02 October 2010
Cheese. It rocks.
The topic of today's blog is cheese. It rocks. Nothing more need be said on this topic.
26 September 2010
Cut the BBC for all I care
One of the rites of summer, as the early signs emerge of the next financial year's outlook, is a steady flow of alarming stories about how the BBC's marvellous world-best services are under threat if the licence fee isn't raised substantially the following year. This year has been a little different in that the signs seem to be that the licence fee may be frozen next year and this - we are led to believe - will lead to a catastrophic reduction in auntie Beeb's cutting edge offerings across radio, television, the web, blah blah blah.
Surely as a lefty defender of "culture" and public services generally I am up in arms about this? Well, funnily enough, no. In fact I find myself very close to agreeing with practically every word of the following Conservative Party posting on the subject: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2010/09/mark-littlewood-the-bbcs-time-has-past.html
I would have to ask: did the BBC make any of the following series, to pluck a half dozen or so at random from the air: The Sopranos, Arrested Development, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost...? Oddly: no. They have been spending the licence fee - as usual - on episode after episode of shitty soap operas, 40 or so more episodes of Casualty per year, the 69th series of Last Of The Summer Wine, and - of course - keeping the same old white male Oxbridge claque in their comfy generously paid risk-free management jobs.
The BBC's flagship programmes are probably perfectly capable of becoming self-sufficient: they're mostly talent contests and "reality shows" of course, just like on every other channel. But Dr Who and Top Gear for example seem to have large audiences and a well-developed line in merchandise (toys, books, even birthday cakes) and if people want to watch public schoolboys damaging the environment, heehawing about how much they hate vegetarians, and laughing at one another's scripted "witty" remarks week after week after week then good luck to them. But why should I pay for it when they could simply show adverts every 15 minutes just like all the other channels do?
The BBC licence fee is a regressive tax which penalises poor people for the one simple pleasure that goes some way towards numbing the boredom of being on society's scrapheap. And yet people end up in prison for not paying the fine for not having their telly licence. It's nothing short of shameful.
Surely as a lefty defender of "culture" and public services generally I am up in arms about this? Well, funnily enough, no. In fact I find myself very close to agreeing with practically every word of the following Conservative Party posting on the subject: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2010/09/mark-littlewood-the-bbcs-time-has-past.html
I would have to ask: did the BBC make any of the following series, to pluck a half dozen or so at random from the air: The Sopranos, Arrested Development, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost...? Oddly: no. They have been spending the licence fee - as usual - on episode after episode of shitty soap operas, 40 or so more episodes of Casualty per year, the 69th series of Last Of The Summer Wine, and - of course - keeping the same old white male Oxbridge claque in their comfy generously paid risk-free management jobs.
The BBC's flagship programmes are probably perfectly capable of becoming self-sufficient: they're mostly talent contests and "reality shows" of course, just like on every other channel. But Dr Who and Top Gear for example seem to have large audiences and a well-developed line in merchandise (toys, books, even birthday cakes) and if people want to watch public schoolboys damaging the environment, heehawing about how much they hate vegetarians, and laughing at one another's scripted "witty" remarks week after week after week then good luck to them. But why should I pay for it when they could simply show adverts every 15 minutes just like all the other channels do?
The BBC licence fee is a regressive tax which penalises poor people for the one simple pleasure that goes some way towards numbing the boredom of being on society's scrapheap. And yet people end up in prison for not paying the fine for not having their telly licence. It's nothing short of shameful.
23 September 2010
All-purpose excuses
Are you a plumber, electrician, phone engineer or plasterer who said they'd turn up to carry out a job "just after lunchtime" but can't make it? Here's another list of fantastic excuses to use when you ring up to promise you'll be there tomorrow instead, "round about teatime, definite!"
- My nan went into labour and I had to rush her to East Grinstead hospital
- The cat ate my toolbox and we had to force-feed it caster oil
- Sorry mate I put your postcode in my satnav the wrong way 'round and ended up in Arbroath, but don't worry I won't charge ya the petrol money or nothing
- I couldn't answer the 'phone for the last week unfortunately 'cos it fell down a toilet and the missus has been drying it with a hairdrier so I only just got your 14 messages and 7 voicemails
- I had this emergency job come up at an old people's home and had to drop everything
- I completely forgot it was my auntie Gwen's funeral and ... you're breaking up.... what... sor... charge the battery then I'll give ya a ring yeah...
- Sorry I couldn't make it, I went to sign on and got called in for a Restart interview that went on all morning
- This UFO abducted my nan and....
- The van's off the road after I got cut up by this Polish HGV and went into this geezer from Hull, makes you wonder why we even joined the Common Market dunnit
- Our house got repossessed and the bailiffs took my phone but I'll be 'round just as soon as I can get the kids settled in their foster home
07 August 2010
I really really hate litterers
I've mentioned this before, but what possible reason can there be for people to be such total filthy idiots?
Of a weekend afternoon at this time of year it is pleasant and civilized to head for some part of Kent not covered in fuck-ugly Barratt Homes for a walk in the woods. It's especially soothing to find one of the redwood trees in Bysing Wood, for example, and to caress it's dry leathery hairy bark.
But my hopelessly outdated tree-hugging reverie is always jolted soon enough by some wank-bastard's couldn't-give-a-toss decision to chuck their old Bic lighter on the ground, ciggy packets strewn everywhere, and the inevitable communes of some of the many millions of plastic water bottles that are left to decay for the next millennium or two all over this country. An old wheelbarrow, the carcass of a bicycle, the remains of a vacuum cleaner - it's all here
As we forage for blackberries and wild fennel on the edge of the woods, wondering whether that yellow flower over there might be St John's Wort, old railway tickets have somehow found their way in among the wild poppies; the remains of a fire with beer cans strewn all over, a ziplock bag with crumbs of hashish, and several Mr Kipling boxes. Do people seriously go walking miles out of their way simply so that they can smoke a spliff then stuff their puffy faces with French Fancies? (This is a vile tiny sponge cake covered in sickly sweet icing and doused with preservatives, if you're not familiar with the brand.)
A few minutes walk away the old gunpowder works is a rich habitat for plants, insects, and birds particularly, but here too there's always dogshit, the wrappers of loafs chucked in the water, cola cans... a skip's worth of crap scattered about.
Wake up people, because if it isn't already too late it soon will be.
Of a weekend afternoon at this time of year it is pleasant and civilized to head for some part of Kent not covered in fuck-ugly Barratt Homes for a walk in the woods. It's especially soothing to find one of the redwood trees in Bysing Wood, for example, and to caress it's dry leathery hairy bark.
As we forage for blackberries and wild fennel on the edge of the woods, wondering whether that yellow flower over there might be St John's Wort, old railway tickets have somehow found their way in among the wild poppies; the remains of a fire with beer cans strewn all over, a ziplock bag with crumbs of hashish, and several Mr Kipling boxes. Do people seriously go walking miles out of their way simply so that they can smoke a spliff then stuff their puffy faces with French Fancies? (This is a vile tiny sponge cake covered in sickly sweet icing and doused with preservatives, if you're not familiar with the brand.)
A few minutes walk away the old gunpowder works is a rich habitat for plants, insects, and birds particularly, but here too there's always dogshit, the wrappers of loafs chucked in the water, cola cans... a skip's worth of crap scattered about.
Wake up people, because if it isn't already too late it soon will be.
Why this blog does not have "like" links you can click to indicate that you like the entries
Because I am not a fuckwit and I assume that you aren't either.
05 July 2010
Your Freedom...
The new-ish Con-Dem In their own words: "We're working to create a more open and less intrusive society. We want to restore Britain’s traditions of freedom and fairness, and free our society of unnecessary laws and regulations – both for individuals and businesses."
The Your Freedom site (oddly enough lacking the sub-title "... and Our Freedom To Ignore The Lot of You") will "...[give] you the chance to suggest how we can do this. Your ideas will inform government policy and some of your proposals could end up making it into bills we bring before Parliament to change the law."
The proposal illustrated above - suggested by some hooligan - sadly has already fallen foul of the website's
wildtalents does not, of course, sanction the posting of frivolous ideas on the website.
03 July 2010
Why Uruguay won't be disqualified from the World Cup
One of the most agonisingly blatant incidents of football chicanery in the history of the game was seen by millions in the Uruguay -v- Ghana World Cup quarter-final last night. If you didn't see it then a quick summary: a closely fought match has been 1-1 for more than an hour, extra time is about to run out, but Ghana have the Uruguay goal under siege. A shot is made from very close range and it's bang on target... but a player named Luis Suarez fends the ball away with his hands. The referee immediately sends Suarez off, and a penalty is awarded. But Ghana miss, time is up, and Uruguay win the resulting penalty shoot-out.
Looking at it from the point of view of the defender, he did the right thing. He sacrificed himself for his team, to keep their hopes alive. He gambled that maybe the penalty that was sure to be awarded would be missed... and he was proved correct to do so.
In rugby football if a try is only prevented because of a penalisable offence the attacking team is awarded what's called a penalty try. I don't know when this rule originated but I can remember it being enforced 30 years ago and it surely goes back further than that. The rules of football should be changed in the same way: if the ball is clearly heading towards the target but a goal is prevented by breaking the rules then a penalty goal should be awarded (not just a penalty kick). The LBW rule in cricket has a similar logic.
Since you can't change the rules retrospectively Uruguay should be disqualified: it is the only morally correct thing to do. But this will NOT happen. Uruguay will go on to play the Netherlands and, who knows, if the Dutch have one of their off-days (and they have a long history of these) Uruguay could get as far as the final. The world will see confirmed in front of their eyes that those who cheat can prosper enormously by doing so (even if they do get their wrists slapped).
Cheating is brushed aside as "all part of the game": when, for example, erstwhile England captain John Terry jumps for the ball with his elbows flailing wildly. This happens every time he goes for a header. He is the picture of innocence should an opponent happen to be knocked flying or if the referee dares challenge him, but they very seldom do, and so he carries on doing it. Suarez's team-mate Diego Forlan (as Aryan a Uruguayan as I have ever seen) is no stranger to the penalty-winning dive in the box, and how many feigned injuries have we seen in this World Cup alone?
In 2003 Robert Pires dives and earns a penalty for Arsenal who are 1-0 and struggling against Portsmouth. They get the goal and it ends 1-1 and they go on to be unbeaten all season. Yes, I'm still bitter about it.
It's nauseating that the most prominent and popular sport in the modern world tolerates cheating, but it's no surprise: football is the microcosm of the larger (global) society which it takes place within. Nearly a century ago Antonio Gramsci said "Football is a model of individualistic society. It demands initiative, competition and conflict. But it is regulated by the unwritten rule of fair play." (Paraphrase from Football and Scopone, an essay of 1918, scopone being a popular card game played in fours, two pairs competing, in Italian pubs.)
At the time Gramsci wrote this he fervently believed that Italy, and the world, could be transformed into a Communist society through the free exchange of ideas: in the battle of ideologies the morally correct view could prevail, and the old ideas would wither away. Not many years later, as part of a crack-down ordered by Mussolini, the state prosecutor said that Gramsci's brain should be stopped from functioning for twenty years. It only took eight years of his twenty year sentence for poor Gramsci to be stopped from "functioning" altogether. And we know how history has played out since then.
The global society which football models is one which tolerates charismatic cheats, thieves, and liars. It's one which rewards the bosses of failing businesses with nice new jobs in the business which takes over what's left (while the minions join the dole queue). One which says that the only way to encourage banks to lend, and to kick start the sclerotic economy, is to guarantee their loans with tax revenues. And when the bankers agree to defer their fat bonuses for a year oh how grateful we're all supposed to be. One which says that in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthy we must cut one quarter from health, education, social care....
It shouldn't be allowed to carry on. But it does. Uruguay shouldn't be allowed to carry on in this World Cup. But they will.
Looking at it from the point of view of the defender, he did the right thing. He sacrificed himself for his team, to keep their hopes alive. He gambled that maybe the penalty that was sure to be awarded would be missed... and he was proved correct to do so.
In rugby football if a try is only prevented because of a penalisable offence the attacking team is awarded what's called a penalty try. I don't know when this rule originated but I can remember it being enforced 30 years ago and it surely goes back further than that. The rules of football should be changed in the same way: if the ball is clearly heading towards the target but a goal is prevented by breaking the rules then a penalty goal should be awarded (not just a penalty kick). The LBW rule in cricket has a similar logic.
Since you can't change the rules retrospectively Uruguay should be disqualified: it is the only morally correct thing to do. But this will NOT happen. Uruguay will go on to play the Netherlands and, who knows, if the Dutch have one of their off-days (and they have a long history of these) Uruguay could get as far as the final. The world will see confirmed in front of their eyes that those who cheat can prosper enormously by doing so (even if they do get their wrists slapped).
Cheating is brushed aside as "all part of the game": when, for example, erstwhile England captain John Terry jumps for the ball with his elbows flailing wildly. This happens every time he goes for a header. He is the picture of innocence should an opponent happen to be knocked flying or if the referee dares challenge him, but they very seldom do, and so he carries on doing it. Suarez's team-mate Diego Forlan (as Aryan a Uruguayan as I have ever seen) is no stranger to the penalty-winning dive in the box, and how many feigned injuries have we seen in this World Cup alone?
In 2003 Robert Pires dives and earns a penalty for Arsenal who are 1-0 and struggling against Portsmouth. They get the goal and it ends 1-1 and they go on to be unbeaten all season. Yes, I'm still bitter about it.
It's nauseating that the most prominent and popular sport in the modern world tolerates cheating, but it's no surprise: football is the microcosm of the larger (global) society which it takes place within. Nearly a century ago Antonio Gramsci said "Football is a model of individualistic society. It demands initiative, competition and conflict. But it is regulated by the unwritten rule of fair play." (Paraphrase from Football and Scopone, an essay of 1918, scopone being a popular card game played in fours, two pairs competing, in Italian pubs.)
At the time Gramsci wrote this he fervently believed that Italy, and the world, could be transformed into a Communist society through the free exchange of ideas: in the battle of ideologies the morally correct view could prevail, and the old ideas would wither away. Not many years later, as part of a crack-down ordered by Mussolini, the state prosecutor said that Gramsci's brain should be stopped from functioning for twenty years. It only took eight years of his twenty year sentence for poor Gramsci to be stopped from "functioning" altogether. And we know how history has played out since then.
The global society which football models is one which tolerates charismatic cheats, thieves, and liars. It's one which rewards the bosses of failing businesses with nice new jobs in the business which takes over what's left (while the minions join the dole queue). One which says that the only way to encourage banks to lend, and to kick start the sclerotic economy, is to guarantee their loans with tax revenues. And when the bankers agree to defer their fat bonuses for a year oh how grateful we're all supposed to be. One which says that in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthy we must cut one quarter from health, education, social care....
It shouldn't be allowed to carry on. But it does. Uruguay shouldn't be allowed to carry on in this World Cup. But they will.
15 June 2010
How quickly can you hit that "next channel" button?
Multi-channel telly is great, isn't it? But you should never let that remote control slip too far out of sight. Here's a quick set of cues for those of you who may be a little inexperienced at prodding that "channel up" button before it's *too* late...
http://www.whitedot.org
- And next, starring Jennifer Aniston...
- The following programme includes sexual scenes, violence, and a scene set in the local Conservative Club
- Back by popular demand, it's the 13th set of repeats of the 34th series of...
- Let's join Sky News now for a series of wildly misinformed and deranged statements by Adam Boulton
- In case you missed that episode of Two And A Half Men we have eight back-to-back episodes coming up, and Charlie Sheen is successively smugger (yet falsely modest) in every single one...
- If you'd like to see the next program in HD sit a bit closer to the screen and give your specs a quick wipe (okay, that one is just too implausible: for a start it doesn't involve paying an extra £10 per month with a two-year lock-in for a supposedly "free" upgrade)
- It's that time of year so gather 'round the fire for The Snowman/The Great Escape/It's A Wonderful Life/some pile of shite with Adam Sandler pretending to be Santa's elf*
- Five hours of recorded highlights of the Indonesian Grand Prix up next, but first a quick interview with Alex Ferguson who explains how simply wonderful and infallible he is, for the forty thousandth time
- We haven't had a madcap stunt by David Blaine for at least fifteen minutes, so let's see how feckin' smart he looks with a cheese grater stuck up his rectum. (Actually I'd watch that one.)
- Now let's hand you over to Davina McCall for...
http://www.whitedot.org
01 June 2010
Mad wierdxxx xxxxx xxxxxers
Unfortunately my libel lawyer has advised that this entire blog entry about Scientology should be deleted and in particular the references to short-arsed closet xxx actor Txx Crxxxxx. Sorry about that.
More ridiculous World Cup tat
Cats, according to T S Eliot (the only literary reference you're gonna get in this posting), sleep anywhere.
← But if you're an eejit you could always invest 8 quid in this utterly stupid cat bed thing which is part of the Pets At Home World Cup range. Watch in awe as Tiddles sniffs it once, turns and glares, licks her arse then never goes near it again. And quite right too.
Which wretch had to synthesise the flavour of kangaroo? Who for god's sake had to sample the shortlist (and then presumably some real bits of kangaroo) before signing off on the echte Australian flavour?
What could crisps that taste like Spag Bol really taste like? And English Roast Beef would have been bad enough, but why the Yorkshire Pudding too? Did they bottle out of Tripe with Jellied Eels?
The flavours are probably more likely to resemble Rooney's Boot, Crouch's Jockstrap, and John Terry's Armpit, with a bit of Didier Drogba's Smegma for cheese lovers.
As for "Scottish" haggis... they're not even in the World Cup. Presumably this appears in the range, along with the no doubt equally vile flavours for Wales and Ireland, so that the subject peoples of the UK don't feel left out.
In the rush to flood the market with tat where, I wonder, is the authentic S A police sjambok and .38 memorial gift set? Bound to win a following among the Country Club set surely?
"My husband and I regularly use ours when the servants get uppity" says Mrs Olivia Keffirbesher of Henley-on-Thames.
29 May 2010
Forza Italia
The latest copy of Viz just came thru the post and it includes a marvellously trashy World Cup poster. Basically this consists of a series of Viz characters in the usual poses, and a big caption saying Come On England. A nice touch on the next page is a cut-out and paste sheet ("for our Welsh, Scottish, and Irish readers") which substitutes the words Fuck Off England. If I were going to risk being scarred for life by removing the staples and displaying it I know which version would be in my window.
As the last When Saturday Comes mag memorably put it, everything including combine harvesters is currently being advertised with a desperate World Cup twist to it. (Okay, not L'Oreal products, yet.) Every shop is full of crappy teddys, mugs, hats, sticker albums, toilet rolls, tattooed slaves, scratch and sniff biographies of Wayne Rooney's amanuensis and every conceivable other product with a little red cross on a white background (even fairy cake type confectioneries in Morrisons). You would have to be in a coma not to be aware of the damn thing. Last night there was a Nike advert at least three minutes long which simultaneously satirises the whole thing while subtly implying that you're a spineless little turd if you don't want to be a part of it.
As the last When Saturday Comes mag memorably put it, everything including combine harvesters is currently being advertised with a desperate World Cup twist to it. (Okay, not L'Oreal products, yet.) Every shop is full of crappy teddys, mugs, hats, sticker albums, toilet rolls, tattooed slaves, scratch and sniff biographies of Wayne Rooney's amanuensis and every conceivable other product with a little red cross on a white background (even fairy cake type confectioneries in Morrisons). You would have to be in a coma not to be aware of the damn thing. Last night there was a Nike advert at least three minutes long which simultaneously satirises the whole thing while subtly implying that you're a spineless little turd if you don't want to be a part of it.
In order to curtail all this having the World Cup poked up every bodily orifice 24/7 the earlier England are knocked out the better it will be. Of course this will be via a penalty shoot-out so that the mythology can be reinforced that "we" are still mightier than everyone else, "we" just had a bit of bad luck with that errant piece of grass that tripped Frank Lampard over on his run-up.
Forza Italia!
28 April 2010
Fascists in Faversham
I was disturbed and disgusted to receive through our letterbox a few days ago a flyer urging me to vote for the National Front in the general election May 6th. The result on 7th May will of course be that the local Tory has romped home, again, but the mere fact that the fascists are confident enough to put up a candidate is nauseating. It frightens me that they could somehow persuade someone to put these things through letterboxes. Or did they simply pay some poor desperate bastard (hopefully not an "immigrant") to do the job?
The candidate is a charmless looking man called Graham Kemp. Graham earnestly advises his readers that he has 4 children and that he is worried about their future. Graham "works as a football coach", apparently. Graham looks exactly the sort of twat that John Terry would be proud to call his friend.
I showed the leaflet to our children. I told them if they ever see Graham they have my permission to throw a brick very hard at his head. Naturally the usual parental message is that violence solves nothing, so this may cause some cognitive dissonance. But when it's a fascist on the receiving end then, let's face it, it's just damn good fun.
Need I add that Graham's leaflet is full of nonsensical racism, anti-EU toss, and guff about handing on to our children's children what our forefathers handed down to us?
The NF will, apparently, safeguard one's "freedom to choose your own workmates and friends". Yes, too right, that Gordon Brown coming round all the time forcing me to befriend Romanys and darkies and Poles, how fucking dare he! And as for bosses selecting our work colleagues, do they think they own the place or something?
Graham advises that he believes in "No foreign wars". Let me assure him that if his party were ever to win power they would be far more concerned with civil wars to have any time spare for dropping bombs on A-rabs.
Graham claims that "We believe that the Liberal, Labour and Conservative parties are quietly working together whilst pretending to be separate parties. Note the extraordinary number of Ministers and shadow Ministers who could be described as being of Eastern European (Marxist) extraction." I'm constantly amazed by that myself.
To be honest, I haven't decided which party I'll be wasting my vote on in this seat which is a shoo-in for the Conservatives, though it won't be the incumbent MP put it that way. I'm terrified though to imagine that in less than a fortnight the results might prove that dozens or even hundreds of fascists have voted for Graham. Please fellow citizens: whatever you do, don't do that.
The candidate is a charmless looking man called Graham Kemp. Graham earnestly advises his readers that he has 4 children and that he is worried about their future. Graham "works as a football coach", apparently. Graham looks exactly the sort of twat that John Terry would be proud to call his friend.
I showed the leaflet to our children. I told them if they ever see Graham they have my permission to throw a brick very hard at his head. Naturally the usual parental message is that violence solves nothing, so this may cause some cognitive dissonance. But when it's a fascist on the receiving end then, let's face it, it's just damn good fun.
Need I add that Graham's leaflet is full of nonsensical racism, anti-EU toss, and guff about handing on to our children's children what our forefathers handed down to us?
The NF will, apparently, safeguard one's "freedom to choose your own workmates and friends". Yes, too right, that Gordon Brown coming round all the time forcing me to befriend Romanys and darkies and Poles, how fucking dare he! And as for bosses selecting our work colleagues, do they think they own the place or something?
Graham advises that he believes in "No foreign wars". Let me assure him that if his party were ever to win power they would be far more concerned with civil wars to have any time spare for dropping bombs on A-rabs.
Graham claims that "We believe that the Liberal, Labour and Conservative parties are quietly working together whilst pretending to be separate parties. Note the extraordinary number of Ministers and shadow Ministers who could be described as being of Eastern European (Marxist) extraction." I'm constantly amazed by that myself.
To be honest, I haven't decided which party I'll be wasting my vote on in this seat which is a shoo-in for the Conservatives, though it won't be the incumbent MP put it that way. I'm terrified though to imagine that in less than a fortnight the results might prove that dozens or even hundreds of fascists have voted for Graham. Please fellow citizens: whatever you do, don't do that.
05 April 2010
A Borg Named Pete
I'm reading - five years late - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a dystopian kinda novel, so of course it sets its stall out by overemphasising certain words that clearly Mean More Than Usual: donor, guardian, carer etc. The dystopian schtick is, of course, that it will gradually become apparent just how different these meanings are. At a guess though, a carer will turn out to be an exploiter, guardians will be warders, donors will be anything but volunteers. It's a War Is Peace kinda thing yeah.
Generic verisimilitude this is called, and it's so annoying. If you write a fantasy novel then of course all the characters have to be called Zrotzker, and Kapok, and Zorbat. I can generally tolerate about four completely stupid names before I want to hurl the book away. But of course there's a subspecies of scififantasyknowalloids who like nothing more than drawing up sweaty little genealogies. Zorbat begat Aphoz, who slew Gortor, son of Zammar, near the frubag tree, with a candlestick.
Just what is so supposedly implausible about a Borg named Pete?
Generic verisimilitude this is called, and it's so annoying. If you write a fantasy novel then of course all the characters have to be called Zrotzker, and Kapok, and Zorbat. I can generally tolerate about four completely stupid names before I want to hurl the book away. But of course there's a subspecies of scififantasyknowalloids who like nothing more than drawing up sweaty little genealogies. Zorbat begat Aphoz, who slew Gortor, son of Zammar, near the frubag tree, with a candlestick.
Just what is so supposedly implausible about a Borg named Pete?
26 March 2010
Make your own election posters
Exactly as it says... as many fun ways to libel a worthless parasite as you can possibly think of.
http://www.andybarefoot.com/politics/twofaced.php?poster=5026
http://www.andybarefoot.com/politics/twofaced.php?poster=5026
13 March 2010
International Times
Pretty much the whole archive of international times has been placed online. It can be very hit and miss, and some of the attitudes aren't exactly PC anymore (and never were) but it's still fresh and fun to read for the most part
http://www.internationaltimes.it/
http://www.internationaltimes.it/
10 February 2010
Winding up...?
As a supporter of Portsmouth FC for four decades the last year or so has been quite a bumpy ride. When, managed by Harry Redknapp, the club suddenly stopped finishing 5th bottom in the 2nd Division, and won it instead, it seemed like a return to the halcyon days of Alan Ball. A year in the Premiership beckoned.
But here we are 7 years later and, even if only for another week, Portsmouth remain a top division side. With the club having had a winding-up order deferred for seven days yesterday that afternoon's front page of the Portsmouth News (right) puts it pretty well.
With a week to go, the club are still insisting that a benefactor is just round the corner, waiting to dip into his pocket and sort it all out. But already there's talk of a team being formed, along the lines of AFC Wimbledon, so that if Pompey is liquidated there is a Portsmouth side of some kind that could gradually work its way up the leagues. There's also a Portsmouth Supporters' Trust established and gradually picking up new members, though it's purpose remains to be settled: http://pompeytrust.com/
If the choice is to go all the way to the wire with HMRC, and see if they will back off and accept part-payment, then the club is in for a rude awakening. Having worked as a debt counsellor some years ago I know that they do not mess about, especially when it comes to unpaid VAT (approximately £7m is owed, apparently). Several offers of part-payment have already been rejected. If the club does choose to fight to the bitter end who actually stands to gain?
Clearly not the club because it won't win the case. Emphatically not the city of Portsmouth which has been kicked in the teeth far too many times already. Certainly not the latest of the owners, Balram Chainrai. We must assume not the owner-before-that, the quite possibly fictional Ali Al-Faraj. (Or did he pocket all the January transfer money?) The owner as of last year this time was Alexandre Gaydama
HMRC will have made a very prominent example of a non-payer, and the Premier League will have finally rid itself of an embarassing little club that spoils the glamorous image of the league. Newcastle will be able to come back up (they will anyway) and next season the spotlight can fall away from the cannon fodder at the bottom of the table and go back to the 6 or maybe 8 teams that really matter. Setting aside for the moment the fact that several of them are skirting on the edge of bankruptcy themselves.
The fellow relegation strugglers such as West Ham, Wolves, Bolton, Burnley, Wigan may see Portsmouth's demise as a plus because it means that definitely only two of them will go down. But then again if all games played against Pompey's are declared void, and the Premiership table is adjusted accordingly, the only one of them to gain much relative to the others will probably be Wigan, thrashed 4-1 in the club's best result, bar one, this season.
The even better result was of course the most amusing and humiliating visit to Fratton Park of Liverpool FC. The 2-0 scoreline was really very flattering to them. Liverpool fans seem to be banking on those lost 3 points being annulled when Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United et al have their tallies adjusted. When their moment of financial reckoning comes, and it certainly will, I will spare no tears for Liverpool.
Assuming the latest savior is as much of a mirage as all the others have been, the club's only realistic option is to seek protection from its creditors and go into administration. Pompey will lose 9 points, get relegated at the end of the season - highly likely anyway - and can then try to rebuild on a more modest scale. The Premiership adventure was never expected to last, and it has only been prolonged at an unacceptable cost. Let's bow out of that three-ring circus with some dignity though.
Mind you, that F A Cup win was so very sweet....
As a postscript: about the only consistently informed and balanced coverage of Portsmouth's plight has come from When Saturday Comes magazine, see for example http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/4542/38/
30 January 2010
3 lions
The spectacularly entertaining fall from grace of Mr John Terry has been a long time coming. He is undoubtedly one of the most greedy and arrogant people in the public eye today, though admittedly this is in a society where greed and arrogance are considered more or less the norm. His sneering lack of concern for anyone else was all too clear, for example, when he was caught parking his Bentley in a disabled parking space to avoid paying 50p in the pay-and-display. He spent much of the autumn fostering rumours that Manchester Citeh were keen to sign him by making him a pay offer that no sane man could refuse... until conveniently Chelsea bumped his pay up to £170k a week and he was able to reiterate his undying love for the club's bank balance.
Terry had another narrow escape barely a month ago when his uniquely well-remunerated services as a tour guide came to light: ten grand cash in hand to tour the Chelsea football grahnd.
With the possibility that Mr Terry's naked contempt for common decency might lead to him being asked to vacate the position of England football captain, who could possibly step into the role instead? Let's look at a few candidates:
In fact: what the heck. Keep John Terry as captain, because then when England are knocked out in the quarter finals (assuming they make it that far) he can fall on his sword and blub on the telly in the required fashion.
Terry had another narrow escape barely a month ago when his uniquely well-remunerated services as a tour guide came to light: ten grand cash in hand to tour the Chelsea football grahnd.
With the possibility that Mr Terry's naked contempt for common decency might lead to him being asked to vacate the position of England football captain, who could possibly step into the role instead? Let's look at a few candidates:
- Rio Ferdinand - one of the three, along with Terry and Gerrard, who auditioned for the role only a year or so ago. Rio said in 2008 that he believed his past mistakes could make him a better captain - though he didn't spell out better than what/who.
- Steven "Stevie" Gerrard might argue that his reputation is spotless because he was, after all, found not guilty of assaulting a man who wouldn't let him play the song he wanted when he was out on the piss.
- Frank Lampard is almost as prone as Terry is to crying when he doesn't get his way, but assuming Terry stays in the team it wouldn't be credible for the club captain to have to defer to a club-mate when in the England strip.
- Glen Johnston - may be too busy down at B&Q to be able to shoulder the extra responsibility, assuming he gets into the squad in the first place.
- Michael Owen - who?
- David Beckham has done the job before, and very capably, but can't really be regarded at international level as much more than a super-substitute: good for a thirty minute blitzkrieg towards the end of a game maybe, but not a guaranteed starter unless the opponents are of the lowest calibre.
- David James - one of the few footballers with any moral credibility, but struggling to maintain fitness and aform despite all the practice he gets at picking the ball out of the Portsmouth net. Maybe a good caretaker 'til the World Cup is out the way?
- Wayne Rooney - well... he's arguably the captain-after-next. Once he's done another year or two of calming down, and can demonstrably go five minutes without shouting swear words at referees, he might just make the grade.
In fact: what the heck. Keep John Terry as captain, because then when England are knocked out in the quarter finals (assuming they make it that far) he can fall on his sword and blub on the telly in the required fashion.
25 January 2010
We are the pigs
Over the last few days our local council have been erecting these little posters on lampposts around the town. They all say things like "it's not the fast food, it's you" or "it's not the fizzy drink, it's you". Initially I thought these must be some "stop drinking so much" campaign, and I thought to myself that this might be more verbosely, but satisfyingly, expressed as: the reason why you puked all over the pavement, moron, wasn't because of that kebab and can of coke at the end of the evening but the 6 pints of cider and 3 WKDs. Now go home and sleep it off.
But in fact, on closer examination, the posters are an anti-littering campaign and, what's more, they carry a bald threat to fine people £80 for chucking their crap on the pavement.
This is good stuff, and very long overdue. However I have a few suggestions to make that might, in my opinion, have a more enduring impact.
But if society genuinely doesn't want to drown in the polystyrene effluent of antisocial pigs then I really do think that litterers - and those that condone what they do, the fast food outlets in particular, should be shamed into changing their ways and forced to make amends for their disgusting behaviour.
But in fact, on closer examination, the posters are an anti-littering campaign and, what's more, they carry a bald threat to fine people £80 for chucking their crap on the pavement.
This is good stuff, and very long overdue. However I have a few suggestions to make that might, in my opinion, have a more enduring impact.
- Re-erect the stocks, they're in the town museum I should think. Put litterers in them with a sign inviting the populace to chuck half-eaten burgers at the wretched offender. Also that weird vivid red stuff in tinfoil that you see left on the bonnet of cars, the dregs of fizzy drinks, rusks that a baby has been gumming at for an hour but eventually grown bored of, maybe even a traditional rotten tomato or two. After an hour of this she or he would have to clean up all that mess before they could go home and have a wash. Or sit watching Jeremy Kyle all stinky and rank, if that's what they prefer.
- Fine the fast food outlets and coffee shops and off licences £80 for every waxed paper cup, every polystyrene tankard of foul latté, every tinfoil slopbucket, every discarded can of Grolsch or shattered bottle of cheap vodka that can be traced from the sidewalk to their premises.
- Instead of putting posters on every 10th lamppost how about attaching a... litter bin! Traditionally, of course, people either chuck their rubbish on the ground next to the bin, kick the bin to bits, or set light to it. But my third modest proposal should put paid to all that.
- Pay a sharpshooter to roam the area in a car with darkened windows. He would have the right to randomly shoot people seen chucking their crap anywhere other than into a bin or who vandalise bins. It's unlikely to take more than a few good solid head shots for the littering scuzzers to realise that the odds have tipped out of their favour for good.
But if society genuinely doesn't want to drown in the polystyrene effluent of antisocial pigs then I really do think that litterers - and those that condone what they do, the fast food outlets in particular, should be shamed into changing their ways and forced to make amends for their disgusting behaviour.
04 January 2010
The ravening horde of Motty clones
Were sports commentators always as hysterical as they are these days? I'm sure it used to be that only very tense climactic moments would have a commentator screeching breathlessly: the final furlong or two of a close horse race for example.
Now in fast-moving sports like horse racing you can understand the necessity to babble at dozens of words per minute to keep up with the events as they unfold. But this seems to be the default setting for pretty much every sports commentator nowadays. (Possibly not golf, or bowling.)
And why the obsession with ridiculous statistics and beyond-pedantic levels of precision? In sports where the difference between competitors might be some fragment of a split second then fair enough, e.g. formula one racing, cross country skiing, the 100m hurdles. But yesterday the kids were watching the umpteenth World's Strongest Man competition (an edited highlights package I believe). The commentator did not shut the fuck up for even a half-second and there would be one or more stupidly precise statistics in every breath e.g. "he's held that car over his head for 21.07 seconds and that's going to be a tall order for the home fan's favourite to beat...".
Seriously: if two large Scandinavians can both hold a car off the ground at knee-height for approximately 21 seconds then for god's sake let them share the first place for the round! (Yes: every single never-ending sentence had one or more mentions of the competitor's nationality, usually with a handy cliche appended e.g. "hard-working Scot", "plucky Swede", "titanic Finn".)
Games consoles these days offer a very wide range of sports simulations and each of these come with a commentary track so that if you feel inclined you can hear Ally McCoist or Alan Hansen or some other muppet of that ilk tut-tutting about "a shocking game for the 'keeper..." and three hundred other stock phrases strung together by some mumpty algorithm in the software. Telling the difference between these simulated commentaries and the "real" thing grows increasingly difficult; not because the games are becoming more sophisticated but because the commentators themselves are so robotic.
Before I leave the subject of World's Strongest Man I'd like to sgguest this become the latest format to be repurposed as a celebrity version. I missed the latest outback show in which Jordan apparently ate Skippy the bush kangaroo's brains on toast but Joe Pasquale lugging a tractor tyre around Sittingbourne Greyhound Track would be one for the Sky Plus box and no mistake.
Now in fast-moving sports like horse racing you can understand the necessity to babble at dozens of words per minute to keep up with the events as they unfold. But this seems to be the default setting for pretty much every sports commentator nowadays. (Possibly not golf, or bowling.)
And why the obsession with ridiculous statistics and beyond-pedantic levels of precision? In sports where the difference between competitors might be some fragment of a split second then fair enough, e.g. formula one racing, cross country skiing, the 100m hurdles. But yesterday the kids were watching the umpteenth World's Strongest Man competition (an edited highlights package I believe). The commentator did not shut the fuck up for even a half-second and there would be one or more stupidly precise statistics in every breath e.g. "he's held that car over his head for 21.07 seconds and that's going to be a tall order for the home fan's favourite to beat...".
Seriously: if two large Scandinavians can both hold a car off the ground at knee-height for approximately 21 seconds then for god's sake let them share the first place for the round! (Yes: every single never-ending sentence had one or more mentions of the competitor's nationality, usually with a handy cliche appended e.g. "hard-working Scot", "plucky Swede", "titanic Finn".)
Games consoles these days offer a very wide range of sports simulations and each of these come with a commentary track so that if you feel inclined you can hear Ally McCoist or Alan Hansen or some other muppet of that ilk tut-tutting about "a shocking game for the 'keeper..." and three hundred other stock phrases strung together by some mumpty algorithm in the software. Telling the difference between these simulated commentaries and the "real" thing grows increasingly difficult; not because the games are becoming more sophisticated but because the commentators themselves are so robotic.
Before I leave the subject of World's Strongest Man I'd like to sgguest this become the latest format to be repurposed as a celebrity version. I missed the latest outback show in which Jordan apparently ate Skippy the bush kangaroo's brains on toast but Joe Pasquale lugging a tractor tyre around Sittingbourne Greyhound Track would be one for the Sky Plus box and no mistake.
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