Welcome To My World

So, what the fuck is up with Korea?

2010-12-01T17:04:00.000Z

The other day, a friend of mine asked me a question like this, only more eloquently put, and I promised I'd write a blog about this Korean malarky that's going off.

Since 1910, Japan had occupied Koreaas a colony, but this idea fell apart after WWII - Japan had some far more serious things to worry about, and control of Korea fell to the victors - namely the Soviet Union who had destroyed the Japanese presence in the North, and America, who had sorted out the South.

Both countries at first agreed to rule one area each, divided by the 38th Paralell, which runs through pretty much the middle of the country. Being the Cold War, however, this was never really going to work out, and in 1950, the Korean War broke out, as both sides of the conflict claimed to be the legitimate ruling party of Korea.

After having a push and a shove, with both sides nearly losing at one point, they agreed to a ceasefire around 1954. This ceasefire was down to the fact that no peace deal could be agreed on by both sides.

Ever since then, the two countries have been like old schoolyard friends that fell out over who cheated at scrabble. North Korea is widely reported as being the aggressor, but that might be due to Western media supporting the South.

From what we know though, North Korea, the isonlationist and communist state, has killed numerous South Korean and U.S forces over the years, dug tunnels through the de-militarised zone (DMZ), and generally been spoiling for a good scrap.

So, that's the background to the new Korean Crisis - It's not particularly a crisis. It's been going on for years, just now it's stepped up from sending a few soldiers over the DMZ and generally showing off, to sinking a South Korean warship (allegedly) and then this year, shelling an island that both Koreas' claim to be theirs.

Unfortunatley the shelling of the island has brought out all the old Cold-War mentality, with the U.S whooping, clicking its heels and firing two pistols into the air, and preparing to save the damsel in distress, the democratic (possibly) state of South Korea, from the railroad tracks of history (the inevitable Second Korean War), and various 'Communist' states saying they might go and help their bretheren in the North. If they feel like it. Maybe.

But then, with the American elections looming, nothing is certain anymore. The Iraq war may have saved the Bush administration; but people got wise to that trick. Similarly, Russia hid all its communism under the bed in 1992, although lately it's started to drag out old photograaphs of the USSR and get misty-eyed, hence the Georgian war we had lately.

In short the two old superpowers now are completley unpredictable; and China being China, who alone knows where this madness will stop.

Personally, I'm putting a tenner on New Zealand attacking Alaska. It's a good a bet as any these days.

Time for a quick one

2010-11-22T02:19:00.000Z

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has recently said: "The evidence is clear that packaging helps to recruit smokers, so it makes sense to consider having less attractive packaging. It's wrong that children are being attracted to smoke by glitzy designs on packets. "We would prefer it if people did not smoke and adults will still be able to buy cigarettes, but children should be protected from the start."

I don't even smoke. But this is ridiculous, and an utterly confused message - we live in a corporate state, where heads of corporations and the government shake hands far too often behind closed doors, and now they're trying to make fag packets plain white grey or brown for the sake of our health.

What right does any government have to say they'd prefer people not to smoke? Does anyone remember freedom of choice? Or freedom of expression? Or in fact, freedom?

I am sick to death of this constant mothering from the Government. I'm 21 this year. I know the dangers of smoking, drinking, driving too fast, or putting nitroglycerine inside a tennis ball and having a quick match. So why does the government, which has no interest in our health, keep putting this out? Is it to herd us ever more into the sheep-like state of mind we've been forced into?

Our government should rule the country, not the people.

Normally I keep, or at least try to keep, a semblance of a balanced article - it's a blog so of course they reflect my opinions. But in this case, fuck it all.

This is madness. And it has to stop.

Edit: It's 02.18, and I should probably be asleep and re-write this with a more moderate tone, but honestly, this is madness.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11796903

Terror

2010-06-05T22:24:00.000+01:00

Quick update, I haven't forgotten you all don't worry. I'm currently planning out a video series; and a coupla other things.

An article I'll be publishing soon involves the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000. It's seriously enough to give you nightmares, some of that stuff. I'm probably breaching it just by typing this, but hey ho, nobody gives a shit right?

Til then, amigos.

Draw Muhammad Day

2010-05-21T04:37:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone. Sorry, I know it's now the 21st over here, but hey the video's been up on youtube for 12 hours already. I just forgot to update here. Sorry, dear internet, sorry....

Anyway: Link

Finally interview.

2010-04-11T17:35:00.002+01:00

Feature – Flyleaf

‘We are no better than anyone here, in this room tonight. You are all as important, everyone of you, as we are. Never forget that’ Lacey Mosely shouts to the swaying mass of adoring fans below her, all eyes fixed on the small unassuming woman who started out as just another troubled teenager in Texas, and now has a platinum album, and a new album headed the same way with Flyleaf.
Flyleaf have just started the tour promoting their new album Memento Mori, and I caught up with Lacey and rhythm guitarist Jared Hartmann before the second gig of the tour at Rock City in Nottingham.
This is your second tour of the UK isn’t it?
Lacey: Hmmm, let’s see…
Jared: Second time headlining, I think.
L: We’ve played here before as like a showcase before, and with bands like Stone Sour and Korn.
Have you had a chance to look round the city at all, or have you been far too busy preparing?
L: Yeah, we don’t usually get to see around the city when we play, we’re usually backstage getting ready. We looked around the Travel Lodge and the mall here, we don’t have those.
Do you ever listen to your own CD’s at all?
J: To try and learn the songs yeah and to make sure we approve of the mixes.
L: Well we record them at the studio and then we have to go back like after we make adjustments then we have to go back and write them with the band. How you’re going to sing something that has, like, a four part harmony and then a round. We usually have to compromise, so we’ll have a different version live than the studio versions.
So do you have a favourite song, or do you love all of them equally?
L: I think our songs are good for different reasons and at different times for me personally. My favourite song off Memento Mori is Circles, and if I was going to say to someone, hey listen to this song, I would play them Circles as like a definitive song, like this sort of sums it up for me.
So you’ve been described a lot as having a very unique sound. Does it take long to find the perfect sound for each song, or does it just come naturally?
J: I think it comes pretty naturally. We don’t really write a song, it comes in different ways. Lacey will write some lyrics and maybe a guitar riff and everyone adds their own kind of…whatever to it and we try to mix the music with the emotion.
I always find that your music has a genuine sound to the lyrics, so is it all personal experience or do you just find it easy to relate to other peoples problems?
L: Some of them are. Some of them are stories, things that I’ve seen, like a combination of different things I’ve seen and, you know, and it’s good to write. I think it’s one of the coolest things to take three minutes and make a song that expresses something that was really hard to get through in my teenage years. I think that is truly cool and pretty miraculous and when its there I’m like, wow, after all that time inside of me, here it is.
So would you say that each song is almost like a story?
L: For me it is. There’s definitely a story in each one, and you can look out into the audience and see them relating to it however they do personally, and they change it in a good way.
So everyone interprets them in their own way?
L: Yeah, I think that’s a point. People connect with the songs and make it personal to them.
A couple of years ago, you played for the troops in Afghanistan, how did you find that experience?
L: They were the most grateful audience that we’ve ever had. It was crazy. It’s like the idea behind Memento Mori - that everyone will die. You really think about what makes you appreciate life more, and not to live out of fear. We’re all going to die sometime… when we went there, they were saying it all the time. When they briefed us they were like “This is where the bomb shelters are, if you here the sirens go off, head for this area if you can, and if not, pray to whatever god you believe in I was like “okay…”
They gave us all like, 40lbs of armour to wear and it was really a Memento Mori moment right there, you know, and I wasn’t afraid because it felt like we were meant to be there and no matter what happened there it was supposed to happen. I pretty much had a feeling that I knew it would be okay but there were so many times when we were there like… when we leave a place…its just the day after we left was just really sobering.
That audience was the most grateful audience we’ve ever played in front of, they were just so happy that we came, that we care about them, that we haven’t forgotten about them.
We don’t’ really understand what’s going on over there so we just blur it out and that kinda gets passed on to the troops who are there, but in the end those guys know why they are there- to keep us safe over here, in America.
This one’s always a bit of a cliché, but what first got you started in music?
J: ermm, my parents kind of made me play music. I first played the clarinet and hated it, so they said well what about guitar? And it turned out that I hated that too, then I sort of figured I was pretty good at it and then I liked it
L: So like everybody, he started playing guitar on his own and then he started a band with Sameer, and then James (drums) started out in his own band. Our bass player started out in a different band too, and I played guitar in coffee shops and things like that. I really wanted to play rock music though, I didn’t really like folk music.
I tried to find a band but it took a long time to find people who wanted to play.
So in the end all those bands ended up breaking up we ended up getting together, which worked out for the best.
So do you have any influence from the classic rock greats, like Hendrix or Clapton or anyone like that?
L: I love Jimi Hendrix. I love a lot of classic rock like the beatles, in fact I think the first CD I ever bought was Abbey Road. I also love Pantera because they write songs that you can understand the meaning of, I love that… writing a song that you can understand the meaning of just by the sound of it, so that’s where that comes from, its what we try to import into our music.
Nirvana was a huge influence. My brother went to a Nirvana gig when I was 11, and came back with a tape and I had the only boombox in the house so he brought the tape into my room and listened to it there and left it in. I remember looking at the Nevermind tape case and looking at these guys and thinking it was the coolest thing ever because at that time I’d only ever really heard pop music and they just seemed to fling their emotions around, and just be like “this is who we are”. At that time, we were a really poor family and they seemed to wear the same kind of clothes we did, from the thrift store, we got made fun of, but they were like this big rock band and I thought that was so awesome because we got made fun of so much in school for not having rich clothes and that, so I kinda fell in love with Nirvana and their persona of being real… it’s kinda what we wanted to do to.
When we first started, we named the band Passerby to kind of show that we are just passers by with a story like anyone else and the name was taken so we had to change it to Flyleaf but that was still the whole thing with the first record.
Memento Mori is a little bit different, its about no matter how rich anyone seems, your clothes are going to end up in the thrift store, you work so hard and put so much effort into getting money to buy them and it ends up in the junkyard or whatever.
Your last album came out in 2005, and that went platinum, so to have set out in 2000 and by 2005 to have a platinum album…that must have been pretty amazing.
L: Yeah, we started in 2002… I don’t know, it’s weird to think of it like that. I don’t really think it sinks in, its hard to imagine. Even just to see that number of fans…
J: It was real gradual too, the growth of the band like that… you look back now and it’s all like ‘wow, look at that’.
So you’re hoping that this album will do the same are you?
L: Whatever’s supposed to be, you know? We’ve done a lot and we’ve seen amazing things… We’ve given up a lot to do this as well. Our personal lives… Everything is for Flyleaf. It’s not that we try to do that, it just ends up happening. If its all over then its been amazing. If we’re supposed to keep on going, then that’s what we’re going to do.
Do you get homesick then?
L: Yeah, especially now that we got married. Three of us are married, it makes you appreciate time at home more.
Well, seems like I’ve run out of questions to ask so I’ll let you both get back to preparing for the show
L: Thank you!

Another version of this interview will be put up soon.

Sorryyyy

2010-03-26T13:16:00.001Z

Hey everyone, sorry about the three day delay. Transcribing the interview took a lot longer than I'd hoped due to background noise, and my archaic dictaphone.

Fret not though, it's underway now! Should be done by this evening :]

Tonight:- Flyleaf

2010-03-23T14:14:00.000Z

Hey guys and girls,

Tonight is my first big interview. I'll be interviewing Lacey and Jared from Flyleaf in under two hours, so wish me luck!

I'll post the interview on here around 17:30GMT, and then i'll post a review of the gig at around 23:00GMT, so you get a double whammy of the yummy goodness that is Flyleaf.

Keep rocking, fuckers.

Texas School Board v Fox News

2010-03-22T16:48:00.004Z

Interesting story this.

You may or may not have heard that the Texas school board has undertaken some reviews of its textbooks.

If you haven't, then various bloggers have latched onto the Fox News channel report on the review on the Texan Social Studies which it's just released.

Bloggers whom I greatly respect, like the Amazing Atheist for example, have all been taken in by Fox News, which is a mistake I would only expect of amateurs really.

Fox News has a history of being unreliable at the best of times, and it seems it has happened again.

It's been reported that Thomas Jefferson is to be removed from the history books, to be replaced by Christian theologists (Fox claims much more than this, but this is the nub of the issue).

ITS A LIE. Seriously, I'm not even American, but the preservation of accurate historical records are important in maintaining a free and open society.

I've checked the official sites for evidence and had a good snoop around. This link: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=8203 provides a breakdown of what exactly Fox News got wrong.

But I still had my doubts, so I went and hunted a bit deeper.

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/e_attachments/2010/january/full_board/thur_5_social_studies_economics_a2.pdf

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/e_attachments/2010/january/full_board/thur_5_social_studies_economics_a3.pdf

Those two PDF's are the actual committee reports which Fox News alleges it found this huge story in.

Use the search function for 'Thomas Jefferson' and weirdly enough, he's still there... Hmm.

In fact I've read through the entire set of reports, and it seems everyone has been completely duped by Fox News, even I fell for it until I went and checked it out.

The vlog by the Amazing Atheist can be found on Youtube HERE.

Hopefully that link will work

Anyway, the other thing that AA points out, quite rightly, is the alteration of the term 'Capitalism' to 'Free enterprise system', more specifically 'Free enterprise system and its benefits'.

This posts a very rosy picture of Capitalism and the withered, fucked corpse of the American Dream, but have we really come to expect anything less from America?

American governments, especially the patriotic South, believe that America is the greatest country ever, and consistently say that it is birthplace of democracy (without any trace of irony).

Yes okay, so I have to concede with the AA on this point, it is complete and utter biased crap which they are teaching chidren there, with no reference to the downsides of CAPITALISM (sorry, free enterprise system) or the benefits of any other system.

So a warning to any would-be bloggers out there, take it from a journalist:- DON'T TRUST FOX NEWS.

It's the worst source to get your news from. You might as well ask a mad homeless guy what he thinks on the subject.

Keep living, fuckers.

Updates!

2010-03-18T15:52:00.002Z

Greetings all,

Time for a few much-needed updates. From here onwards, this blog shall be updated at least once every two days.

Also, when I finally get the thing to work, my future blogs will be in video format! Just my vid camera has apparently run out of battery and the review of Alice in Wonderland that I recorded is simply impossibly huge to host on here.

More news on that when I understand whats going on.

In future news, keep your eyes peeled here on Tuesday 23rd March as I have secured an exclusive interview with the legendary Flyleaf . Or, at least, Lacey and Jared, which is epic enough in its own right.

Greatly looking forward to it, and I'd like to post my thanks in advance to Steph at the Flyleaf end of events for securing the interview and making life so simple.

Today and tomorrow anyway, I'll be trying to host my Alice in Wonderland review (late) and the six nations rugby match from Saturday (late)!

Looks like I need to work on my timing a little more, eh?

Keep living.

Avatar Review

2009-12-17T19:55:00.002Z

Legendary director James Cameron returns with Avatar which has been eagerly anticipated by film fans, with the promise of 3D visuals, combined with live action and computer generated images.
The film follows ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as he tries to diplomatically solve a row between a huge corporation (which was forced to hire him after his brother conveniently got himself shot).
After three months of bonding, by posing as one of the Na’vi tribe, using an Avatar (basically, a genetically engineered remote controlled puppet), the corporation loses patience and sends in the group of mercenaries, led by Colonel Miles Quaritch, to solve the problem using the tried and tested military tactic of blowing everything up.
Sully is disgraced and banished from the tribe after Quaritch turns the Na’vi’s sacred Hometree into a charred husk, but returns with a legendary beast to defeat the human invaders in an epic battle royale, and win his way back into the hearts of his new people.
The visuals of the film fully live up to the hype surrounding this film. The computer generated images are blended via motion capture sequences with the live-action scenes, to create a beautiful world of aliens and humans. For the action scenes, this creates a truly believable environment.
The believable environment also means that the dramatic scenes become so much more involving for the audience. The scene where the Hometree is destroyed is such a beautifully portrayed plight of a besieged people that a few people shed a tear.
Cameron wrote Avatar specifically for 3D viewing, as opposed to other supposedly 3D films in which it feels distinctly like an afterthought.
Scenes such as circular heads-up displays and 3D maps loom out of the screen and dust and glowing seeds fall softly into the peripheral vision of the audience, all in glorious depth.
However, this film is not without fault. The constant reminder that the Na’vi are victims of corporate greed becomes wearisome after a while, as does the massive overuse of generic panpipe music every time a tree is shown on screen (with it being a forest, this becomes almost all the time).
Avatar also has a tendency to borrow heavily from other films – there is a sequence in the opening chapter, which is very similar to a scene in Platoon, and the names and appearance of the mercenary vehicles and armaments are identical to those in the Halo video game series.
There is also more than a nod towards Dances with Wolves, especially in the opening half hour of the film, as Sully meets the natives.
The basic plot is fairly generic, although with Cameron’s legendary directing and scriptwriting combined with an excellent and powerful cast its faults are whitewashed by its sheer brilliance.
Overall then, Avatar is a simple film under the skin, but a combination of what is probably the best on-screen 3D graphics to date and full-hearted acting leads this to be arguably the greatest film of 2009.

Public Transportation

2009-08-10T19:57:00.005+01:00

In modern Britain, with all its low-fat, vegetarian Cornish pasties and chalkboards, there is a new swearword emerging. Like all swearwords, it's origins start innocently, but eventually become so frowned up that they simply fall out of regular use.

These days, if you mentioned the M word at a dinner party, people will edge away nervously, while perhaps a braver soul will give you a short lecture on how you are a heartless monster.

I am talking, of course, about the word... motorist. There, I said it. There can be no going back now.

Wherever you mention that word, you get a negative reaction, except for a local car cruise, which is now barely legal as it is. If you mention it to the government, they pull out a portable accountant who immediately asseses how much money he can drain you of. Fuel duty tax, road tax, VAT on both of those, speed cameras, unmarked police vans, cars and motorbikes with ANPR and speed detection equipment, speed safety partnerships, speed humps, traffic calming (they never calm me down though...), roadworks, toll roads, congestion charges, marked police vans, fixed penalty tickets, traffic wardens, more roadworks, one-way systems, variable speed limits, using hard shoulder during rush hour on a motorway, lowering the national limit to 50mph without a public referendum - all of which are designed to stop motorists motoring, or to be more precise, to stop it being fun.

So, with this in mind, I thought I shall try public transport, so you don't have to. I set up a meeting with a friend of mine in town, for 14:00 at the Devonshire Cat in Sheffield. For this, a bus was required to take me from my town, to Sheffield centre - in the car, this would take 20 minutes maximum, and if I parked at her place, no cost in parking, if I parked in town, £4. So all in all, maybe £5 return in the car including fuel.

On the bus, a "Day Rider" (whatever that is) cost me £3. Because I was eating dinner, I missed the 13:11 bus, and had to get the 14:11 bus. The bus arrived in a wheezy cloud of diesel smoke at 13:23. By this time I'd already had to text my friend and explain I was going to be late, having walked five minutes to get to a bus stop ten minutes early to make sure I didn't miss it.

In short - I was waiting at the bus stop nearly half an hour before I even set off from my home town. The bus stopped at nearly every single stop, and meant it was nearly twenty five minutes late, and it dropped me off a good ten minutes walk away from the Dev Cat, meaning I was even later.

Needless to say, my friend wasn't too chuffed at me being late. The buses then stopped at twenty to nine, meaning I had to pay a further £2.40 to get home the next day, and walk back into town from my friends house to catch a bus that managed to be four minutes late.

The bus on both occasions was slow, chronically uncomfortable, and I ended up next to a fat sweaty man who squashed me into the corner like a cushion on one journey, on the other, close to three small fat chavs, playing some tinny crap through tiny speakers.

So, now that motorists are social pariahs, is public transport the way forward as the government keeps pointing out?

No. For the love of an invisible deity, keep motoring, motorists. Don't let the government beat you down, don't trade in your 10 year old car for a newer one to fund the economy they ruined - it's not economical for you, the cost of depreciation alone will work out worse than keeping your 'banger'. Keep on paying the government their blood money, because even they aren't stupid enough to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Don't be ashamed because your car is a V8 monster, be proud, stand on the bonnet, do a jig and proclaim "I AM A MOTORIST"

Don't let the government succeed in ruining motoring. Lets all go and enjoy the B-roads of Britain, at 60mph, and just drive for the hell of it.

Sometime, I'll give you a few pointers to some of the more beautiful drives in Britain, when I get the money to pay for the petrol to drive along them. Being a student and a motorist is a painful experience finacially.

Thanks Darling.

Keep driving.

Windows Facist Updates

2009-08-07T22:32:00.003+01:00

The other night, I was sat there typing away on a book which I'm writing currently, and I noticed a box on the taskbar (not actually visible), which said WINDO... because Windows is stupid and can't actually say what it's doing.

What it had actually done, whilst I wasn't looking, was download some 'critical updates' for my computer, and tried to restart it - but it only gives you two choices about restarting "RESTART NOW" or "CANCEL". No, wait... Not cancel... "POSTPONE UNTIL..." haha. It wont actually let YOU tell YOUR computer which YOU bought when to restart.

And that's exactly why I hate Windows. It's an operating system, which operates you. You have to move your computerised life around what your computer is doing. Am I the only one that misses DOS? You told DOS what to do, even delete itself, and by God the thing would try its damnedest to do exactly what you told it to.

These days, if it isn't on a drop-down tick check select box type thing, you simply can't do it. Windows will tell you things like "Windows Live Messenger Cannot Sign You In Right Now", but doesn't explain why, or tell you "Error Code 2345351-4965t13", without telling you what the error is.

This morning after drifting off at about 5am, I intended to carry on with some writing, only to find the "Welcome Screen" (what is welcoming about it? really?) staring at me - my computer waited until I was asleep to restart itself! It's turning into HAL from 2001 - A Space Odessy.

Next Windows will simply say "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave" and attempt to murder you.

The thing is, Windows has such a monopoly, we keep on buying it even though we all hate it. If Ford tried to sell us a car which told us which gear to go in, and wouldn't let us go for any other gear, we'd tell them to stick it up their corporate arse and get a Hyundai. If Sharp sold you a microwave that wouldn't let you get your food out until it thought it was done (burnt and smoking, more like) then you'd shoot it with a 12-gauge and buy an LG, and yet we just keep on letting ourselves getting shafted by Bill Gates. Why do we do this?!

With all the internet websites and clever nerds around at the moment, why can they not join forces with Linux and create a happy medium between Mac, Linux and Microsoft?

For those of a non-technical inclination, I'll explain them in brief:
1) Mac - used by professionals for its clean, simple efficiency, but useless for gaming and most home computing needs. Is very expensive.
2) Windows - suits most home computing needs, but keeps on breaking, is expensive, and irritating beyond all belief
3) Linux - open-source (made by the people for the people sort of thing), totally free, does most things reasonably well, but nothing is compatible with it.

Anyway, rant over for another season. But, if your have programming skillz, or are a |_337 |-|4><><0R then please get in touch and lets take Bill Gates to the cleaners!

To quote a rather decent book I read recently, 'Keep Living, Fuckers'

17? Bugger off, you're not our concern.

2009-07-15T11:22:00.003+01:00

Firstly, apologies for the lack of postage - as this article will explain, I've been a bit busy for the past week.

A friend of mine lately became homeless due to family problems, and a long-running tiff between her and her mother. Perhaps there was an equal share of blame for the breakdown, perhaps not. Either way, her situation was that she had to crash at mine for a while, and I offered to help her sort things out - being the fool that I was, I thought that not even the Labour government could let a 17 year old female go homeless, and it would be a simple trip to the council and woosh, things would be sorted.

Obviously, that was a bit retarded of me in hindsight, but honestly I never expected the huge amount of dismissive, patronizing and obstructive council bodies.

Having visited the local youth help centre (who were, for the record, exceptional in their behaviour and advice) and been told to visit the Housing Office pronto, we were met by a deaf receptionist who didn't have a clue who she was, let alone who we were. Following this, we had half an hours wait for a bloke to curtly, and rudely, tell us to bugger off and come back on Monday.

Came back on Monday, got told we needed various things we didn't have, and to go to the Job Centre who would help my friend with money. Money is always a good idea when you're looking for a home, so off we trundled to the Job Centre, where we were met by the worlds best Matthew Kelly lookalike.

Having worked out she was 17, he told us that 'nobody in this office will even look at you, never mind talk to you' and told us to bugger off to Connexions because we weren't his problem - you can't claim benefits until you're 18 unless Connexions refer you, even though the school leaving age is 16.

Connexions response was simply that they couldn't help until we had the housing problem solved, so she wasn't their concern, so back to Housing it was, where Lurch from the Adams Family decided after much arm-twisting from me that it was probably better to send my homeless friend back to Somerset from whence she came - you can guess why.

She's 17, and not their concern until she has a home (bit of a paradox, you can't claim benefits until you have a house, but you can't get a house without benefits...)

Finally packed her off on a coach today at the councils expense (Lurch in the Housing office complained about the £60 cost, but I didn't consider it wise to metntion the £40million that the counci lost in Icelandic banks...) The council cocked up her accomodation in Somerset as well, so she's either going to be sleeping rough or end up on her parents couch for a night, which really defeats the point of her leaving home... And as the escorting council office politely pointed out, three minutes before the coach was due to leave, there wasn't anything else the council would do for her..

Because she's no-ones responsibility, because she's 17.

Public Enemies - Review

2009-07-09T14:45:00.003+01:00

Warning - this post contains spoilers. If you don't want to know what happens in the film (even though it's a biography) then don't read the following post :]

Public Enemies is a biographical account of the life of John Dillinger as he rose to the rank of 'Public Enemy Number One' in the newly formed FBI, and the lengthy game of cat-and-mouse between Dillinger and Melvin Purvis.

Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, is a well portrayed character, sticking true to Dillinger’s life and events, although a few artistic licences have been taken, as with many film adaptations of peoples lives.
For example, Dillinger was killed in the alleyway alongside the Biograph, and not on the street in front of it, and the getaway after the Little Bohemia shootout is entirely fictional (Red Hamilton, Baby Face Nelson and Homer Van Meter all died at seperate points, with Van Meter and Nelson killed after Dillinger).

This aside, the film makes an excellent gangster movie based on real life events and people. It handles the balance well, and never tries to define the ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad guys’. The newly formed FBI, under the directorship of J Edgar Hoover, isn’t portrayed as typical, idiotic, flatfooted buffoons, as usually is the case in an action film. Instead, the film does well to highlight the effort, and careful planning that the FBI put into capturing Dillinger, but doesn’t try to blank out some critical errors that the Bureau made, such as the interrogation and arrest of all of his friends, family and associates.

Careful effort is made to show that the ‘G-men’ pursuing Dillinger also have depth in their characters, such as the brief moments spent between Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and various dying agents. A touching scene is where one of the FBI officers involved in the death of Dillinger hears his last words, and keeps them to himself until he can deliver them to Dillinger’s girlfriend, Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard).

Dillinger and his gangster associates are also made out to be neither heroes, or villains, which makes a refreshing change. Details such as Dillinger leaves customers money on the counter, and advising them to put it into savings make him seem like a modern-day Robin Hood, and yet the violence and terror is also predominant, alongside the lack of trust that gangsters had for each other towards the death of the Depression era gangsters. The film does well not to glorify the crime, unlike films such as The Godfather (an epic trilogy, no mistake, but it does make it look easy sometimes). The only ridiculously Hollywood part is where Dillinger walks casually into the office which is investigating him and wanders around it like a macabre museum, completely unchallenged by any guards or police officers.

I did feel that the relationship between Melvin Purvis, the man tasked by Hoover with finding and apprehending Dillinger, was severly underplayed, and a major flaw with the film. In reality, Dillinger and Purvis corresponded via the press, and when Dillinger was being held in Indiana, I felt that more could have been made of the first face-to-face Dillinger and Purvis had.

The lack of dialogue is both refreshing, and mildly irritating in this film, though. Although enough is said for us to understand what is going on, perhaps reading about Dillinger’s life prior to the film (Dillinger Days [Toland, John - 1995] is a good read for this, or Wikipedia) would assist in some parts to explain what is going on. Dillinger’s death scene was by far the most refreshing I have seen since The Green Mile (King, 2002). There are no ten-minute epic speeches as he dies, and Purvis isn’t even handily close by to hear his last words (about two sentences in total). There is no epic shootout, and mercifully no over-dramatic acting from Depp.

All in, Public Enemies is an exceptionally well balanced film, and is relatively un-tampered with by Hollywood for the sake of making profit, and because of the historical accuracy is a lot more credible. The choice of which highlights in Dillinger’s life to show in the film has been well done, and although the violence of his father is never explained in the film (his parents get a two-minute mention), it is not needed in great depth, and would not add anything to the film. A good choice, and with very well-cast roles and musical accompaniment, I would rate this film 8/10.

Festivals

2009-07-01T01:20:00.004+01:00

For once I’m not going to bombard you with depressing statistics about how the worlds falling apart, and shall concentrate on something positive…

…right after this tiny little moan about how commercial festivals have got. Okay, £180 is good value for the number of bands I saw, fair enough on that, but £4 for a cheese burger? And £3 a pint, of awful lager? It’s supposed to be about the music, not the profit margin…

Right that out of the way, I shall now continue my praise of the festivals we have here in the UK. I was at Download earlier on in June, and it was absolutely staggering. Nothing can quite prepare you for the joy of a festival, even when you’ve only got no money, (like me) and you go with about twenty quid five days.

But none of that matters. It doesn’t matter how bad your life is, it doesn’t matter how shit your job is. All of a sudden, it doesn’t even matter how you speak, or what religion you’ve got, or how you dress. Everyone is there for the music, few people know each other, and everyone is in the same boat.

As a result, people talk to each other. Can you imagine trying to start a conversation with someone on the London Underground? When was the last time someone offered for you to join their social circle and give you drinks and food just because you happened passing by?

At a festival, there are no social boundaries, you literally drift between groups of people, talking, and making friends. Everyone shares whatever they have, and you share what you have with them. People don’t shower for five days, and get covered in grass and mud and that doesn’t matter either, because people don’t care.

Just in case he ever reads this, kudos to Liam for managing to wear only an ex-military tank suit for four days (left, centre). I imagine that suit can now stand up by itself. Also, a quick mention for Laura, Amanda, and the vast number of guys in the tent next door for a brilliant time at Download.

Also, shout out to those braving Glastonbury – for once, you’ve got a heat-wave instead of a flood. Hurrah!

I concur, that festivals are utopia. Can you imagine if the world was like a festival (minus the rioting and setting fire to tents)

I think the world would be a much greater place to live.

Finally, I’d like to pay tribute to all the things that didn’t make it back from the campsite.

+ Water carrier – Killed In Action

+ Coolbox – K.I.A

+ Tent Pegs – Missing, presumed dead.

+ Water Carrier #2 – K.I.A

+ Biro – Kidnapped

+ Trilby – M.I.A

I salute your sacrifice, to the greater cause of Festival-going.

Michael Jackson & The Rise of Hypocrisy

2009-06-29T23:10:00.002+01:00

Hey boys and girls,

I know it’s been a while since I posted and I do apologise about that. However, I am now BACK! So crack out the champagne, and let your eyes roam free across the page.

So first off, the thing that everyone is talking about – Jacko finally died, and the world (for some reason) is in shock. (I mean, has nobody seen him for the last twenty years? He’s been getting steadily more ill since about 1988).

And now, you’re all expecting me to go into a lengthy rant about him and you’d be absolutely…wrong.

As a person, he was a messed-up lunatic, but as an artist, he cannot be touched (Ed: that was a bit tongue in cheek, sorry). He was a fantastic artist for the time, and his music shall live on.

But, do I mourn him? Nope. I think he died at about the right time – his name was cleared and he hadn’t got the chance to make any more of a target for the media just yet, and so he will go down as a legend, and not be remembered for the bad news that dogged him throughout his life.

So, rest in peace Mr Jackson. I know your fans will miss you, but thankfully I’ve got your album on my hard-drive from before you were just an eccentric weirdo without a career. I hope that man is finally at peace, because he was one tortured soul.

Okay, that out of the way, onto the media again.

Am I the only one that is entirely sick of the press having the same skeletal structure as Jabba the Hutt?

Grow a spine, you losers. I loved how all the gutter press in the UK didn’t know quite how to react to Mr Jackson’s apparently sudden demise, The Sun for example ran a 15 page article about his life AND a supplement for him, and yet in between the headlines of how he was a poor misunderstood soul, he wrote a nightmarish children’s book or play or something, full of fucked-up scenes involving children and demons.

So, according to the UK gutter press, Jackson was a misunderstood, gentle, caring, evil, twisted, devoted parent and occasional psychopath.

Yeah, well done there Piers Morgan. We all congratulate you on yet another 30 page volume of journalistic vomit you call a newspaper.

Somewhere towards the back of the paper, incidentally, was a tiny article about how we’ve just lost a 400 year old law which allowed freedom of speech in the Commons without imprisonment.

Personally, I’d have made that nearly as important as the death of Jackson.

Next post, I’ll do a belated article on Festivals, namely Download, which was completely epic.

Peace to you all.

Techno...fail

2009-04-05T09:49:00.000+01:00

Hey, just a quick point

To view the blog below properly, you need speakers, and you need lots of volume

for some reason the sound is reaaallly quiet.

Worth it though, promise.

Techno Blog!

2009-03-31T13:56:00.005+01:00

Observe the mightyness!

Created with windows movie maker, and featuring me, as myself. Enjoy!

Post on law has been postponed until tomorrow, when I can be bothered.

Jade Goody – A sort-of tribute & New Technology!

2009-03-23T23:10:00.002Z

Miss Goody, in the papers recently. Probably because she’s just died.

This isn’t going to be a pretty tribute, by the way. I hate how people lie when someone dies. I mean, there is a limit to how far you can stretch your imagination sometimes:

Bereaved parent: “Oh he was ever such a sweet little boy, everyone loved him.”

Reality: He died in a stolen car, having robbed a post office using a burning nun as a club, while shooting heroin and beating his girlfriend with a mallet.

When I die, I expect the truth; in fact I want it written on my tombstone that I was a cynical, tight-fisted twat. Just to save confusion in case people look for my grave and see “Here lies Robert Jacklin, generous and social to the end.”

Anyway, back to Jade Goody. Yes, she died of cancer on Mothers Day, and I’m sure peoples thoughts go to her family.

This means that all the red-top newspapers (Sun, Mirror etc) can go back to reporting trivial, unimportant things like the Iraq War, how the government is leading us into a police state and finally proving that David Cameron is a smarmy public schoolboy, who has as much in common with the working class as a £2500 Ferrari wristwatch.

I don’t mean to cause offence to those who loved Jade Goody though. But I’m also not a member of the press yet, which means I don’t have to feel guilty about hating her. I disliked her in Big Brother, and I disliked her afterwards. She had a horrible personality, she was racist, rude, ignorant and annoying.

All of this was reported in the press, at great length, right up until we discovered she was terminally ill. At this point, you would expect them to leave her alone – even the Sun isn’t so unprofessional as to hound and abuse a dying woman.

Well, nearly. Although the Jade-abuse did die down (in the press, anyway) instead we ended up with voyeurism. Perversely, the media followed Mrs Tweed right up until the very moment she died – I mean the Sun published a photograph of her corpse being dragged out of her house!

This blatant invasion of privacy is sick. Whoever reads those articles with an element of macabre, grotesque interest is sick, as well. I read it so I can keep a track on which papers are failing the public, and how which is how I know this, so I have an excuse.

Following a dying woman is not entertainment. If people with cameras followed me if I had cancer, I’d be pretty pissed off to be honest.

Now onto the second part. Kudos to Jade Goody for raising awareness about cancer – it needs to be done, and money needs to be raised for it. But she was human, not a saint – far from it, as I said earlier.

I dislike the special attention given to her because she had cancer. I lost a relative to bowel cancer in 1998, and I’m sure most of you reading this know someone who has died of cancer. Statistically, one in three people are affected by cancer at some point in their lives, and yet the media does not pay us a bit of attention.

This is a complaint about the press, and media values though, not about the value of a human life. All the time that the press have been stalking a terminally ill woman, I wonder what laws have sneaked through Parliament, what draconian laws have been enforced without us realising…?

Britain lost a human being today. Not a god, not a saint, nor a great philosopher. We lost someone who was famous for being a loud-mouthed moron. Well, I say we. I, personally, didn’t lose anything as I neither knew her, nor felt a kinship with her. However, I know it’s still a commonly held belief that it is wrong to speak ill of the dead, so I will leave it here, before someone starts sending me death threats. My respects go to her family, at the least.

Onwards and upwards anyway. As you may notice, my blog is being revamped with all sorts of exciting new things – like... erm… pictures?

The idea is to make it seem more accesible and easier to read. Soon, I may even alter the colour schemes, or post a poll on that.

Even more excitingly: next episode – I shall attempt a webcast!

The League Table

2009-03-17T00:18:00.004Z

There is a natural order in the world. Millions of years ago, Mother Nature sat down and made sure everything would work out okay because it had an order.

A lettuce gets consumed by a slug, which in turn gets consumed by either a hedgehog which gets eaten by an..erm... car, or the slug gets plucked into the air by a hungry sparrow, which then gets mauled and eaten by a cat. Or possibly just killed by the cat and left on the kitchen floor as a 'gift'.

Anyway, the point of this is a chunk of sensible advice.

As well as in nature, where Ford Fiesta's have ravished the hedgehog population, a league system also exists in humanity.

Don't chase people in a different league to you. You look like a twat, take it from me. People will look and sigh, cringe, and die a little bit inside of embarassment on your behalf.

And before some clever person points out that a lot of people suffer from self esteem, I know. I'm one of them. But therefore, we have a lot of people with low low self esteem, which ergo puts them in the same category.

Low self esteem and modesty are two entirely seperate things though, like Magret Thatcher and porn. They should never be mentioned in the same context.

Ever.

Anyway, thats my top tip for the day. Set your sights high, but don't aim for the moon - you'll get burnt up in the atmosphere.

Briefly continuing that analogy, if your impervious to criticism, you could be likened to having heat-shielding in which case your fine until you reach the moon.

I wonder if my moon has realised I'm building a spaceship yet.

Good grief, my blog has descended into the incoherent ramblings of a maniac.

Don't eat toasters, my good cheesecake. Forthwith the road shall play a tune upon the fiddle

Etc, etc.

Parking Fines

2009-03-05T16:47:00.001Z

Bleh. I'm so overburdened with uni work at the moment. Have a regurgitated bit of my coursework I wrote on monday ^_^

As smokers are taxed into oblivion for something they don’t wish to be without, motorists are suffering the same fate, with a jaw-dropping 75 percent tax on fuel (not including the 15 percent VAT tax on top of that), over 2,000 fixed speed cameras (not including mobile traffic units) and now over 30,000 parking tickets in Nottingham alone, over a six month period.

The city council has been happy-slapping cars, dropping thousands of parking tickets on infuriated motorists in Nottingham as part of its endless war on the car.

This move follows in the footsteps of London and Oxford which have made driving as unpleasant as humanly possible, and in London they will even charge you £8 per day for the joy of being stuck in a traffic jam, following endless confusing signs and getting hopelessly lost.

In addition to the impossibly difficult one-way system now in place through much of Nottingham city centre, once a motorist manages to find a parking space in the maze, they cannot leave their car for fear of a yellow-jacketed vulture springing on their vehicle with a stopwatch.

This follows on from the famous incident in Tudor Square at Christmas, when a man dressed as Santa was given an unwanted present of a parking ticket while unhooking his sleigh.

The council also attempted to introduce a parking space tax on offices with more than ten spaces in 2007 instead of congestion charges.

These costs have to be made up somehow; and as if often the case, the motorist is the easiest victim.

The question is; how much longer the council can wring car drivers for money until the river of hard-earned cash runs dry, and where will that revenue come from next?

Bus Drivers VS. Manners

2009-01-25T01:19:00.005Z

I'll start off on a light note. Just because you own an old Alfa Romeo 146 does not mean it's a magical car that can change shape. Apparently, this missed the owner of the red 146 I saw yesterday overtake a line of four stationary vehicles waiting for a tram to pull out, only to reach the end of the tram and find another one coming in the opposite direction, straight towards his pristinely polished bonnet. Crisis narrowly avoided thanks to the skills of the tram driver; honed by years of dodging drunk students sitting on the tracks.

Bizzare point of interest though; the Alfa blew it's horn at the tram, as if claim right of way. Arrogant driving is no excuse for being suicidal, or blaming a tram...on tracks... for not being able to swerve out of the way.

That been said, 164 people a day die on Indian Roads. I wonder if any of them drive 146's. Same numbers, different order. Gotta mean something!

Bus drivers have been getting up my nose for a while now and I feel it's time to pick on them after the incident a few days ago.

Quickfire question: Zebra Crossings - what are they there for, and who has right of way?

Got the answer yet? If not, I hope your bus driving career is going well.

As I was crossing an aforementioned crossing, I noticed a large double decked pull out of the bus stop further down the road. No issues, he had plenty of notice and warning to notice someone who had right of way was on the crossing. With this reassuring knowledge, I shuffled across the crossing, only to get halfway and notice the bus was still coming.

So I do what I always do in these situations - I slow right the fuck down. My logic is that they WILL stop, because that is what they HAVE to do - You can't just mow down pedestrians for the fun of it, not even in Nottingham.

Bus driver disagrees however, and for the first time, after a brief flurry of hand gestures, I actually had to jump out of the way of the titanic towering monstrosity of steel. As it was, it clipped my shoulder on the way past.

This kind of ignorant, arrogant driving should mean a law saying we can legally drag the driver onto the road and give him a Mafia lesson in good manners.

Just because you drive a large vehicle does NOT mean you can bully smaller vehicles out of the way. In India, this is different, because traffic laws...don't really apply.

In Britain though, I grow tired of buses pulling out blindly in front of you, stopping randomly without indicating, tailgating you, and pulling within ten centimetres of your rear bumper at traffic lights. It's almost like a challenge for them, I swear. I was sat at a red light, and in my rear view mirror, I could see a bus creeping forward, stopping, creeping forward and stopping until my entire rear view was just BUS.

It's not just bus drivers though. As the driver of a tiny Rover for a period of time, I learnt something. Small cars are invisible to everything. Cars will pull out in front of you, tailgate you, overtake you and slow down, cut you up, drive straight at you...in fact do everything except physically ram you off the road, with the exception of the driver of that semi-articulated lorry that forced me into a hedge. Thanks for that, by the way, I think the Rover looked marvellous in Mud Brown with a hint of Hedge Green on the bonnet.

I pick on bus drivers; because driving the Rover, and the larger Hyundai, and being a pedestrian, only one type of vehicle has consistently abused its size regardless of my own size - and that's the bus.

So, the lesson in todays story time is this - Don't let yourself get pushed around by a bus!

Incidentially, has anyone ever wondered how the universe can expand, if it's infinite? And if it's infinite; what is it expanding into?
Even if the universe is finite, then it's a box. Boxes have edges, so what is outside the existence of everything?

Also; the Hockley Grill in Nottingham does some ace food. Just consumed a pizza and chips from there. The pizza is a little greasy, but hell -This is Britain! Land of pushy bus drivers, tax and worldwide home of Misery.

Tomorrows blog will be a contraversial one.

Watch the space above this post. Watching this space wont do you any good; it'll move down the page.

Humph.

2009-01-16T03:01:00.005Z

I'm in a bit of a huff tonight...this morning...whatever. In Nottingham, there is a nightclub, called 'Rock City'. As you might guess, it's not a city made of rock. It's a rock bar, nationally famous in the UK for being...rock-ish.

So, having paid £3 to get in I was a little irked to hear Katy Perry and Amy Winehouse belting out, followed by Fallout Boy and some godawful track from the '80's. Avril Lavigne followed, then the Offspring...

Spotted the problem yet? It's not rock. Not even slightly. Or vaguely. There is another room called 'The Basement', which isn't in a basement incidentially, which played some kind of metal, but mostly awful metal. And I asked for a Guiness, since drinks were buy one get one free; and got one. And it was a can. And it cost me three pounds.

So; a tip to anyone wanting to set up a club - Don't mislead your customers. Because you will get a rather tired and annoyed youth naming and shaming you. *Points directly at you, General Kitchener Style*

Soon, I'll be posting one of my portfolio pieces online; about internet safety. Writing it as part of my course though; so naturally it'll have to wait until it goes through the plagarism detection system, because otherwise it will create a paradox which will end the known universe, somehow.

A final word, to finish off this blog: Scootleflute.

New Year!

2008-12-31T20:04:00.003Z

Okay, so the 3 in a week thing didn't work out sorry about that :P It was christmas y'know; I do live off the computer sometimes.

Anyway, I hope 2009 will prove to be the year that Mr Common Sense returns after a prolonged absence, following the death of Miss Sense-of-Humour, and the take-over of the evil Lord Apathy.

2009 promises to bring many changes; hopefully most of them will be for the good. Millions of years of evolution tell us otherwise; however now is the season for suspending cynicism and credit card limits apparently; so yeah :) Happy New Year y'all, and take care.

Oh, and quick point:- Scented toilet paper. Why?! It will not make yer arse smell any nicer; and the rest gets flushed away hopefully. But if you want to use it as a tissue paper because the hankies are too far away then you're screwed because all you can smell is that wierd scent forever which makes you sneeze EVEN MORE! Well done.

Peace.

Stupidity and an apology

2008-12-21T22:17:00.004Z

But not in that order.

Firstly; I'm sorry. My 'Dashboard' informs me I last posted on the 19th of November - nearly an entire month. To stop this from happening, I'm splitting this post into three!

Thrice the entertainment, over a week-long period to keep you all on the edges of your seats. Or something.

Anyway; onwards with part one:

Perfume adverts. I hate them so much, it makes me seem to actually love Will Young. For instance - On my television screen, I have to just seen, literally three mintues ago, an advert for - and I kid you not - a perfume called "L'eau the one"

Do these designers have any clue what they are on about? Or do they assume no-one in England did French lessons? The mentality is "It's French - it sounds good!"

No.
It translates to "The Water The One". What?! Just...What?! Will I really shell out £30 on something that is called "The Water The One"?

I know, it' s meant to be a play-on words for "Love The One" but that makes about as much sense as the BMW X1 concept. What one? Why do I love it? Do I want to love it?

And just because I see Ewan McGregor (No offence Mr. McGregor, don't sue me...) posing sexily astride a dusty motorcycle, on a free and winding road does NOT mean I can afford to shell out £30 to smell like a mixture of expensive chemicals in a pipe.

Has anyone noticed - Perfume doesn't really 'smell' of anything, either? It's nice...but not recognisable, like the smell of petrol, or cordite, ammonia or cheap lager?

But to be fair and balanced; I'd rather spend £30 and submit to the corporate propoganda of Mr McGregor than smell like a pipe-bomb in a brewery.

This caught my eye...

2008-11-19T21:32:00.002Z

...and annoyed me greatly. Why, oh why, oh why is there now an anti-speeding campaign which says SPEED IS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR IN NEARLY ALL FATAL ACCIDENTS.

Well duh. It's hard to kill yourself in a car crash while it's parked in your garage...

The company behind this stroke of genius have brought out a few more new campaigns, with the slogans:

NEARLY ALL BEARS SHIT IN THE WOODS

or maybe

MAJORITY OF POPES WEAR A SILLY HAT.

Please stop stating the obvious, for the sanity of everyone with more than half a braincell, before we require propoganda just to remind us all to breathe (government-regulated) air!

A serious post.

2008-11-17T17:19:00.006Z

A sure sign that I'm growing old, but here for once is a serious post, on a serious topic, with no jokes at all. Well, okay theres one slightly humorous part towards the end but I want you to read this in a different light to my usual light-hearted pieces.

For obvious reasons, I'm just going to refer to the girl here as Chloe Clandestine. She knows who she is as well as I do, and the rest of it will affect us all universally.

This story is part biographical and part journalistic. All the events and statistics here (as with all my posts) are entirely factual, so find your sombre hats (not your sombreros though).

Chloe is a really brilliant person, and an excellent personal friend to me. She likes to joke around a lot, is lighthearted and fun, and also genuine, deep and selfless. To talk to her, even at length, you'd never guess that she was the victim of child abuse - much less a victim of abuse which spanned nine years in her memory, and possibly before that.

Right up until she reached 14, a relation (referred to here as X) to her had molested her and raped her, taking advantage of the great deal of trust her parents placed in him.

The effects of such a long-term sustained abuse became apparent. From 13 to 16, Chloe openly admits she became sexually promiscious because of X, who told her from the beginning that sex equalled love, and it was an accepted form of showing love.

At 14, she was old enough to know that it was wrong, and told him to stop, and fearing the truth would find its way to his wife and daughter, X stopped.

Chloe admits that after this, she was a wreck, physically and emotionally. In our semi-interview, she said "At the time I cut, I would scratch stories, phrases, words into my thighs, cut up my breasts and wrists. I don't think I truly overcame it until I forgave him, the day we talked about it, about how it had affected me, and he cried and showed remorse, I'll forgive, never forget"

Forgiveness is what she attributes her success to, and it worked -she left home and school at 15, but still made her life work out well, and although she doesn't think she dealt with it in the right way, I still offer her as an example that abuse needn't eat away at you terminally - although I have very little in the way of experience in this.

Chloe said that she wants to use herself as an example to people out there, and said that the reason she wanted me to publish was as "A cry for parents to open their eyes - sometimes the people you least expect are harming your children."

The National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children states that in a study conducted in 2000, 72% of sexually abused children never told anyone about the abuse at the time, and that 25% of the subjects experience violence as a child.

She believes, and I agree with her from my own experiences with parents, that it's crucial to develop an equal friendship with your children. She never felt she could tell her mum about her abuse, even after so many years - and she still hasn't.

Chloe offers the advice to parents to check on your children - ask them what games they are playing, and who their best friends are; she used to tell her mother that X was her best friend.

The single joke I'm going to make in this post is that use the equality card in moderation - you don't want a 4 year old running your home for you.

Her last piece of advice to parents is that "you'd find kids would respect their parents more if there was a sense of equality in a household"

So there we go... My tribute to an amazing girl, for whom my respect runs ever deeper. Remember her warnings though, and learn from them, either as a parent, or someone who will eventually have children. Fight against child abuse, because children are the ones that need protecting most.

Thanks for reading this post - I know it's not my usual gibberish, but I hope that for once it might have some small impact on the world.

If you want to help, or want to find out more, visit www.nspcc.org.uk

If you need help stopping abuse call ChildLine 08001111 (UK only).

My thanks go to Chloe Clandestine for sharing her story with me. Although I've said it before, I'll say it again - this girl rocks serious socks.

Anoraks.

2008-11-14T11:55:00.001Z

Greetings, loyal subjects.

Just to clear up controversy, I didn't sleep with Andrew Sachs answering machine, and then leave a message on his granddaugher. I'll leave that to the pro's.

Seriously though, I wish the British army of anoraks would go forth and get a life sometimes. Little things like less than five people complained about the original infamous Brand/Ross broadcast, which rose to 5,000 when people read about it in the newspaper. Or Jeremy Clarkson's comment about truck drivers murdering prostitutes - a few truckers wrote into the esteemed and respected newspaper called The Sun and said they found it hilarious. Unfortunatley, Lord Anorak didn't, and complained.

Sheeesh. It's a joke. Lighten up, please, we're in the middle of a reccession! We all need a bit of a laugh from time to time, and if you find something offensive- switch it off! TV remotes are pretty easy things to use. Point, squirt, and go back to watching University Challenge. I want you to write in and complain about that, just to see what you can complain about really.

" Dear Mr BBC,
I was thoroughly disgusted at the way Mr Paxmans tie was knotted. Clearly amongst academics it should be a double windsor knot, and also I find Warwick University's choice of shirts highly offensive. Lemon yellow shirts should not be worn with white ties..."

Now that I want to read in the newspaper. Never mind that someone made a joke that someone didn't find funny; I find the anoraks funnier than the jokes themselves.

I'll cut this post short, as I need to get myself to a lecture pretty sharpish. I may come back and edit it later, but for now I shall bid you farewell.

Edit:

I decided not to edit it., even though the pre-edit said I might edit it. So I'm not going to edit or edit the edit or edit the edit of the edit.

Hehe.

End of Empires

2008-10-26T01:56:00.000+01:00

Heres a lengthy blog to explain the poll I'm about to put up (not that many people do the polls anyway. But I'm curious, so humour me).

America is dying. Lets be honest about it here. You wont read about it in the press because the press don't want to get sued. But I prefer the truth, it's the fundamental reason for journalists existing.

The American Empire is the last colonial empire left in the world. At this point, the stereotypical American will be spitting his cheeseburger down the barrel of his assault rifle and proclaiming America is the home of democracy (actually, that's the UK by the way) and freedom (Erm... Patriot Act? Remember that?). But lets be honest, it's done under a different banner, this time proclaiming safety to the entire world, not just personal greed but it's effectively the same. America profited from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's the truth, not opinion. America now uses Iraqi oil, fact, just as the British Empire used Indian spices and tea. America persues an aggressive foreign policy and invades countries to replace the dictator with an unstable, pro-American and democratic regime, forced upon the country with no choice about it. America is, by all meanings, an Empire. And it's dying.

The whole economy is in ruin, the leader is the most unpopular figure since Nixon and Kerry Katona and the election is between a pensioner and a revolutionary. The country will not survive much longer in the same shape, it will start to lose its colonies (the first colonies are now known as the States which form the USA, so they might all fall to bits too), then it will die, just as the British Empire did.

The question which arises, and to which I'm polling about, is this - When the American Empire dies, it will cease to be a superpower... So what will take its place?

At the moment, the world is a mono-polar superpower world. Russia is more corrupt than the British police force (just kidding folks, this isn't the 1980's anymore...), the EU has the power of a kitten in a sock, only more feeble, India is too busy trying not to choke itself on fumes from dodgy mopeds and China... is interesting.

China is a superpower, technically speaking. It has a massive standing military power, and more in reserves. It has nuclear ability and controls massive amounts of the global economy, not to mention a fair political whack. So why isn't it a superpower? And will it become one?

The answers to those questions are fairly simple. It isn't a superpower because it lacks the stability for it; the Beijing Olympics nearly caused a civil war, and Tibet managed to make itself incredibly unpopular. So when the American Empire passes away to join the French, Spanish, Russian and British Empires, will Beijing rule the world?

Nope. It's overdue by about six years for another Tianamen Square - And this time, they can't stop it. The new Internet generation are ready to take down the government and the government isn't strong enough to stop them. The West wont let them get away with another Tianamen, just like Georgia can't get away with another poke at Russia. So China may become a superpower for a small amount of time until it self-destructs, by which time I'll have made a mint from predicting the future and by relaxing on the moon with the Clangers. Or maybe not.

However; I want to know your opinions on it. I'll put up a few options, let me know if you think I've missed off a majorly important one.

YouTube...You-Tube...You Tube... You...Whatever.

2008-10-25T01:49:00.000+01:00

YouTube (Youtube or youtube depending how lazy one is feeling) is brilliant, and yet it irritates me with the sheer amount of rubbish content.

I know that the internet is supposed to be like communism without the wierd moustaches but seriously, if it's a video content website (which it is, by the way) then why am I faced with so many slide shows of pictures when perusing for a bit of easy entertainment?

It irritates me because the uploader has a massive sense of false acheivement, and puts things like "diS iS mY fIrSt ViDeO sO pLeEeEsE bE nIcE". Not only can they not spell or type, but it isn't a video. It just isn't. It's a set of pictures stolen from a google image search and made into a slideshow using Microsoft PowerPoint.

Also, the comment boxes annoy me. Originally designed for compliments, feedback, constructive criticism and adult, logical debate... But then humans got hold of it. And now we get stuff like "wAtS Up wIT tHe cOW Bell cOMmeNtS??

tHaTs oNe Of tHe mAIn BeAts iN tHe SoNg!!

gReAt fUcKiNg Song! "

That's an actual quote, from a slideshow for Don't Fear The Reaper. Or on the more interesting points, such as war film clips you get stuff like:

"fuck you, the military is nothing but a gang of thugs, hitmen, murderers, rapists, hooligans and assassins. i only have respect for the work ethic of the elite units such as navy seals or delta, the rest of you grunts are nothing but rapist horny pieces of murdering savage trash."

I love adult society, and the way we craft such delicate pieces of art with our linguistic ability.

One of my personal favourites from YouTube is a fantastical debate I had with someone about our dating system, as this young gentleman was laying into someone about the era of a music video (which is set in the 19th century, at a guess post 1860 if I wanted to be anal about it).

This gentleman was evidently unaware that the century is always a digit above the number of the date; so the 1900's were the 20th century, we now live in the 21st century (mostly), and in the 1800's, it was the 19th century. When I pointed out to this character that he had written that the Victorian era was in the 18th century, I got two gems of wisdom from him. The first was: (I'm paraphrasing here, I can't remember it word for word) "Fuck you, you know nothing about history, the victorian era was in the 18th century 'cause she lived in the 1800's.

So I replied "Actually I have an A-level in history, and I can assure you that Victoria's reign was in the 19th century, and just about the beginning of the 20th", to which my esteemed opponent replied "Fuck off and die, get a life troll and stop wasting my time".

Also, why is it that people write such long comments abusing a song or a band? This would mean they have sat through the four minutes or so thinking "I hate every second of this" yet not turning it off. This is similar to eating cyanide coated in lemon juice and salt in a restaurant, then writing an abusive comment to the manager about it on a napkin (admittedly while being poisoned but you get the idea).

Talking of strange things, while writing this I noticed that the English language is again under threat and not just from people that type out things LiKe ThIs. We are steadily contracting just about every single word in the dictionary. Words that used to be two words became hyphenated, and then contracted, and now it would appear that the hyphen has gone out of fashion with tartan trousers and bovril. I mean, YouTube. Shouldn't that be You Tube? (which makes no sense, it sounds like you are calling someone a Tube, and because it's capitalised, then it makes it sound like you're calling them the London Underground). You-Tube makes no sense either; but neither does Youtube which is a nonsensical word. YouTube (the real name) doesn't make sense because you can't start randoMly capitaLising letTers mid senTence, see?

All in all, I think me and my long-time partner in crime Ryan hit the nail on the head (ed: where else would you hit a nail out of curiosity? On the shin, maybe?) one sunny summers day in the Peak District - Too much liberalism leads to anarchy. We were proved right, Ryan, even if it was only about hyphens and their place in the internet.

Or should that be on the internet...

Ow.

2008-10-22T11:49:00.000+01:00

When you buy something which would potentially harm you, don't skimp on the money. I paid 35p for a craft knife (one of those retracting blade jobbies) which I was happy with...Right up until the moment the blade suddenly shot forward and the end of the knife fell off, and in the ensuing tangle I cut my finger.

So when Mummy and Daddy tell you you get what you pay for, they are (for once) right.

Actually, is that true? I didn't pay to have my finger cut, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that...

On a random note; I don't like Prince Charles. But he's right about one thing - markets are excellent sources of healthy fresh veg, even for a rampant carnivore such as myself. Massive carrier bag full of all sorts of healthy goodies, cost me a mere £6.10. And fuel has just dropped to 97p a litre! Credit crunch Mr Brown? What credit crunch? The only crunch I hear is my nutritously healthy carrot sticks. And perhaps an investment banker hitting the pavement from the third floor, having lost all his money from gambling on the stock market.

It does make you wonder why the government killjoys haven't started warning people about this. If you play the stock market, you are gambling, and the stakes are massive. Gambling is addictive; and the rules are the same in all games, be it poker or stock market - The house always wins. So maybe they shouldn't act so surprised to learn that they just lost the entire GDP of Belgium in a single morning. Tssk. Silly people.

Apologies

2008-10-16T22:53:00.000+01:00

Sorry guys and girls, it's been a while since my last post. But I have got a reasonable excuse, honest! I recently moved into university to study Journalism, and only just got round to setting up the internet.

THE internet brings me round to my first issue of the day; I'm going to offer you some consumer advice - Avoid Virgin Media! Honestly, all I wanted was to get the internet, and they keep pressuring you into getting TV and phone packages, and then if you don't, they give you the slow internet. And also the process of setting it up was blood-boiling, they really have no idea at all about "customer service". At Virgin Media, they probably think "Customer Service" is when we pay our bills on time. Or maybe a type of custard.

They ask for £25 for a kickoff for the box and cables and courier (for reasons unbeknown to mankind they can't send it via ParcelForce which is a lot cheaper) which isn't too bad, but I then had to spend a further ten pounds ringing them and being put on hold for several years. There are only so many times a man can listen to Amy Winehouse singing Valerie (which the Zutons did so much better originally by the way) via a tinny recording, without going totally insane. I actually went off and cooked myself a snack and a cup of coffee, leaving my phone on speakerphone and still they didn't answer. When I finally got connected a bloke said to me "restart the modem" so I did. Then he poked a button down his end and lo! The internet returned, after all that time.

Talking of long periods of time, I'm falling out with the SAS.

Having got you all curious as to quite how I know the SAS and why I've fallen out with the toughest soldiers in the world, I'll explain SAS stands for Student Accomodation Services over here. Muhaha. Anyway, I'm now in my second week (nearly over now) and only this morning after a total of between 15-20 complaints from the 8 members of my flat have they decided to come around and look at the broken shower, decide they need a part to fix it and left, without solving the hilarious light in the living room which only flickers on if the flat above start doing the Riverdance.

No, seriously, I'm not joking there. Last night, we all sat around in the lounge (now lighted with a desklight) and we heard "THUD THUD THUDTHUDTHUD" which is about usual for the flat above us, only this time the light came on. Oh my, how we laughed.

Anyway, motoring news in brief; BMW are continuing their assault on taste, decency and common sense with the launch of this monstrosity:
image copyright Motor Authority by the way. I didn't take it.
Beautiful isn't it?

Whats that you say? "No, Rob, you've gone totally insane, that is the most hideous thing ever to roll on this earth" do I hear you say?

I really hope so. It's taken its styling cues from the X3, which is similar to taking advice on being a GP from Harold Shipman. This thing has the ground clearance of a sunlounger, and yet has the aerodynamic ability of a piano with Elton John strapped to it. I've never driven it, so I can't comment on how it will drive.

Okay, yes I can, it will drive like an 18th century grandfather clock, i.e hopelessly bad. The fuel economy wont be that great, and you will suffer from BMW-itis, more specifically BMW-itis (Strain X-type) which involves wearing Oakley sunglasses, greased up hair, pushing out of junctions because you obviously have a massive four-wheel drive vehicle and therefore have a right of way (even though the X1 is probably not much bigger than a Focus).

So, consumer advice on the X1? Buy a Ford Focus and enjoy the happy feeling in your soul that you have done some good for common sense.

Picture the scene

2008-09-24T18:34:00.000+01:00

You are in your kitchen, preparing dinner. You cut some raw chicken on a board, then some carrots. Handing your baby a carrot stick to munch, you are suddenly shocked to find it has morphed into an uncooked chicken drumstick and the child is laughing manically.

Has this ever happened to anyone? No, because it's stupid and biologically impossible, and very few babies (even evil ones) can morph carrots into raw chicken.

So why on the advert which depicts this scene does it state so clearly "Dramatisation" ? Is anyone stupid enough to believe that this could actually happen? Is it conceivable that some person would buy the cleaning product in the true belief that it will stop carrots turning into chicken, then proceed to sue them for misleading them, if the term 'dramatisation' was not displayed?

The world, it would appear, has finally gone crazy.

The Old Debate

2008-09-23T20:11:00.000+01:00

Fellow blogger Antony (see previous post) has provoked this post. If you don't like cars, look away now or click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FnUTQMJVXI to see some cute kittens.

As you may be aware, my dear old Rover recently died, much to Antony's glee; the reason being that we have stood an age- old debate that I shall now decidedly answer.

Which are worst -Old British hatchbacks, or old French ones? Well, the two contenders are a Peugeot 106 and a Rover Metro.

First; the Rover. My first argument, and most crucial point is that it was a 1992, not a '94, so it's had more time to rust - the previous owner never washed it and so it corroded. A lot. The engine was a 1.1 1098cc engine, more powerful than the Peugeot, also faster 0-60. The suspension was hydrogas, far smoother than the Peugeot's traditional springs; plus the Rover had more comfortable seating and more bootspace and rear legroom, and I think it was a lot more smoother and better looking than the box, angular Peugeot.

The main trouble with the Pug is build quality; it has French flair, but not quite the chic appeal of a Clio (I mean... did you see the MKI Clio dash? It's brilliant!), nor the comfort of a Citroen AX. The dashboard rattles over bumps and you have a feeling that the suspension is made of stone. Also recently, the wiring has gone chaotic and caused the indicators to go mental.

The Metro had none of these problems; started everytime on the button, and the only thing I ever needed to do were occasional cosmetic bits and bobs.

However, the Peugeot does have a few advantages over the Rover. Fuel economy is up on the Rover, as is safety (always a sticking point with the Rover; people had the feeling that in a crash, they were the crumple zones). In the Rover, everyone assumes that your either old, or have no taste at all, whereas the Peugeot at least retains some cheese-eating-surrender-monkey-charm.

The scenes are also very different. The Peugeot you can see crashing into the base of the Eiffel tower, or perhaps understeering wildly into a Parisian coffee shop. The Rover, unfortunatley, you see in a muddy allotment, as someone checks their carrots, or parked sideways in the Post Office carpark as the owner angrily demands his/her pension.

The Pug also has a shorter gear shift, and the handling (although uncomfortable) is a lot better under hard cornering; the Rover always felt as if it was about to roll over and explode - Not very inspiring for a decent drive.

All the faults of the Rover though mean it is flawed; a very human trait. You know as you tape bits of wiring back onto the dashboard the best way to improve on it and to make sure the radio doesn't keep sliding out of the dashboard, you get to learn and know the car like an extra arm. And, like Alfa Romeos (I am expecting, after this, to get many alfa-shaped bricks through my window for comparing Rovers and Alfas) Rovers never have the same faults at the same time. Which makes your Rover, well, your Rover. Not just a car.

So there we have it - Which one comes out best though?

Tough choice so I will give two answers. If your after a safe, cheap, chic, small hatchback that wont roll over and kill you, get the Peugeot.

But if you want a car with a soul, a character and charisma -Get the Rover. Although perhaps it would be worth remembering that the Rover is no longer, and the Peugeot still clatters on to this day (albeit with one indicator and a slightly wonky dash).

Crunch

2008-09-23T19:41:00.000+01:00

Crunch. It's a noise you hear at breakfast time, and a noise when you tread on snails on the path, stumbling home at 4am. It is not however an viable term to describe economics.

Acutally I'd call this "credit crunch" something more realistic, like "parnanoia-induced economic black hole". Doesnt' quite roll off the tongue though.

Seriously though, watching the stock market is enough to make some poor seasick soul to vomit uncontrollably. It's hilarious to think that the entire basis of our civilization could come undone because the press like causing mass hysteria. Civilizations have died in fantastically interesting ways, the Holy Roman Empire was torn up due to political intrigue, selfishness, violent barbarian attacks by men in leather brandishing large weapons in their hands (edit: Hmmm. Not sure about the wording here). And ours? Ours could be knocked down because someone got paranoid and sold stock. Woooww.

Yesterday, for example, the world held it's breath as Darth Bush presented a rescue package to save the dying US Economy. Today, we learn that it's all gone tits up again, and the FTSE 100, 250 and 350 have all dropped by about three hundred points, beacuse some hyperactive journalist started whispering that it wouldn't be enough and we're all still doomed. Thanks for that. You sold a few more newspapers, and the price of that? Economic stability, more people out of a job, companies folding, people going bankrupt and people becoming homeless. I do hope your proud of that, because the money you made from your newspapers will now have to be spent on building bunkers to stop people lynching you when they realise that you are responsible.

As a journalist in training, I feel that I shouldn't slate my companions, but honestly, words are powerful. Words start wars, bring peace, famine, joy and are a fundamental part of everything we live for. So my final words (well not quite) are to journalists - Be careful how you wield that power.

As a short ending note on a more cheerful level; hats off to Antony for joining the world of blogging - You can find his blog at www.antonious.wordpress.com although so far, his only post is an introduction and a plug for my blog :P So have a plug back Ant! www.antonious.wordpress.com
www.antonious.wordpress.com
www.antonious.wordpress.com

Adventure into his world of wonky indicators, French electrical systems and why his hair looks like astroturf. Because it really, really does.

Econ Friendly

2008-09-20T20:20:00.000+01:00

Hello, loyal subjects. I'm back with more consumer advice; this time keeping it simple.

Avoid so-called "fuel-saving tyres" like a plague-carrying, handbag wielding, darth-vader-masked Margret Thatcher. These, as far as I've noticed have done the following for my fuel economy:
1) Absolutely nothing

And have done this for my car:
1) Given monumental understeer
2) Had so little traction you cause wheelspin crossing a mini roundabout
3) Make everyone think you hump trees and lick oil off seagulls and secretly want a Toyota Prius*

(*NB: This is aimed to cause offence to Prius owners, not compliment them. If you own a Prius, buy a proper car and stop being an eco-snob, or get the bus)

So, given the above, the only way you'll save fuel from these tyres is when they inevitably spin you into a tree and your car spends months in a garage getting repaired, and then the time you spend in traction wishing you'd bought proper tyres while eating your meals through a straw.

On the note of Econ and regarding my note on Prius's (should that be Priusae?), anyone that drives these needs to stop having a midlife crisis. Even people that buy "sporty" MPV's are above Prius drivers on the sad scale. £18,000 for a slow, ugly, low-quality, low-budget car.

Normally this would have people in hysterics, going "Who would buy such a car?!" but since the Prius has an electric engine (cough, milkfloat) with fancy gadgets it's now a front line weapon for the Eco-Warrior, who must defend the planets for all the whales and baby seals (Awhr! Baby seals!!) against people like me.

Well, lets be a bit realistic here; the electric engine is weedy and pathetically slow, also you can't hear it so small children will be mown down, if they move slower than an asthmatic tortoise. It also charges off the petrol engine, so fuel economy is a pathetic (For an "Eco Mobile") 30 odd MPG. A Skoda Octavia 2 litre TDi estate car would eat it for breakfast and still return 45-60 MPG. If you want a small eco friendly car, buy a VW Lupo diesel, which can break 70mpg with hardly any CO2. (Ed: I forgot to mention; the Lupo is also a lot, lot cheaper than a Prius).

Eco friendly? Or Eco fraud? You decide.

A look at online buying experiences.

2008-09-06T16:03:00.000+01:00

IMPORTANT EDIT: Ebuyer is actually rubbish!! My fears of postage were correct. I signed up to buy a 2gb SD card for my camera. "Wow!" I thought. "Only £3.49! That's immense" So I signed up clicked away my privacy and proceeded to checkout. Only at this checkout, you don't get a smiley checkout girl, instead I got a charge of seven pounds for postage, making the buying experience about as pleasurable as having your organs removed with a spoon by Heather Mills, only a damn sight more expensive. My apologies to anyone who took my advice that Ebuyer might be alright, I truly apologise for misleading you down this dark path full of hidden charges!

We attack at dawn!

This post has emerged as a vent to my massive frustration in online shopping. Here is your all-in-one, handy guide to various online market places.

Ebay - Always a good place to start. Ebay is a place of chance, it's like playing Russian Roulette with your mouse. If something seems too good to be true on Ebay, it is. Always look out for postage costings because the less honest E-Sellers have a tendency to place auctions like this
TOTALLY ORIGINAL 1960's FENDER STRATOCASTER, ONLY £1 STARTING BID, NO RESERVE and so you, the eager buyer, believes WOW that's fantastic, and bids up to a reasonable price of about, lets say, a thousand pounds. And then, and only then, do you notice in the tiniest little place, in the tinest font Postage Fee: £1,000,000 and then you are totally buggered.

Also, be aware that people may not actually have a clue what they are doing. I ordered a part for my ROVER Metro, and the advert said, specifically "Fits ROVER METRO" and so when the part arrived, I did wonder, ever so slightly, why it was for an Austin Metro... Hmph.

Even more annoying than the sellers are the buyers, who will sit quietly while you bid for seven days fairly on an item, then place a bid for 20p more in the last 4 seconds, causing much vexing and frustration.

Amazon - I like Amazon. It's easy, and because it's a market place not an auction, you don't get the bid-sharks swarming around. The one-click ordering system is good, but make sure you sign out when you've done, because otherwise you'll end up with 23,000 widescreen TV's arriving next week when someone hits the one-click order for a joke.

It's not the best place for cheap electronics, but the books and DVD's are really competitively priced. You can also find them second-hand in varying stages of use, but beware the optimistic seller.

Amazon has a seller rating scheme which is similar to Ebays, although the reviews placed on Amazon are a lot more useful for judging an honest seller. Also, customers can leave reviews of a product, so if there are more than three saying an item is faulty or wacky, you can avoid costly mistakes (A strobe light bought on Ebay springs to mind...Half an hour into use and it was dead)

The only other slight disollusionment for Amazon I have is that the postage rates are really tricky to find, so you don't know how much you're paying until the invoice arrives, which can be a bit shocking to find it's twice the cost of the item (See the rant in the Ebay paragraphs).

Ebuyer - Although I've never shopped on here, this site has so far proven the most useful in my quest for a digital camera. As with all online item searches, I set up a spreadsheet (Geekish, but endlessly useful) to compare prices, and set out a specific criteria. I'll go into how useful each site was later on.

Ebuyer pretty much immediatly returned three perfect matches to my criteria from the useful search options and left me feeling confident.

There are, however, few signs of postage costs, and I find the colour scheme a bit wearing on my eyes. I'll update this when I buy something from it though.

Play.Com - This is a very marmitey site indeed. I've found some absolute bargains and some utter crap here, which leaves me overall confused at to what to say

I will say, however, that this is the site that drove me UP THE WALL when on my product quest (shown below). I couldn't find a SINGLE search option ANYWHERE while looking for my digital camera, and the cameras were in no discernible order at all, meaning trying to find anything in a price band, or any kind of group at all was fruitless, leading to a feeling of trying to escape from a hot duvet on a warm sticky night. Not nice, at all. But, if you know EXACTLY what product your looking for, like a certain album, or DVD, or anything at all, the rates are pretty good and it's free postage! Which is good.

The quest:

Right, well as you are probably aware, Constant Reader, I am off to university next month to study Journalism. And so, I thought, I don't want to take an expensive camera because it will end up floating in a pint of beer, or a toilet. So I set myself out a criteria and set forth in search of a camera that would work out cheaper than buying a memory card and a card reader for my phone (since a new phone is around £80+).

The criteria was fairly straightforward - Minimum 5MP, highest cost £35, preferably SD card compatible and if possible, a Li-ion battery. Heres how the above sites rated:

Ebay - The search options was endless, and it's probably just as well. Typing in "Digital Camera" produced 28,305 results. Hmm. Narrowing the search down using the well-placed search toolbar gave me the choice of minimum and maximum prices (huzzah! Play.com take a note here :P ) and also because so many were about 20p but from Taiwan, I happily had the option of selecting "items in the UK". Even with all these options I still had 2532 results - It's easy to get overwhelmed on Ebay and I soon started losing hope.

I decided, given the number of sharks and Del-boys on Ebay, to cut my search right back and get rid of the auctions, just leaving the "Buy It Now" (Exactly what it says on the tin) ones up. 548 results. Getting there, but all this searching is getting really tiresome.

Ten minutes later I still have hundreds of results, and I just cannot bring myself to do any more searching. Ebay has failed from over-loading the consumer with too many products! On the bright side, if you have more stamina than me, you'll have a good choice and a hell of a lot of search options.

Amazon was useless. No, really, useless. The only cameras I could find under £35 were at a maximum 4 MP, usually antique old cameras, or rubbish new ones that looked liable to self-destruct in the post.

Ebuyer- As above, this yielded great results in about a tenth of the time I spent trawling Ebay. I found a 7MP Vivitar (well known make) with Li-ion battery and a case for only £31, and it supports SD format, and it comes with a case.

Play.com was, as I said in my immense reivew, rubbish. In fact rubbish doesn't do it justice, so I shall use all my linguistic capablilities to summarise just how tedious, annoying, pointless and useless it was. In a word- It was SHIT. It's cheap, but you HAVE to know the product EXACTLY or you'll be there seven years later, crying for mercy.

And so the victor of this quest was... EBUYER ^____^ Hurrah!

Hope this was of some use to someone, it was good for me if only to stop me buying a sniper rifle from Ebay and shooting the fellows at Play.Com

Although, of course, I'd still be searching for a sniper rifle on Ebay when I was 30.

Rust in Pieces.

2008-08-20T17:38:00.000+01:00

Hey all. Just a quick post to announce the death and return of my Metro to the great Showroom in the Sky. Took it for an MOT today and they didn't even get to the end of the test it was that bad. The bodyshell, it turns out, was even worse than I thought. The guy actually poked his finger through the sills to illustrate this, and said it was even worse underneath. Oh and it failed the emissions tests, miles out. And on the second test emissions test, they cooked the engine, which expired in a big cloud of steam and smoke.

I decided it was impossibly uneconomical to fix her, as the head gasket was on the way out, and the steering, let alone all the rot and emissions problems, so she limped across to a scrap dealer on her final run, who gave me £80 for it, even though it still had about £30's worth of fuel in it (grr!), and now she rusts in pieces.

Interestingly though, the first scrappy said "Sorry mate, we don't take those. Too small"

What kind of scrap dealer doesn't deal in scrap? o.O Random.

Russia Vs. Georgia

2008-08-10T18:32:00.000+01:00

Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to what could develop into a rather large incident.

We all know the story - south ossetia wanted to be Russian, not Georgian, and Georgia didn't want to lose it. Push turned to shove and now we've got another war on our hands. Georgia claims Russia bombed them first, Russia claims Georgia shot civillians supporting the breakaway.

Either way, the panda is really out of the filing cabinet now and both sides are blowing each other back to the Cold War. On one side we have Russia the Motherland with an army large enough to be read on the Richter Scale during parade, and on the other side we have Georgia, with an American trained & armed military. Could be interesting.

The thing that makes me twitch is America. I've not written about it on here for the simple reason that I don't want to offend an entire nation and have to put up with hatemail in my alphabetical spaghetti. But I will say this - When Kosovo wanted independence from Serbia, America threated Serbia with intervention if they tried to keep a hold on it using military force, despite the fact that Kosovo is an intergral part of Serbian history and culture.

The South Ossetia business is exactly the same, except that the region in question wishes to join another country. Oh but wait, that country is Russia, the big bad commie. America is only siding with Georgia because they hate Russia so much, despite the fact that Georgia is going directly against South Ossetia's democratic right - the same democratic right they swore to preserve in Kosovo. How can Americans pretend they don't see this hypocrisy and vote in someone else, who has an IQ above that of the average slice of toast? George W. Bush is a warmongering oil whore, lets be honest. If Georgia didn't have oil, and it wasn't the big bad Commies, he probably wouldn't even get out of bed for it.

The Internet - A Serious Post

2008-08-10T18:05:00.000+01:00

Time for a change of direction, I'm sure you all know by now that a) Adverts make no sense and annoy me and b) I don't like most cars these days.

As soon as I've done this, I intend to put up a poll, just out of curiosity about the internet- is it good, or bad? And yes, I'm aware of the irony of this post, writing about the internet on the internet.

But this brings me nicely onto my first point. Freedom. Does too much freedom lead to anarchy? If so, where is the line drawn between the two? Is the internet free? I could write anything here on my little corner of the web, filled with hate and anger and predjudice at anything. I could incite hate crimes, racism, violence and I could glorify rape, and murder (Note, I said "Could". I don't acutally, for a second, condone any of those things). Is that freedom? Yes it is, but can our freedom come at the liberty of others to be who they want to be? No. Tricky.

The internet is, as far as I'm concerned, primarily good. It's made the world a smaller place, right now I'm talking to an American chick, in real time. Not waiting several months for a letter. I'm currently looking at filing cabinets, able to select a decent product and a cheap price, and do all that without even swivelling my arse on the chair. I could buy an armoured car, or do a bit of wheeling and dealing on the stock market all from my chair. But the flip side of that particular coin is that it's killing off the "human touch". But honestly, there are few people that make the effort of shopping a worthwhile time, mostly its a grumpy person who communicates in grunts and shuffles. And things all cost more in the real world. So I don't think I'm missing out on that score.

The internet is used by charities and terrorists alike, by children and scientists. Is the Internet taking the place of a traditional God? We all gather round our screens, and Internet God provides knowledge, and wisdom, fuels our curiosity, and our hate, and keeps us amused. If you want to know something, you no longer look in a book, you look to the Internet. We all believe in the internet as well, we believe the Internet knows all, and will solve our answers. We no longer pray to recieve things, we just go on Ebay and buy it. But what of the misinformation put out by the internet? What about Wikipedia, where people twist the truth, and people believe it, and why? Because it's on the internet therefore it must be true surely? The internet allows opinions and facts to get confused. Take this blog, I say the BMW 1 series is a seriously ugly car. That's opinion. What if I said it had a design flaw in the rear suspension that caused the it to fail and split the fuel tank? Sounds believeable, but is it? No. It was the Ford Pinto that had a weak design so that a rear-end collision would rupture the fuel tank and cause it to catch fire. That's a fact. Or is it? (It is really.)

So what is the conclusion, after all that long serious talk? Simple - The internet is good - It's the people who use it that make it bad.

Next post (after the Russia/Georgia one) will see a return to the norm, rants about why kerbstones are designed to fracture ankles, and how Margret Thatcher is responsible for the state of China. In general.

Oh and my friends cat had kittens. Awhrrr!

Adverts And Cars. Again

2008-08-08T21:21:00.001+01:00

For Vanish Oxi Action or something, made me laugh. Theirs two kids in the garden playing around in mud. "Mum" goes "Oh no!" and the this random woman sidles in and goes "You need Vanish Oxi Action!" and it goes on to demonstrate the amazing effect of the video editing.

But tbh, if I was the mother I'd actually go "Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?" These adverts make no sense at all =/ it's more strange than dancing cars, and talking germs.

On the other side of life, has anyone seen the new Peugeot Bipper? Strange name, even stranger buyer. It's basically a tiny little van. Which is pointless, ugly and cheaply built. Why not just buy an estate car and put the back seats down? Or even my hatchback might do the trick. On the looks though, I think all the new generation of Peugeots are ugly. They look like widemouth frogs, instead of the sleek, chic, charmingly Gallic styled earlier cars. At least Citroen has maintained its looks, if not build quality. I want the C6! Lovely car, it's like a huge floating palace ^-^ and it doesn't look like a box on wheels.

Quick point on Vauxhall's new Astra - Seems like a fairly strong contender, if a little odd looking, except I've spotted a problem. The advert is mostly about this panoramic windscreen, which extends back towards the B pillars, offering the driver a great opportunity for, erm.... being blinded by the sun, causing his to go off the road, turn over and scrape the top of his head on a load of broken glass. Hmm, I'm seeing a problem with this idea. The car on the advert didn't have any sun visors, as they'd spoil the lovely view. But hey, people will even buy a Toyota Prius, perhaps there is no hope for any of us.

On the Toyota Prius, as I haven't yet explained my hatred of it here, I will explain it now. The Toyota Prius is a car which is bought by smug self-serving people with too much money who want to be seen doing something good. £18,000 for a Prius, which is ugly, slow, and (on the petrol engine) manages a mere 40 MPG. My 4-speed Rover 1.1 litre engine manages that. The plastics are all hard and feel cheap, and for £18,000 that's just not acceptable, nor is the lack of standard equipment. It has a fancy display to show what the engines doing which is pointless and distracting and the electric engine is gutless and weak. My loathing of this car and the generic person who buys it runs beyond BMW M3 drivers.

Update On the Supermarket Wars

2008-07-31T19:55:00.000+01:00

Tesco and Asda have started a Battle Royale through the medium of advertising. In the same ad break, I've just watched Tesco offer me one pence back per quid I spend and Asda boast two and a half thousand cheaper products than Tesco offer me. Although the shameless self promotion of Asda irritates me, I think they have the edge over Tesco here.

Tesco, it seems are increasingly offering things which sound potentially good, but on closer inspection, are absolutely terrible. Take the fuel thing, Five pence a litre off for every fifty quid spent in store. Sounds good doesn't it? But... You have to spend fifty pounds in Tesco to get it. What if you just want to fill up? Hmm. One pence per pound off with a Clubcard, the second offer. Sounds good, but your still paying 99% of the pound, and you'd have to spend a colossal amount to make it worthwhile. Spending fifteen pounds (average weekly shop) would get you only fifteen pence off. To get ten pounds off your shopping you'd have to spend a hundred. See? It's not economical.

Also, the shameless self-promotion thing just reminded me, has anyone seen the advert for those fabric markers? Gillete recently showed a few celebs shaving, which allows for us to imagine that in using the latest razor, we are somehow Tiger Woods. This advert annoys me for the single reason that it uses product association, then tells us about it "David Beckham has one, wheres yours?" is very similar to the actual line. Do they now patronise us to the extent where they think we are no longer capable of simple image association? I will never buy this product, even if it is a useful marker pen that can write upside down in space on fire, and I suggest you boycott them as well to show that we don't wish to be treated like idiotic cattle. If only I could remember what the deuce it was called...

BMW Drivers

2008-07-29T16:57:00.000+01:00

Inspired by my last post, and comments made by my good companion Ruthie, I've decided to compile a list of why I hate BMW drivers so maybe they can understand why noone ever lets them out at junctions.

1) Dress style- Loud clothes, orange sunglasses, orange skin and peroxide blonde for the girls. Tasty.

2) Bluetooth - Useful, but only BMW drivers can look like idiots, while shouting down them at traffic lights so we all know they have them.

3) Roundabouts - Always a BMW that cuts you up, then blames you.

4) Junctions - Always a BMW that tries to force its way out and usually a BMW that cuts the corner right across your front end like you don't exist

5) Faux 4x4's. BMW were the worst culprits until the Audi Q7/8 came out. But the vast majority of huge, expensive 4x4's that ride terribly on the road, and fail miserably off the road (BMW X3 in particular) are BMW's. They are used to bully other road users and the furthest off road they go is a flipping driveway.

6) Old BMWS - All driven by chavs or drug dealers, fitted with idiotic exhausts and such like, and they act like all other BMW drivers (E.G. Idiotically)

7) Music - It's bad enough when the Chav with a Vauxhall Nova insists on letting the world hear it's terrible music, but BMW drivers take it to a new level of high-volume crap.

8) Repmobiles - All middle-of-the-road BMW's are not even owned, they are bought by rich daddies, or footballers but mostly photocopier salesmen in grey suits.

9) High beams/Foglights - Only BMW drivers put on the foglights at all hours of the day in perfect conditions because it looks so "cool" to have four lights on at the front. Who cares that it's a hazard, and a danger?

10) Parking - Be it a monsturously useless faux 4x4 or an even more ridiculous BMW 1 series (so much money for what is basically a smaller, poorer built VW Golf) BMW drivers will do one of three things when needing to park: a) steal a disabled bay, b) Take up as many spaces as possible by parking on the lines, usually two, sometimes three c) Block you in for taking the last space. Serves you right for not giving way to a photocopier salesman that can't afford a Mercedes eh?

Insects

2008-07-29T16:43:00.000+01:00

Just a short one about insects and how much I hate them. I spent fifteen minutes polishing the little buggers off my bonnet, some I had to scrape off with my nails because even using hot water, shampoo and a hosepipe the sodding things still refused to budge after the 70mph impact with half a ton of Rover. How determined must they be to hang onto the bonnet under water and soap?!

Evil things...

Also, I've decided I really hate the arrogance of people that cut corners at junctions. Just what is quite so important about their lives which means they can cut across my front and endanger my life, I don't know. Probably late for their fake tan...

"Oh my God! I'm going terracotta, I must immediatly zoom for the nearest tanning salon until I am bright orange again! I must look like an orangutan at all times, even if it means cutting up small cars with my stupidly large and expensive BMW 4x4 that is rubbish on and off the road, but which I bought as a status symbol to indicate I have enough money to buy overpriced crap, even at the sacrifice of dignity, money, and the ability to park anywhere!!"

Although experience teaches us that owners of such idiotic vehicles also tend to leave them parked anywhere convinient for themselves, on the church steps, or in A&E, or a disabled space. I suggest we fit speed cameras with some kind of laser, anyone driving a BMW X3 (hate...hate...hate) will have the car melted. Disabled spots will also have a large steel pillar in the bay that will shoot up and skewer any car that doesn't have a chip to say it's owner has a right to park there. The skewered cars will then be melted down and turned into something more useful. Like door handles.

Also anyone who treats a miniroundabout as a junction should be forced to apologize to the person he/she cut up and admit they are a complete arse.

On a lighter note, E*. My car is shiny, and it's stop raining temporarily. Huzzah. So it's off to Morrisons for some cheap fuel and pork pies (see last blog)!

*E is a higher note than C, geddit?

It Is War.

2008-07-29T11:38:00.000+01:00

But for me there is only one victor - the cheapest.

Let me explain, dear reader, in greater detail. The Supermarkets have all gone to war. Kwik Save, some years ago, was battered to death by Somerfield with a frozen haddock, bought out, asset stripped and now is all but dead. Marks and Sparks gained a few more customers by putting pornographic adverts on TV, but are currently feeling the credit crunch, and being held up by pensioners alone. Sainsbury's tried to fight back by getting a silly-faced TV Chef to do adverts for them, but didn't do anything to lower prices and so now are sitting in the corner looking silly. Meanwhile Aldi and Lidl formed the Axis Powers from Germany who invaded Britain with effective force with there oh-so-cheap, yet yummy goods. I love these places, cheap quality food. But too few of them to do a handy local shop really.

Tesco realised this and struck back with a huge wave of adverts, not featuring a silly faced TV chef, and lowered prices, and were joined by Morrisons and Asda. Asda were bought out by the Yanks, so now we have Germany and America fighting viciously, with Britain quietly doing nicely for itself being represented by Morrisons.

The Germans are currently quiet, enjoying there clientele of loyal customers and Aldi's occasional advert on TV, a cheaper copy of the M&S adverts. The current war is being run between Morrisons, Asda and Tesco, and I reckon Morrisons have it sussed. Asda spend too much on adverts and show off too much, which puts me off shopping there, plus theres just something wrong about stealing the music from Dads Army for the sake of a pack of crisps...

So now we have Tesco VS. Morrisons - The ultimate showdown. But Tesco are offering 5p a litre off fuel for every £50 spent in store. Wow, I imagine you saying, that is the most brilliant thing ever!. But, you'd be wrong to think that. I for one don't want to spend fifty quid for five pence a litre off, since I can go to Morrisons and get 5p a litre off...for free. That's right, Morrisons have lowered fuel by 5p for the fun of starting a fuel war. And you can buy a pork pie for 49p. Mmmm, pork pie...

My loyalty goes to the lowest bidder though. Bring on the fuel wars, and lets hope to see fuel under a quid a litre again! And pork pies for 20p!

Oh and currently on the hate list is rust in all its forms, especially the one that is eating my car currently and attempting to bankrupt me by breaking bits of my car. Grr.

Insurance

2008-06-21T10:37:00.001+01:00

Insurance companies were founded in the eighteenth century in a little hamlet, just north of Nottingham, by Satan.

This is, of course, utter rubbish. I have no idea when they were set up, but one thing I do know, is that they were set up by evil money grabbing capitalists. Just passed my driving test (Huzzah!) first time, rang up the insurance company (because, knowing them, they wouldn't pay out otherwise) to tell them I'd passed. Next thing I know, they're asking for about £3000 a year.

Decided to move insurance companies, then. Went to Tesco Compare, having seen a lovely shiny advert on TV (oh, the irony...See blog on adverts), filled in four or five pages of every single aspect of my life only to find out that no quotes could be found, anywhere, in the whole of space and time. So I wandered off to GoCompare (Not plugging it, but it was a lot more useful than Tesco Compare The Blank Spaces Where Your Quotes Should Be, But We Can't Be Arsed Finding Them) and found a company which were only mildly robbing me blind at £1500 a year.

Said company, however, evidently need to put away their typewriters and get a computer system worked out. Having cancelled the £3k insurance and sorted out the £1.5k insurance with my new insurance company, I have just recieved the following phone call:

She: Hello there, can I speak to Robert? [This is calling my mobile phone...Who else would have it except a robber?]
I: Yep, that's me.
She: I'm calling from ....... insurance company, I see you got a quote with us
I: Yeah....?
She: I was just wondering if we could try and lower that for you, see if you're interested in joining us?
I: Erm... I got insured with you yesterday...
She: Oh really? Sorry about that. Thanks a lot!
I: ....? 'Bye.

Why did they not do this last night?! When I could have actually done with a lower insurance quote!? Useful! "Yes sir, now you're insured with us, I'll tell you that we could have done it cheaper if you hadn't been so desperate. Yes, that's right, we'll keep plundering your wallet for the £1.5k, don't worry."

I hate insurance firms.

Supermarkets & Old People

2008-06-11T11:15:00.001+01:00

This post isn't actually a recent event, although i'm sure it will occur again pretty soon. Inspired by a blog made my a friend of mine (ed: Fezzy! Fame and recognition at last :P), reminded me of an event in a supermarket a few weeks ago.

You know usually they have "10 Items or Less" tills or express tills? Well, in this supermarket it's more of a "Baskets Only" till section, consisting of four tills, of which only two are ever in use. Anyway, it's become a challenge, like Supermarket Sweep, for elderly old dears to see just how much stuff they can fit in a basket without fracturing their hip. I mean it was ridiculous, there were five people in the queue. I had a bottle of water, the guy in front of me had a newspaper and a coke, behind me was a woman with a tin of dog food and so on and so forth. At the head of the queue was an old battle axe dressed as a little old dear with a basket piled to the sky with what honestly looked like her monthly shop. Cereal, cat food, vegetables, meat, bread, fish, tinned produce... I'm surprised she could even carry it. In fact, she looked like she was struggling. But she was evidently in a hurry to get home and spend the rest of the day carefully stacking them in cupboards, feeding her cat and do the crossword, so she couldn't possibly wait behind someone with a TROLLEY! I mean how unfair would that have been.

I know people are always going on about letting old people get away with it because they're old and set in their ways....But seriously, it's becoming a problem that needs to be adressed. Society is going to hell - Teenagers drinking cider on streetcorners, and now old people blockading supermarkets. And I mean seriously, blockading. At the tills, given the chance, they will count out £11.82 in change, really slowly, get to about £11.76 and then give up and give the cashier a twenty, then spend forever putting the change into their purse before slowly picking up their backs and dispersing. Also they have a habit of strewing their trolley's across the aisle to prevent you getting past and pretending they can't hear you ask politely to move the trolley just twenty degrees to allow free passage without scaling the tinned meats to get past. Oh and the old favourite of leaving a small yipping dog tied up next to the door with a really long lead so it runs at you and tries to kill you everytime you go for a loaf of bread. Some old people are a menace to society, I swear.

Adverts

2008-06-07T21:35:00.000+01:00

Slowly but surely I am going insane because of these things. It seems like every ten minutes, I have to spend five minutes of corporate brainwashing, rather than watching the programme. Now, the cunning devils of TV have decided it's a great way of making us think "Bleh can't be bothered moving or changing channel. Will watch adverts, and promptly go buy dog food, a lawnmower, ibroprofen and... Oh no... Room vibrating... Bathroom on tv... Bats falling from ceiling...crystalware exploding....it can only be... dear god... nooo it's coming....HI I'M BARRY SCOTT AND I'M HERE TO SHOUT AT YOU UNTIL YOUR EARDRUMS EXPLODE ABOUT SILLY BANG! LOOK AT THIS PHOTOSHOPPED IMAGE OF MY SHINY PENNY! ZOMG!

This man needs to be lined against a wall, and shot. Gahhh. I really do not care. Especially when, after all the adverts, you CANNOT REMEMBER JUST WHAT THE FLYING FUDGETASTIC FORDS happened before.
"Did that doctor buy the lawnmower, or was it Barry Scott?"
"This is nature watch with Bill Bailey"
"Bill Oddey surely?"

Amazon - Hardly a technological jungle

2008-05-28T19:09:00.000+01:00

Cryptic title, but hey, I'm somewhere between amused and rather insulted.

I, as a man, have a duty to buy slightly unnecassary toys, especially for my motor, and top of that list currently is satallite navigation. Co-incidentially, in my inbox this morning, I found an email from Amazon advertising said navigation systems (telepathic cookies and spam now?!) for a very reasonable price. So then, later on today I has a click, so I does, and find a very tasty looking one indeed for an exortionate price of around £79 although I s'pose it's cheaper than £500.

Anyway, the purpose of this half-angry-half-LMFAO post lies under Amazons incredibly... well... Certainley not helpful section entitled "Technical Details". I'm not going to post the name of the unit because I don't want to plug what may be a pile of crap. Anyway. Under said section, you may expect to find listed such useful things as "Postcode Search Function", "Updatable maps", "Renewal Required Monthly" and so on and so forth. But I wouldn't be posting here if thats what it said. I shall now paste the..."technical" information, word for word:

More stylish
More affordable
Even for an entry-level sat-nav, the S30 ticks all the main boxes
The slim, stylish S30 works straight out of the box and is simply a joy to use
3.5 touch screen
Pre-installed Safety Camera Data

How the heck do the first four have anything to do with technical details? First point: More stylish. So what?! It could look like Chairman Mao's shoe for all I care, but which planet is it programmed for?

Second point - More affordable. I applaud the efforts Amazon have taken to repeat themselves here, with that point being made in the email, the title and...the price?!

Third point...WHAT MAIN BOXES?! It states it ticks them but what are they? "Must be ex-Soviet junk" "Must contain Anthrax" "Must confuse and drive user off Beachy Head when asked to find London"?!

Fourth point: Again, where's the techinical relevance? Amazon manages here to repeat itself from about three points ago with "Stylish" (see comments regarding Mao's shoe)

Fifth point: Getting there, but still... is the screen colour, or from a 1987 Gameboy? Or maybe it's all in Martian.

Sixth point: Aha, useful...but when was it last updated? Does it still warn about Soviet traps and warn you to stay well clear or the USSR and Cuba?

You get the general idea here. For all the technical information I picked up, it could well be a piece of Chinese junk made from shoes, that attempts to kill you, warns you against Communists and has a screen stolen from a 1987 Gameboy. Hmmm.

I think I'll pass.

Polls

2008-05-26T21:08:00.000+01:00

Polls, and more polls.

Well, two anyway.

Bottom of the page.

VOTE!

Hopefully I'll get a better turnout than the general elections ;)

Bingo!

2008-05-26T19:46:00.000+01:00

And here, dear reader, you would of course be expecting a massive revelation, something along the lines of the real name of God, or whether pink custard is really better than yellow.

But then you'd be forgetting that it's me your reading ;) so the only revelation I can provide here is yes, pink custard is better than yellow, god is simply a bigger, more thundery version of hope and that the road to Hell is paved with Bank Holiday traffic, with Colonel Sanders as Satan.

Anyway, got a bit distracted there. . . I've no doubt that the character I went to Bingo with last night will probably read this and be most unamused. But hell...Has anyone ever tried sitting through a game of Bingo? It's so...so...so dull... bloke yelling ONE AND TWO...TWELVE (I was always taught one and two equals three...never mind) then ON ITS OWN...NUMBER NINE.

If there is a Hell, there will be 24 hour bingo, for all eternity. And dodgy-looking burger vans with fat greasy men in baseball caps. Argh!

Indians/Helpline

2008-05-22T22:04:00.000+01:00

Shorter post because the last one got cut off. Damn limits. Sorry for the lack of comms in a few days, but the internet died and I (not) literally had to declare war on a small part of India to get it fixed. Reason for me being so worked up is "Roger" (Possibly his real name, judging solely on his accent and lack of coherent English or technical skills, I find this tricky to believe". Roger (at £1 a minute may I add) told me that the problem was 1) The driver 2) Me being incompetent or 3) a technical fault that could be cured by rebooting. After assuring him that all of these would have no effect, I gave up and hung up. Few days pass. Ring them back and get this "Oh sorry, our servers are broken and will take up to 48 hours to fix. Maybe not 48 hours, but probably. Or not". Three days later, 21:00, and it finally, finally decides to work. All that cost, stress, arguments with incoherent idiots, and complete and utter failiure of communications.

God bless democracy.

2008-05-15T21:10:00.001+01:00

Oh for heavens sake. This blog now can join the list. The last part of that last post should have continued

"exploded, then i could have understood it perhaps!"

That was it really. About four lines that would not show. Why would they do this to me. Whyyy.

God or Evolution

2008-05-15T20:57:00.000+01:00

Expecting a great debate? Wrong site, and you obviously don't know me, as the post continues -

God or Evolution? Either way, we as a race suck. I have chronic backache again, i mean wtf is wrong with having a spine that just 'works'? And I mean honestly, two arms? Why?! And two legs can be annoying. Sheesh, we're so badly designed.

Also on my hate list today are people who set deadlines and drivers of Ford Transit vans, specifically ones owned by the firm Millenium Landscapes. If you see this van, ram it off the road, and torch it. The occupants are a stain on the gene pool.

I'm hating Tippex at the minute. You know when you get the ones with the foam tip on the end for...Christ knows why, better accuracy or some shit like that? Well mine decided to fall off onto a folder. Joys of mopping tippex splatters from invoices, desktops, computer screens, flesh, stationary... You get the idea. It was like a white volcano, and I don't even know how, I mean... ITS A BIT OF RUDDY FOAM! If the tippex bottle had violently exploded then sure that could have been logical.

Today has been a day of annoying things

2008-02-19T19:22:00.000Z

First annoying thing- Fog. Which idiotic god decided that stopping anything with eyes from seeing was a good idea? Can you imagine that at a board meeting?
"Is there any other buisiness?"
"Yeah, actually, I'd like to fill a small part of the world with this cool thing called "Fog" to stop everyone from seeing!"
" Yeah sounds great, lets do that!"

Hmm.

Second thing- bus prices. We're supposed to be green and take the bus, but why would we? I tried getting to a place no more than 10 miles away from my house and it cost me £3.40. It would have been cheaper to use a car, I worked it out. Also, you have to walk five minutes from my house to get to the bus stop, then wait an hour for the flipping bus, then you sit down on an uncomfortable seat surrounded by people that smell of cats and Mint Imperials for half an hour, then get off and have to walk for ages to get to wherever your going. Congratulations, you spoons.

Third and final rant for today- which crafty bloody capitalist figured out that you can list your prices without VAT to make your business look cheaper? I went shopping for some art stuff for my project today. Armed with £40, I was sure I had enough. Got to the checkout and I was stunned by the shopkeeps response:
Shopkeep: Sixty two pounds please
Me: How much? -raises eyebrow disbelievingly-
Shopkeep: Sixty two, please.
Me: Uhhh, how'd you get to that?
Shopkeep: It's the price plus VAT.
Me: ...
Shopkeep: You have to add VAT to everything.
Me: I have £40.
Shopkeep: ...
Me: -sigh- I'll put some stuff back.
Shopkeep: -glare-

Less than amused currently, it's gotta be said.