at it, Tulisa is fooked, which can only be a good thing.

Crap films in 3D are still crap

2011-09-28T10:48:00.000+01:00

3D is everywhere now. 3D Television sets now cost less than a not-very-good family saloon. Is it correct to still call a television set a television set? It seems to imply something mystical, of arcane property. Imposing and made of wood and valves and diodes and things. It sounds very 1960's, like the wireless, automobile, etc. That's it - I will stop calling it a Television set. I suppose a TV would do, but then type 'TV' into Google and don't be surprised if you're greeted by a burly, lorry-driving 50-year old man in a pinafore sucking a lollypop. Telly will have to do. It's the least offensive.

Where was I? oh yes, 3D tellies are now affordable and even some people I know have them. And they say that they are good. Great for golf, apparently. I personally think that the threat of instant incineration should a triple bogey be scored would be great for golf, but then it's never appealed to me particularly. I can imagine darts looking reet nice, snooker perhaps, a spot of the old rugger. Unfortunately for those who would tell you different, 3D football isn't that good really. Too far away from the action most of the time to really benefit from the unique medium.

And who really wants to see a bulging vein throb on Wayne Rooney's expanding forehead in 3D, as he mercilessly berates someone who earns one thousandth of his wage for basically doing their job? HD is bad enough. I remember when one of Paul Scholes' balls fell out in the midst of one of his more fruity challenges. That was back in the day when shorts were shorts and Paul Scholes' balls were ginger instead of grey. Thank god that the episode predated 3D and HD; it's just a shame that it didn't predate my having eyesight.

Oops, I digress again. Sorry. It's sunny outside. Anyways so 3D has its applications. Nintendo has released its 3DS handheld console, which is sure to be followed by the 3DS Lite, the 3DSi, 3DS tampon applicator and so on and so forth with a new hardware configuration every 6 months until the creaking Japanese entertainment giant finally uses up all of its good karma generated by the few good games and consoles it made in the late 80's and early 90's and disappears up it's own urethra (like a 'wii' geddit?)

Off topic again! I'm so very apologetic. My point actually is a simple one: All films produced thus far with 3D in mind have been shit. OK so Avatar was a cliched, plagiarised piece of James Cameron ego-fuelled bunkum which happened to look jaw-droppingly (now whose being cliched) amazing. But the other 3D offerings are total rubbish. They are really silly. The angles are so obviously 3D friendly. Instead of composing nice cinematography, everything is suddenly thrust at the viewer for maximum cinematic effect.

"Aargh, the tip of that sword is coming straight at us!" "Oh noes, the elevator! It's going to fall on us!" "Eeek! That car which is on fire and is flying in the air and has Vin Diesel fighting ninja robot tigers in hand-to hand combat is heading right for us!" These are but some of the things you will think when watching 3D films, and then your brain will die, because you have killed it with banal offerings where shit is basically just thrown at you; in an effort to convince yourself that your life is worth living. It isn't. Jaws 3D did that years ago, with the disembodied mouth parts of the improbably large shark flying straight at you. And 3D glasses make you look like an even bigger cunt than you actually are.

On a final note, if you want to see things in 3D, without any glasses (or without permanently ruining your brain as is the case with Nintendo's 3DS) then I have a great tip for you - go outside. There is 3D shit everywhere. save the 10 quid cinema ticket and get a good mate to throw a rock at your face. Don't flinch though, or you will miss the 3D! Unless you are blind in one eye, in which case you are stuck with 2D stuff and probably as bad as racquet sports as me. It sucks to be bad at racquet sports. I'm going for a sleep.

Serena should be banned from the arena

2011-09-14T15:40:00.001+01:00

Serena Williams has again shown her lack of class by threatening an umpire. The umpire's crime? having the audacity to correctly award a point against Serena for issuing a blood-curdling scream while the ball was still in play. Instead of taking this with good grace, Serena decided that a bizarre rant was the best way of expressing her displeasure with the umpire, who she (wrongly) accused of screwing her over before. Thankfully, the end result was that Serena lost the US open final - and not even the famously partizan home crowd could support her latest round of looniness.

Resembling an anabolically-boosted Mike Tyson in an weave, her vast bulk is slowly and inexorably losing muscle and gaining fat as she succumbs to the passage of time. An 8-man poker table can now be safely balanced on her enormous derriere without any chips being disturbed. She could beat the Rock in an arm wrestle whilst simultaneously juggling 2 tractors. Her 'skirts' are specially made out of the material what they use for parachutes and that so that her bulging thighs are contained and the assembled crowds who have innocently turned up to watch some tennis are not struck blind.

And speaking of tennis, we may see more of that in the women's game now that the incredible bulk is past her best. We may even see rallies and things without nearly every service game being won to love by sending huge piledrivers hurtling towards the pulverised grass. No more barbaric screaming will be heard when an inconsequential point is won (or not won, as in the case above) No longer will svelte women be put off playing by the unengaging prospect of a tennis ball travelling at mach 2 shearing off their kneecaps.

Make up your own mind here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNMSMq9VxV8&feature=player_embedded

Going to the gym is a stupid and expensive waste of time

2011-09-07T14:33:00.001+01:00

This month I finally stop paying for the gym, after having to give 3 months notice to quit the damn thing. Why do organisations routinely get away with making is so easy to join something and so hard to leave? Perhaps I should have defecated on an instructor and they would have terminated my contract with immediate effect. I should have thought about that 3 months ago. But never mind. I went to the gym for the best part of a year, and because I'm completely retarded, it took me that long to realise that is was an expensive, time-consuming piece of shit.

There are loads of fangled machines everywhere that are hard to use and you wonder why they are there. I feel pain in my muscles and I am told by some smartarse "That's because you are using muscles you don't normally use". I am 33. If I haven't used a muscle thus far, chances are that I never will. So I may as well let it atrophy and turn into fat or hopefully disappear altogether. I see enormous meat heads repeatedly lift gigantic weights and I wonder precisely what practical use that will ever have. And the truth is, there are no real reasons to lift weights in the gym, other than to craft yourself a truly silly-looking body.

These men cannot do anything other than lift very heavy weights a few times before practically soiling themselves and throwing the weights onto the floor. For most of their gym session, they are reclining on a sweat-veneered mat while they wait for the veins in their head to go down a bit. They recline like Walruses, comparing biceps and shrivelled penises. If any of them had to run for some reason, they would most probably die. Their movement is limited by huge chunks of sinewy muscle which adorn their creaking bones. Huge veins run in and around their biceps, pumping gallons of steroid-enhanced blood around their bodies every minute. But I do pity these men, even though they have knowingly trapped themselves into a vicious spiral of lifting silly weights all the time so their vast quantities of superfluous muscle do not turn to fat.

My real bugbear is the people who go to the gym but don't exercise at all. In some cases, they are the women who go into the gym and come out fatter. This is because they spend a half hour doing a bit of yoga or what not before going for a good old gossip whilst stuffing their leathery old faces full of cakes. They are stupid and ridiculous but I do feel sorry for them as well, as they are clearly bored and over-privileged housewives who do not have to work, and are too thick to occupy themselves in any way, other than wasting their time talking louder than everyone else so that their inconsequential bullshit stories receive the attention they deserve.

Then you have the portly characters who show up in January and are all but gone in March when they realise that you do actually have to work hard and eat less in order to lose weight. They are the fat wasters you will normally see on 'exercise' bikes, leisurely cycling at 5 miles an hour with zero resistance set. Some of them even bring books with them, as their sedentary lifestyles cannot be without life's comforts, even for an hour or so. When not cycling, their bulbous bodies are instead on the treadmills, walking slower than an arthritic 80-year old who is also dead. They give up after 3 months or just die, and no-one really cares which or mourns their passing.

There are also some very fit people in the gym, but I ask myself why. They gallop away on treadmills for hours at a time. They are focused, their vision fixed ahead. They don't even look at the telly, or stare at the pretty ladies' bums. They run mile after mile or cycle the across counties and back without ever actually moving. And in that sense, they are the oddest of all. Go outside, innit. Things are free out there. You can exercise and actually move at the same time. And you don't have to put up with all the aforementioned people who only actually exist to make your life a misery. When you don't look at them, they cease to exist. And then you are free.

How to fix Facebook

2011-09-01T12:26:00.000+01:00

I know that I will never go through with my 'threat' to quit Facebook because unfortunately it has become an indispensable part of life, like telly and mobile phones. But like a beach in the UK littered with used tampons, bottle tops and seaweed Facebook is fatally clogged, with billions of bytes of useless shit splurging out from the seams of its bloated edifice. If I'm not being constantly inundated with automated requests to 'check out this new feature' then I am being subjected to multiple photographs of toddlers and babies. Spotting an adult face in a photo album these days is as rare as a likeable paedophile. Plus there is still no sign of a dislike button. Below is my guide to arrest the decline Facebook is now witnessing as people abandon it in droves.

Add a dislike button

Why? because there is no parity. There is a like button, but no negative equivalent. No dissenting voice. This is bad. Firstly, it encourages borderline lunatics to spout their racist or otherwise dim-witted bile with no facility to express disagreement - so while they might get some 'likes' from their equally deranged friends they have no idea how many people think they are a moron. Their egos become inflated by the 'likes' and they swerve ever closer to militant Nationalism. Secondly, I dislike an awful lot of things, so that feature would be very welcome indeed.

Put a cap on photos of children/babies

Pictures of babies etc should be limited to one per month, per baby. And in my opinion, that is extremely generous. The majority of pictures I see on friends galleries now are pictures of babies, scans of babies not yet born, or big fat bellies (whether a baby is present or not, we're all getting older after all) I actually like babies, but I couldn't eat a whole one. But seriously, isn't posting up hundreds of pictures of your child infringing on their rights? they surely can't give you consent so please stop doing it. Let them decide when they are old enough if they want to be plastered all over the internet.

Otherwise where does this whole thing stop? Timmy's first smile becomes Timmy's first steps etc. What next - Timmy's first puss-ridden pimple? Timmy's first wank? Time was when we would cringe as our parents dug out the family album to embarrass us infront of our new squeezes - now all children growing up will have this gallery of shame forever available for all to see. Why give your child additional reasons to hate you when they inevitably will anyway. And don't be shocked when an image of your child is used to advertise Cigarettes in bangladesh.

Stop changing things

With each update, Facebook get another step away from what was good about it in the first place. It is a total mess now. The photo gallery app is counter-intuitive, buggy and shit. If I access Facebook on my android phone, it crashes my phone. It never used to do that. When I write an update, I expect to press 'Enter' and for my comment to be submitted. Now you have to click on a button. How is that progress? It isn't, except that everyone keeps taking software design cues from Apple despite the fact that apple are a bunch of pretentions nob-ends. Don't even get me started on Windows 7. It took me 2 hours to de-clutter that ugly bitch of an operating system.

Stop ramming new features down our throats

I decided to add an update to Facebook today and the whole page greyed out with the exception of this charming message, which I have extracted below:

Say who you're with

1 of 3

Use this button to tag people to say who you're with. You can tag anyone. When you (or others) add tags, the people tagged and their friends may see the post too. You can choose to review tags others add to your stuff.

I pressed 'OK', as it was the sole option presented. Then I got another message:

Add location to your posts?

2 of 3

To easily say where you are, you can add your current city or neighborhood to your posts, or add a specific place. You can turn this on or off at any time.

Don't Add Location - Add location

I pressed 'Don't add Location' because it was the closest available option to 'No thanks, I don't want my house to be burgled'. Then I got another message box:

Control privacy when you post—or after

3 of 3

Use this to manage who can see and comment on posts you share, including ones with location, if you add it. When you change this setting, it will stay how you set it for future posts until you change it again. Posts (including check-ins) from old mobile Facebook apps will use your new default privacy setting.

Also, we've changed the label for "Everyone" to "Public," but your posts will still reach the same people.

Learn more about what's new -

Done

At this point, instead of pressing 'Done', I just killed myself, as it was more fun. But luckily for you, I had the foresight to finish this first. I am dead now. Bye

Bees - Germanic efficiency twinned with French common sense

2011-08-30T10:50:00.000+01:00

Now I quite like bees but that doesn't stop them being inherently guff. Their stupidity is such that if they were put through the UK education system they would probably only emerge with a handful of 'A' Levels. Posessors of perhaps the most ludicrous defense mechanism ever, these hapless insects can only utilise it by killing themselves. It would be like a man shooting himself in the head to inflict a fleshwound to the enemy, but this is neither the time or place to discuss the US military.

Also noteworthy are those really furry bees that seem to fly in a completely random manner and look distinctly uncomfortable, just to die unceremoniously every winter despite their mini fur coats.

A retarded bee, yesterday

stupid cliched phrases people use that make me want to gouge their eyes out with a turd-encrusted spoon part deux

2011-08-24T10:16:00.000+01:00

"A problem shared is a problem halved"

No it isn't, it's a problem doubled. I don't care about your stupid inconsequential bullshit so please feel free to not tell me anything at all. This is my disinterested face :o|

"What goes around, comes around"

This is what people say when they forget about the word 'Karma'. And, for the record, it doesn't. It suggests that we're all sitting on a glittering karmic conveyor belt, where our good and bad deeds are rewarded appropriately. But the truth is that when you act like a complete git some other poor sap invariably gets your punishment. This can be in the form of parking tickets, theft or just plain bad luck. Not a day goes by when a benefit cheat is caught and has to pay back but a fraction of what they have robbed. Those rioters are sitting pretty on 10-foot high piles of flatscreen TVs and enjoying their ill-deserved benefits while other people cannot afford to pay the rent. Crime DOES pay, and very handsomely indeed.

"Pride comes before a fall"

Why? What a pessimistic saying. And if even I recognise it as pessimistic, it is. This probably stems from some joyless religion or another, where the very notion of actually enjoying your fleeting existence is frowned upon. This is just one of the many reasons why religion is the worst thing to ever happen to the human race.

"Love thy neighbour"

Neighbours are twats. They have the audacity to live next door to you and cook smelly food and if you listen carefully, you can hear them having a dump. I find a pint glass projects the sound the best through walls. Plus, they have security on their router so what's the point in them even being there. I wish DEATH on my neighbours (provided it's not by fire, otherwise they would take me (and, more importantly, my Transformers) with them.

"You can't have your cake and eat it"

Yes I can. I can purchase (or indeed make) a cake and then I can eat it. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of having a cake. To entice obese people into a trap of some sort or trapdoor whereby they fall straight into a mincing machine? Don't be absurd.

"What goes up, must come down"

This rule obviously does not apply to petrol prices and national debt.

Beyonce is a sexist pig

2011-08-17T13:31:00.002+01:00

Who runs the world? Girls. Who runs the world? Girls. Who runs the world? Girls. Who runs the world? Girls. Other songwriters may as well forget an Ivor Novello nomination this year, seeing as Beyonce's songwriting team will surely clean up with yet another brilliant and thought-provoking hit. Most of Beyonce's songs seem to be about men doing her wrong, or how great girls are and that they are the best and all that. I find it confusing that what is unfortunately the modern world's closest representation of a feminist icon should spend her entire career singing about men. She should try singing about something else for once, as there are actually other things that exist. Sewing and Flowers, to name but two.

It's a fact of modern living that the male of the species is considered fair game for sexist treatment; with adverts depicting men as barely-functioning buffoons incapable of tying their own shoelaces, while the women are always smart and sassy and generally balance motherhood and a career with effortless ease. They regard their poor men with a look that is somewhere between frustration and pity, as their man treads mud into the perfectly-vacuumed carpets again! This can be explained by the fact adverts are targeted at consumers, who are nearly all women. Women love spending cash, particularly that which they didn't earn. They are the women who sit in the home that they can't be bothered to clean slowly piling on pound after pound while their gormless spouses work their way into an early (but very welcome) grave. Women who stuff their useless faces with crisps while watching the evil leather-faced harridans of 'Loose Women' run men down even more.

Unfortunately, the truth is a discomforting one for women. Because, last time I checked, men rule the world, which Beyonce will unfortunately realise shortly after she has dropped her first sprog or hit 40 and suddenly people are less than keen to see her flabby belly gyrating all over the screen. Actually, Rich men run the world, whilst their moronic floozies spend their days shopping in terrible boutiques or complaining about 'the help'. 'Help' is such a demeaning way to describe a human - and it's not even accurate, seeing as these people quite often do all the work. 'Help' implies receiving assistance - not farming out the delegation of a task. Next time someone thanks me for 'helping' them, I will give them a karate chop.

Sadly for women, they are only interesting to men for a couple of decades at most, and then bits of them start drooping or falling off altogether and they are quickly ushered behind closed doors, where their jowly visage won't scare any young children. Their days of being promoted to the front of family photos are quickly over as they are instead shoved to the back with the mongoloids and paedophiles. Even their cooking skills become impaired by the onset of old age or rampant alcoholism, as they pickle their tiny little livers with cheap plonk. I have been overtly sexist for a reason, because being sexist towards women is as old-fashioned as Bernard Manning, and is met with outrage and the awful sight of a cross-looking Germaine Greer on Sky News. So why is it so socially acceptable to deride men? Men are alright. Give us a break. We are not all complete morons. We like playing videogames and pizza. And boobs. We like boobs.

This is it - get your shotguns ready.

2011-08-08T21:28:00.001+01:00

Although I am usually glad to live in a tolerant and largely democratic society, it is times like this that make me want to welcome Chairman Mao into the UK with open arms. Compare and contrast the dignified protest at Tiananmen square with the greed-fed free-for-all that is currently engulfing large parts of London. I'm sure a squadron of tanks would improve things no end, giant treads popping the brainless heads of the various wastes pf sperm who really are that stupid. I like to call a spade a spade, and therefore when a bunch of mindless thugs decide to descend on already recession-hit high streets and basically smash them up and steal or burn everything in sight I like to refer to them as a bunch of mindless and thieving cunts, as opposed to 'protesters'.

The riots may be the single most exciting thing to ever happen to Croydon, but even that open sewer of a place deserves better to be smashed up in the manner places are being at the moment. I'm sure that as the little shits run out of booze and KFC they will slowly lose energy and will then disappear back into their little rat-infested hovels, not to be heard from again until the next political issue demands their 'attention'. The lie that this entire situation is in any way connected to a death which seems to be fairly routine is particularly galling as a load of thugs are using it as an excuse to basically rob and destroy stuff. As usual, the government are too weak to do anything remotely useful, helmed as they are at the moment by the incompetent public schoolboys brigade. Because of this, I have decided to present my 3-point plan to any politicians who may be reading, because you silly fuckers need to do something.

1) Guns

Yes, GUNS. Guns that shoot massive bullets that splinter into smaller bullets that explode on contact with pock-marked and unwashed flesh. Guns are awesome. Guns would disperse any cunts with a modicum of intelligence, the rest would just stare on blankly as their bodies were departed from their wretched souls at no great loss to humanity.

2) Helicopters

Just because. I love helicopters. Ones with guns and missiles and that on them that look like Airwolf. It would be great to see attack helicopters strafing in and out of piss-soaked alleys, distributing death to the dribbling morons clutching their flatscreen TVs and iPads. Sky Box Office could charge £15 a pop.

3) Transformers

Megatron would fuck all their shit up. And not the terrible Michael Bay Megatron, the original Megatron that looked like a Nazi stormtrooper and turned into a big fucking gun. So basically, my message is to kill all of the little cunts until they get the message and get the fuck in line. It's not like any of them will have any employment prospects so let's kill 2 birds with one stone and save some much-needed cash as well.

I love the summer

2011-08-08T11:26:00.000+01:00

In the summer, something magical happens. For around 6 weeks, the population of the UK suddenly drops, as, inversely, the average IQ rises. This strange event happens because a large proportion of the country finally steals or syphons off enough of their kid's dinner money to inflict them and their dreadful offspring on an unsuspecting Greek or Spanish town for a fortnight. It is then the turn of our European cousins to deal with the very worst of us. God help them.

Repugnantly fat and puce-faced, the patriarch of the family (if there is one) spends the entire 2 weeks completely plastered and fighting, as he drags his massive frame from one English pub to the next. His knock-off XXXL Manchester United shirt heaves with the strain as he pours a gigantic fried breakfast down his gargantuan gob, which is at least some relief as when his mouth is not occupied with devouring a pig's worth of food he will be spouting racist expletives at the top of his tar-riddled lungs or threatening to punch his wife or kids in the face.

And speaking of his wife, she spends her time clipping various members of her massive brood round the ear or trying to do her level best to give herself multiple forms of cancer, spending 14 hours in the sun and smoking 100 fags a day, while gorging on biscuits and the kid's sweets. She will have a fake pink Gucci suitcase, which is large enough to fit an oven in; but will in fact contain the most inappropriately skimpy attire for a woman of her girth, and approximately 2000 duty free Lambert & Butler, which will probably do her for a week, seeing as her bloody kids keep dipping in too.

Then there is the leather-faced old hag of a gran, who at the grand old age of 42 will unfurl her depleted bosom as soon as she gets within 200 yards of a swimming pool and flirt mercilessly with the poor waiters who will be swallowing their own sick until she covers up and leaves them the fuck alone. She will be the colour of mahogany, despite blaming all the troubles in the world on brown people. The Irony will escape her though because she doesn't understand anything that she can't have sex with, shout at, or fight.

As for the kids, there are just too many to count. The parents lose count after screaming for Taylor, Carly, Kylie, Wayne and Rory to 'fucking pack it in'. But most of the time they clearly don't give 2 shits what their kids do, as they let them run around the hotel harassing everyone and smashing things up with impunity, until the hotel manager finally intervenes and is beaten senseless for his trouble. If there is a daughter over 13, there is a 50% change that she is pregnant, or will be by the time the holiday ends, as she seeks out the hotel worker with the lowest standards and rapes him.

Despite missing the people who generally make the UK such an unrelentingly depressing toilet to live in, there are upsides to their absences. For one, there are not quite so many idiots clogging up Britain's roads with their awful driving as they ferry their fat little shits into the schools unfortunate enough to have to teach them. The white van count takes a hit too, meaning that travelling on the motorway becomes relatively safe, without wannabe-boy racers thrashing their transits round bends in the fast lane doing 120mph while smoking, demolishing a bacon sandwich and shouting on their mobile. And, best of all, detestable little cuntweasel Jeremy Kyle has to take a break from his show, as there are simply no guests around for him to humiliate. Instead, they show a schedule of repeats which they might as well call 'Britain's stupidest people'.

And then, like, that, they are back. The people all over southern Europe breathe a collective sigh of relief. Why? Because the last of the brits are now back home, safely behind their garishly painted cages and velour tracksuits. The foreigners can now rebuild their shattered, vomit-coated high streets. They can remove the blockages in the drains caused by the consumption of several million fried meals and used condoms. They can scrape the last traces of blood and detritus from their various monuments. And as for us? we're stuck with them for the rest of the miserable year, hoping that next time they go abroad, a referendum is passed and they are not allowed back into the UK.

Back To Crack

2011-07-25T14:06:00.000+01:00

Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, you will no doubt know that the mercurial talent known as Amy Winehouse is dead. Stop the clocks etc. Always prolific, Amy Winehouse released a massive 2 albums over an 8-year period, one of which was a dreadful pastiche of modern jazz, which featured lots of songs of her going 'da-be dee-dooh-da' rather too many times than is necessary. The second album she launched was a change in direction to an all-encompassing plagiarism-fest of soul records from the '60's which unfortunately opened the door for numerous bandwagon-jumping copycats to pick over the bones of what had been a respected genre, Including 'talents' such as Joss Stone and Duffy.

But Winehouse ensured her longevity over her contemporaries when 'Back To Black' was released; with 'Rehab' being the stand out single that truly made her a star to both scabby, dirty-fingernailed ingrates and winebar-frequenting fuckwits alike. 'Rehab' was a cynical attempt to cash in on her by then well-documented struggle with the booze and various narcotics, which was apparent in her losing half her bodyweight between the 2 albums she made, and also the daily newspaper articles which were run about her, of which I'm sure her record company had nothing to do with whatsoever. Ironically, she would go to rehab several times, spunking money at the Priory to get help which other addicts could only dream of, and singularly failing to sort her bloody life out on each occasion.

No doubt buoyed by her new-found success, Amy started hanging out with other 'tortured' people with mush for brains, smoking crack and injecting heroin into their genitals whilst pretending to eat mice. Holed up for weeks at a time with the equally filthy and bedraggled Pete Doherty, Winehouse would only be pictured sporadically going to newsagents, almost tottering over as her enormous beehive threatened to drag her emaciated body to the floor. Then came along Mark Ronson, a man with a talent for systematically destroying any old record he touches by re-imagining them with lots of horns and an accursed jazzy rhythm, and then getting a bunch of detestable cunts to sing over them. And so it was that 'Valerie' was born - the only track Winehouse has featured on in any shape or form that does not make me want to perforate my eardrums with giant rubber cocks.

After this brief success which included winning several awards, Winehouse spent the best part of 5 years ostensibly writing new material, which involved being off her by-now-inflated tits, booed off stage for being mashed off her face with the occasional good gig thrown in to keep the wolf from the door. And when you have a laundry-list of addictions as long as Amy's, the wolf is around quite a lot. She also spent about a year in the Caribbean doing bugger all and found time to get married to a nutter and then divorced said nutter when she realised that he was too mad even for her. I suppose her tale is tragic in an entirely self-indulgent way, but not unexpected. When you plough the equivalent of Luxembourg's GDP in drugs and booze into your system, death is inevitable, unless you are Keith Richards.

What bothers me most about her passing is the blanket coverage and outpouring of grief that her death has inspired. What was that phone hacking hoo-hah about again? Someone died you say? Mysterious circumstances? Whistleblower? Who cares now. There was also the small matter of nearly 100 Norwegians dying at the hands of a gun-toting lunatic, but of course that is relegated to fish and chip-fodder in the wake of such a tragic event. Oh and thousands of people in East Africa are probably dying as I write this, as the result of one of the worst famines in living memory. But it is for Amy Winehouse that the grief of the sycophantic idiots is reserved for. For some reason, a self-inflicted and inevitable death inspires more pathos than huge swathes of people who are dead or dying through no fault of their own. And rather than donating a small sum to charity to help the lives of people who do not have the luxury of choice, Amy's retarded fanbase are instead re-buying her album in a morbid attempt to have it top the charts, which I have no doubt it will do; since if Adele is the best we can do, we are in serious trouble. And maybe that is the biggest tragedy of all.

Hatfield is odd

2011-07-19T13:45:00.000+01:00

I went to Hatfield on the weekend and there are things about it that are just not quite right. For a start, it is one of those places that are hard to get to, and even more difficult to leave. There are still people driving around there desperately trying to get back to London who have been there since the seventies. There were roundabouts everywhere and loads of weird contra flows. One diagram of a particularly strange road layout looked like 2 penises jousting and was surely the result of a bet between disinterested council workers. I found myself nearly crashing loads of times. There are just oodles roads there, with nothing of note at the end of them save a few curiously stunted buildings dotted around like an afterthought. It's like the architects had envisioned grand skyscrapers with large footprints but then realised that they were in Hertfordshire and that not enough people would utilise them, so they built the first couple of floors and then gave up.

It unashamedly tries to proclaim itself as some sort of gateway to London but is not. There is not really much there. It's like the whole area was built for a significant world event in the 1960's which was subsequently cancelled. The topography is flat and featureless - the greys of the skies blending seamlessly with the edifices of the uninspiring buildings and the local inhabitant's hopeless faces. The hotel I was at desperately heralded itself as a 'great place for visitors from the north to come if they want to go to London'. Surely just going to London itself would be easier than stopping 50 miles short, staying in a concrete mausoleum and boarding a shockingly expensive and infrequent train to King's Cross. And imagine if your first experience of London was King's cross. You'd just want to turn around and go home before you captured some airborne parasite from one of the many prostitutes or down-and-outs.

We went to a farm at Hatfield house. It was like most farms that I have seen except practically all of the animals were fighting each other. They obviously felt the same sentiments towards the place that I did, and seeing as they couldn't 'flight', 'fight' was the only option open to them. There was a bunch of retarded ducks with giant bouffant hairstyles. They looked like they had been made by some local prankster to achieve placement in a Ripley's 'Believe it or not' exhibition. They were fighting with smaller ducks, bigger ducks, goose-type things and themselves - obviously dimly aware that they were abominations who had no right to exist. There was a very surly sow who had about 14 piglets who seemed to resent them seeing as the dad had sensibly buggered off. She proceeded to use her snout and feet to basically give them all a good thrashing for no apparent reason. Their alarmed whelping and squealing only made her more cross so she stepped it up a gear by trying to propel one of them into the electric fencing.

There was also a variety of odd-looking chickens who had apparently had testicles grafted onto their chins, who made their displeasure known by stomping on each others heads. And then I spotted a large group of what looked like midget black rams which had left their enclosure and were just wandering around until they saw me, at which point they menacingly started to run in my direction at great speed. I thought were going to charge at me, and I was calculating in my head what my chances were against an enraged flock of Satan's emissaries. Could I avoid them all with one swift jump, or was I better off going on the offensive and trying to kick them in the head? Could I pick one up and throw it at the others, or brandish it as a grunting, snarling club as I beat its contemporaries to death? Thankfully they ducked back under what must be the most useless gate ever made, since they could come and go at will.

But at least the farm animals of Hatfield house had been interesting. In fact, If I was responsible for bringing tourism to that godforsaken part of the world, I would actively encourage more genetic mutation and grow the farm into some kind of gladiatorial arena, where various affronts to god would fight to the death. Now,that would be worth visiting.

Things that I'd rather be than a traffic warden

2011-07-12T11:22:00.001+01:00

I got a parking ticket yesterday for the heinous crime of partially obscuring a dropped kerb (offence 27 apparently) and I'm not happy. I will be writing a 20,000 word appeal which will consist of pages and pages of legal gobledigook which I will copy and paste from all over the internet. Obviously I won't win the appeal but I will at least cost Sutton Council some money reviewing the bloody thing, which makes a change from them always fleecing me. Perhaps they can put my 55 pounds towards fixing some of the potholes which regularly threaten to propel me over my handlebars.

Why do people become traffic wardens? I honestly don't know. It must be one of those professions that people fall into when they are addicted to Heroin and are too unattractive to be a prostitute, and too stupid to become burglars. It got me thinking about things that I would rather do than be a traffic warden and the list is practically endless. But I need to start constructing my rigorous defence of my parking ticket so I will truncate the list somewhat. Plus I can't be arsed today.

Things that I'd rather be than a traffic warden

A snake

A child in a creche run by Fred and Rose West

Rosie O'Donnell's bra

A Hippy

A private detective affiliated with News International

An attractive woman in a locked room full of footballers

Michael Moore's toilet

Andy Murray's armpits after 5 sets

Piers Morgan

A Journalist affiliated with News International

Katy B's Pale tree-trunk legs

Lindsay Lohan's gynaecologist - there are not gloves thick enough

A tea boy affiliated with News International

Chris Moyles's sense of humility - is anything else in the world more neglected?

A Glee fan ('Gleek' apparently)

Anyone affiliated with News International

Dead

Any vehicle owned by George Michael

French

What's with all the racquet?

2011-07-04T11:06:00.002+01:00

Wimbledon Tennis is over. The concrete tennis courts of Britain will now revert to their primary purpose which is to host gang fights, rapes and other youthful hijinks. Racquets will be left in the shed, and forgotten the next year when another new racquet will be purchased, which will then in turn end up forgotten in the shed. Plucky Andy McMurray has failed in his quest to become the first British champion since 1542, and he is surely tucked up in bed nursing a bottle of Buckfast as he licks his wounds after being soundly spanked by Rafael Nadal. I personally don't mind Murray, although he is so Scottish that if you cut him in half there would be a layer of non-specified minced meat with a large egg in the centre, and he would leak Irn Bru everywhere.

I only comment on his overt and very miserable Scottishness because I'm sure when 'Tiger' Tim Henman was in his relative pomp, he was referred to as English. The gentile and well-heeled folk of SW19 normally fear the marauding Scots and believe it's a bloody shame that Hadrian's wall was allowed to fall into disrepair; so for them to warm to the ginger menace illustrates just how desperate these aristoprats are to cling to the notion that Britain is still somehow relevant and superior. And before Murray there was the Canadian-as-an-Elk Gred Rusedski, and inbetween a disastrous attempt to convert the very Serbian Novak Djokovik into a tea-drinker.

This illustrates how poor the English (or when convenient, British) game is. Murray cut his unusual teeth in Spain, and has been forthcoming in criticising the English (sorry British) LTA, who are so bumbling, disorganised and incompetent that they make the English FA look like the SAS in comparison. The gentlemen of the LTA spend most of their days supping on champagne and falling asleep, and in rare moments of lucidity moaning about the price of servants. But internationally, the Men's game is in rude health, with 3 superb players at or just over the peak of their powers, and Andy Murray trying desperately to keep up with them/hoping they all die in a plane crash. The REAL problem with tennis lies with the women's game, which has descended into an un-watchable freakshow.

Petra Kvitova won Wimbledon this year, mainly because she is 6'2". Women's tennis is fundamentally broken. They are all either giants, or they scream their heads off. Some are both. Victoria Azarenka is 5'11" and wails like a lost soul in the night. She does this every time she hits the ball, plus sometimes she screams petulantly when she misses a volley. And let us not forget the champion of screaming, Maria Sharapova; a woman who by right ought to wear out her voice completely before she hits 30.

I hope Maria Sharapova ultimately suffers the same fate as the boy who cried wolf - One day she will be loudly slaughtered in one of her mansions and her neighbours will think she is merely having a practise session. In fact, her neighbours will be the most likely suspects in the ongoing murder inquiry, and who would blame them. If ever there was just cause to commute a murder sentence to involuntary manslaughter, then surely this is it. It would be like living next door to a very large hareem of bickering foxes, who have chosen to nest in an active volcano.

The screaming phenomenon can be traced back to Monica Seles, who had a trademark grunt before a lot of today's players were born. Lest we forget that she was stabbed courtside. Now I'm not saying that this occurred because of her relentless noise nor do I condone it; but I was secretly relieved that I wouldn't have to put up with her half sneeze/half orgasm shouting ruining women's tennis for a while. The question that needs to be answered is why do they do it, and why is it tolerated? The first questions is easy to answer - it's all gamesmanship. No men do it. Nadal grunts but he does not emit a theatrical warble which would put a Bird of Paradise to shame.

From barbaric and blood-curdling to downright odd; none of the women's screams sound like they are a product of exertion. They serve purely to distract their opponent, to disguise the sound of the ball as they hit it; to give the opposing player no chance of determining whether they are facing a slice or a smash until the ball is nearly upon them. It should be banned. I have no idea why it is allowed. But then I have no idea why a rubbish American player saw fit to dress up like a porky hybrid of Lady Gaga and a Quarterback, (How silly did she feel when she was dumped out in the first round by the way) but what the hell do I know.

Then there is the combined might of the The Williams Brothers, who should be forced to compete in an 'other' category - which would consist of themselves, Caster Samanya, Amelie Mauresmo, Lindsay Davenport, and all the female weightlifters. Surely they can all piss standing up. These non-gender-specific muscular titans have no place in any women's sport. How relieved Novak Djokovic must have been this year, knowing that he wasn't going to be manhandled by either Venus or Serena for the first time in years at the player's ball, where it has become customary for the winning males to be crushed to death by monstrous 50" thighs more befitting a shire horse.

The rapid decline in the Women's game has by and large been rewarded with equal parity in terms of prize money, despite the fact that the men have to work for at least one third longer for the same money and they do not spend their time screaming like rabid baboons. What the fuck is all that about? Surely the EU should step in and sort it out seeing as they have nothing else to do with their time at the moment apart from wiping Greece's backside. I'm hoping that as the Williams brothers retire that the women's game reverts to what it used to be, and the days of 7 ft banshees smashing the ball as hard as they can whilst screaming will be but a bad dream. I shan't hold my breath though.

Karma's a bitch... Hopefully

2011-06-27T11:04:00.000+01:00

I am literally 'back on the saddle' now, as my pledge to never, ever use the train to commute again continues. I cycled to work today. Boy oh boy was it hot. No breeze or anything. But cycling up Ben Nevis through treacle on a seat adorned with rows of razor blades whilst on fire would still be preferable to sitting (or more likely standing) next to all the other stinky and repugnant bags of flesh we like to call humans on an over-stuffed carriage with an internal temperature of 1,000 degrees. I really do hate the train.

I had been cycling to work for a couple of months, but this was rudely interrupted by my return from holiday, when I was greeted with a somewhat empty garage, with a blank space where my beloved bicycle used to be. I had all my ridiculous cycling gear on and everything, including my lady-pleasing cycling shorts and a cycling helmet that makes my head look even more bulbous and ridiculous than normal, my reed-like neck barely supporting my massive brain and gormless face. I was upset. Not knowing what to do, I closed the garage door again and walked off. As it was about 6am and I was jetlagged, I then went back to the door and opened it again just to check that my barely-functioning brain had somehow not seen the bike. But the bike was still gone.

I then went back into the house and looked for the bike in all of my rooms, even the upstairs ones, but the bike was not there. It's amazing how a bit of denial and jet lag can rob someone of all their common sense. Eventually, I had to concede defeat and change back into clothes appropriate for work and board the dreaded and despised train. Which was, of course, late. I got into work, and regaled my disinterested colleagues with my dreadful story. Then a few of them tutted when I said that I had left my bike in a locked garage. Apparently garage locks are just there for show, and can be picked with a bit of soggy tissue. I was then advised that I should have added some more locks, which is always useful to hear 6 weeks after purchasing a new bike, when none of them bothered to impart that same advice when it may have actually been useful.

So it transpired that I was a victim of crime yet again, as I have been several times in my life. All pretty petty and non-threatening crimes, admittedly, Apart from the occasion when I was threatened with what must have been a 6-year-old child in Trocadero once; he attempted to mug me, and informed me that we was Triad, at which point i soiled myself. I have lost about 4 bicycles to the nimble-fingered thieves in South West London now. In fact, my primary reason for not getting a bike for so long was the almost certain knowledge that the bike would be stolen. I just thought that I might get longer than 6 weeks with it.

And then there are my Car-related tales of woe. In my first car I was shunted into the middle of a busy roundabout by a moron in a huge Jag, which then sped off. My vast head nearly fell off, and I had to wear a spongy collar for a month, and my car was written off. I had to cut into the back shelf just to retrieve my stuff from the boot, as it had been rendered permanently shut. In a later car my stereo was nicked by some ratboy who simply bent the top of the drivers door until it was roughly horizontal which was very considerate of him as I could never raise or lower the window again and a lovely whistle could be heard when exceeding 40 mph. This then pretty much occurred again in a later car, although this time a SatNav was the target. But the SatNav was not present, so they just nicked all the leads and rifled through my wife's gym bag instead.

But I have a new bike now. Never let it be said that I give up. Well that has been said as I regularly start and then abandon things because I lose interest. So I give up lots but I did get a new bike, so I'm back on the road. I even put some additional locks on the garage and stuff. But what of the perpetrators of this sinister crime? what judgment will they face? Well in all likelihood, they will face absolutely nothing. I know that they live in the flats near me. They are the only ones who can see my route to the garages. I imagine them salivating, as they remove my poor bike from its home. Taking it back to their lair where they then disrobe and toss each other off and shit on each other, before swapping the bike for a wrap of skag.

But hope is eternal and I hope that whoever took my bike kept hold of it; and on one very steep descent when landing from one of their idiotic wheelies the front forks suddenly and unexpectedly snapped, sending their gibbering face plunging into the concrete. Then the Car behind them had no time to stop and ran over their tiny little head, which popped like a grape. Then the truck behind the car hit the car and exploded, setting the little thieving and dead cunt on fire, so even his mum who is also his sister and gran wouldn't recognise him.

The cult of the fag hag

2011-06-14T16:45:00.000+01:00

There was a film a few years ago featuring Jennifer Aniston, which meant a lot of people didn't watch it. But for those that did, it made the prospect of being blind and deaf positively beneficial. The film was called 'The Object Of My Affection' in which a terminally-typecast squawking Aniston tried to ensnare her male best friend, who happens to be gay. Amazingly enough for a Hollywood film, she doesn't end up with the gay chap, and it's not happy ever after. However there is approximately 2 hours of Aniston pulling out all the stops to 'get her man' (Am I the only man who wishes Aniston would disappear up her own arse? She was shit in friends, and shit in all of the identikit romcoms she has been in. In fact, her best role was in South Park, as at least she wasn't visible.)

There is a point to this - women such as these exist in real life. And seldom are they as aesthetically pleasing as Perennial bridesmaid Ms. Aniston, and that's saying something. Most gay men have some level of female following, and the reasons for this are obvious - gay men make great company. Gay men will a) Not try to shag you, which is what every straight man will be after, regardless of their denials. They will also b) Not look better than you in a dress, unless you are fat and ugly, in which case you shouldn't be wearing a dress. c) Gay men can bitch incessantly, but will not get under your skin like a bitching woman would. d) They know how men work, so are much better at explaining male behaviour than any speculative efforts from one of your drama queen, man-hating, female friends.

In many ways then, a gay man should be the perfect companion for a woman. However, it can all go wrong when the woman falls for the gay man and starts to fantasise about converting them into heterosexuals. Below are some scenarios that cause women to become infatuated with gay men. Are you one of them? Do you fancy any or all of the following. Rupert Everett, George Michael, Will Young, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, David Cameron, Simon Cowell, Dale Winton.

1) Your gay friend has said he loves you. This doesn't mean he wants to shack up with you. Gay men tell women they love them the way that women tell women they love them. It's platonic.

2) Your gay friend is (i)impeccably well-groomed, (ii)wears smart, designer clothes, (iii) goes to they gym regularly and (iv)smells great. It's because he's gay. Straight men are hardly ever all 4 of these, and even if they are it won't last long. That's because straight men have better things to do than grooming, like eating or playing old videogames.

3) Your gay friend likes to touch your knee, cuddle you and so on. Sometimes you get the impression that he is flirting with you. Gay men are tactile in the same way that women are tactile towards each other. He does not fancy you.

In summation, then, pretty much all gay men don't like vaginas, and may even find them repulsive. none of this should be a newsflash. To any women who are infatuated with gay men and are reading this I have the following advice.

1) Treasure your friendship with your gay friend and stop moping. You will NEVER get him.
2) Put on some makeup or something. Then you might attract the attentions of an eligible man.
3) Take some cooking and sewing classes to improve your chances of finding Mr. right.

Things I actually like

2011-06-10T12:32:00.000+01:00

People often ask me if I actually like anything, since I am so unnecessarily critical about things that shouldn't bother me at all. And the answer is, of course I like things. I like things too innumerate to commit to words. But to give you some insight, here is a brief A-Z of things I like.

Ants
Being indoors
Computers
Dinosaurs
Eggs
Films
Goldfishes
Hiding
Indian food
Junk food
Koalas
Lego
MILFs
Nanobots
Orangutans
Pudding
Quantum physics
Reading (The pastime, not the place - that's awful)
Supertramp
Transformers
Umbrellas
Velcro
Winter Coats
X-ray specs (I have these)
Yangtze river Dolphins (R.I.P.)
Zealots

So next time someone says I don't like anything, I can refer them to this list. That's a massive 26 things that I definitely like.

The only way is Wessex

2011-06-01T11:34:00.002+01:00

I've just had a brilliant idea for a new reality show which I'm sure I can get onto ITV6 or something. Kerry Cacktona can narrate it. The royal family are somewhat basking in the glow of popularity at the moment, given the royal wedding and the visit by the Obamas. Obviously having the Obamas visit is by far the bigger event, given that Barack Obama patently HATES the UK because his grandad was a Mau Mau or something. I'm amazed that he was able to not berate something British for a full few days, but then being a 2-FACED CUNT he probably found it easy. And Prince Philip didn't mention spears, cannibalism or Rorke's drift once! Well done Prince Philip!

With this in mind I feel the time is ripe for a 'fly on the wall' documentary about the royals. All the characters are there and the scripts will practically write themselves! Imagine the hilarity as Kate Middleclass and the Pig-faced South African slag that Harry occasionally ruts clash over who will die of anorexia first! William and Harry can exchange good-willed banter while all the time the cameras desperately try to evade the full glare of Will's slaphead and Harry's obvious gingerness and non-resemblance to his supposed full sibling. 'Uncle' James Hewitt can come around and have almost father and son-like conversations with Harry about the most efficient way to have sex with lots of posh women.

Then there are the ugly sisters, played with aplomb by Beatrice and Eugene. They will sneer and cackle as they place a whoopee cushion under Kate's non-existent bum. Although unfortunately their plan won't work because Kate is too light to set a whoopee cushion off. The Queen can cook one of her famous hot pots and then chastise Phillip for trying to steal the hot pot from the kitchen window sill and generally being a massive old racist. Edward and Charles can argue about who looks the most inbred by counting their extra fingers and toes to decide the true winner, but as neither of them can count past 10 a winner is never declared.

Fergie can pop round and beg Andrew for some cake and 10 thousand pounds to get her through the next week, and threaten to say nasty things to Oprah and the massive US audience who inexplicably love her if he refuses to comply. Princess Anne will accidentally be shot to death by one of the Queen's short-sighted slaves after mistaking her for a lame horse and everyone will have a jolly good laugh about it. We can even have the treat of a Christmas Special as they all make their way up to Balmoral in the Range Rover for their monthly holiday and the Queen will accidentally leave Camilla behind! And titter as the feral Scotsmen make a pig's ear of our beautiful language and generally prove themselves to be inferior!

This is the single best idea that I have ever had in my life. Someone should make this shit happen. I should talk to Prince Edward - after all he 'masterminded' the royal 'It's a Knockout' tournament which was massively successful and not at all the single worst idea that anyone has ever had since an idealistic young Chap called Adolf decided to get into politics. And I think Edward had a production company or something until he was declared bankrupt and utterly incompetent for the nth time. Poor Edward.

Hide your cakes. The mega fatties are coming!

2011-05-30T09:22:00.000+01:00

Now obese people really are awful. They always take up too much room and eat loads of food. They are the nadir of every starving person. And they smell. The worst is when they sit on the train and take about 3 seats. I think its completely unfair and that people should pay for how many seats their posterior requires. And some are so gargantuan that no-one can sit opposite them unless they don't mind cosying up to someone who smells like a corpse. So that's up to 5 TRAIN SEATS for ONLY ONE selfish, self-pitying butterball. Perhaps they should consider whether they should be getting a train to work/McDonalds and that it may be prudent to walk somewhere for a change.

I don't mind mega fatties who convey themselves around without inconveniencing the general public, but they should really be BANNED from trains, and probably cinemas as well. It's generally frowned upon to sit in close proximity with others when you SMELL LIKE A MOULDY SANDWICH. Additionally most cinema seats are too small to accommodate bum arse cheeks of a fatty. And if I wanted a morbidly-obese woman sitting on my lap, I'd go to a brothel in Peckham. In fact, in cinemas, right after the 'Mobile phones' warning, there should be a 'obesity' warning. Something along the lines of "Don't let a wide load ruin your enjoyment. Boo them until they leave". Perhaps they could let the obese watch films during weekdays when the cinema is not busy. Considering that 96% of them are unemployed, It's not like it would be inconvenient.

"Fat's Amazing!" 10 Interesting facts about the obese

1) Obesity was invented by the US military in 1950, to be deployed in military theatres such as Korea and Vietnam. Able to soak up 50% more bullets than their healthy counterparts, they also terrify East Asians thanks to their superficial resemblance to Buddha.

2) In the developing world, poor people are thin. In the developed world, poor people are fat. If ever proof is needed that plentiful food rather than glands is the issue, there it is.

3) Mega fatties smell of ham or cheese, even if they haven't been eating ham or cheese.

4) In the USA, the obese are idolised as role models for the young. They are awarded for their fatness by an appearance in Jerry Springer.

5) Genetecists expect the offspring of obese couples to grow mandibles to assist with faster eating by the 24th century, and to be born without any legs by the 27th.

6) In Texas, 98% of teenagers are obese. The other 2 percent is made up of anorexics, AIDS victims and foreign exchange students.

7) In Scotland, fat people are entitled to free 'King Size' mars bars on the NHS. Scotland is the fattest 'country' in Europe, and has an average mortality rate of 42.

8) Fat women sometimes object to being labelled 'fat'. They instead prefer 'cuddly', 'bubbly' 'larger than life', 'good sense of humour' or 'political'. Try to bear this in mind if you want to have sex with a fat woman.

9) Fatties are generally harmless, unless they think their food is under threat. If they catch you looking, they can build up an impressive head of speed in an effort to run you down. If one charges, your best bet is to run in a zig zag motion, and throw cream cakes to distract it.

10) A British government quota insists that at least 5% of home-grown celebrities are fat. The celebrities currently fulfilling this quota are:
Vanessa Feltz
Michelle McManmountain
Chris Moyles
Dawn French
Sonia off Eastenders (re-entry)
Katy Brand
Jo Brand
The male political correspondant the looks like Jo Brand

My Sports writers' job application

2011-05-28T22:25:00.001+01:00

To whom it may concern -

Please see below my commentary on the recent Shellacking Manchester United and the loveable Wayne Rooney received at the hands of Barcelona. Barcelona didn't even have to dive or anything. Can I now have a job as a sports writer, as I can string 2 words together and I am an alcoholic, which is surely qualifies me for The Sun at least. Unfortunately, I do not absolutely adore West Ham or Harry Redknapp. I hope you will still consider me despite this glaring character flaw.

Kind regards,

Bitter Youngish Man

FC Barcelona Vs Manchester United FC Champion's League Final 2011 -live commentary

First Half

Barca turning the screws on the Man U scum now.

GOAL - PEDRO

It's All about Xavi, no-one can touch him.

'GOAL' - ROONEY

Typical hyperbole about Rooney! offside!

Half Time

Keano needs a haircut. Who is brave enough to tell him.

Second Half

GOAL - MESSI

So 'home' advantage meant nothing in the end, and why should it, because Man U were away, and they have been terrible away all season. They got taught another footballing lesson tonight by a side who can actually play football and pass and keep possession. It just shows how poor the premier league has been this season if these jokers can win it at a canter.

Hopefully Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and even City will stop them getting an ill deserved 20th title. Anything to stop these charmless mercenaries winning the league again. Their huge debt and their cantankerous old git of a manager perfectly illustrate what is wrong with top flight English football. Well done Barca for deconstructing a thoroughly ordinary and dislikable team. Football salutes you.

GOAL - VILLA

A good match. Akin to watching a small child pull the wings off of a fly, cruel at times, but ultimately satisfactory. Anyone else think that Clive Tyldesley should never commentate on another game involving Manchester United? He is too partisan and he sounds like he is going to cry every time UTD cede possession, which is every minute at the moment.

Full Time

I can't believe what I have just seen on the TV. 11 men being raped in a public place for the best part of 90 minutes and what's more, people are cheering. What is wrong with this country?

I saw Leo Messi clutching his arm earlier. He must have hurt it giving Manchester United a spanking.

Now that is class, letting Abidal lift the trophy first. That's why they are the best, they are a TEAM.

I have to admit, that I feel sorry for the Manchester United fans now. That journey back to Surrey will feel like a long one.

What the 2011 FHM '100 sexiest' Poll got wrong

2011-05-24T17:15:00.001+01:00

Cowardly mens' wank bible FHM has launched the results of their 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2011 poll. Parts of it make for shocking reading and for that reason I am left with no other recourse but to declare 'shenanigans'. Below are some of the most eyebrow-raising entries which I feel are my duty to take issue with. Call me picky but the people who vote for this list must be insane, blind, or possibly both. Must be all that wanking.

Rihanna (3(!!!))

Apparently the 3rd-sexiest woman on the entire planet, what am I not seeing? Vast thighs and arse, and non-existent breasts. Protuding forehead and chin. Plastic red hair. She looks like an alien and not one of the sexy ones that you want to have sex with.

Megan Fox (4)

The cold eyes of a killer. Plus she has toes where her thumbs should be. But she does hate Michael Bay so maybe I'm being overly harsh.

Kristin Stewart (13)

The most miserable-looking girl on the planet. When will she stop looking like an adolescent goth boy? at 40?

Emily Atack (18)

The space-hopper faced one off 'The Inbetweeners'. For some reason cast as a love interest.You could land a helicopter on her massive head.

Hayden Panettiere (19)

Erm, she's minute, moon-faced, has no breasts, no waist, no hips. I sincerely worry about the character of anyone voting for her. Keep them away from young girls.

Britney Spears (25)

A mangled, shot-to-hell walking car crash, who is by all accounts no longer in control of any aspect of her life. She has a neck bigger than her head and is dead in the eyes. Plus her legs are half the length of her torso.

Jessie J (55)

A Joke, surely. Like when 'Jedi' was chosen in the last Census to make it an official religion. Her face is 6 sizes too big for her head. She looks like a parallel universe Dawn French where eating humungous cakes causes extreme arrogance instead of obesity.

Billie Piper (72)

People have wondered for decades what happened to Shergar the race horse who was famously abducted. Mystery solved - she ended up starring in 'Secret diary of a call girl' on ITV.

Christina Aguilera (86)

Slowly morphing into a witch, her nose now resides in a different area code. Should noses grow like that? Well I suppose if they can shrink like Lady Gaga's...

Christine Bleakley (93)

Bleak are the mornings since her leathery mug was chosen to host 'Daybreak'. Looks like a 50-year-old withered frog with all the charm of one. A reason to sleep until Jeremy Kyle comes on.

Lady Gaga (99)

Looks like a fella. Until recently sported a nose to put Barbra Streisand to shame, which seems to have disappeared. Looks smug all the time since she considers herself to be an artist and not simply a pretentious narcissist.

Ps. last year Kesha or Ke$ha or whatever the fuck she professes to be called was number 94, although she has disappeared off the bottom this year. I guess people have realised that she has the figure of a 46-year-old alcoholic and looks like she smells of spunk. Love you Ke$%^&*"ha!!

Catch me if you McCann

2011-05-17T15:36:00.000+01:00

I wish both Kate and Gerry McCann would piss off. I'm so bloody bored about them and their attention-seeking behaviour. Their daughter was taken as a result of some opportunist arsehole rightly surmising that as so-called parents they were too busy socialising with their chums to bother with their kids. They left their very young children unattended in a foreign country in a ground floor apartment with open windows. But what should serve as a word of warning to all parents to not leave their toddlers unattended (Do they really need to be told that?) has instead been hijacked as a mystery of Lord-Lucanesque proportions, embedded in the national Psyche. There is no mystery here. Madeline McCann is in the ground somewhere. That is the painful truth. Kids get abducted, kids die. That is true in 99% of child abduction cases. After 24 hours, forget it. After 3 years? Dream on.

The McCanns have now written a book about 'that fateful night'. Apparently the proceeds will now go to the 'find Madeline' fund. They hope to raise 1 million pounds to achieve this and I wish them good luck in their venture. However, why the UK government is considering spending yet more taxpayer's money in a fruitless search for a likely long-dead child is beyond me. It would make more sense to spend money on recently-abducted children who have more than an infinitesimal chance of being recovered in one piece, but apparently that would be too callous; so those other children are left out of the spotlight, with their parents being less well-off or articulate and are therefore unable to push their agenda as the McCanns have repeatedly done for the best part of 3 years.

So more money and resource will be thrown into this doomed campaign, to rescue this blonde, blue-eyed poster girl for the overindulgent upper-middle classes, the last bastion of Britishness standing firm against the evil foreigners who will pluck your children from their beds, thumbs in mouths, like little cherubs. And if, in an improbable conclusion Madeline is found alive and well, and answering to the name 'Fatima', then the gaggle of posh idiots who think it is acceptable to abandon your children in an unfamiliar environment with minimal security so they can talk about a load of twee bollocks over a bottle of Pinot Grigio or two can continue to be irresponsible arseholes. And the taxpayer can continue to foot the bill for their ineptitude. Moral of the story being, that if you can't be arsed to look after your kids, don't bloody have them. And if you must have them, don't be surprised if things go awry when you leave them to their own fucking devices.

Finally, evil is stopped in its tracks.

2011-05-03T14:39:00.000+01:00

So it is now nearly 2 weeks since the PlayStation Network was taken offline, and it is still offline now! That is brilliant. This year is turning out to be a great one with at least 2 things that have made me not feel depressed for a few minutes. I have despised Sony for the last decade so for them to get their just desserts by allowing the most precious commodity of all (their customer's private data) to be stolen is a moment to be savoured. Not only have several million users had their credit card numbers and other information stolen, they have also been unable to go online using their PS3 for anything at all since April 20th. Do not underestimate the impact of this drama. It is huge. Apparently some dirty bearded nob-jockey called Osama Bin Laden was killed the other day but that piece of news pales into insignificance when compared to Sony's unforgivable faux pas.

At the very best, anyone in the UK expecting to alleviate some bank holiday boredom with some online gaming has been completely unable to - and some games can not be played even when not being used online. At the very worst, Sony's stupid and chavvy clientele are having their credit card details sold to Nigerians! What a delicious fuckup! Hopefully Sony will now be sued by every idiotic customer of theirs in the world. Someone needs to put that aged behemoth out if its misery with a well-placed bullet above its left eye and then a double-tap to the chest to make sure. People who have a PlayStation 3 are just weird. I have sincere reservations about any of my friends who have one. What is wrong with them? I think. It's like finding out one of your mates fantasises about young boys. It's just not on.

The PS3 was, for a long time, hugely overpriced and a bit rubbish, with hardly anyone on line. Now it is reasonably priced, still a bit rubbish and now has NO ONE on line. LOL! I can't get enough of that. It is 2011. Sony's mistake would have been inexcusable even in 1996, but in 2011? LOL! A total PR disaster. Even worse than exploding VAIOs, hacked PSP's and all their other shamefully overpriced re-badged Sanyo pieces of tat. BUT TEH PS3 HAS TEH BLU-RAY! The idiots scream, watching the entire Fast and the Furious saga back-to-back while masturbating furiously, sweat and drool dripping from their recessed chins. Big deal. You can enjoy your terrible sequels in HD, congratulations. Just don't expect to play Call Of Duty online for the forseeable future. Hahaha.

Ha.

Jonathan Ross has never been funny in his stupid life

2011-04-28T08:55:00.001+01:00

There are several myths about things that never were, such as the moon landings being fake, Marylin Manson and Paul from the Wonder Years being the same person, and of course the controversy surrounding Princess Diana. Yes, she DID die her hair. Despite being debunked these myths continue to be believed and recycled by websites and print media regularly. Another popular myth is that Jonathan Ross is, or ever was, funny. Jonathan Ross was never funny. I remember when we was on the telly decades ago. Not funny then, not funny now. Speech impediment, yes. Stupid hair and fat wife and stupidly-named kids, yes. Funny, no. Never.

The whole 'Sachsgate' affair from a few years ago was a tawdry episode. Gordon Sachs, who played one of the most offensive racial stereotypes ever with great aplomb in 'Fawlty Towers' and probably did some other stuff that no-one remembers had a fairly plain granddaughter, who Russell Brand had a bit of the sex with. 'Meh' you might justifiably conclude from that, seeing as Brand was swinging his sword around like it was going out of style at the time. But no - Brand, joined by Jonathan Ross aired the whole thing on radio, in a pre-recorded programme which was then inexplicably aired, despite it not being live. Heads rolled as the fallout was felt across the nation. Famine and disaster were shunted to the middle pages as 'Sachsgate' ran as the main story in all of the dailies. Eventually, Sachsgate ran out of steam as everyone went 'meh' and realised what an avaricious little whore Sach's granddaughter was anyway, soaking up the publicity like a saucer-titted sponge.

What seemingly caused offence to people who should have a lot more to worry about was the fact that Brand and Ross left messages on Sach's phone and were perceived to have bullied him. Brand had to fall on his aforementioned sword and resign. But what was more shocking for me was Ross's complete inability to say anything funny. In the entire transcript of the phonecalls, he tried, bless him, but just couldn't be funny. Like a girl trying to change a tyre, it was pathetic to behold. Brand was ad-libbing poems and songs left right and centre while Ross's sole contribution was to swear (maverick) and provide some 'doo-de-doo's and 'dum's.

This got me thinking about a cover-up that has been going on for years. For some reason, Jonathan Ross is commonly perceived to be funny. So I looked at archive footage of Ross searching for any indication that he has ever been funny, but he never has. He has always been annoying and very loud indeed, and that is about it. He is good at being annoying. Whether he is on Celebrity apprentice, annoyingly talking too much and shouting over the other 'celebrities' or on his sadly defunct show, annoyingly talking too much and shouting over the other 'celebrities' he tends to make being annoying look easy. And that is where the skill lies. It takes a lifetime of practise and dedication to be as annoying as Jonathan Ross.

He looks like a camp Musketeer, with his floppy mop and dirty beard. His suits are annoying, being made out of some shiny material or other, a bit of crushed velvet here and there, Zany! He always talks about the fact he collects comics and he bonds with moron rapper Eminem over it, LOL! He called all his kids really wacky and crazy names, ROFL! In his show he had a band of gays called 'Four Poofs and a Piano', well SLAP MY THIGHS!!! He constantly rocks up to film premieres in London with his obese wife, wearing a purple suit and pointy shoes, OH HOW COOL AND NON-CONFORMIST HE IS! And soooooo funny too. wearing his smug and gormless grin like a badge of honour. He is NOT FUNNY, he is a fucking awful hack who is an embarassment and I would rather my TV licence money was spent on 12-year old rent boys for the execs than being wasted on that stupid waste of space.

Huzzah! Jolly Hockey sticks etc

2011-04-19T11:03:00.000+01:00

Finally, some reasons to be cheerful. I'm not a royalist by any stretch and the thought of a carnal union between 2 toffee-nosed gits would normally make me retch, but as it is things have worked out quite nicely with all the holidays and whatnot. So for once, I am in a relatively good mood. Prince William is marrying his sweetheart and has even managed to do so before the last piece of candyfloss sellotaped to his slaphead has been carried off by an opportunistic magpie. Is it royal protocol not to shave one's head? Surely he'd look better with a number 0 or failing that, divert some of the money used by Prince Philip's unicorn hunting parties and get the poor chap some hair plugs. I think we should have a referendum regarding royals and skinheads instead of wasting time on this AV rubbish that no-one understands or wants.

In other good news, It is now possible to immerse your whole big toe in the royal gene pool following 2 subsequent generations of not interbreeding and electing to marry 'commoners' instead. But I really feel that the use of commoner is a misnomer; I'm still waiting for Harry to come home with a velour-tracksuited slag with 6 kids, but I fear that will never happen. The 'rags to riches' stories surrounding Kate Middleton are hilarious. Basically, a very rich girl is about to become richer. It's like a real life Cinderella. The way the papers have harped on about it you wouldn't be surprised if Kate was bought up in a disused crack den, eating dirt and turning tricks to survive. In reality, her poor family who have had to get by on popping to Waitrose in their BMWs will now be able to pop to Harrods in their Ferrari or Helicopter. But in these austere times, where the Queen is forced to sit on actual chairs instead of servants, and has to drink water instead of baby's tears, a lowly Bentley Continental may be all they (we) can afford.

Talking of Kate, how thin is she now? Has her BMI hit minus figures yet? I saw a photo of her legs yesterday and I thought she was a paraplegic, miraculously cured by Jesus, but yet to gain any muscle mass. Or some horrible creepy Russian marionette. Her head is due to fall off any minute, supported as it is by her tiny, withered neck. At least if they have to behead her (is that still allowed)? the Guillotine wouldn't be required. Just push her over, or even blow in her general direction and her head will detach itself. And where does this leave Charles now, and his mangle-faced concubine? The Queen looks determined to live for ever just to spite him and surely popular opinion will deliver Wills and Kate to the throne, where they will spend generations basically doing fuck all and sucking on the teat of the taxpayer in perpetuity like the useless, inbred German parasites they are. But thanks for the holiday!

Clean your own feet, you lazy bastards.

2011-04-11T21:57:00.000+01:00

Mankind is renowned for being bloody cruel. It's one of the few things we are really brilliant at. No other animal would come up with the concept of torture, for example. Countless cases of genocide, murder and bloody big explosions all point to the fact that when we do eventually wipe each other out, we will not be missed by this planet one jot. Inherently, we are all shits, selfish, greedy, avaricious arse nuggets who either covet what we don't have, or spend our entirely useless lives trudging around London with our dirty hair, protesting about Idon'tknowwhat. So when we're not being cruel, we're just being idiots. It is when cruelty and idiocy collide that we come up with our most potent creations.

Take fish pedicures, for example. There is a beauty salon on my high street which I have never really taken much interest in - although judging by the repugnant specimens that I see exiting it, it is clearly failing at its intended purpose. Frequented by unfeasably orange and lardy women, it looks like a cross between a brothel and purgatory, with the Peroxide dead-eyed chubster behind the counter nonchalantly counting the hours of her miserable little existence away as she tuts and tends to her impeccably manicured nails. Said salon now offers fish pedicures, classily proclaimed by a hand-written sign that looks like it was written upside-down by a monkey. Amazingly it is spelt correctly, with not a misplaced apostrophe in sight, which must be something of a first for hand-written signs.

This is a procedure where daft women release their pongy toes from their Ugg Boots and dip them into a pool of lukewarm water. But in a twist to rival whatever contrived farce Simon Cowell comes up with next, the pool is full of hundreds of fish. Hundreds of justifiably confused fish, who were one minute swimming freely in Asia and the next scooped up, shipped to the UK and deposited into a dingy tub and expected to eat the rough bits from the feet of women who probably have smaller brains than they do. What a life. And the dole-sponging parasites of this country say they have it rough - at least they don't have to nibble feet, although maybe if they did then they'd get their arses off of the dole a bit quicker.

Have we really come to this as a race where we deem it necessary to cleanse our feet at the expense other living creatures? What is wrong with a pumice stone? It does a far more efficient job and doesn't cost any lives, as far as I can tell. Perhaps people are just too fat to reach their toes these days. I'm fairly sure that the average high street beauty salon has absolutely no idea of how to look after fish - they probably think that the fish are only supposed to last for a few days and not several years. I shudder to think what the mortality rates are in that environment. And if we have decided that this casual and entirely unnecessary cruelty is acceptable, why stop at fish?

Let's round up all the stray cats and use them as boots - they will be warmer than Uggs and will make cute noises as you tread their guts into the ground. We could use hamsters to provide cheap and efficient colonic irrigation; let them out once per month for some air. Sellotape puppies to our arses so when we sit down we don't need to grab a cushion first. Smash some monkeys heads in with a brick because we're bored. Set fire to a badger because it looks cool. Or better yet, we can realise that using fish for such a petty reason should stop. Or, even better, replace the fish with Piranha. Piranha Karma.

It's a Beautiful Day...

2011-04-01T08:50:00.000+01:00

In my head, where my inane ramblings have any relevance to anyone but me, I imagine that people ask me what I actually do like. I often write about doom and gloom, and that probably makes me sound a bit, well, bitter. So I have decided to share something that actually makes me happy. Music is a very important part of my life, being fluent in both piano and keyboard and liking several dozen songs.

I have long had a penchant for a bit of stadium rock. Nothing makes me feel more invigorated and alive than being in a stadium 2 miles from the stage surrounded by people with the same T-Shirt as me. And who other than my favourite band could you say were the kings of stadium rock. For my favourite band is none other than U2! Their shows are amazing, and they are political too without ever being preachy, and they manage to squeeze all their hits into one set. They are truly the jewel of Britain's crown, wowing people as far afield as the USA. Whether you're talking about Bono, The Edge or the other guys they stand for longevity and innovation over decades of quality releases.

My favourite tracks are 'A Beautiful Day', 'Belfast Child' and 'Alive and Kicking'. I have been to the O2 arena and seen how amazing it was. U2 weren't actually playing, but I can imagine how they would have filled the place full of South Africans and other people of immeasurable taste. Bono is a crusader for the environment and saving the world - and who better to spread the message than someone who spends so much time visiting the corners of the globe in his private jet. He touches everyone he meets with his sincerity - wearing his trademark sunglasses to shield the world from his tragic tears. I always appreciate when multi-millionaires take time out of their schedules to let the rest of us less fortunate people know how we should run our lives.

The Edge is the best guitarist that I have heard on a record, full stop, and I include the one from Supergrass in that. He is called The Edge because he is constantly at the cutting edge of guitars and guitar-related things, so it is entirely appropriate that The Edge, 50, calls himself 'The Edge'. The Edge pioneered the signature guitar feedback-loop thing he does, along with other things which are too complex and numerous to mention here. The rest of the band are also brilliant, having grown up in England with Bono and The Edge. Occasionally Bono lets one of them join in on a song, just another reminder of what a wise philanthropist Bono is.

So, now you know. Next time you theoretically think that I don't actually like anything I refer you to this post. But like actually isn't a strong enough sentiment; I actually love U2. I know I'm unconventional but I don't care. So fuck you all.

UK Resistance is futile

2011-03-30T09:51:00.001+01:00

In about 1999, I was shown a website by one of the few people I have actually met who were prepared to talk to me voluntarily. Hunched over the one computer that actually worked in Computer Exchange and squinting to see through the cloud of cigarette smoke, reading it changed my life. Actually, it didn't change my life, but it was good. I have always hated lots of things, and in particular a little known Japanese company called Sony has always attracted my ire. I hate Sony because of their vastly-inflated prices they have always charged for their sub-standard bits of kit, and continue to hate them to this very day. My hatred for them only grew when Sony decided to enter the formerly-sacrosanct market of videogames.

For some reason I always liked Sega. Maybe it's because my brother liked Nintendo. I had a Mastersystem with a few games and a gun and one game that worked with said gun. It had control pads which made your thumbs become deformed if you used it too much. In truth, it wasn't much good, but compared to the dreadful colour palette offered by the Nintendo Entertainment System and its daft robot, it was aces. Then I got a Megadrive which was brilliant, and I don't care what any Super Nintendo owners say about their machine. I'm not having it. Megadrive is best. The late '80's and early '90's were full of these conversations, kids would constantly argue which was better of the 2 mainstream machines of the time. Things like Colour palettes and sound channels would be meticulously compared. Now kids are more likely to argue about who gets first dibs on a gang rape.

I did like my videogames. I have around 20 games consoles in my mum's loft, including 2 Sega Saturns, a PC Engine, a JVC X-Eye, a Matsushita 3DO and a Neo-Geo MVS. I have loads of games. If my mum ever moves, I'm in trouble, as all of those bits and pieces have no chance of squeezing into my pathetic excuse for a loft. Maybe I will ceremoniously burn them. For me, Sony sounded the death-knell on videogames, for Sony bought them to the mass market and made them more lucrative than films. This has had the unfortunate effect of reducing them to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Playing most games now is like reading the Sun - you can feel your braincells committing suicide in protest at having to be utilised in such a wasteful fashion. Sports sequel after sports sequel and thinly-veiled recruitment tools for the US Marines adorn the shelves these days. Microsoft followed suit, although I interestingly don't hate Microsoft. This is because 1) they are not Sony and 2) they are not Apple. Nintendo decided to give up by deciding to go after the female and retard market. They now have a gimmicky joke console as their main revenue stream, with a gimmicky joke handheld console as their other one. Shame on you Nintendo. Sega collapsed altogether as a console manufacturer as the morons of the world turned their back on the Dreamcast in favour of the mongoloid Playstation 2, which had to wait approximately 3 years before it got its first good game. Unfortunately, Sony had more resources to win the war of attrition.

I realise writing this that writing about videogames is tricky unless you're good at it. I'm not. Gary Cutlack has always been good at writing about games. He started UK Resistance in 1996. Ostensibly a website to review games for the sadly-defunct Sega Saturn, we all read and occasionally laughed as he battled through the 5 stages of grief for his beloved Sega over a period of 15 years. Yesterday marks the end of UK Resistance as Gary has decided that presumably there is no more to be said. I agree with him. Sony has made sure that videogames will become more lucrative, less risky and more pedestrian as the downward spiral of banality sucks in more and more stupid idiots who are quite happy to spend their lives playing sequels to FIFA and Call Of Duty until some thoughtful deity pulls the plug on us all.

Thanks for the memories, Gary.

Here's a 'Novel' idea, don't destroy daddy's legacy for a quick buck

2011-03-23T09:55:00.002Z

*WARNING - SCIFI GEEKERY ALERT*

When you have a child, I imagine it would be quite natural to have a sense of pride if your offspring was interested in your chosen profession. All those jobs that seem glamorous and exciting to children like Policeman, Fireman, Accountant etc. All well and good. Sometimes you might be an actor and have a son, daughter or a Jamie Lee Curtis who would like to follow in your footsteps. Marvellous. Unfortunately, charges of nepotism become unavoidable, especially if you are not very good, and are deemed to only be in the profession because you have family in the business (see Cage, Nicolas)

But that's fine, too. Annoying, but fine. No-one is under any illusion that someone like Peaches Geldof is not a dough-faced, slack-jawed imbecile but she is basically harmless. She has also helped 'like' become the fifth-most uttered word in Britain, so at least she's achieved something. Claudia Winkleman may be essentially useless, and needs her hand held by a more able presenter on Film '11 but she is still preferable to Jonathan Woss. Nigel Clough may not have set the world on fire as a footballer but no-one begrudged him due to the effort he put in, and eventually he has become a respected manager, despite living in the shadow of the most northern football manager ever.

See how tolerant I can be? The mere thought of nepotism used to have me bridling with anger. But the pills put paid to that. But there is one area where I will not tolerate perceived interference by future offspring, and that is the art of writing novels. Dune by Frank Herbert is widely accepted as the Science Fiction equivalent of The Lord of the Rings - A novel of unprecented depth and richness of themes, including environmental awareness, feudalism, immortality and the cost of it, amongst many others. I urge you to read it. Not everyone who has read it is a twat like me. Frank Herbert died shortly after completing the sixth Dune novel, which hinted that there was still more of the story to be told.

Dune has spawned a plethora of media, including a miniseries on the SciFi channel, an absurdly bonkers movie adaptation by David Lynch, a line of toys and figures from said movie and several videogames. Rumours of new movies continue to surface every couple of years. You could assume that Frank Herbert's estate sport pretty deep pockets, bulging to contain all the cash accrued from syndication and merchandise alone. But for some reason, this wealth and the the protection of a very talented writer's legacy were deemed but a trifle when Frank Herbert's detestable sprog decided to 'expand' (capitalise) on the universe which his father so richly painted.

It started innocently enough. Brian Herbert, enlisting the help of longtime Starwars pulp novelist Kevin J Anderson released a couple of books here and there, expanding on some of the backstories of some of the factions while largely preserving the canon of what went before it. Then came more and more books, relentlessly wringing every last drop of creativity from Frank Herbert's cadaver. There were manuscripts being found in lofts everywhere. Apparently they were inexplicably missed on the inevitable first sweep when Herbert unexpectedly died decades ago. These 'ideas' were documents created by Frank Herbert and not at all dreadful plot devices dreamt up by 2 talentless hacks which were quickly turned into pulp novel after pulp novel, with each one being worse than the last.

In the same way that we all like to take a gander at the victims of a nice fresh car accident, I morbidly read some of the books. I borrowed them, mind. I will not grace Brian and Kevin's hairy palms with any of my silver, thankyou. There were several events and people alluded to in the original novels which were not explicitly explained. One of which was an event called the Butlerian Jihad, in which mankind decides to do away with any machinery which exhibits artificial intelligence, on account of mankind becoming lazy and stupid (sound familiar?) This event was turned into an action-packed swashbuckling trilogy, where, (inspired by the matrix no doubt) mankind must rise up against the machines and destroy them who are oppressing them and shit! With an explosion on every other page, it is the book that Michael Bay would write is he were able to grasp a pen.

There is a race of desert people called the Fremen, whose origin is shrouded in mystery. This mystery is resolved in the aforementioned trilogy when a bunch of escaped slaves proclaim that they will become the FREE MEN! of the desert. What amazing writing. Seriously. That's a stretch isn't it. How did they get from A to B on that one? I'm imagining a meeting. Kevin and Brian are in Starbucks with their macs, scratching their monobrows when the eureka moment hits them LIKE A FREAKIN' GIANT SPACESHIP ON FIRE WITH ROBOTS ON IT. I'm so glad that I can finally sleep now that every piece of mystery and intrigue has been removed from one of the best novels of all time. Thanks Brian and Kevin!

The ultimate insult was that they proclaimed they would finish the original 6 novels off, with one final 7th novel. This is akin to having Christopher Nolan directing the Batman films and then suddenly dying half-way through the last one. The studio then hires Michael Bay, who has just lost half of his brain in a shooting accident. To all the fans of Michael Bay's work, sorry I keep picking on him. Actually I'm not, the man is a hack. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You must be super dim to have to watch every action sequence in super slow motion from a thousand angles. Your tiny brains obviously cannot cope with sequences played at normal speed. It's like reading a children's book in large print at 25. You wouldn't sit on the train at 25 reading a child's book would you?*

So, novel 7 eventually becomes novel 7 and 8. Where's the sense in 1 book when you can tell the same story with more padding in 2? So release 2 more books they did. They capped off my favourite 6 novels with what I can only assume are abortions since I will never, ever read them. Given the choice, I like to think that most sane people would rather have a Bugatti Veyron with the front bumper missing, than one that has had a Fiat Multipla bumper badly welded to it, and then some git has gone and defecated in the engine bay. That's what Brain Herbert has done to his dad's legacy, he has defecated all over it, with his tawdry, childish and clumsy sequels and prequels. What a shit.

Apparently this is now happing to Stieg Larsson's books too, but I don't care since he was shit anyway.

*I forgot about Harry Potter. I despair, I really do.

Spring is here... whoop-de-doo

2011-03-16T16:03:00.001Z

Hooray, Spring is here! The days are getting longer and Cadbury's creme eggs are back on the shelves in supermarkets across the land. iPhone owners are quivering in anticipation of the shift to British summertime that will cause their useless pieces of over hyped tat to explode, embedding shards of molten plastic into their slack jawed, lumpen faces. The poshest children have probably already broken up from school to enjoy their 20-week summer jaunt in a palace on the moon. The playgrounds are full of delinquents from about 5pm onwards, taking it in turns to shove their stubby, nicotine-stained fingers up the easy bird around the back of the slides.

For Britain is truly a joyous place to be in the spring time, as green chutes of new growth tenderly make their way through the tangled mess of used condoms and other detritus that blights our fair isle. Birds start warbling at 4am and finally decide to shut the fuck up at about 2am the next day. Road surfaces across the country are being smashed to smithereens by oafs, their poo-stained bumcracks on full display as councils desperately try to flitter away their budgets before April. Lardy ladies parade the vomit-coated streets of Croydon in their finest boob-tubes which they have stolen from their 5-year-old daughters at the first hint of sunlight. The trains and tubes get (even more) packed and stuffy as the bovine-brained individuals who can only wake with the sun start taking ever-earlier journeys into work.

The streets start to smell worse than usual as the feeble sun bakes all the piss and other bodily fluids that were thoughtfully deposited on the pavements - and of course not cleaned by the lazy shits who work at the behest of the council - during the long winter. Traversing through central London on foot becomes impossible as smatterings of enormous American tourists clog up walkways all over the place. On the corner of every pub are mobs of bucktoothed hooray Henrys braying at the top of their lungs as they vie for the attention of the homely secretary who looks a bit like mother that they want to have embarrassing sex with.

Bring on winter.

Annoying things that happen to me all the time and make me annoyed

2011-03-09T13:54:00.000Z

I often fantasise that I have any friends, or indeed any people who are concerned enough about me to wonder why I am so bitter all the time. Allow me to explain. it is the little things that add up, one at a time to become galling and annoying. Little things that collectively make me very cross indeed. I have some examples of things that make me annoyed below, that will probably eventually see me going on an unsuccessful rampage with a shotgun.

Tesco jaffa clemetines with 500 pips in them

Tesco just take the piss out of me. I expect a pip-free clementine when I buy a Jaffa one. OK, so perhaps one or two pips per clementine would be understandable, I'm not a pip Nazi. But a Jaffa clementine with more pips than actual clementine takes the biscuit. I even photographed the remains of said clementine, just to prove how bad things at Tesco are. Do they care? No. Bloody fat cats.

Annoying train things

Being stuck behind a broken down train for 30 minutes, watching all the people who got up later than me breezing past on the adjacent track. Having my oyster card checked with all the interest and application I have come to expect from people who work on trains. One time, I held my work pass up instead and he didn't bat an eyelid. But the one day I forgot my oyster card (and my wallet) I had the train guard equivalent of the Gestapo to deal with. Being in a 'quiet' area on the carriage, but still having to listen the the train guard repeat the same message into the P.A. at 200 decibels, literally 10 times during a 20-minute journey. Yes I know there is a short platform at Isleworth.

Streets without signs on them to tell you what their names are

I am rubbish at knowing where I am. I cannot orientate myself at all. I was in Barcelona when I realised this, because it seems to be a game of chance whether street names are provided on actual streets or not. Relying on my natural sense of direction doesn't work, because I don't have any. I even struggled to find Barcelona's enormous stadium. I assumed that a stadium as prestigious and well-known and the Camp Nou would be clearly signposted. But then where is the fun in that. There were lots of maps on the metro - just not any that showed where things were.

Speaking to people

I hate people talking to me and saying things and then I have to say things in return, even though I haven't listened to any of the things that they have been saying. In fact, I hate having to say anything to anyone. I have nothing to say of any interest whatsoever, and I am almost certain that you have nothing to say to me that would interest me at all. Just leave me alone, will you.

Oh the irony... our buoyant population growth will doom us all.

2011-03-02T14:43:00.001Z

There are just people everywhere. Literally all over the place. It's outrageous! And cars, too. Double and triple-parked. Parked on grass verges which are also covered in discarded sofas and divan beds. Who the hell still wants a divan bed? Evidently no-one. Bloody people. Stuffing their gormless faces with E numbers and sipping on their 'Grande' Lattes. You can't look anywhere without seeing a person, even in the sky you will probably see a plane. They are all so greedy and self-important and bloody omnipresent.

I went to see the pyramids a few years ago, before Egypt went tits up. But my view of said pyramids was rather obstructed by millions of adolescent mentalists trying to sell me bits of plastic tat. One tried to grab my camera so he could take a photo and charge me 10 pounds. I had to push him off several times as he danced a merry jig of menace and lunacy around me, and shadowed my every move. Dodgy looking older blokes with no teeth tried to get me to perch on their mangy camels for some obscene fee or other. The floor was riddled with broken souvenirs and camel shit. Imagine the ancestors of these loons watching their legacy being surrounded by such chaos - they'd laugh their pampered asses off.

All countries have issues with overcrowding. London, and the surrounding suburbs is overwhelmed, full of scurrying little rats trying to pick bits of partially-digested cheese out of poo. Only crap parts of the UK are deserted, such as Scotland and Wales. London has a higher population than the whole of Scotland. Obviously a mixture of terrible weather, widespread alcoholism and unemployment is not getting the punters in. China has 10 squillion people, and India about a bazillion. All of this is of course unsustainable. Soon there will be no food. No fresh drinking water. So all this hoopla about diminishing oil reserves will pale into insignificance as everyone suddenly realises that there is actually no more food to eat.

The trouble is, that people are living too damn long. In the good old days you were considered to be elderly if you were 40. Now that is the average age of a Croydon grandmother. Epidemics are rubbish and disappointing. I remember when everyone was going to die of the AIDS, Swine flu, Bird flu, Ebola, Mad cow disease, the list goes on. All promising epidemics that unfortunately failed to deliver. In the old days, people with a sniffle would be read their last rites. The Plague, for example, pretty much annihilated half of Europe. Imagine what the population would be like now without it. And then there were 2 world wars which wiped out countless millions. Tragic, of course, but all that kept the human population from exploding to current levels long ago.

So now we're in the shit, all of us. We can go on fashioning our miserable little existence and die of old age, surrounded by our soft furnishings and Playstation 10 games. But in a few generations time our descendents will be dying of starvation, as a result of wars about starvation, or at the paws of our once-beloved pet dogs who will turn feral and rip us all to pieces because they are starving. Property prices will be at a premium, with even the average flat in Croydon costing several thousand pounds. The south of the UK will become so densely populated and built up that it will eventually sink, catapulting the inhabitants of Scotland into the North Sea. It's important to look for any silver lining, no matter how scant a consolation it may be.

In China there will be a bicycle pileup lasting several years, as one feckless chinaman will fall off his bike at an intersection causing the perfect storm of massed buckled wheels. The resulting mass of mashed up bicycles and humans will be visible from space. The entire USA will descend into cannibalism, as the legions of obese people will suddenly be without their genetically-modified cows and instead will eat anything that moves. They will eventually eat each other, until one gargantuan fatty is left, who will then die of a heart attack. Mexico city will spread to encompass all of Mexico and will then be destroyed by a massive earthquake, burying countless valuable Tacos and Burritos under tonnes of poorly-constructed rubble.

You may think this is far-fetched, but it WILL happen* if the human population continues to grow. So, here is my solution to solve the issue:

Control all procreation - this will be achieved by sterilising every female on the planet. The sterilisation is only reversed should the female have a pre-agreed level of income in order to bring up a child. The income level will be adjusted, dependent on the cost of living for where they are situated. After the birth of 2 children, permanent sterilisation is mandatory.

Encourage the gays - no babies, no problem!

Kill the old - All people get until the ripe old age of 60 to live their lives. they are then executed and spared the indignity of losing their health and mental faculties. Their bodies are then used to fertilise future crops. Their possessions are passed onto their children. No more selfish old gits rotting away in massive house while young families have nowhere to live.

Stop all benefits of any kind - If you can't pay, you can't eat. So fuck off and die already you lazy sponging bastard.

*the having no food bit

iNeed Tech support

2011-02-23T11:24:00.001Z

Problem: My phone battery is dead and no longer holds a charge of longer than a few minutes. what shall I do?

Solution for any phone or smartphone other than one manufactured by Apple: Buy a new battery for around 20-30 pounds

Solution for iPhone: Send your phone back to Apple for them to insert a new battery, for a cost in excess of 100 pounds. This will also mean that you will not be able to use your phone for this time. Hopefully you will have a non-Apple phone you can use in the meantime. Just be careful trying to remove your simcard in one piece from the ridiculously-designed slot. Or, why not upgrade to a new iPhone? after all, it's unreasonable to expect a piece of technology costing in excess of 400 pounds to work past its second birthday

Problem: Help! I have a new, state-of-the art phone but my calls keep cutting out!

Solution for any phone or smartphone other than one manufactured by Apple: Return the phone, it is faulty.

Solution for iPhone: You are clearly holding the phone wrong, you idiot. But luckily Apple are the best company on earth and will send out a very attractive rubber cover which does nothing to diminish the attractiveness of the phone whatsoever for free! Expect delivery between 6 and 52 weeks.

Problem: I have just bought a mp3 player and I don't know how to get music on it, can you help?

Solution for any mp3 player other than one manufactured by Apple (OK and Sony): Check the settings on the mp3 player and set it's USB mode to 'removable device'. Now, connect the mp3 player to your computer and it will appear as a removable disk. Simply drag and drop whatever files you want into the drive.

Solution for Apple mp3 players: Sorry, but you have to use iTunes. Book a few hours out of your life to install the software and get it synching. Then the device will pretty much do what it wants. You may or may not get the music you actually want onto it. But that's part of the fun!

Problem: My computer is a couple of years old and it's not performing as well as it once did. what shall I do?

Solution for any computer other than one manufactured by Apple: Uninstall unnecessary programs. You may also consider buying additional memory, or even upgrading your processor. This can be done very easily and for a couple of hundred pounds at most

Solution for any computer manufactured by Apple: Chuck it in the bin and buy a new Apple computer for several thousand pounds. Who wants old-generation kit? Plus the new Macs are .03% slimmerer and are shinier than a full moon

Problem: I have an expensive tablet computer. I cannot multitask. What can I do?

Solution for any tablet computer other than one manufactured by Apple: Don't be silly. Of course you can multitask. What idiot would bring something to market that can't multitask, and then have the audacity to charge in excess of 500 pounds for it?

Solution for any tablet computer manufactured by Apple: Multitasking is for squares and PC users, not us creatives, LOL! If you want to do more than one thing at once, buy another iPad! Simples! Or get a software update that offers pretend multitasking.

A poem for Valentine's day

2011-02-14T10:36:00.001Z

So, Valentines day is here and couples the country over will be sitting opposite each other, cooly contemplating a time when they didn't hate each other's guts as they chew on their overcooked steak as slowly as possible in order to avoid any prolonged or meaningful conversation. Viagra subscriptions go through the roof in mid-February as husbands and boyfriends have to perform their annual duty of dipping their wicks into the ugly, bloated and ancient harpies that they were once proud to have dangling off their arm. Women prepare themselves to be rutted for 5 minutes by a tubby, sweaty manatee by getting sloshed on red wine, thus dying their badly-decayed teeth an even deeper shade of brown.

And for the unlucky ones, all the day signifies is an annual reminder that they are unlovable and ugly; and, a year closer to their graves, which will remain untended and unvisited by anyone except stray dogs who will only go there to copulate or shit. Yes, a kebab and a wank followed by a lengthy session of pitiful sobbing is all the singletons of our fair isle have to look forward to tonight. But wait! If you are single then perhaps it is time to find someone who doesn't make you retch upon seeing them naked and that you don't utterly hate on first meeting to spend the rest of your short and miserable life with, and your best bet is probably going to be online dating!

But online dating is tricky, too. Because people lie. Well, by people, I mean women. Sure, men lie too, but only about inconsequential things like whether or not they are serial killers, paedophiles, rapists, or, worst of all, married. But women lie about all kinds of stuff. But they are creative with it, using flowery words to mask something far more pedestrian. Below is a little poem I have written (because poems are romantic) to warn of the perils of lying and to assist the ladies in bagging their dream man!*

Online dating - what NOT to write!!!

Curvy? Means fat
Athletic? Chest is flat
Intellectual? A bore
Liberal? A whore
Outdoorsy? Doesn't wash
Sophisticated? Wants dosh
Classy? Or old
Mature? Yes, like mould

Political? Has dreadlocks
Chilled? Wears bedsocks
Naturist? Just hairy
Assertive? Means lairy
Modern? Can't cook
Girly? Never read a book
Cuddly? Morbidly obese
Careworn? Has no teeth

Tall? Lanky
Cheeky? No, skanky
Delicate? Or lazy
Outspoken? Just crazy
Bootylicious? Massive arse
Young mum? Bottom of the class
Cultured? A snob
Film Buff? A slob

Sporty? You are gay
Quiet? Nothing to say
Chatty? What a surprise
Inventive? Purveyor of lies
Petite? Legs are stumpy
Voluptuous? Lumpy
Serious? No, grumpy
Average? Means dumpy

There are plenty of men who are desperate enough
To get even a sniff of your underused chuff
So that all this lying is a waste of time
Just be honest and you will be fine
By 'fine' I mean fucked, because let's be truthful
You're average and boring and no longer youthful
But drop your standards and keep up the whoring
And you'll find someone who might make dying less boring.

*Nightmares count as dreams too

Internet things that get ruined

2011-02-08T13:40:00.003Z

The joys of the Internet. From the very early days of patiently waiting to download a single image that may or may not contain hardcore porn (the thumbnails were too small to tell) to the modern era of simultaneously viewing 10 different hardcore porn videos across multiple tabs and webpages, while torrenting DVD rips of hardcore porn. Although 95% of the Internet is made of hardcore porn, there are some things on the Internet that are not hardcore porn.

Of the 5% of things that aren't hardcore porn, there are some things that are actually funny, either intentionally or otherwise. This is always very welcome, as sometimes it is possible to get fed up of hardcore porn. Unfortunately, in some cases, things that were funny, or interesting or both, get distorted by later attempts from that same person to somehow capitalise on that funniness, or in other cases the funny thing is hijacked by someone else and made not funny anymore. It is at this point that Internet things get ruined. Then it's back to the hardcore porn. Below are some examples of things that were good but then were subsequently killed.

The Insanity Test

This did the rounds in the early 2000's and was very funny. If you like you can try it now, and see if you are able to resist laughing.

http://www.tekzoned.com/instest/

Unfortunately this was ruined forever when the Crazy Frog ringtone came into being. This was followed by a string of terrible songs and videos. The Crazy frog in question holds the dubious honour of not only ruining a very funny Internet viral forevermore, but also tarnishing the good name of Axel F. Also, whoever designed the frog was a sicko, seeing fit to endow it with a penis. I'm sure frogs don't have visible genitalia. But then again, they don't ride invisible motorbikes either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k85mRPqvMbE

Numa Numa guy

The original numa numa video was a smash hit on Youtube. A fat guy throwing his hands up in the air to a camp eurodisco classic never gets old. I'm sure you've seen it. But if you're Amish or something visit the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o&feature=related

An insane amount of people have seen this video. However,Gary Brolsma, the most famous fat person since Notorious B.I.G., decided to follow it up with a truly insipid sequel. Unfortunately, when things are unintentionally funny, they can't generally be replicated and this is the root of the problem. The general public can't help but be cynical when people try to restage happy accidents. See the sequel below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gg5LOd_Zus&feature=channel

Leave Britney Alone

The last thing that the stumpy-legged lunatic Britney Spears needed after her mental breakdown was for a fan of hers to go on youtube and proceed to have their own mental breakdown. Androgynous Britney sycophant Chris Crocker rose to notoriety after the video below was published.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

He has since gone on to publish dozens of other videos, none of which have have scaled the 'heights' of the deranged defence of Britney. He now wears his hair long, thinks he's something of a spokesperson for transgender people and has a tragically bad song available on iTunes.

Maddox

http://maddox.xmission.com/

If you're gay like me then you have probably watched 'The Wizard of Oz'. There's a bit in the aformentioned film where the all-powerful wizard is revealed to be a timid little man in a booth. Maddox's similar unveiling can be seen below, where he rehashes old articles from his website and makes them more sanitised and less funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBiQE4hjOsk&feature=player_embedded

Singing, USA style

2011-02-01T12:45:00.000Z

The Americans are truly pioneers of the whole goddamn world. That's probably why those nasty Arab types hate them so much. Without the Americans we would never have witnessed mad Christians, Jerry Springer, Fat people, Men in cowboy hats saying 'Yee-ha!', High fructose corn syrup, quality assassinations, the Klu Klux Klan, MTV and a whole host of other great things which we in Britain openly embrace today. Yet far from resting on their laurels, the Americans are STILL coming up with exciting new advancements which we, their paler, slimmer and less mentally deficient cousins can learn from. If you happen to be holidaying in the USA, why not take a trip to your local 'Football' stadium and be upstanding for their National anthem.

Now we all know the USA national anthem, as we have all had to sit through at least one pile of patriotic tosh where it has been tearfully rendered. So, then, imagine your surprise when the song being sung is barely recognisable. This can all be attributed to the neon-brace wearing chubby teenage girl with delusions of grandeur who is singing the anthem. You see, any precocious American teenage girl worth her salt wants to be the next Britney Spears, and one way of doing that is to get hawked around various malls by their forty-something mother (replete with massive fringe) who will inflict their offspring on the public by any means necessary.

The offshoot of this is that EVERYONE in the USA thinks Mariah Carey has the best voice, ever. And we all know that Ms. Carey will not sing one note when 12 will do. All of the spoilt brats take this on, and try to out-sing their peers by warbling as much as possible. Let's take the opening lines of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' as an example:

Foreign (wrong) way of singing

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?

American (godly) way of singing

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh Sayayayayayayyyyyyyyyyyy, caaahahan you Seeeeeeeheheheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh dawn's early Lihihihiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightttttttttt,
What sohohohoooooooooooooooooooo proudly weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Hail'd at Twihihiiiiiiiiiiiiiiihilight's last Gleaming,

It is also mandatory that the National anthem last at least 3 hours, which is incidentally one tenth of the length of an average 'World' series baseball game.

You may be thinking, at this point, 'How does this all affect me?' Well I shall tell you. If you are unfortunate enough to sit through 'The X-Factor' or similar then you will have probably heard a fair amount of over-singing, and that's on THESE SHORES. Even the MEN are up to it. The day will soon come when you sit down to watch a REAL football game, only to be greeted by a Charlotte Church wannabe belting out 'God Save The Queen'. So think on.

Fun with iTunes

2011-01-25T12:26:00.001Z

I generally try to avoid anything with the dreaded 'Apple' logo on it, as I despise Apple. Unfortunately I was forced into buying some music from iTunes since they were the only website which actually had the music I wanted. I would have bought the CDs if they existed, which they don't. I could have downloaded the music illegally but my Dexter-like 'moral code' would not allow it. I now have new-found respect for illegal downloaders who would rather use torrents and thus expose their computer to all manner of nasties than be forced to use what is perhaps the most over-complicated and convoluted process I have ever had to undertake, and all in order to get my hands on 2 poxy songs. Below, I have compared my standard music purchasing experience, to the rigmarole I faced when having to use iTunes.

Purchasing and downloading music through any website in the world other than iTunes

Find song of interest
Add song to basket
Go to checkout
Pay for song
Download song
Put song on mp3 player

Purchasing and downloading music through iTunes

Find song of interest
Add song to basket
Go to checkout
Get informed that you have to download iTunes to download music (why?)
Download unnecessarily large file containing iTunes executable file
Wait 5 minutes
Install iTunes
Wait 5 minutes
Check on installation progress
Make a cup of tea
Uncheck all tick boxes which allow iTunes to take over all files remotely associated with media files
Continue with installation
Make another cup of tea
Restart computer
Wait 5 minutes
Open iTunes
Find song of interest through iTunes
Get informed that you have to create an iTunes account to proceed
Spend 10 minutes trying to find a vaguely memorable username that isn't already taken
Enter address, credit card information, sexual orientation, blood type
Sign up
Pay for song
Download song
Find that song is in .aac format, and as such will only work with iPods and other over-priced devices beginning in 'i'
Trawl through forum posts from various Apple 'experts' who recommend the following method to convert .acc files to .mp3 files which is as follows:
Burn the .aac files to CD using iTunes!
Rip the CD to .mp3!
Decide that the people on the forums are absolute luddites as are the majority of Apple users and instead look for a free .aac to .mp3 converter that does not install a million viruses onto your computer
Download said converter
Install converter
Re-encode .aac file to .mp3 file
Add all id3 tags to .mp3 file (so mp3 player does not just call the song 'unknown' by 'unknown')
Put song on mp3 player (hooray!)

Things I will not miss about getting the train to work

2011-01-19T10:21:00.005Z

I'm hoping to stop using the train to commute to work during the next few months. 12 years of using an increasingly crap and overcrowded service have taken their toll, and it is now not possible for me to sit on a train without contemplating slaughtering everyone on board with a rusty axe. I say 'sit' but really I've forgotten what that word means in the context of a train. For sitting is something only those who board in deepest, darkest Surrey get to do, as by the time the train trundles towards my stop it is already full to capacity with the walking dead. I get my train at 07:25.

There is so much to hate about the train. The jostling and jockeying for position. The spread-eagled stance so that if the train stops a few feet further along the platform you can quickly shuffle along to where the doors are. The shrill voice of a bossy and uppity idiot ordering everyone to move down when there is infact insufficient room for an atom between the crushed shoulders of the various depressed and angry passengers. Whenever someone aggressively asks us sardines to 'move down please' I will them to die. I really do. I'm just upset that, so far, none of them have dropped dead mid-sentence. The stinky tramps who are big fat liars - we all know that you're not trying to get some money for a coffee or a bed for a night ok? so Just be honest. I'd be more inclined to give them money if they just admitted they wanted 4 cans of special brew and some crack. I can buy into that.

There is one particular train which I have never seen leave on time. If you are interested (and I honestly don't blame you if you're not) I refer to the Syon Lane to London Waterloo service, which allegedly departs Syon Lane at 17:21. I have never seen this happen. There is talk of an old, mysterious traveller who apparently saw it leave on time once, but then he's senile so not a reliable witness. It invariably arrives at 17:24 or later, meaning a mad dash through the throng of assembled zombies when it eventually arrives at Clapham Junction to traverse half the length of the station in the vain hope of catching my connecting train, attempts at which are usually foiled by the commuters South West Trains must hire to stand around on stairwells, picking their noses. What an odd lot they are.

There is an obese woman who gets on my train that is annoying. You're left with a one-bumcheek seat at best if you are so unfortunate as to have to sit next to her. She looks incredibly tall sitting down (as all fatties do, thanks to their in-built travel cushions) It's only when she eventually alights from her seat, after hours of considerable effort and inconvenience to everyone that has the misfortune to be trapped in the aisle behind her that it is clear she is 5' if she's lucky. She must be at least that wide. True story - a small advert in the Metro today, looking for healthy overweight people. What? the only thing healthy about an overweight person is their imagination, honed after years of denial and stuffing their fat faces with cream cakes while tears roll down their vast cheeks.

The excuses given for cancelled trains would make me laugh, if they didn't make me want to murder everyone who works for South West Trains with a helicopter-mounted minigun. A friendly automaton politely informs the assembled throng of passengers that their train which is due in approximately 2 minutes in fact will not be coming as previously advertised, due to one lie or another. The fact is, that trains are mostly cancelled early in the morning. This is simply because the kind of morons that end up making a career of 'driving' the same train several times every day in perpetuity in their stupid little uniforms whilst dribbling have difficulty kick-starting their synapses of a morning, particularly when it is dark and cold. They rely on the sun to tell them when it is wakey time. Thus, they just bunk off or can't be arsed to get up on time, which causes everyone who has got up on time to be late.

Sometimes a train is so late that they just decide, mid-journey, to not bother stopping at all the stops they are supposed to stop at. I imagine this is so that the train arrives at its final destination 'on-time' or at least within 10 minutes of it's expected arrival time. Thus, South West Trains profess to have a decent punctuality record, when in fact what they do is eject everyone who is already late and leave them freezing their balls off at Barnes. I would say that their shoddy treatment of passengers is biting the hand that feeds them. But that isn't strong enough. What it actually is, is raping, pillaging, and murdering the occupants of the family home of the owner of the hand that feeds them, burning that home down, and then giving the hand a rabies-infected bite for good measure.

By now you may have surmised that I hate the train. I really, really, really do. I cannot emphasise that enough. If this were not a blog and you could actually see me, I would be holding aloft a sign as big as a house, reading simply "I HATE THE FUCKING TRAIN SO MUCH, IT MAKES ME WANT TO EVISCERATE MYSELF WITH A POTATO PEELER". If I didn't have to work, I would spend my entire day waking around Waterloo station, parading this sign. I know I spend a good portion of my life saying I hate things, but they pale into comparison for the bilious, retching disgust I feel every time I have to get on a train, which, inconveniently, is 4 times per day. Adolf Hitler. Ian Huntley. Maxine Carr. Jimmy Carr. Nonces. Children. These are all things that I amazingly hate less than the train.

What else do I hate about the train? Cyclists. You drag your bike onto the train, at rush hour, clattering your wheels and pedals into the shins of your fellow passengers, tutting if anyone has the audacity to come within 200 metres of your underused velocipede. You are all idiots. You have a bike. That means you should cycle to work. Not cycle a mile to the station and get on a train. Then you have the audacity to wag your sanctimonious fingers at motorists, who you apparently blame for everything from the holocaust to James Blunt. I also hate the 'guards' of the train, who, despite all the literature stating the cycles are NOT allowed on trains at rush hour, do absolutely nothing about the utter bastards who make everyone else's life a misery so they can selfishly get their lycra-clad arse along with their £500 waste of money onto the already-packed carriage.

I hate the schoolkids on the train. They are all girls. I'm guessing that means there are only girls' schools along my route, and all the boys have been put to work since the age of 12, scurrying up and down chimneys like the feral rats they are. The girls all say 'like', like, all the time. They are incapable of not using that word in any given sentence. Even 'yes' and 'no' answers are preceded with 'like'. Why are they so incredibly inarticulate? Also, the stupider they are, the louder they are. As interesting as it is, having to listen to an entirely fabricated story about 'getting fingered by some lads' as told by a 13-year old mountain of a girl with a monobrow can be a little bit distracting when it is broadcasted to the entire carriage at 1,000,000 decibels and punctuated by 'like' a hundred times.

I also hate the builders who seem to have either lost their van or sold it for some goulash and potato Vodka who see fit to lug all their various tools and other paraphernalia onto the train. It's great when you are wearing black trousers to have a thick-necked ape covered in plaster dust come and practically sit on you. Some mornings certain carriages look more like a builders' yard than a passenger train. I, of course, hate the people who have to broadcast their great taste in music with everyone, by wearing headphones that are surely in the wrong way round, such is the tinny clarity of their relentless aural onslaught. I find middle-aged men are the worst culprits for this type of behaviour, given that most 'youths' now have those headphones that feel like your ears are being raped, but are otherwise mercifully quiet for those around you.

So, within the next few months I hope to bid the incompetent arseholes at South West Trains a fond farewell. I will drive to work instead. I will have to cope with slow drivers, angry drivers, confused drivers, uninsured drivers, boy racers, buses, the dreaded cyclists, an vastly increased chance of death (someone was killed in a collision outside my work just yesterday) and potholes, not to mention traffic, car tax, ever-rising petrol prices, wear and tear, breakdowns, fender-benders, the government's unrelenting punishment of the motorist, Subaru Imprezas, motorbikes, scooters, 'Quadrophenia'-type scooters that just scream 'wanker', pedestrians, animals, rain, snow, ice, blinding sunlight, frost, obesity and tutting green party liberals, but at least I won't have to use the bastard train.

People who walk slowly are stupid and I want to kill them all

2011-01-13T13:32:00.000Z

People who walk slowly need to be killed because they are clearly stupid and thus killing them is as morally justifiable as slaughtering a cow. Slow walking people have no sense of urgency because they have no idea what they are doing. They set off for work in the morning only to seemingly forget what's going on mere minutes later. At this point they either slow down or grind to a halt altogether.

This behaviour normally happens at a human traffic bottleneck. People behind them then frantically dart side to side trying desperately to pass and catch their train or run away from the swiftly approaching meteor. There are 3 types of slow-walking person - these are 1) fat people 2) amputees and 3) able-bodied idiots. Only amputees should be allowed to walk slow as at least they have a disability and are not just stupid or have a pretend disability like a fat piece of shit.

Ways to address the issue of people walking slowly

- Sheepdogs

- Equip non-slow walking people with cattle prods to keep them moving

- Replace all paving slabs with hot coals

- Instruct slow walking people that they are no longer allowed to use the pavement and will have to use cycle lanes instead. This will mean that lots of them will be killed or injured (and hopefully a good proportion of cyclists too)

- Make them join a conga line with Usain Bolt at the front

- Use them to make a low-budget zombie film

- Cut their legs off - if they're not prepared to use them, they can't fucking have them

New Years Resolutions for 2011

2011-01-04T09:33:00.000Z

Hate more people for even pettier reasons

Kill myself

Hunt down and kill everyone who I have said I hate during 2010

Stop making silly internet death threats that might be misconstrued by any agencies with too much time on their hands

Destroy Sony

Burn my eyes out with a rusty poker so that I never have to watch Jools Holland smugly look back over his shoulder as he plays a terrible jazz fusion number with his sycophantic cronies EVER AGAIN

Vow to stop giving any money to TFL on a regular basis, they are all wankers

Fix my car so it can propel itself with an engine instead of my legs

Spend less time with humans and more time with animals

Do some gay stuff

Build an exoskeleton with loads of missiles and that on it, and then attack Primark

Eat more soup

Learn to write joined up

Fart more

Play more XBox 360

Christmas is a big, steaming pile of shit

2010-12-24T10:31:00.001Z

I know at this time of year that I should be full of cheer and putting aside any petty misgivings I have aside, as did those British and German soldiers during the Armistice in World War 1, where they kicked Franz Ferdinand's pickled head around a muddy field for 90 minutes. That they shot each other to pieces mere days later is insignificant. For Christmas is a special time.

But, reams of fat, spoiled little children will be sitting on their plump arses all day long caressing their latest touchscreen bit of tat which will no doubt be lost under the bed by this time next year. The elderly and mental relative who just will not die will soil 'dad's favourite chair'. Everyone else will be in a drunken stupor for the few days where we annually forced to spend time with relatives that we absolutely hate.

Somewhere, we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. The message has been smeared and distorted by our obsession with buying presents, and the huge commercial machine that keeps trundling along, picking up more money along the way. Sales start on Boxing day now instead of January. And a lot of sales even start before Christmas. We need to look at the meaning of Christmas in its purest form, and not be taken in by all the bright lights and fancy decorations that christmas has come to represent.

So let's reflect now, on the true reason for Christmas - domestic violence. There is nothing like being trapped in a house for several alcohol-fuelled days to inspire a good old fashioned bit of spousal fisticuffs. And the best thing is, the bruises will be healed before you have to go back to work! Rejoice! As you are pushed down the stairs. Laugh! as you are kicked in the groin. Be merry! as your teeth leave your mouth and scatter to the ground like little snowflakes.

To celebrate this fantastic British tradition, I have put a new spin on an old classic. I hope you enjoy it. Perhaps you could sing it while you punch your wife or husband repeatedly in the face. Merry Christmas! And remember, no weapons!

On the first day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
A mouth full of broken teeth!

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the third day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Seven pints of bloodloss,
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Eight flying kneedrops,
Seven pints of bloodloss,
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Nine roundhouse kicks,
Eight flying kneedrops,
Seven pints of bloodloss,
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Ten spinning backfists,
Nine roundhouse kicks,
Eight flying kneedrops,
Seven pints of bloodloss,
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Eleven flailing elbows,
Ten spinning backfists,
Nine roundhouse kicks,
Eight flying kneedrops,
Seven pints of bloodloss,
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Twelve knockout blows,
Eleven flailing elbows,
Ten spinning backfists,
Nine roundhouse kicks,
Eight flying kneedrops,
Seven pints of bloodloss,
Six broken fingers,
Five bro-ken ribs,
Four broken toes,
Three dead legs,
Two black eyes,
And a mouth full of broken teeth!

Everyone who has ever presented T4 is an utter twat - Steve Jones Special!

2010-12-20T10:47:00.000Z

Serial womaniser and walking STI Steve Jones seems to have but one claim to fame, and that is that he had sex with Pemela Anderson one time. Well congratufuckinglations Steve. You can now join the highly exclusive chapter of some 500,000 people who have had the misfortune to lie with the cadaverous, pneumatic-breasted old skank. They should start up a club for people who have nailed Pammy, and have patches like the Hell's Angels, as my hugely impressive rendition demonstrates below.

About the design: The center of the piece is a beautifully-rendered penis, pointing south. This is like an inverted crucifix, insomuch as any association of a penis with Pamela Anderson is evil. The penis is lovingly adorned with 3 condoms; 3 being the bare minimum required to remain disease-free when having a steamy encounter with the former Baywatch beauty. Either side of the shaft are Pamela's lovely breasts, which have been accurately recreated with off-center nipples and surgery scars. Behind the central motif is Pamela's lovely mane of white hair. This is all set on a Baywatch red background. You can order this badge for just £45.99

Steve Jones comes from Wales and is related to the other Joneses who are famous. It's hard to think that from his modest beginnings living under some leaves on a bed of mud in a mountain in Wales Steve now has a flat in London and hosts one of the best programmes on the television that no-one ever watches! Steve's family tree can be seen below where you can see how all of the famous Joneses relate to each other.

Steve Jones gets his suave sophistication from His Grandfather Tom Jones. He briefly married his sister, Catherine Zeta the Jones, and they sired a whole cricket team together. Then Catherine went to America to assist the elderly. Grampa Tom was a legendary swordsman, as was his Great Grampa, Indiana Jones senior (Also known as Sean O'Connory). Steve Jones has slept with every woman in the British Isles, at least once. His appendage is over 2 feet long when fully unravelled and he has been known to impregnate women by just looking at them. You go, Steve!

Everyone who has ever presented T4 is an utter twat

2010-12-20T10:46:00.001Z

T4 is shown on Saturday and Sunday mornings on Channel 4. It really only exists to host the Hollyoaks Omnibus, a bit of Friends (worst show ever to grace television) and a collection of terrible live musical performances. Although not needed at all, there are normally 2 really cool presenters who introduce the programmes in as laid back and irritating a manner as possible. I have highlighted the most objectionable of these - a motley crew of reprobates who should be publicly flayed to death while being doused in grit and vinegar.

Alexa Chung

If her surname were 'Chang' then how much more fitting it would be. The girl never eats yet somehow seems to keep alive on vast quantities of Columbian marching powder and unicorn's tears. Labelled a fashionista because even model's clothes swamp her skeletal frame. Her head looks like it could snap off at any moment (If only)! Did some terrible shows in the USA which were summarily cancelled as they were even worse than the utter bilge that is T4.

Steve Jones

See The Steve Jones Special!

Simon Amstell

A horrible little vicious queen who is not, and never will be funny. Has the distinction of actually making Preston from big brother seem likeable, if only for the space of around 2 minutes. Type 'Cock' into google (with safe search on of course) and the first thing that should greet you ought to be a picture of Amstell's smirking gob with a fist rammed in it. An arse who will hopefully disappear from whence he came (somewhere posh and far too nurturing to his ego) soon.

June Sarpong

Owner of the must punchable face in human history, twinned with the worst voice ever. I have never managed to stay awake through a June Sarpong sentence. The CIA should sack off that warterboarding crap and get sarpong to chair the interrogations. A total non-entity, she fitted into the T4 family perfectly. Last seen playing herself in the dreadful Extras Christmas special. A fitting end to her ill-deserved career.

Miquita Oliver

How anyone can be so smug and overconfident while also being pudding-faced, chunky and ugly is beyond me. Oliver looks like a bag of mouldy spuds spattered in makeup yet still squeezes her generous frame into leggings and other ill-fitting clothes that only succeed in emphasising her ample bulk. Plus, she is an utter, utter, utter twat.

Vernon Kaye

What is it about Bolton and its ability to produce such utter bellends? Amir Khan, Peter Kay, Sarah Cockface, the list goes on. Vernon has never said anything funny, and that is a fact. The most interesting thing he ever did was allegedly cheat on his equally bland wife. An Oxygen thief with an accent that makes you want to ram a kipper down his gob. A lego-haired moron of the highest order.

Jameeelia Jameeelah

Or whatever she's called. Even more arrogant than Miquita, just where do C4 keep finding these arseholes?

The X-Factor is finally over. Woman Eaten by Shark - hilarity ensues

2010-12-13T14:30:00.002Z

The marketing behemoth known as the X-Factor finally ground to a shuddering halt yesterday, as yet another instantly forgettable male vocalist got his grubby little hands on the coveted prize. Simon Cowell has a new bitch for the next couple of months before he disappears to LA via his own arse for the spring, like a camp migratory Walrus. A thoroughly unremarkable series full of contrived and paper thin caricatures masqueraded as 'artists' is now over, and we must all rebuild the shattered voids that have become our lives.

But the one beacon of light peering through the interminable soup of diarrhoea was the Xtra Factor, where Konnie Huq has been doing her level best to get sacked by Simon Cowell for some months now. Whether it be her wooden delivery, incredibly rude questions or bad taste jokes Huq has at least made one aspect of the X Factor experience entertaining this year. A walking car crash, Huq said on Saturday that the show "had more bite than an Egyptian shark". Cue groans from around the studio as various runners scarpered from the ensuing shitstorm like poorly-paid rats escaping the sinking ship.

Now I guess the shark thing was unfortunate, and when I was in that sea I emerged unscathed (with the exception of a 3rd degree burn across my entire back) but if you have to die (which I understand that you do) then being mashed up by a giant fish with a thousand teeth is as good way to die as any I can think Of. Especially if you are elderly - it is infinitely better than dying in your own piss and shit, slowly slipping away as your brain turns into cheese and all your faculties go the same way as Lindsay Lohan's career. Much better to have your limbs ripped off and tossed into the air like people used to do with their mortarboards when they could afford university, ha ha ha!

As something of an aside, regarding the student 'protesters' who keep smashing up London, I hope the Police kick the shit out of all of you. If you spent less time commuting into London from your ivory towers in the suburbs - defiling war heroes and jabbing stupid members of the royal family with pointy sticks - and more time actually researching what and when you may actually have to pay after your degree is finished then perhaps these ugly scenes could be avoided. But as it stands, I hope that those silver spoons are knocked out of your mouths along with all of your teeth, you weak chinned 6th form politicians. The police should start using rubber bullets and boiling oil on you, you utter cretins.

Back to the point. While I do feel marginally sorry for a woman who probably only had 10 years left at best being eaten, there is still a positive to be taken from her death. How refreshing is it to have someone going to a middle eastern country and not meeting their maker by being robbed, Blown up, beheaded, kidnapped or flogged to death for the cardinal sin of consuming a moderate amount of alcohol, taking a photo or, worst of all, wearing sandals with socks. There's a message in there somewhere. A good old-skool mauling, with none of this political or religious bollocks.

Angry businessmen with broadsheet newspapers

2010-12-10T10:44:00.000Z

The barrel-chested angry businessman (complexus superioritis) can be commonly seen on any suburban rail route heading out of London during a weekday evening. He is easily identified by the following characteristics:

A stern expression
A briefcase/Laptop
Middle-age spread
A broadsheet newspaper
An ill-fitting and careworn but expensive suit
An antiquated mobile phone or 1st generation Blackberry

Now that you know how to identify said specimen, it is probably prudent to develop an understanding of their behavioural patterns, so that you can avoid contact with them. He will invariably behave in the following fashion, and in fact, there is a little-known code of conduct, which I will reveal here:

If there is a spare seat next to you, always make it as uninhabitable as possible, by:
(i) Puffing up your chest, and sitting with legs akimbo.
(ii) Using your vast newspaper as a 'scum shield', open said newspaper to it's maximum length, and turn the pages at least once per minute.
(iii) Make at least one phone conversation to your downtrodden, rotund wife; blustering about tonight's dinner and your expected time of arrival, with a 5 minute interval of moaning/shouting about the trains for the benefit of your fellow commuters.

If someone does dare to sit next to you, make them as uncomfortable as possible, by:
(i) Using your fat, stubby legs to dig into theirs with as much force as your cholesterol-addled frame can muster
(ii) Adapting the aforementioned newspaper technique, thrust your elbow onto your opponent's solar plexus and leave it there for the duration of your journey
(iii) Mutter curses under your breath, sigh at least twice per minute

If you have the indignity of having to sit between 2 passengers on a row of 3 seats, make them as uncomfortable as possible, by:

(i) Navigate into the optimal landing position by using your knees to bat any inconveniently-placed legs aside
(ii) For bonus points, use your trailing leg to grind your heel into the top of someone's foot
(iii) Now that navigation is complete, drop to a sitting position, utilising as much of your dead weight as possible. The force of your descent will crush the person occupying the window seat (bastards) into the corner, and propel the person occupying the aisle seat into the aisle.

You big twat.

stupid cliched phrases people use that make me want to gouge their eyes out with a turd-encrusted spoon

2010-11-28T12:54:00.000Z

"What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger"

Bollocks it does. It makes you considerably weaker. If you have your arm ripped off by a bear then you are at least 25% weaker. You might have a story to tell, but try tying your shoelaces, retard. Moral of the story - don't try and have sex with bears. If you lose half your intestines cutting through your midsection with a chainsaw then you will only ever be able to enjoy modest portions of crappy food and your tree surgery days will be over. This phrase is nonsensical, stupid. But I can actually think of one person this does apply to - Robocop. But then I think he technically died. So in his case, what did kill him made him stronger (or the bits that weren't reduced to mush)

"You're worth your weight in gold"

All this does is unfairly reward Obese people, who as we all know should be executed, minced and fed to cows. For gold is worth quite a lot these days. Someone should have told Gordon Brown before he sold all of ours. Dick.

"It's the thought that counts"

Said by stingy gits when challenged over buying a cheap, tacky and often second hand Christmas present. No, it's not the thought, it's the money that counts, actually. But let's pretend for one minute that we are in a parallel universe where thought actually counts for anything at all and consider how much thought it requires to pick out a terrible piece of tat and bestow it on a dear friend or relative. Not much, really. Thought counts for jack. "Well I thought about coming into work today, so you can't fire me" See how far that attitude gets you.

"There's no 'i' in team"

but there is a 't' in twat. 2 in fact.So f**k off.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"

I think we can agree that this has been thoroughly debunked by all the teenagers who have topped themselves as a result of a bit of name-calling, whether it be through texting or one of the various available social networks. Bullying is so 21st century now. Some kids foolishly think uttering this defiant statement will somehow stop a bully in his tracks. But more often than not the bully will leave, and promptly return with sticks and stones. Never reveal your weakness. It would be like Superman saying "Let's have a fair fight, and NO Kryptonite" to his adversaries.

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be"

So how do I go about getting my mortgage, you pious c**t

Global warming is broken

2010-11-16T10:23:00.001Z

Nora, it's cold today. What's it all about? It just annoys me actually. Am I just getting old? I seem to remember being a child and playing out in the cold weather, the snow, falling over and generally having the time of my life, however sad that that is. I can't remember when I started to feel the cold. Perhaps I'm ill. I put all my various layers on, yet when I step outside I feel like there are legions of small daggers poking into me. Then I get into the warm and my hands and face feel like they're burning. I might try to hibernate. I had a beard last week, which my Wife decided made my face look fat so I got rid of it. Now my poor chin feels numb. And my ears, well I haven't had any feeling in them for days. It's not even below zero yet. I feel sorry for those Siberians. What really irks me is that the Greenhouse effect, whilst making a great deal of places hotter, will just flood England and make it a lot colder. Stupid gulf stream. I might just start pouring table salt into the gulf to keep it going. I could probably buy some salt in bulk from Netto, if it wasn't so cold. I hate using the scraper on the car in the morning. All the ice from the windows falls onto your hands and makes them cold. Then you have to grip the freezing steering wheel, and wait a good 5 minutes for the car to get warm enough to sustain carbon-based life. Then after 1 minute of a quite pleasant temperature the interior becomes hotter than the great Satan's ringpiece. Then you have to go outside and you explode into a mass of bloody crystals because the temperature change is too extreme, like at the end of Alien 3. Apologies if you haven't seen Alien 3, but don't worry because it is poo, and I have just saved you 2 hours of your life. I suppose that the one upside of cold weather is Christmas, but then you have to go shopping which involves being outside, at least whilst in transit, and you have to spend money on people other than yourself. I vote that we commission Center Parcs to build a giant Biosphere over England (apart from Peckham, the smell would be unbearable) and then we could wear ill-fitting bermuda shorts and Ironic T-Shirts all year round. Cold weather also restricts me from employing the use of paragraphs or writing anything that makes sense. Sorry. In fact, If you haven't read this article then don't read it. It's shit.

Rewriting history, celebrity-style

2010-11-05T13:46:00.000Z

I hate revisionism in all walks of life. Let facts be facts and never forget, I say. Whether it be the scurrilous crimes of Holocaust denial or ignoring Gary Glitter as a credible artist. Unfortunately as humans we are particularly fickle in this regard, especially so when applied to celebrity land. But in reality, if someone is an arsehole and dies, they do not become canonised. They are merely a dead arsehole. In the world of the celebrity, death is the ultimate PR boost. And on occasions, death is not even necessary to turn the polls of the proles back in your favour. You can rescue your reputation simply by signing a new contract.

Consider the farrago surrounding Wayne Rooney - footballer, granny botherer, adulterer. The kind of ten-a-penny thug you see in pubs across the land starting fights; he would be a hod-carrier were it not for his natural gift. A gift he seems to be intent on squandering by eating lots of pies and contracting various STI's. Following half a season of injury and rancid form, he threatened to leave Manchester United and park his considerable backside on the treatment table of a bigger, shinier club. Some of the more mentally-challenged Manchester United fans turned up at his mansion to have a right good moan. Poor wee Sir Alex Ferguson made a weepy appeal in a press conference for the loveable little scamp to stay.

Manchester United's quandary was that Rooney has been dreadful for the best part of a year, meaning they had the choice of either letting him go for a fraction of his perceived worth, or paying him lots and lots (and lots) of money. They chose the latter. Not that I have any sympathy for that football club and if they go into administration and end up languishing in the lower echelons of the football league and Fergie ends up destitute and offering handjobs for haggis there will be few people happier than me about it. But I digress - they bit the bullet and paid up, plunging themselves into more debt and making their 'business model' even more laughable. Our plucky England hero 'Wazza' engineered a deal estimated to be worth in excess of 1 million pounds per month, and with a Scotsman at that. Quite some feat.

And what of the angry supporters? Well, the tub-thumping Manyoo morons are suddenly all giddy about him again. The fat waste of space has pulled their collective pants down and given his supporters a right good rogering. Surely the next step is yet another astronomical rise in season ticket prices to pay for Wazza's prostitutes, but all this is now forgotten, as Rooney has somehow displayed his 'loyalty' to the football club by leveraging a 100%+ pay rise and all is forgiven.When Rooneys' career is over (in approximately 2 years) the Manchester United fans will look back on his time with a nostalgic tear in the eye, and few will remember the utter greed the dirty little turncoat bastard displayed during that balmy October in 2010. No wonder the rest of the world hates us when we have little gits like him representing us on the world stage, swearing at the ref or getting sent off.

Moving onto dead people. A controversial topic being that it is considered insensitive to speak ill of the dead. But then people run Hitler down all the time, and he's pretty much dead, unless he's a cyborg who is biding his time in his secret base on the moon. One such example is the Deceased and Disgraced Big Brother 'star' Jade Goody, who went from social pariah to 'princess of hearts' and all she had to do was die. The foul-mouthed, arrogant, idiotic, argumentative bully was finally exposed on Celebrity Big Brother, but in truth she had been vile for years. She can be witnessed bullying contestants on her first stint in Big Brother and some other piece of shit on Channel 5. On the original Big Brother she was public enemy #1 until Channel 4 - so worried by the repercussions that her exit from the house would trigger - started to constructively edit her to be a loveable idiot as opposed to a vile one.

Yes she got cancer and cancer is a terrible thing. A terrible thing that roughly one third of us will have at some point in our lives (normally at the end) so there is nothing at all remarkable about a celebrity having it. Patrick Swayze had it. But then he came across as a decent human being who also had talent and therefore a right to be celebrated and remembered. He also didn't have cameras hovering around him as bits of his hair fell out or go through with a tokenistic wedding ceremony and as far as I know he didn't profit from his illness in any way. He lived his life as a decent man and he died a decent man, with his dignity intact. Jade never possessed dignity - living her life in front of the camera as an ignorant and nasty piece of work, her thin veil of goofiness exposed every time she disagreed with someone. Lest we forget her exploitation of cheap Indian labour to manufacture her pungent perfume twinned with her utter contempt for the inhabitants of the country, laid bare when she repeatedly abused a fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant, branding her 'Shilpa Poppadum' and 'Shilpa Fuckawalla' amongst a retinue of other witty put-downs.

Somehow, a woman who encompassed all that is wrong with this country was championed. As we slide down the international league tables for standard of living and education, as we continue to recruit from abroad because people here are too bloody thick or bone idle to contribute to our society, as more and more irresponsible people continually procreate and thus perpetuate and grow the cycle of mediocrity, as the people who actually work and contribute to society become increasingly outnumbered by the dull-witted and unemployed, we should remember who we idolise and why we choose to do so. We're supposed to look up to Idols, not down on them. We're supposed to celebrate and nurture talent, diversity, excellence and ingenuity, not the opposite. And death should not redefine who we are or our accomplishments (or lack of them)

The headlines following her death were hilariously hyperbolic, such was the warmness with which she was suddenly regarded. The tabloids who had called for her head several times were fawning in their tributes to this great, great woman, who achieved nothing more than reducing the National average I.Q. There were hordes of fat, low-functioning women pushing their prams on a pilgrimage to Bermondsey to pay their last respects to their fallen hero.The England flags at BNP H.Q. were flown at half-mast. Chip wrappers blew across the road in eerie silence; perhaps a reminder of Jade's favourite dish. Britain was wounded; its heart ripped out by this tragic loss. Saint Jade was born.

Stop fannying around and just get to the point

2010-11-01T10:04:00.000Z

In England, we like to pride ourselves on being polite. Surrounded by barbarians, Celts and the French, it is considered to be the last bastion of our once glorious and relentlessly cruel empire. With this in mind, several expressions exist which serve to smooth the passage of conversation, or to warn of an impending controversial opinion. I despise these expressions. they fill me with rage. For those of you who are not in England (sucks to be you) the following article may have no relevance. So you can all go if you want. Right, now they are gone, I will continue. Annoying and pointless conversation starters below.

I'm not being funny, but...

Anyone who says this is incapable of being funny. They have never told a joke, or made a quip that anyone but themselves have laughed at. They find horrible, sick jokes and text them to their mates and this is what they think is funny. It's such a stupid expression. It is almost always followed up by a horribly sweeping and prejudiced statement.

At the end of the day...

Apparently statements have more weight if said at the end of the day. Magical fairies ensure that the words are carried to the pixie god as dusk unfurls its spindly fingers across the landscape. Best when followed up by an insult. A classic would be, 'at the end of the day, you're talking bollocks.' So I guess anything that is said at a particular time of day can be dismissed as poppycock. Does anyone know what time the 'end of the day' is, and how long that state is in force before 'the beginning of the night' is more appropriate?

A lovely example of the natives using this expression can be found here

To be honest...

If you don't prefix what you're saying with this disclaimer are you lying to me? Am I to discount everything you have ever said to me? Is that really even your name? Are you sure that it happens to all guys once in a while? Is it a good size? Now I just don't know.

To be fair...

Normally followed up by something very unfair. Classic usage: Saint Jade Goody's moronic other half towards unjustly bullied Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty: "To be fair, she's a wanker" Shilpa's crime was apparently being Indian and not talking like a horrendous fishwife. People who use this expression don't know what fair is. You could probably find footage of this somewhere but I couldn't be bothered. Look for something like vile racist bully Jade Goody Celebrity Big Brother and you should find it. Lest we forget what a lovely woman she was. (R.I.P.)

If you ask/aks me...

Did I ask/aks you? I either did or didn't. Did I just say to you, can I ask/aks you about this really interesting subject, and can I have your no doubt incisive and intelligent response to it? Or did I not ask/aks you and you are volunteering it? Either way, you know whether I asked/aksed you, don't you. So stop it.

Can I just interrupt you there...

You just did, so thanks for that. You said those words and stopped me speaking, so you did interrupt me. But at least you had the common courtesy to ask, albeit a bit late. I might eat your sandwich. And then say to you, in a patronising tone, Can I eat your sandwich? Maybe I'll ask you if I can burn down your village and rape your women, after burning down your village and raping your women. But at least you can't say I didn't ask.

People I hope to outlive

2010-10-20T09:15:00.000+01:00

There is some satisfaction in outliving someone else. In fact, in order to become both bitter and old, I have to do a great deal of that. There are some people who are so annoying, that I can't help but wish death on them. Unfortunately a lot of them are younger than me. So more than likely they will win. But I'm going to start taking better care of myself, so at least a few of them may fall by the wayside before me. And then, needless to say, I'll have the last laugh.

Peaches Geldof

She's like a bad, turd-spattered penny that keeps turning up. Her loathsome, vacant and chubby features try to make sounds that approximate interesting statements and fail miserably. Quite what her dad did to deserve ending up with this spoiled, stupid and detestable brat is beyond comprehension, but it must have been bad. Especially because he had all that positive karma from Live Aid.

Michael Buble

Standing atop the pantheon of twattish music, he is only liked by women of a certain age and really stupid men, who are trying to impress women of a certain age. Seems like a nice enough chap, but he just keeps perpetuating and re-hashing a musical genre that should have died along with 'old blue eyes'. So now, Buble has to die too.

Lily Allen

Her stupid life is consumed with little personal dilemmas that no-one apart from her wants to know about. But she keeps using her shouty stupid gob to spout off whenever she's in range of a laptop. So with this in mind, hopefully she can decide the following and make her bloody mind up. Has she stopped making awful music, or is will she continue making awful music ? Was she dragged up on the mean streets of north London, having to blow Albanian gangsters to survive, or was she pampered and preened and schooled in one of the finest private institutions in the country? Is she thin and titless, or fat and titless? The world needs to know.

Justin Bieber

Owner of the worst haircut in the history of the universe. But he's not a one-trick pony, oh no. His worryingly unbroken voice (perhaps he is a eunuch) sounds like a cat being violated by a horse to my ears. I'd be lucky to outlive him, given that he is about 12. His death may be unnecessary, as he may well fade into obscurity once he starts getting pubes and gets all spotty and awkward.

Fearne Cotton

Who likes Fearne Cotton? What is she for? Destined to be a spinster forever? Maybe she should talk less and listen more. I would never have thought that the BBC could manage find a less favourable replacement for Jo Whiley, but manage it they did. Even annoying best pal Holly Wheelbarrow has a husband and kid for company, and incredibly lucrative contracts with ITV. Poor little Fearne has nothing. Nothing but being mercilessly picked on by Keith Lemon.

Matt Horne

He somehow achieves the impossible task of making James Corden appear funny. He was unfunny in Gavin and Stacey, unfunny in that dreadful sitcom, and unfunny in that dreadful film. He thought he was going to be the new Simon Pegg, but unfortunately Simon Pegg is funny. Matt Horne will never, ever be funny. He is awful. He tries to be quirky by dressing as an Italian exchange student. Just to reiterate, he is not funny. The only funny thing he will ever do, is to die in a spectacular and unlikely way. Preferably fired out of a cannon into an enraged Rhinoceros's anus, who will then run off a cliff, get sliced into small pieces by a low-flying plane's propeller and land in a vat of hydrochloric acid. That would be funny.

How to get through a boring morning at work

2010-10-06T13:56:00.001+01:00

From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:11
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject:

Yo do you have any good music collection that I could borrow ??

Vam

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:11
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

What do you mean by borrow?

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:14
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

Well I could copy them to my hard disk at home

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:17
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

No, that’s both illegal and immoral

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:18
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

Jeez you’ re such an … never mind thanks anyway

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:19
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

Do you want me to help you rob a bank as well?

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:24
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

No thank you ,,, that’s immoral lending music to a work mate isn’t

Vam

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:26
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

Maybe we could burgle a house, my mum’s neighbour is on holiday. I draw the line at killing, though.

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:28
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

Some people like you are still alive just because shooting is illegal

No thanks

Vam

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 11:32
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

You’re right, that’s too ambitious. We could go to Hounslow HMV, I can distract the staff while you take some CDs?

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 12:10
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

It’s a great plan but we swap role … I will distract the staff and you steal the CDs for me ..what say

Vam

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 12:12
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

Ok what sort of music were you after?

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 12:13
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

Pop …please J

Thanks

Vam

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 12:16
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

Sorry, I hate pop. The job’s off

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 12:19
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

Okay get me anything nice that you have got … I bought a new home cinema system so I wanna try on it so get what ever you can . the job’s still on

Vam

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From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 12:54
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

Blu ray or DVD?

Thanks,

Alex

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From: XXXXX, Vam
Sent: 06 October 2010 13:21
To: XXXXX, Alex
Subject: RE:

DVD

Vam

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: XXXXX, Alex
Sent: 06 October 2010 13:24
To: XXXXX, Vam
Subject: RE:

no

Thanks,

Alex

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After all that …….. Grrrr you re sick

Vam

The Z Factor

2010-10-04T11:25:00.000+01:00

Having spent another uneventful weekend entombed in my house, I elected to watch the X Factor again. My joy was palpable on Saturday as I witnessed 2 of my least favourite people on the entire Earth disintegrate before my very eyes. First, Katie - the bastard lovechild of Marie Antoinette and Desperate Dan - failed to impress Cheryl Cole, and then 'Cher' totally fell to pieces. Watching these 2 cry as their facade of competence went the way of their copious mascara was the best piece of television I have seen for a long time. I slept soundly on Saturday night, knowing that by Sunday evening the pair of no-hopers would be ejected from the competition. You can judge their dreadful performances for yourself below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qy36g81pvU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtXK9HW4yLw

So imagine my despair on Sunday when Cheryl elected to keep them both in! In a rare moment of lucidity, Cheryl declared that some people might find Katie annoying. Some people? Surely everyone will despise her by week 3. Her performance was a shambles. She forgot her words but made out it was because the song she was singing was 'emotional'. No doubt a sob story will make into the papers soon enough. She probably knows someone who died or was a bit poorly once or was denied a pony when she turned 12. She looks like a Lady Di drag act with a pineapple on her head. Her kooky act is already wearing thinner than her vocal range. But her performance was a masterclass when compared to 'Cher's' effort. 'Cher' got 3 chances to sing her song, I say sing when really all she did was a half-arsed rap in her irritating midlands/LA drawl. She even got a trademark hug from wor Cheryl but even that couldn't stop her just giving up, and all in front of that nice William chap.

Yet, for all their apparent foibles, both gals have been taken into the live stages next week. I wonder why they were chosen. I think in 'Cher's' case it is Cheryl's vanity at work. For 'Cher' has almost the same name, and is the mirror image of Cheryl (if the mirror had been smashed with a brick and sprayed with 1,000 litres of foundation). She also seems to like her R&B, which is the only type of 'music' that Cheryl can understand. Katie is obviously the new Diana Vickers or that dumpy Laura one, being both annoying, pretentious and guilty of massively overestimating her ability.

I do feel a bit sorry for Cheryl , though. For while she was laying about for months on end 'recovering' from 'malaria' the girls were chosen without her input. So imagine her dismay when she was confronted with 6! black contestants and had to put at least one of them through. My heart goes out the brave little geordie people's princess. She managed to dispatch 5 of them though, making it the largest black exodus since a bunch of hooray Henrys turned up in Africa with muskets and a bunch of fishing nets. In the end, she chose the whitest and weepiest black girl and let her continue her dream. With a bit of mood lighting, she can pass for white, just like that Leona one! I don't even know her name and have no inclination to find it out, what with her being so dull and forgettable. I remember she cried a lot though, but that is par for the course these days. If a girl doesn't cry, she must be an ice maiden. Even nails-hard Cheryl managed to squeeze out a few tears on cue.

In other news, Louis Walsh shockingly broke from convention and let massive Irish Mary through, who is Irish and is from Ireland, which afforded her no advantage whatsoever with the Irish judge Louis Walsh, who resides in a mansion in Ireland. She seems nice enough but I detect a very unpleasant undercurrent, which I am sure will make itself known should any criticism come her way. Which should really be in live show #1 considering her lack of versatility. All she can do is bellow. It's a given that anyone with a chest cavity that big should have a powerful voice. Doesn't mean it's any good though. Louis also put 'Storm' through who would have looked dated if it were still the late '80's. The other little fella is pretty good but unremarkable, and will get the boot within the first couple of weeks. Dannii chose some forgettable blokes who are not as good as they think they are and Simon chose 2 groups that he had put together himself, the egomaniac. At least the girlband fronted by the bleached blonde zebra didn't get through, which helped me sleep a little easier last night. I hated them. Thanks Simon.

The white van man

2010-10-01T09:07:00.000+01:00

The White Van Man has been on these shores for a long time and even predate the white van by centuries. Back when there were no white vans available, they would instead sport white horses and carts and spend their days cutting up other cart drivers and generally complaining about all the Romans 'taking our jobs'. The Sun newspaper can be blamed for propelling the White Van Man into popular culture, with their celebrated 'White Van Man' column.

Up until this development, there was little information available about the White Van Man, but what was known was frightening. The White Van Men, being plumbers, plasterers, thieves etc. have long regarded themselves as a 5th emergency service, hence their conduct on Britain's roads. Most people who drive a white van must also be owners of a Porsche 911, as they wrench their van around corners like they are driving one. White Van Men also always have priority on roundabouts, whether they be to your right or otherwise. Just let them go. They are driving a 2-tonne lump which they probably purchased under dubious circumstances and any ensuing collision will render your vehicle Edith Bowman ugly.

What wasn't known about the White Van Man was that they possess a keen political conscience, until this was exhibited by the column in the Sun. The 'White Van Man' column asks the important political questions of the day to - you guessed it - the White Van Man. Topics up for discussion invariably cover such diverse elements as immigrants, people taking our jobs and nonces. The sun prides itself on the 'readership' of the White Van Man, and even dilutes the paper to a single column which sums up all the important news, known as 'The Sun Says'.

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with 'The Sun Says' but no doubt you have heard the column regurgitated in pubs across the country. You know you're in White Van Man territory when every sentence is preceded by "I ain't being funny" or variations thereof. A typical conversation with the White Van Man can be a political hot potato, and could lead to injury should you prove to be the lone dissenting voice. I have designed a table to allow you to navigate any potential potholes, with the common social commentary and a range of suitable responses. You can even select different combinations of the second and third columns to come up with new and exciting prejudicial slurs!

Opening Gambit	Section of society to attack	Groundless accusation
I ain't being funny, but	Seems like all the immigrants	are Taking our jobs
	Seems like all the foreigners	are Raping our women
	Seems like all the pedos	'ave moved down my street
	Seems like all the Muslims	are Trying to blow us up
	Seems like all the gays	are Takin' the piss
	Seems like all the call centres	Can't speak english these days

Safe Response	Person responsible	In closing
Yeah well I blame	Tony Blair	Meself
	The Islams	Don't I
	The teachers	Ain't it
	The NHS
	The gays
	The foreigners
	The illegals

Good luck.

Got no talent? Do a cover version

2010-09-27T11:33:00.002+01:00

Seeing as I do my level best to never go outside, I spent my Saturday night watching the X Factor. I love the X Factor. Every year it comes up with a few gems, who are somehow more objectionable than those the year before. My favourite this year is 'Cher'; A Cheryl Cole wannabe who may actually prove to be more annoying than Cheryl Cole herself. Only time can tell really. Yesterday she raped and murdered Viva La Vida by Coldplay - not my favourite band or song by any means but surely they deserve better than for her to shit unceremoniously all over their song. She took to the stage with her wonky sideways smile, gurning like a stroke victim. Whippet thin and strutting up and down the stage like a demented marionette, she attempted to rap some of the words, and just forget the others altogether. I have provided a link to the affront to music below. I could write a novel and still never catch the killer combination of smugness and hammy awfulness she manages to produce in just minutes, but I can't be bothered so see for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jooLnnhTrbE

Curiously, adding comments for the video has been disabled. I wonder why.

It got me thinking about other examples of terrible cover versions. I hate cover versions at the best of times. Is there anything more lazy then singing someone else's song? They are always inferior, and in some cases, downright insulting. I have listed the ones I hate the most below.

Florence and the Machine - You got the love

Florence, alongside her 'machine' whatever that means are quite good sometimes. But they are at their worst here, ruthlessly dry-humping the cadaver of Candi Staton's 'You got the love' over and over again. In a textbook case of oversinging, her voice flutters and undulates like 2 fat people copulating. It is all very unnecessary. Her voice is like a foghorn at the best of times, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. Here is is entirely inappropriate and makes me want to burst my eardrums with a rusty nail.

Jamie Cullum - High and Dry

Generally speaking, it is not wise to cover Radiohead. Radiohead are good and intensely depressing and therefore fit my mantra perfectly. Jamie Cullum is not good. He is an arse-faced midget who champions the worst genre ever. Witness his light-jazz infused destruction of High and Dry and recoil in horror, unless you are a complete simpleton in which case you will crow on about his 'arrangement', while reclining in a terrible Stevenage winebar. You are a moron.

Professor Green Feat. Lily Allen - Just be good to me

I know that the Beats International version was also a cover, but it was good. Norman Cook is good. This version has Lily Allen in it. That's more than enough to make me want to shit my own brain out.

Mariah Carey - I can't live

I can't live after hearing this interpretation. 3 minutes of Manatee-faced Mariah singing her ample lungs out. Another example of completely unnecessary vocal gymnastics. Subtlety - so subtle you don't say the 'b'. Look it up, Mariah. Less is more.

All Saints - Under the Bridge

The Red Hot Chilis may be an overrated pile of tosh beloved only by South Africans, but this is yet another case of having a decent song desecrated by a bunch of vapid whores with no regard for or understanding of the source material. For about 5 minutes, people liked the All Saints, until they realised that they were crap, and one of the American ones was clearly bonkers. To add insult to injury, this version, which closer resembled a send-up than a homage was their breakthrough single.

Westlife Feat. Mariah Carey - Against all odds

Another appearance for the charmless slab of soul-diva, this time garnished with Westlife sauce. In fact, Westlife have ruined loads of songs, having no originality or talent within their ranks. This cover version is made exponentially worse by having both contribute their meagre 'talents'. This is the most damaging collaboration since the Nazis and Japs had a little pow-wow.

Bo Diddley Feat. Faith Evans - Missin' Y'all

When the sweary, woman-hating butterball known as Notorious B.I.G. was finally shot with enough bullets to finish him off, most right-minded folk were quite happy at the prospect of never having to hear his 'East Coast-West Coast' rhetoric again. But it presented a problem for Puff Daddy (as he was known at the time) as the only rapper in his little stable with any discernible talent was now a bloated and rotting corpse. Thankfully, the entrepreneurial Puffy struck while the iron was hot and released a tribute record for his murdered colleague, which fittingly murdered 'Every Breath You Take' by the Police. B.I.G.'s widow, Faith Evans, bravely stopped crying for just long enough to add her squawky vocals to the track. Luckily she was able to dry her eyes with all the dollar bills that were to come flooding her way as a result shifting millions of Copies. Puff Daddy, who is now known as 'Diddy' (except in the U.K.) is definitely NOT a criminal and profited enormously from the venture.

Madonna - American Pie

There was a time when Madonna was regarded as something other than a veiny old whore. During this period, she recorded a cover version of Don McLean's 'American Pie' which, if it were quantifiable, may lay claim to be the worst cover version of all time. Part-time prostitute and full-time arsehole, even Madonna's thin veneer of 'credibility' could not prevent this from being dreadful. Ostensibly about the death of Buddy Holly, Madonna managed to kill music with it instead.

Starwars toys were rubbish

2010-09-21T12:28:00.001+01:00

There was a time when the mere mention of the word 'Starwars' would send many a dysfunctional virgin all giddy with excitement. This was before George Lucas ruined what would have been his legacy with 3 dreadful prequels. I remember watching the Phantom Menace through my fingers and shaking my head a lot. Then after I watched Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith I realised that The Phantom Menace was actually the best of the trilogy by some distance. At least there were attempts at levity and humour rather that just a depressing and highly unlikely descent into evil, portrayed by one of the worst actors of all time. There are people in Hollyoaks who could have played Anakin with more conviction and gravitas.

The other unfortunate side effect of the prequels is that it got me thinking about what it was that I liked about the original 3 films. I mean if you detach yourself emotionally from the franchise, the first movie is pretty awful. Camp, hugely derivative and poorly acted (with the exception of Harrison Ford) No wonder Frank Herbert was pissed off about its level of success. The Empire Strikes Back is a great film, despite the title. One of my favourites. I really can't fault it. Return of the Jedi would be the worst conclusion to a trilogy were it not for The Matrix - Revolutions. So I was scratching my head about what endeared me so to Starwars. Surely only one excellent film out of 3 isn't enough. And then I remembered the inhabitants of my mum's loft. It's always been about the figures, or 'toys' as I like to call them.

Except, thinking about it now, the toys were rubbish too. At a time when Action Man even had moving eyes, the lack of articulation on the Starwars figures was staggering. They had 5 points of movement on the whole toy. You could move the arms and legs and head, although care had to be taken with the head as it was prone to falling off (more about that later). You could only make Starwars figures move around like Basil Fawlty doing his best impression of a Nazi. They had seats on some of the spacecraft but the figures couldn't use them properly, having to perch on the end of them, straight-legged, doing a bit of yoga. The vast majority of the figures looked awful, with massive heads. Han Solo in particular looked like the Elephant Man.

Even the better-looking figures were flawed. Darth Vader's and the Jedi lightsabers had a peculiar thin tip on the end of it, so it looked like one of those novelty balloons used to make animals which had been partially blown up by an asthmatic child. It also 'magically' appeared from the arm of the character, so was at a very odd angle which made duels a bit awkward really. Boba Fett, who should never have been killed off looked OK but even he suffered. I spent years of my youth trying to pry that rocket out from his back, only to later read that the Rocket would have been a spring-loaded missile, but for overzealous intervention from the heath and safety bods. I didn't realise health and safety even existed in the early '80s. My school certainly didn't seem to be aware of it.

Amongst the Starwars toys I have in my mum's loft a good proportion of them are headless. I remember dropping Han Solo and his head simply fell off. I didn't even drop him with any force, or so I told my brother. I have a lanky bounty hunter without a head, too. I don't even know how his head fell off - I just went to play with him one day, and his head was gone. Princess Leia lost her head during an incident in late '87. And I only have C3PO's leg, the rest of his torso lost along with all of the various weapons, capes and other accessories that would invariably break, or become forever entombed down the back of the sofa. I sound like such a careless child. But I have all the little weapons and stuff from my Transformers. But then Transformers were good and worth looking after.

I only had a few vehicles. I couldn't afford any with lights and sounds or anything like that, given that they costed the same as a family hatchback at the time. I wanted the walky thing with 4 legs, but got the little one with 2 legs. I wanted the Millennium Falcon and get the 'rebel transporter' which was basically a large shell with nothing inside it at all, just rows of studs to attach your hapless escaping rebels to. That's right, an interstellar vessel which apparently you have to stand up in during hyperspace. It looked vaguely like a beige turd. I did manage to get Boba Fett's ship (Slave1 I believe) which actually looked like an Iron.

Because the toys weren't great, they eventually became the whipping boys of my other toys. I had some He-Man figures which I used to terrorise the Starwars ones with. I had one called Fisto (really) with a 'bashing' action that I used to wreak havoc on them. Rows upon rows of demented-looking Starwars characters were felled in this manner. Others were simply blown to smithereens by Galvatron and his Transformer cronies. I even used to use my Hamster as some sort of pit monster who unfortunately would only look at them in a vaguely disinterested manner. Even he was unimpressed. That is because they were small, looked gay and some didn't even have heads.

Name a funny Woman. Eddie Izzard doesn't count.

2010-09-15T10:13:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I actually had to leave my house to go and 'socialise' with real actual people. I went to a comedy club thingy and watched some funny but immediately forgettable comedians. Actually, I watched 3 funny but immediately forgettable comedians, and one incredibly unfunny and memorable comedian. Shockingly, the unfunny one was a woman. She was terrible, delivering unfunny lines with all the commitment of Wayne Rooney to his missus. She had to make AIDS jokes to try and be funny, but even though the AIDS is hilarious, her jokes failed to resonate. There was no real laughter at all. The worst culprits were the girls in the audience who completely stonewalled her - What happened to all that solidarity bollocks? - leaving a brave handful of males to give the impression that she wasn't the worst comedian ever.

But then, no women are funny, unless they are drunkenly falling over on Big Brother or otherwise being incompetent or abusive on Big Brother. And then they are being laughed at, rather than with. But why are women not funny? And before you snap on your bonnet and jump under a horse, show me any evidence that they are. Of all the female comedians in the public eye, none are actually funny. I will prove why all these well-established 'comediennes' are about as funny as Matt Horne sans the fat bloke.

Dawn French - not funny. dresses up as fat versions of normal people, and that's as far as the joke goes. Ha ha, she's like Harry Potter, but fat, mindblowing, LOL!

Jo Brand - jokes about being fat and ugly and men being rubbish. LOL, she knows the self-deprecation, genius!

Katy Brand - useless. Sounds like an annoying 10-year-old boy trying to be funny. Dresses up as fat versions of singers and does unfunny pastiches of their material. LOL, Kanye West uses an auto-tune, LOL!! Mental!

Catherine Tate - only funny act is a copy of Matt Lucas 'doing' Vicky Pollard, plus, she plays a gran who swears! LOL! Old people aren't supposed to swear but she does! Nuts!

Sarah Silverman - Potty-mouthed horse-faced yank. Ooh she talks about sex and rude stuff even though she is a woman, that must be LOL then!

Arabella Weir - she was the unfunny one off the Fast Show. She had the one joke that was 'Does my bum look big in this?" LOL! Women always ask that, what great observational humour! And a joke well worth telling in dozens of slightly different situations! And her bum was big as well, LOL double funny!

Smack The Pony - a female-only sketch show with one male supporting actor. You could always tell when the male was talking on account of his deeper voice and him actually being funny.

That mong one off Grange Hill and Extras - LOL she talks about having cerebral palsy and people thinks she's mad and things, mental and also brave/really funny as well!

So now I have provided my bucketload of irrefutable evidence, let's look at why the women are not funny. Perhaps it's because women don't have to develop a sense of humour in school. Boys get the shit kicked out of them unless they are the hardest or most mental in the year, so humour becomes an important defence mechanism. It's hard to put your boot through someone's face with any venom if you are laughing - go on, try it. More likely though it's because men don't have to be 'laughed into bed'. All women really need to do to get laid is turn up at a boozer with pretty much all limbs/teeth present and correct and someone will have propositioned them by the end of the night. Men have to jump through hoops to get some action which is what makes us so smart, hilarious and inventive. Women's brains just aren't stretched enough to master the art of comedy, but they do have boobs etc so be nice to them and most importantly, make them laugh!

Anyone can get a gig on TV these days

2010-09-13T14:59:00.001+01:00

There are many mysteries in our world. The Bermuda Triangle. The Disappearance of Lord Lucan. Why people find the fat one out of Gavin and Stacey funny. But one mystery which eclipses all of these is a case which defies all logic. The case of a man whose distinct lack of credibility has made him something of a media darling. A man, who, presiding over a particularly obnoxious reign of an nasty tabloid which ended in a final, desperate belch of non-apology and utter disgrace has somehow been escalated to celebrity status. I speak, of course, of Piers Morgan.

Maybe it's his fawning little face, his ruddy cheeks or his beady eyes. It could be his jolly, roly poly physique or his wet charm that has particularly stupid housewives wrapped around his stubby little fingers. Then again, it could be the savvy of Simon Cowell, who on appointing Morgan as a judge on Britain's Got Talent not only made himself appear slightly less pompous, but also managed to bestow upon aspergers' android Amanda Holden the vague facade of being human. Morgan is so smug about his unexpected and fully undeserved success he probably blows a kiss when he sees himself in the mirror.

Quite why a 'resigned' former editor of a salacious redtop is adjudged to be in any position to assess talent is beyond me but there you go. It's the world we live in. Not only this, 'Pierce' as tupperware-titted waste of oxygen Katie Price/Reid/Andre/Bowers/Yorke likes to call him has his own show, where he interviews people who are not so disgusted on first sight of him as to vomit their intestines all over his smarmy face. I can see why Parky resigned, as he obviously got wind that a new, young maverick would be blazing a trail in the chat world, redefining the genre forever. Or maybe just having a chinwag with his ever-decreasing pool of mates.

But what's this! Morgan has somehow landed Larry King's vacant seat. I have it all wrong! Perhaps I should take a leaf out of Mr.Morgan's book. I would start by royally screwing up my job to the point where an international incident was stirring. Then, after laying low for a couple of years I would not only return to the previous level of fame I had attained, but eclipse it by actually being invited onto the TV! I'm off to curl out a turd onto my boss's desk.

Piers 'Leaves' the Daily Mirror

Between puberty and adulthood, things get odd

2010-09-06T12:45:00.000+01:00

I really dislike young people. Not all of them, mind. just about 90% of them. I dislike them because they're even more cocksure than I remember people my age being at the time. The ones that are not cocksure are forming suicide pacts and ending it all over some major life travail, such as not getting the exact Land Rover sport that they wanted, or having to live in Wales. I have compiled a list of young people that I dislike, just because I can. And I don't have to do homework or study so there. In fact I never have to learn anything again in my life, ever. And I won't. Put that in the bong under your bed and smoke it.

Skinny jean wearers. I hate you all. It used to be that skinny legs were a sign that your mum didn't feed you, and were to be covered up at all costs. I owned the baggiest pair of jeans imaginable and wore them from 10 to 16, just so social services didn't put me in care. Now emaciated legs are jauntily worn like a badge of honour. It must be considered attractive if you have never had to convey yourself under your own steam. Do you kids have stairlifts at home? Atrophied, lanky spider limbs shoehorned into jeans barely roomy enough for an Olsen twin.Where do you put their genitals?

Girls with too much hair. You're so stupid you make me want to throw you in the river. Overly long tresses, back-combed to within an inch their life, and then dragged through the world's biggest hedge, backwards, by a pack of wolves. A flock of Albatrosses could be perched in your ridiculous bouffants and you wouldn't know. In fact, best check your hair now, if you can see past your fringe into the mirror. And you have a mirror big enough to see your entire barnet at once. Space telescopes have big mirrors. They're used for looking at space.

Delinquents. You are the fastest growing young person demographic. You have grandparents younger than me. You have uncles 10 years younger than you. You have cousins that are also aunties. You have enough siblings to fill an entire football team, plus substitutes. Your families are all broken. Your fishwife mums are occasionally rutted by the local villain who may or may not have fathered one of your numerous offspring - they are permanently pregnant between the ages 13 and 45. In short, you kids are dragged up by nasty, drunken, illiterate, violent and uncaring benefit thieves and the world is shocked when you also grow up to be nasty, drunken, illiterate, violent and uncaring benefit thief. Stop looking at my car.

Goths. An absurd way to single yourself out as an individual, by wearing what is essentially a uniform. Conformity personified by a group who have no desire to conform. You would appreciate the irony if you knew what irony was. And don't ask Alanis Morisette, because she don't know either. Emos, If I knew what you were, perhaps you'd get your own paragraph. But I don't. But you look like a slightly less dirty Goth to me. So all that applies to Goths applies to you . You are all tools, and you all look ridiculous.

Precocious rich kids. I hate you most of all. I hate your noses that end at impossible angles, your giant ears and prematurely balding pates. I hate your double-barreled names almost as much as I hate the pullovers you drape over your popped-collar polo shirts. You swim in a gene pool so shallow it's a wonder you can reproduce at all, Descendents of colonial bastards who cracked the whip to the tune of Jerusalem. Using the facade of charity so you can go on a jolly jaunt sailing around Europe or back-packing through Rhodesia, or whatever the local savages call it now. Always praised for your endeavour and spirit by the Daily Mail. That just gives sane folk another reason to hate the Daily Mail. Tarquin, Foie Gras, China White, Chinos and one thousand pound loafers. Cressida, of course you can borrow daddy's old Yacht to sail around the Med. Perhaps you can get a duke of Edinburgh out of it. He's our third cousin after all, so it's the least he could do. Give mummy and daddy a bit of alone time. Boarding school terms are just far too short.

So, to summarise, if you are a teenager I probably hate you. Sorry about that.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

2010-09-02T10:25:00.000+01:00

For some reason, a lot of intelligent, law-abiding citizens have a blind spot on their moral compass the size of Peru when it comes to one particular act of lawlessness, and that is the act of piracy. Whether it be music, videogames or films, all are considered fair game by these mavericks, the swashbuckling heroes sticking 2 fingers up to 'the man' and showing the rest of us up for the conformist, capitalist fools we are. These selfless Robin Hoods rape and stifle the creativity of others in the name of freedom. God bless 'em.

I would be better able to abide pirates if they were able to admit that they were thieves. But despite the fact they are thieves, who may as well run out of HMV with a shedload of CDs stuffed under their jumpers, they refuse to acknowledge this fact. Instead, the same old tired, cliched mitigations and justifications are reeled out by people, disgusted at the fact that they are considered thieves when in fact, they are thieves. And they're not even good or intelligent thieves. They sit there, in their underpants, dribbling all over their keyboard as their withered hands dart back and forth, mouse in hand, randomly downloading everything they can. Below are some of the more common justifications for these acts of theft, that you may hear when dealing with these turgid individuals.

"Other people pay for it, so I don't need to" - If everyone had this attitude, then all these industries would cease to exist tomorrow. Just because other people are propping up your greedy, thieving lifestyle does not justify its continuation. It would be like me strolling up to Curries, wrenching a massive 3D TV off the wall and walking out with it, all the while wearing a smug grin, sniggering at all the other poor fools who actually elect to pay for things they want, rather than just steal them.

"I go to concerts, so it's OK for me to download music for free" - Hmmm. Let's suspend for a minute the disbelief that these cretins who download every new album have seen even 10 percent of the artists whose work they have stolen live, and take it on face value that for all the hundreds of artists they have stolen off of, they have paid to see them all at least once. Even if that was the case, how many of those were seen at festivals where the individual artists get an infinitesimally small percentage of the takings? And what if artists don't want to do in excess of 200 gigs per year, playing in Romford to gurning simians, dodging plastic bottles of Bacardi Breezer? That second album isn't going to happen any time soon. But it's not as if anyone would bother buying it, anyway. Why bother spending all that money on producing and tweaking an album for optimal aural performance, when the only time you will see any money for it is if you play over thousands of grunting morons on a terrible sound system in Norwich?

"Videogames cost too much, that's why I don't pay" - Obviously, the days of paying upwards of 60 pounds in 1989 for a game that lasts mere hours are long forgotten, then. Games take longer, involve more staff and require more of a budget to produce than most movies. They can provide months of entertainment. But that doesn't stop gibbering baboon-brained morons from paying nowt for them. Then they have the audacity to complain when their Xbox 360 is blocked from Xbox Live. Diddums, you cretinous, cro-magnon pikey idiots.

"Film stars are paid too much money, so why should I pay to see them?" - No-one is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to watch these films. If you have such a strong moral objection to the obscene salaries paid out, why not stay at home, and read a book instead, or do all those words and lack of explosions confuse you. You see, the only films that really suffer from your belligerent and quite ridiculous attitude are those from the smaller studios, where low takings for one movie can mothball other forthcoming projects, or close studios altogether. The blockbuster films that pay the silly wages will always prosper, because there will always be intellectually bankrupt retards who will pay top dollar to see Twilight 12 or Fastest and the Furiousest.

No punishment is too great for these thieving gits. Hopefully, in the future there will be harsher sentences bestowed upon these individuals. Perhaps some method of bisecting fingers with inbuilt lasers, should someone attempt to download copyrighted music. Or obliterating the abodes of those downloading the latest shoot-em-up with a Gatling gun. Maybe confiscating all films and TV programmes of a movie download whore, and forcing them to watch episodes of Friends back to back for eternity would work.

In closing, if you don't pay for stuff and just take it, I hate you. All of you, with your smug and somehow morally superior attitude when it comes to your cowardly acts of theft. Here's what will become of our arts if you carry on. In 10 years the music singles chart will be full of X Factor winners, and X Factor runners-up. Attaining a number one will require around a thousand copies sold. Aspiring musicians and people with talent will be forever stuck, stacking shelves at Tesco, waiting for the call that never comes. In cinemas, there will be no films that are not sequels or do not star Shia LeDouche. Videogames will regress to smaller and simpler titles which are cheap to produce, with the exception of FIFA, which will continue to sell billions of copies to the knuckle-draggers. For this is our future, and you retarded arseholes are making sure it happens. Congratulations, you thieving, smug, idiotic bastards.

Watch 'Idiocracy', for this is our future

2010-08-20T10:05:00.003+01:00

The latest 'A' Level results have been announced, and, shock horror, there has been another increase in overall pass rates, despite a concerted effort to make the exams and courses more challenging. This means that there has been not one dip in the rising pass rates over the last 20 years. Now, there are 2 conclusions that can be reached from this. The first is that young Britons are mutating into a master race of the world, who will soon be escalated to the very pinnacle of society. In time, they will do away with speech altogether and instead use telepathy to communicate. They will also move things with their very minds. Us older and obviously developmentally challenged relics will be employed as slaves and human chairs. The other conclusion is that the qualifications are becoming easier.

Unfortunately, lots of people seem to believe that the former conclusion is more likely than the latter. There was a time when the 'A' in 'A' Levels referred to 'Advanced'. Now it seems to represent the average grade attained. 'A' levels have been devalued thoroughly over the last 20 years, to a point where the universities are left flummoxed by students receiving 'A' grades when they are, quite clearly, thick as Lily Allen's ankles. Prospective students often lack the rudimentary skills to wash their own clothes or brush their hair, let alone apply abstract thought to a conundrum. Thankfully the interviewing process normally sorts the adept from the retarded, so the complete gibbering loons have to settle for a job as a tube driver or Big Brother contestant.

Idiots assume that the current bunch of sixth formers are much more intelligent that a decade or so ago, despite the lack of any compelling evidence whatsoever. In fact both universities and workplaces regularly complain about the declining standards of basic literacy and numeracy. I found some frightening statistics on the BBC website which I may have re-contextualised slightly to demonstrate that improved 'A' level pass rates are inversely proportionate to actual intelligence.You may notice the lack of data post-2005: this is because the incumbent university students were no longer able to operate a computer with sufficient skill to perform the analysis required, and were instead given some crayons to play with.

A-LEVEL PASS RATE: UK	LEVEL OF DIMNESS	SMUGNESS LEVEL
2001: 89.6%	Blink 182	Average
2002: 94.3%	Plank	Big smarmy grin
2003: 95.4%	5-watt bulb	Annoying
2004: 96.0%	Jade Goody (then)	Think their parents are dim because they did not pass 6 A/S levels in Media Studies
2005: 96.2%	Jade Goody (now)	The world owes them a living. The intellectually bleak shall inherit the Earth

A* at 'A' Level has now been introduced, which is pretty much an admission that they are broken. I see this cycle continuing in perpetuity. I predict by 2030 what would have been an A in 1980 would now look like this: A******************************************************************************************************

Some facts about how much clevarar the new generations is than what my lot was

Autobots. Transform, and sell out.

2010-08-16T10:27:00.003+01:00

Kids like Ben 10. Before that they liked Digimon. Then Pokemon (bit of a Jamaican flavour to that era) so on and so forth. In my era it was all about the Transformers. The cartoon was concocted to cynically market the toys, but I knew little of those machinations at the time. I just knew I had to have Optimus Prime. Had to. If the Internet was around then, I would have put my little sister on eBay to raise the funds. Eventually I got my wish. My mum bought it for me for Christmas, but she did so in October because they were so scarce. On a couple of occasions, I was allowed to play with him while he was still in the box. I was that pleased with him.

Optimus prime is an icon. Everyone knew who he was. He had the highest Tech Specs in almost every respect. Tech Specs were a jagged graph, printed onto the back of the cardboard boxes, next to the barcode and underneath a vista of various robots doing battle. You could distinguish the purple peaks and troughs through the pinkish grid if you wanted to, but why do that when you could use your decoder. A piece of red acetate endowed with magical properties. Pop that in front of the graph and hey presto. Those toys were the dictionary definition of awesome. So awesome that I have spent nearly a paragraph talking about a bit of packaging. They even had heat stickers, entirely pointless but wonderful badges that would only show the robots allegiance when rubbed or blown on. They were pointless because each figure had at least 4 or 5 Autobot or Decepticon badges so the need for subterfuge on one particular badge was never adequately (or at all) explained. I still have my transformers, and their Tech Specs. They are currently on loan, being exhibited to some lucky mice in my mum's loft.

So without really having to make much sense, the toys were great. The early ones in particular were incredibly well made. Chunky, metal and solid. Although anyone of my age who did not break or lose most of Megatron is either a liar, or didn't have Megatron. There was something abut the gadget-centric 80s that made transformers such a perfect fit. Ghetto blasters, Walkmen and Lamborghinis were all beautifully rendered. But in all honesty, the cartoons themselves do not bear up to close inspection today. All plots were the same. A bunch of planes tear across the Atlantic looking for Energon (Glowing, urine-coloured sugar cubes) pursued by a bunch of cars and trucks, who battle and randomly change into robots and back. (I think there was a contractual obligation to demonstrate both toy modes several times per episode) The evil ones (Decepticons) were always duffed up and sent packing. Occasionally a luckless human got a black eye. But it was all harmless fun. That was until the movie.

I was lucky enough to be in Disney World at 8 years old. Did I want to go on rides? No. Did I want to be molested by Mickey Mouse? Not particularly. I knew that we were in the states at the time that the Transformers movie had been released. In the 80's, it used to take roughly 20 years for movies that had opened in the states to appear in Britain, for some hitherto unexplained reason. So I whined, complained bitterly and basically just behaved like the spoilt bastard that I am until my Dad relented and took me to see the movie. There are 3 peculiarities about the movie, looking back on it. 1) it was well animated and had a plot that made some sense. 2) Leonard Nimoy and Orson Welles! lent their voices to it. 3) They killed Optimus Prime. They actually killed Optimus Prime and that was that. He was dead. I kept thinking that his resurrection would be forthcoming but it wasn't. Optimus was dead and the new Autobot leader was a knobend.

It takes real bravery to kill an icon like that. Especially with no real fanfare or advanced warning. In actual fact, I later learned that most of the old toyline was killed, to encourage us to buy the newer toys. They weren't sent to Swansea on a peace-keeping mission or something, they were all killed, on screen. Half of them were ripped to pieces. The replacement toys were bigger, noisier, but more plasticy and a lot less charming. The golden era of Transformers was over, and Transformers slowly went the way of other fads. I kept buying the comic in the UK all the way to it's bitter end, when it had been forced to print mostly in black and white. About 6 people noticed its demise. Optimus Prime had been bought back in the late '80's as a bigger and much uglier incarnation, and he couldn't arrest the decline. Then a garish relaunch of the old toys failed. Then they started fannying around with monkeys and dinosaurs.

In the intervening decade things were quiet. There were still Transformer toys and cartoons being made, and some of them weren't bad, but they were now considered niche instead of all-conquering. So I greeted the news of a new live action Transformers with cautious optimism. The old characters would be in it. I knew that CG could now beautifully render the old forms I knew so well. And then my initial optimism turned to sheer dread when I realised that Michael Bay had been appointed to helm the picture. What a disaster. That's Michael Bay the awful director, not some hitherto unknown Michael Bay who was not an awful director. Then the first character models emerged. I obviously doubted their authenticity at first, given how bad they were. But then the movie drew ever closer and I realised that they were the actual designs. I still had enough curiosity to see the movie, but I had to wait until I could see it gratis. I have a policy (If it's Michael Bay, don't pay) that has served me well in life.

I eventually got to see the Transformers movie, and Bay's reputation for ruining everything didn't disappoint. I was greeted with approximately 2 hours of insectoid, Picasso-inspired automatons clanging into each other in either so slow a speed that I dozed off, or so fast that for approximately a third of the movie I had no idea who was fighting who, where they were and what for. To say it was a crushing disappointment was an understatement. A fairly decent cast (including John Turturro for some reason - hope he sacked his agent) plus Megan fox gamely tried to paper over the quadruple chasms of infantile script, woeful direction, dreadful character design and excessive slow motion, but could do little to arrest the picture from stunning mediocrity.

Why am I writing about this now, you may ask, not very topical is it. Transformers was donkeys years ago. But no. If you remember my aforementioned rule regarding Michael Bay, I must never part ways with any money when watching his films. So last week, I was stuck in a room with a telly equipped with an 'On Demand' service and the choice was either wrist-slittingly depressing daytime TV or the Transformers sequel, Revenge Of The Fallen. Despite a million alarm bells going off in my head, I watched Revenge Of the Fallen. Could Bay and the production team arrest the myriad issues with the first movie? Of course not. In fact there are several reasons why Revenge Of The Fallen is even worse than its' predecessor. Even poorer plot. More confusing. Uglier robots. More silly little robots. More silly big robots (why does a stealth bomber need a walking stick, and where does it conceal it when in plane mode?) Shia LeBoeuf more irritating than before. Optimus Prime dies, and is promptly resurrected.

That last point is what prompted me to write this, so you can't blame me for wasting your time. Blame the heathens who chanelled the awful script via Satan's fiery ringpiece. At least in the original cartoon movie, there existed the kind of ruthless mentality to actually kill a hero and not pretty much instantly bring them back. It may have been for cynical reasons but then you're not relying on cheap tricks as a plot device. You can have a death scene that actually invokes emotion, rather than a death which you know will be followed up by a resurrection before the credits roll. So Prime is bought back to life by virtue of a shard of something being stuck into his chest, and then the aforementioned pensioner robot, Jetfire, kind of rips himself to pieces and sticks bits onto Optimus. That somehow does the trick and then Megatron, who in his latest incarnation resembles a turd wrapped in scrunched-up tinfoil, is vanquished.

Now that the inevitable sequel is in the works, who knows where this franchise will end. Despite the terrible reaction to the 2nd movie (kudos for that, critics) another film is now guaranteed. Michael Bay, a man constructed entirely of Teflon, the narcissistic, ill-equipped and talentless hack, will direct again. This is despite the fact that even Megan Fox (whose sole contribution in the first 2 installments was removing and putting on clothing very slowly whilst pouting) has realised that Bay is an utter arse, opened her gob and has been kicked off the film. She allegedly compared him to Hitler. Now I'm no fan, but I think that is a bit over the top. Sure, Adolf was evil incarnate, but he never ruined Transformers.

Jordan - don't go there

2010-08-12T18:58:00.009+01:00

Jordan. Dry, arid and unbearable during the day. Ice cold at night. Mile upon mile of featureless dusty orange, sparsely populated with giant dunes. A barren, unforgiving landscape, devoid of character or hope. Also known as Katie Price, she has been many a feckless girls' role model for some 10 years now. 10 years in which she has transformed from a pretty and harmless bongo mag staple to a dried up, emaciated cynical old husk, who has an innate belief in her intellect and god-given right to forever be the most famousest woman ever.

If we go back 10 years we can see where the issues started. Jordan was pretty and glamorous. A pin-up you might say. But when she first opened her mouth a wave of crushing disappointment swept across the males of our fair isle, in much the same way David Beckham's first interviews made women a little bit sick in their mouths. Her voice is so dull, lifeless and relentless, she could verbalise the cure for cancer and no-one would listen. Her voice has no lustre, no life. If Stephen Hawking wanted to sound more robotic, then he should wheel himself over to chez Jordan with a tape recorder.

Did you know that Katie Price has a speech impediment? She actually can't say the letter r. The rotund, floppy-haired and perma-adolescent comic fetishist Johnathan Ross has made a career out of not being able to pronounce his own surname; yet 'Pwicey's' less than expert use of her tongue (something of a first there) goes un-noticed. This is because never has one person spoken so much bilge and gained so many column inches for doing so. We are so baffled and befuddled by the latest stream of verbal diarrhoea exiting her gob that she could lisp like Chris Eubank and no-one would pick it up.

She manages to be insensitive, rude and crass while all the time possessing zero charisma. Even her attempts at public crying seem to be more akin to initiating a software program rather than any genuine emotion. My theory is that Jordan is a cyborg. She has had so many nips, tucks and alterations she is now about as organic as Tesco Value giant mutant tomatoes (10p for 6). All of her life decisions seem to be determined by her relentlessly stupid, yet cold and calculating brain; her selfish synapses firing once every couple of months, telling her to dispense of someone or something in her vapid life and replace with a more pliable/hunkier/less intelligent substitute.

She is literally surrounded by sycophants now, having ousted any actual friends who may dare to suggest that, actually she is wrong all of the time, and quite the disgusting human being to boot. Surely it is only a matter of time before the town of Hove is permanently scarred by a giant, stalinesque statue of her effigy, giant breasts hewn from disused gasworks. Lately she has been expressing the difficulty she has had in being 'Reidinated', by classily informing various media outlets of her struggles, as every woman with a modicum of self-respect in her situation would do. She is acutely aware that another unfortunate sprog would momentary shore up the rapidly disintegrating walls of her 'career'.

However, at least having children to various fathers isn't her only talent. Oh no. This is a woman who professes to have written in excess of a dozen books, yet I'd be amazed if she could name a dozen she has read. In fact, I'd be stupefied if she could name a dozen titles of any book ever written, even if allowing her to name her 'own'. Putting this aside, at least she has her looks. Oh Dear. She now resembles a Harpy dreamt up by H.P. Lovecraft on acid. The bottom-half of a 10-year-old boy. A Top half that even Beavis and Butthead in their chromosome-deficient horny pomp would be hard-pressed to make such a mess of. A duck-like, emotionless face, punctuated by soulless black beads for eyes, and all crowned by a huge, synthetic mane of the deepest ebony, she really is a 'stunna'.

Her last remaining vestige of hope is television. Ever since she was filmed lazily noshing on Dane Bower's chub-on it was obvious that the small screen was her natural home. Her 'fly on the wall' television series continues to be syndicated by various low-brow cable channels which you find by accident when looking for Porn. Tawdrily serialising the black widow-like mental destruction of her latest luckless male, the show somehow succeeds in painting her in an even worse light than usual. And this is a show of which she has editorial control, so who knows how bad she really is? Poor old Alex Reid, I’ll wager. No wonder he was so pumped to be on Shooting Stars, even if he had no clue what was happening.

I don't like wednesdays (tell me why)

2010-08-11T10:14:00.003+01:00

I hate Wednesdays. Wednesdays are neither here nor there. Trapped between the optimism of a forthcoming fantastic weekend and the crushing reality of yet another disappointing weekend. I'm not even with Orange so no free cinema tickets for me.

If I believed in the absolute absurdity that the earth was created by a divine entity in 7 days, then the Daily Mail, electrical 'lifestyle' products prefixed with a little 'i' and Katie Price were all created on a Wednesday. Such is the banal nature of the day that we could easily scrap it from the calendar altogether. At least then we could 'enjoy' Christmas in the summer once in a while.

So it is on this Wednesday, sitting here listening to yet another conference call where words meld into one lengthy, undulating string of bilge, which I decide to create this 'blog'. I hope that it is the cathartic kick up the arse I need to actually achieve something, even if that something is making someone else as miserable as me, if but for a fleeting moment of time.

So look forward! to being regaled with unremarkable tales about things that vaguely annoy me. Which, as has been pointed out by some real life people to me is pretty much anything. Suspend your disbelief! as I grumpily and somewhat futilely have a strop about not much at all. And most of all Enjoy! not being as petty and mincing as me.

Roll on next Wednesday.