They say it's as obvious as the nose on your face but sometimes the truth is easy to miss because you were too busy doing something more fun at the time. Below are some of those things that you know are true but have never taken the time to actually think about. Please remember that these are generalisations so while they may not apply to you (yes they do you just can't admit it) they will be applicable to most of the others.
Men are simple creatures, if you want the washing up done just ask, don't ask if we have anything planned later or some shit like that. Another thing, just because you left it on the stairs that doesn't mean we know you want it taken up them. We can't read your minds ladies, you are way too complicated.
Boasting about your dishwasher stacking skills or your highest snooker break does not excite the opposite sex, your wife humours you because you fathered her children.
This usually applies to any fishing related story as well.
Men would like to look like George Clooney rather than George Foreman. People don't want to be fat they just can't say no to pies and beer. Being massively overweight is just a middle aged man's admission that the only way to get sex from now on is to pay for it.
Yes for the 14th time you had to be there for it to be funny and if I had to be there then the story is just a waste of 53 seconds of my life.
The next time you can't understand why the wife doesn't want to have sex again, call up your 18 stone, big boned, grey haired balding mate and get him to come round and lie on you, wiggle around a bit and lick your face for 107 seconds. See how that makes you feel? Hint - go to the gym. And those favourite trousers that you wear around the house all the time need to go in the bin.
Comfortable means less sex.
Women need to feel loved and appreciated. They want to feel a warm glow that comes from a partner that will protect and provide for them while always being there to listen and support them emotionally. Women like to feel secure and feel the attention of a considerate soul mate. Men just need to feel your lips around his cock.
Listening does involve actually putting your paper down and looking at the person that is talking to you. This is important if you don't want your toothbrush accidentally dropped in the toilet without your knowledge again.
Always use your partners toothbrush.
Thrusting your groin into the small of a woman's back isn't foreplay. This truth is suspended for a single 2 week period per year but this exclusion only applies to those at a holiday destination. This period starts as soon as you enter any airport terminal and ends when the 14 days are up or when you spend your last Euro.
If you keep voting then Simon Cowell will keep making this rubbish.
Being famous doesn't make you a good role model, it just means you sell more magazines.
All tattoos look shit on wrinkly skin.
Throughout history when people didn't understand they just blamed God. He seems to be less in demand these days that's all.
Intelligent design is complete rubbish, if God designed us in His own image then please explain Bella Emberg and what a hiccup is for?
Sin feels good straight away, the benefits from being nice can't usually be spent at Marks & Spencers.
The bible isn't a factual historical guide to the early years of mankind, it's a group of stories, tales and fables passed down by word of mouth around campfires over many decades. After a while people got bored of remembering stuff so they wrote it down for safe keeping. How am I sure it's not factually accurate? 2 reasons. 1 History is written by the victors and they always over egg it and 2. Have you ever played Chinese whispers?
And finally, you can't disprove that God didn't create the universe in a week in the same way that scientists can't seem to agree on their version of events. You might want to start being nice to others and at least hedge your bets.
Merry Christmas
Friday 23 December 2011
Wednesday 21 December 2011
Einstein these aren't the droids you're looking for
Well in the words of the most famous scientist of all time Montgomery Scott "you canna change the laws of physics Jim!" When these words are uttered in 250 years time you will hope that by then we will have got our shit together because at the moment, apparently you can change them on a regular basis and apparently getting them wrong is actually more exciting then getting them right. Well at the moment the science types are getting a lot of air time because some Bozo and his mate Charlie Higson are having a dog party or some crazy stuff like that. Anyway they're getting excited because they have either found some tiny piece of almost nothing that is really important when you do maths with letters, OR they've wasted the last 50 years looking for something that was made up in a cider fuelled spin the bottle party when Robert Brout told Peter Higgs he had either insert the bottle in his anus or make up a law based on something no one could prove was wrong.
So in light of all that science and stuff and following on from my bible the shortened version I've compiled my Big Science using Small Words.
So let's start at the beginning...
The big bang - the beginning of the universe. There was nothing and an instant later everything existed. Imagine a cheap magician making a dove appear from under a handkerchief, but it's a really big handkerchief. The scientists reckon this happened in the blink of an eye which just seems like one up manship on the Christians who believe God took 6 days. The big bang is technically classed as our best guess, but as no one had tickets for the event we can't be sure what actually happened.
The speed of light - the clue is in the name and it's hair straightingly fast, seriously moving, the numbers are pointlessly big. It took Man around 4 days to travel to the Moon and they were motoring, going faster than anything before or since. It takes light about 1.2 seconds to make the trip. Nothing can travel faster than this speed cos Einstein said so, apparently little pieces of stuff fired across Europe this year weren't listening and they seem to have broken the speed limit. They are either very naughty or the scientist didn't count properly.
The Universe - aka everything, the whole shooting match. Age around 16 billion years if you wear a lab coat or less than 6000 years if you're Jewish. Now I'm no expert but I reckon one is much closer than the other and I'm going for the ones that don't believe Noah got 2 of every animal onto just one boat. Size is classified as flipping gigantic, even larger than Simon Cowell's bank balance. Basically so big we haven't got a clue, so every couple of years we increase our guess, but frankly its a whopper.
A Star - Our sun is a star and a star is really just a massive pile of stuff crammed into a really small space. It's like taking everything you own and stuffing it all in your ear. There is so much stuff all close together that the pressure makes it catch on fire. It's like when you stop your wife from buying shoes. The pressure builds up so much that eventually she blows her top at you and then smolders about it for ages. The sun has got the hump and this cob on will last for around 8 billion years, slightly less than the average married woman.
Super Nova - This is a star that has exploded. Imagine the wife just after the whole shoes thing and just as she's in full melt down you tell her you slept with her sister. This is a super nova, only the biggest suns go out like this, most just get over it and calm down. These go out in a blaze of glory, so remember never upset a fat bird, the damage could be immense.
Black Hole - This is a star that is so heavy and so dense that nothing not even light can escape its gravity and everything gets sucked into it. It's very much like the local barmaid and her unfanthanably large GG breasts. She's definitely over 17 stone with a cleavage longer than Southend pier, you try not to look, but no matter what you do they suck you in. Black holes are pretty much the harbingers of death and destruction, but no one knows where the hole goes and frankly who cares, but I bet the neighbours are horrible.
Dark Matter - a few years back some geek type decided to calculate the weight of the entire universe, obviously a slow day on World of Warcraft. He found that it was a lot lot lighter than it should have been, in fact they couldn't account for 83% of everything! So they decided there was this stuff, that you can't see, measure or detect and it was in the holes in all the normal stuff like arses and muffin tops. This may have caused the current obesity problem. The brainiacs also suggested that this was why they couldn't get their sums right on gravity as well. How convenient.
Dark Energy - Now all the physics types were happy that the big bang guess thing was right. Everyone thought the biggest explosion of all time would, like all other exploding type events started off big and loud and get less powerful and slowed down as time went on? Well when the uber-geeks found out that the the opposite was happening they shit a brick. So they decided there must be something out there mucking up their sums again. Queue dark energy and, guess what, it can't be seen or detected in anyway. I see a pattern forming here and it's a bit fishy.
The Higgs Boson - This is a tiny weeny particle that doesn't do much but if we can find it then all the scientists can say 'I told you so'. This is the main reason we've been smashing stuff into each other in a mountain in France. If not found soon the clever crew will have to start their blah blah from scratch and we'll be asking for our £25 billion back.
The Higgs Field - This is basically the force, but without the ability to lift heavy rocks or influence storm troopers. Scientists decided that none of their other guesses, sorry theories worked without some new force that gave everything mass. So the next time you are on the scales and you're concerned about the mass in your trousers its Mr Boson's fault not those 4 chocolate eclairs.
Warp Factor 10 - This is a myth and not even achievable by 25th century technology. If Scotty couldn't do it then no one can, not even the black dude with the air filter stuck to his head can nail this baby.
So as you see there's a lot of guess work, theories and predictions in all this supposed scientific knowledge and believing in it takes a leap of faith which is very similar to being a devout believer in one of less than credible mainstream religions. Just goes to show you can't always trust a man who dresses funny and says the truth is in his book.
So in light of all that science and stuff and following on from my bible the shortened version I've compiled my Big Science using Small Words.
So let's start at the beginning...
The big bang - the beginning of the universe. There was nothing and an instant later everything existed. Imagine a cheap magician making a dove appear from under a handkerchief, but it's a really big handkerchief. The scientists reckon this happened in the blink of an eye which just seems like one up manship on the Christians who believe God took 6 days. The big bang is technically classed as our best guess, but as no one had tickets for the event we can't be sure what actually happened.
The speed of light - the clue is in the name and it's hair straightingly fast, seriously moving, the numbers are pointlessly big. It took Man around 4 days to travel to the Moon and they were motoring, going faster than anything before or since. It takes light about 1.2 seconds to make the trip. Nothing can travel faster than this speed cos Einstein said so, apparently little pieces of stuff fired across Europe this year weren't listening and they seem to have broken the speed limit. They are either very naughty or the scientist didn't count properly.
The Universe - aka everything, the whole shooting match. Age around 16 billion years if you wear a lab coat or less than 6000 years if you're Jewish. Now I'm no expert but I reckon one is much closer than the other and I'm going for the ones that don't believe Noah got 2 of every animal onto just one boat. Size is classified as flipping gigantic, even larger than Simon Cowell's bank balance. Basically so big we haven't got a clue, so every couple of years we increase our guess, but frankly its a whopper.
A Star - Our sun is a star and a star is really just a massive pile of stuff crammed into a really small space. It's like taking everything you own and stuffing it all in your ear. There is so much stuff all close together that the pressure makes it catch on fire. It's like when you stop your wife from buying shoes. The pressure builds up so much that eventually she blows her top at you and then smolders about it for ages. The sun has got the hump and this cob on will last for around 8 billion years, slightly less than the average married woman.
Super Nova - This is a star that has exploded. Imagine the wife just after the whole shoes thing and just as she's in full melt down you tell her you slept with her sister. This is a super nova, only the biggest suns go out like this, most just get over it and calm down. These go out in a blaze of glory, so remember never upset a fat bird, the damage could be immense.
Black Hole - This is a star that is so heavy and so dense that nothing not even light can escape its gravity and everything gets sucked into it. It's very much like the local barmaid and her unfanthanably large GG breasts. She's definitely over 17 stone with a cleavage longer than Southend pier, you try not to look, but no matter what you do they suck you in. Black holes are pretty much the harbingers of death and destruction, but no one knows where the hole goes and frankly who cares, but I bet the neighbours are horrible.
Dark Matter - a few years back some geek type decided to calculate the weight of the entire universe, obviously a slow day on World of Warcraft. He found that it was a lot lot lighter than it should have been, in fact they couldn't account for 83% of everything! So they decided there was this stuff, that you can't see, measure or detect and it was in the holes in all the normal stuff like arses and muffin tops. This may have caused the current obesity problem. The brainiacs also suggested that this was why they couldn't get their sums right on gravity as well. How convenient.
Dark Energy - Now all the physics types were happy that the big bang guess thing was right. Everyone thought the biggest explosion of all time would, like all other exploding type events started off big and loud and get less powerful and slowed down as time went on? Well when the uber-geeks found out that the the opposite was happening they shit a brick. So they decided there must be something out there mucking up their sums again. Queue dark energy and, guess what, it can't be seen or detected in anyway. I see a pattern forming here and it's a bit fishy.
The Higgs Boson - This is a tiny weeny particle that doesn't do much but if we can find it then all the scientists can say 'I told you so'. This is the main reason we've been smashing stuff into each other in a mountain in France. If not found soon the clever crew will have to start their blah blah from scratch and we'll be asking for our £25 billion back.
The Higgs Field - This is basically the force, but without the ability to lift heavy rocks or influence storm troopers. Scientists decided that none of their other guesses, sorry theories worked without some new force that gave everything mass. So the next time you are on the scales and you're concerned about the mass in your trousers its Mr Boson's fault not those 4 chocolate eclairs.
Warp Factor 10 - This is a myth and not even achievable by 25th century technology. If Scotty couldn't do it then no one can, not even the black dude with the air filter stuck to his head can nail this baby.
So as you see there's a lot of guess work, theories and predictions in all this supposed scientific knowledge and believing in it takes a leap of faith which is very similar to being a devout believer in one of less than credible mainstream religions. Just goes to show you can't always trust a man who dresses funny and says the truth is in his book.
Thursday 15 December 2011
Who was the man from Del Monte?
"Just Say No" was the snappy slogan that headed up the push in the 1980's and then the 1990's to stop American teenagers taking drugs. It crossed the Atlantic as well and I was struck by just how pathetic it's impact has been. This is shown by the ever increasing levels of drug taking, which is not surprising really considering it was middle aged men in suits or cheery faced smiling youth workers that were pushing it. But the emphasis is heightened further as it seems that parents of today, the teenagers of yesterday, have completely lost the ability to say NO. We can say fuck and shit, wanking and other forms of self gratification are happily conversed about now, with bum sex and uphill gardening a constant source of mirth and frivolity, but we just can't say NO. We have somehow lost the ability to upset others by just saying that today you can't have all 5 chocolate eclairs or you don't actually need another 32" TV in your bedroom because the other one is the wrong colour.
Our ever expanding waistlines are a true indictment of our inability to refuse the last 17 Rolos in this cleverly marketed sharing packet. Who's sharing? No one because your partner currently has their face in an over sized bucket of slightly sweetened popcorn, soon to be washed down by a pitcher of arse widening sparkling beverage. Yes, I know this in itself is just a treat and we all deserve a treat from time to time and yes I do exactly the same, but did you really need that stupendously long hot dog and cheese top nachos as well? No you didn't, your belt didn't and the poor seat at e4 definitely didn't. Why do we do it, why do we spend ridiculously large amounts of cash on over priced shit just because the big sign said we could save 70p on a number 2 meal deal. It's the cinema, not a reasonable priced food outlet that you will be heading to once the film is done. And another thing who invented those resealable bags for sweets, possibly the least used invention since Clive Sinclair decided we all needed a battery powered tricycle, what a cock.
Our belly bulging credit card limits also prove our complete inability to say no. Perhaps it's the bright lights again and the chance of a bargain but we just can't say no to a good old spend up at the local Mecca to consumerism. I'm a man of 41 who has never spent massive amounts on clothes and I do throw out stuff I don't wear any more and I've managed to amass 84 assorted shirts, tops and T shirts in my wardrobe. How did that happen, Christ knows, although he is busy at the moment so I'm not expecting an answer. I can see the logic being played out in the minds of lady shoppers everywhere. I've got a coat, in fact I've got 4 coats, actually I've got one very much like this but in a slightly darker shade of blue. Now the credit card statement came in last week and I'm almost up to my limit, but not quite. Christmas is coming up and everyone is coming over for dinner so that's going to cost a pretty penny and I'm still waiting for the vet bill to come through. This is a really really nice coat should I buy it?
The answer should be screaming in her head;
NO BLOODY NO, DON'T DO IT, PUT DOWN THE COAT AND MOVE AWAY TO THE NEAREST EXIT. THIS IS NOT A TEST. I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A TEST MOVE AWAY FROM THE ITEM MADAM.
What actually happens is the little voice in her head says:
If you buy it now then you'll save your husband £80, isn't that nice of you. Please ignore the fact that if you didn't buy it you would save him £100 more and it's going to sit in the wardrobe unworn until at least 2014. This is not important, what is important is you will feel great for at least the next hour, it's the latest John blah Di blah Blah and Julie will be sooo jealous. If your hubby does kick up a fuss he'll soon forget all about it if you offer him a blow job.
Does madam required the hanger and we could offer you a further 10% off if you opened an account with us today?
The final area of "NO" apathy is the whole children thing. I consider myself to be working class. I work, my wife works to pay the bills, my mum has worked all her life and my dad has had a series of non skilled jobs throughout his working life. I earn slightly more than the average wage and I can't afford to go on a foreign holiday every summer. To me this is working class. Most of my friends, acquaintances, family members and other assorted knowns are either similarly well off with the odd middle class couple thrown in for good measure. Sorry being from Canvey means you can never be middle class, you're working class like me.
I am truly astounded by people's inability to tell their kids no or no you can't. People just can't do it. They must think that saying no is tantamount to child abuse, no, feeding a fat kid McDonalds every week is child abuse. Saying no creates boundaries and kids need boundaries to grow and mature. Yes every so often the little cherubs of sweetness and love will push on these boundaries to see how far they can flex their muscles, but for god sake we're in charge not them. 8 year olds playing call of duty is not only illegal but downright dangerous. 11 year olds that can't use a knife and fork is truly embarrassing and 7 year olds eating crisps followed by sweets and a lolly before 10 in the morning, just because they asked twice and you want an easy life is complete abdication of a parent's responsibility to look after their child. Kids that only eat chicken nuggets or hot dogs and no vegetables is a joke, make them eat them, trust me no child ever died of stubbornness. They will eat them if they are hungry. Children tell their parents NO and ignore whatever they say, so kids can do it so why can't mummy and daddy? This is proof that parents sometimes don't know what's best for their kids.
The problem is all these are things I see each week, time and time again and the terrifying thing is I'm not exaggerating any of these for once. People just can't say NO. We need to start taking responsibility for our actions, we need to start doing what's right and not what's easy and we need to show our kids by deed and action what is right what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is just for monkey's or the French.
I'll leave you with this thought; no one is impressed with dishwasher stacking and anyone who thinks they have a skill in this area is massively diminshing their chances of having sex with a woman.
Our ever expanding waistlines are a true indictment of our inability to refuse the last 17 Rolos in this cleverly marketed sharing packet. Who's sharing? No one because your partner currently has their face in an over sized bucket of slightly sweetened popcorn, soon to be washed down by a pitcher of arse widening sparkling beverage. Yes, I know this in itself is just a treat and we all deserve a treat from time to time and yes I do exactly the same, but did you really need that stupendously long hot dog and cheese top nachos as well? No you didn't, your belt didn't and the poor seat at e4 definitely didn't. Why do we do it, why do we spend ridiculously large amounts of cash on over priced shit just because the big sign said we could save 70p on a number 2 meal deal. It's the cinema, not a reasonable priced food outlet that you will be heading to once the film is done. And another thing who invented those resealable bags for sweets, possibly the least used invention since Clive Sinclair decided we all needed a battery powered tricycle, what a cock.
Our belly bulging credit card limits also prove our complete inability to say no. Perhaps it's the bright lights again and the chance of a bargain but we just can't say no to a good old spend up at the local Mecca to consumerism. I'm a man of 41 who has never spent massive amounts on clothes and I do throw out stuff I don't wear any more and I've managed to amass 84 assorted shirts, tops and T shirts in my wardrobe. How did that happen, Christ knows, although he is busy at the moment so I'm not expecting an answer. I can see the logic being played out in the minds of lady shoppers everywhere. I've got a coat, in fact I've got 4 coats, actually I've got one very much like this but in a slightly darker shade of blue. Now the credit card statement came in last week and I'm almost up to my limit, but not quite. Christmas is coming up and everyone is coming over for dinner so that's going to cost a pretty penny and I'm still waiting for the vet bill to come through. This is a really really nice coat should I buy it?
The answer should be screaming in her head;
NO BLOODY NO, DON'T DO IT, PUT DOWN THE COAT AND MOVE AWAY TO THE NEAREST EXIT. THIS IS NOT A TEST. I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A TEST MOVE AWAY FROM THE ITEM MADAM.
What actually happens is the little voice in her head says:
If you buy it now then you'll save your husband £80, isn't that nice of you. Please ignore the fact that if you didn't buy it you would save him £100 more and it's going to sit in the wardrobe unworn until at least 2014. This is not important, what is important is you will feel great for at least the next hour, it's the latest John blah Di blah Blah and Julie will be sooo jealous. If your hubby does kick up a fuss he'll soon forget all about it if you offer him a blow job.
Does madam required the hanger and we could offer you a further 10% off if you opened an account with us today?
The final area of "NO" apathy is the whole children thing. I consider myself to be working class. I work, my wife works to pay the bills, my mum has worked all her life and my dad has had a series of non skilled jobs throughout his working life. I earn slightly more than the average wage and I can't afford to go on a foreign holiday every summer. To me this is working class. Most of my friends, acquaintances, family members and other assorted knowns are either similarly well off with the odd middle class couple thrown in for good measure. Sorry being from Canvey means you can never be middle class, you're working class like me.
I am truly astounded by people's inability to tell their kids no or no you can't. People just can't do it. They must think that saying no is tantamount to child abuse, no, feeding a fat kid McDonalds every week is child abuse. Saying no creates boundaries and kids need boundaries to grow and mature. Yes every so often the little cherubs of sweetness and love will push on these boundaries to see how far they can flex their muscles, but for god sake we're in charge not them. 8 year olds playing call of duty is not only illegal but downright dangerous. 11 year olds that can't use a knife and fork is truly embarrassing and 7 year olds eating crisps followed by sweets and a lolly before 10 in the morning, just because they asked twice and you want an easy life is complete abdication of a parent's responsibility to look after their child. Kids that only eat chicken nuggets or hot dogs and no vegetables is a joke, make them eat them, trust me no child ever died of stubbornness. They will eat them if they are hungry. Children tell their parents NO and ignore whatever they say, so kids can do it so why can't mummy and daddy? This is proof that parents sometimes don't know what's best for their kids.
The problem is all these are things I see each week, time and time again and the terrifying thing is I'm not exaggerating any of these for once. People just can't say NO. We need to start taking responsibility for our actions, we need to start doing what's right and not what's easy and we need to show our kids by deed and action what is right what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is just for monkey's or the French.
I'll leave you with this thought; no one is impressed with dishwasher stacking and anyone who thinks they have a skill in this area is massively diminshing their chances of having sex with a woman.
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Garlic Eclairs and Bratwurst Everyone?
Every 5 years or so we elect members of Parliament to try and run the country for us and while I'm sure they go there with the best intentions, party politics always seems to get in the way and we never seem to get what we want. MPs are and I'm quoting from the MP's own website here
The UK public elects Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent their interests and concerns in the House of Commons.
Seems pretty straight forward to me but it's an absolute no no for MPs from either side of the political divide to agree even when the truth is so obvious it's painted on Rudolf's red nose in fluorescent yellow paint. Even if 99% of the population think it's a good idea they have to argue the toss because if they don't Mr Whip will come down very hard on them. Although quite a few MPs have been known to enjoy such attention. How about we get told the truth, not their twisted version. Stop moaning and tell us straight.
I've heard so much hot air about this EU agreement that we have decided to give the two fingers to that I thought I better find out a little bit about it. So after literally minutes of hard reading I came across a couple of basic summaries that highlight what it's all about. Below I have put together a simple explanation.
The new treaty is being put in place to bring all the countries closer together financially with lots of strict new rules that are very much like the original rules that were put in place when the Euro was set up. The rules that just about everyone ignored. Firstly
To paraphrase even further they want us to agree to to give the EU a lot more money and very soon, while spending our money the EU is going to tell us how to spend the money that's left and change our laws to stop us from saying no. You wouldn't touch this deal with a barge pole because it's bollocks. We are currently in a bad place because we've decided to do something about our debt before the shit hits the fan and we have to beg someone else to bail us out.
As one of the EU prime ministers put it, we wanted more Europe and 1 country, us, want less. Too bloody right. So if a Frenchman knocks on your door this week and asks to borrow your life savings so he can buy 19 gallons of Greek yogurt, 16 four leaf clovers and 406 pepperoni pizzas my advise would be to kick him in the crown jewels.
The UK public elects Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent their interests and concerns in the House of Commons.
Seems pretty straight forward to me but it's an absolute no no for MPs from either side of the political divide to agree even when the truth is so obvious it's painted on Rudolf's red nose in fluorescent yellow paint. Even if 99% of the population think it's a good idea they have to argue the toss because if they don't Mr Whip will come down very hard on them. Although quite a few MPs have been known to enjoy such attention. How about we get told the truth, not their twisted version. Stop moaning and tell us straight.
I've heard so much hot air about this EU agreement that we have decided to give the two fingers to that I thought I better find out a little bit about it. So after literally minutes of hard reading I came across a couple of basic summaries that highlight what it's all about. Below I have put together a simple explanation.
The new treaty is being put in place to bring all the countries closer together financially with lots of strict new rules that are very much like the original rules that were put in place when the Euro was set up. The rules that just about everyone ignored. Firstly
- a cap of 0.5% of GDP on countries' annual structural deficits - this basically means someone in a posh office in Belgium is going to tell you how much you can spend to sort out your issues, but that's okay because no one will listen anyway. In the original treaty to set up the Euro countries had to have their GDP below 60% or on a downward trend. Italy has never met this requirement, but they make nice pizza.
- "automatic consequences" for countries whose public deficit exceeds 3% of GDP - this is exactly the same as the original criteria for joining the Euro except for the adding of the "automatic consequences" whatever they might be? Maybe more expensive suits in France and Belgium jumping up and down while everyone just ignores them, but this time using long swear words that translate to inserting man sausage in tea towel holders.
- the tighter rules to be enshrined in countries' constitutions - This is a great one, this means everyone in Europe agrees to change their local laws to allow unelected bureaucrats from some faceless European body to tell you how to spend your money. It's like the bloke from number 6 knocking on your door and telling you to sell your new winter coat because it's posher than his. He's definitely getting a punch on the nose.
- European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to be accelerated and brought into force in July 2012 - Yep lets give more money to countries who are so far in debt that they've run out of digits on their calculators and let's do it quicker.
- adequacy of 500bn-euro (£427bn; $666bn) limit for ESM to be reassessed - basically we have no idea how much money we want to chuck at this problem before we call it a day so how about we just double it and see what happens.
- Eurozone and other EU countries to provide up to 200bn euros to the IMF to help debt-stricken eurozone members - Yep please give us even more money and we'll spend it wisely, honestly, would we lie to you, remembering that the EU often forgets to publish it's own accounts as they fiddle on a monstrous scale. So badly that their own internal audit office said you couldn't trust the numbers they were producing.
To paraphrase even further they want us to agree to to give the EU a lot more money and very soon, while spending our money the EU is going to tell us how to spend the money that's left and change our laws to stop us from saying no. You wouldn't touch this deal with a barge pole because it's bollocks. We are currently in a bad place because we've decided to do something about our debt before the shit hits the fan and we have to beg someone else to bail us out.
As one of the EU prime ministers put it, we wanted more Europe and 1 country, us, want less. Too bloody right. So if a Frenchman knocks on your door this week and asks to borrow your life savings so he can buy 19 gallons of Greek yogurt, 16 four leaf clovers and 406 pepperoni pizzas my advise would be to kick him in the crown jewels.
Wednesday 7 December 2011
Can I have a P please Bob
Another week slips by and other than the odd story about hose pipe bans, record temperatures or other such weather related stories the spectre of our impending doom as the markets implode and Europe considers closing some of it's smaller countries remains centre stage. As Prime ministers, Presidents and finance ministers scuttle from country to country cap in hand begging for a few sheckles to tide them over I thought I'd take a look at the size of the problem to see if Mr Average here could lend them a hand and offer some considered advice.
Being such a monumentally gargantuan behemoth of a problem as the combined debt problems of our continental cousins is, I hesitated. The size of their credit card bill is so eye wateringly large that I almost wet my pants. I had a rethink and decided on baby steps, looked closer to home and decided to take on the black hole in our countries finances first. If you are of a nervous disposition I suggest you read the next few paragraphs from behind the sofa ensuring protective eye wear is worn at all times. May I also suggest you ensure that your underwear is of a substantial nature as the ride is going to get choppy. To make it more fun let's do this game show stylee, keep the mood light, everyone likes a little competition.
Question 1, this is for the portable TV, how big is our debt? The answer is fucking massive (the swearing is in context trust me) by massive I mean larger than Jeremy Clarkson's ego. In fact it currently stands at around £950 Billion or just under £1 trillion in old money. Government debt is usually measured as a percentage of GDP. GDP (gross domestic product) is a measure of all the goods we make and all the services we sell for the whole country in the entire year. Currently we owe around 66% of GDP. Let's put that into context, if you were this much in debt and you earned £40k per annum that means you just got a Barclaycard bill for £26,400. That's definitely getting stuffed in the back of the sofa, can't let the wife see that one.
Question 2, this is for the John Lewis cutlery set, with all these cuts how much will the debt have gone down by in the next 6 years? The actual answer is this was a trick question. By 2016/17 the debt would have gone up to over 80% of GDP and stand at around £1.5 trillion pounds sterling. So Mr Context has somehow managed to get a new job and he is now on £50k a year, but unbeknown to him Mrs Context has been hammering the plastic and he now owes his flexible friend a whopping £40,000. We aren't cutting our debt we are just trying to stop it getting too much bigger, not quite what we get told is it. Neither side have a plan to cut the debt, one wants to make it a lot lot bigger.
Now questions get more difficult and this is for an Ipad 2. Question 3, How much of the current debt was caused by the bankers and the debt crisis? This is a toughie, the bloodsuckers are to blame aren't they, surely it's got to be most of it? I'm going to have to hurry you for an answer..... Times up, the answer is none of it, the numbers quoted above and supplied by her majesty's government in the budget statement doesn't actually contain any of that money. 'Why is that', you ask, well the bank bailout was initially costed out at around £500 billion, but most of this was in loan guarantees and underwriting so we actually have no idea how much it could cost us?
The only money actually spent was a mere £50 billion that we used to buy shares in our failing banks and this money could yet see a positive return, in fact we could make money on the whole deal, but that is highly unlikely. If it all went completely tits up tomorrow then me could be in hock to the tune of £2.2 trillion. Basically Mr Context has got home to find the wife has run off with a Spanish waiter and they are sailing the med in a posh new yacht kindly funded by Mr Context's red hot credit card. The Bailiff's have knocked on the door with a court summons for a mind blowing £127,000.
Okay contestant, you're two questions away from the star prize. Question four is for £2000 in cash. The question is as follows; The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that by 2016 the UK will have balanced the budget and we will then live within our means, is this true? You're going for true, are you sure? That's your final answer? And our survey said.... unlikely. Sorry contestant you went for true, but history says otherwise. Balancing the budget just means not borrowing any more and we will still have the massive debt hanging over us. It's highly unlikely that any government no matter what side of the political divide they are from will have the balls to take on the total debt, the pain would just be too great. To pay it off we would need to run massive surplus's for decades to come. If we reintroduced slavery and manual labour for the under 9's we might have a chance, but I don't see those as vote winning policies for the 21st century. In the last 33 years we have run a surplus just 5 times and these were tiny ones whos combined value is less than half of the debt we will run up in 2013 alone.
Now deep breaths, the final question is for Bully's star prize, a slightly crap speedboat. Take your time, we all wish you well, good luck. For this week's star prize Question 5 is (dramatic pause) is this the worst the debt has ever been? The clock is ticking , queue the countdown clock, I need an answer! You're going for yes, this is the worst it's ever been. I'm so sorry love the answer is no, this may be the most money in actual terms that we have owed, but in terms of GDP we have been a lot worse off. These were in times of war and we did spend the money on beating Napoleon, then resisting 2 German attempts in world domination in the world war series, but we have been up to around 250% of GDP on these 3 occasions so it's not all doom and gloom, well maybe a bit.
So you go away with nothing except a tacky piece of TV memorabilia, thanks for playing!! As you can see we are in really deep and we really need to reassess what we as a society think is really important and what we really need to survive. Do we really need all this stuff? Currently we spend more on our debt interest charges (£48 billion this year) than we do on most of our government departments. Only Social Security and Health and Education have bigger budgets than this. Does it matter which bunch is running the show? Not really because the red ones will just run the debt up quicker, but the blues will get there in the end as well. This debt has been used to buy your vote every 5 years or so. Did the bankers cause this, not really, they helped, but we took out the inexpensive loans to buy shit we really didn't need, no one was forcing us. Collectively we've been very greedy and now the shit has very much hit the fan. We need to learn to be happier with less and pay for it with our money not someone elses as they will want their cut some time soon
Now I'm off to watch Man v Food on my unfeasibly large TV.
Being such a monumentally gargantuan behemoth of a problem as the combined debt problems of our continental cousins is, I hesitated. The size of their credit card bill is so eye wateringly large that I almost wet my pants. I had a rethink and decided on baby steps, looked closer to home and decided to take on the black hole in our countries finances first. If you are of a nervous disposition I suggest you read the next few paragraphs from behind the sofa ensuring protective eye wear is worn at all times. May I also suggest you ensure that your underwear is of a substantial nature as the ride is going to get choppy. To make it more fun let's do this game show stylee, keep the mood light, everyone likes a little competition.
Question 1, this is for the portable TV, how big is our debt? The answer is fucking massive (the swearing is in context trust me) by massive I mean larger than Jeremy Clarkson's ego. In fact it currently stands at around £950 Billion or just under £1 trillion in old money. Government debt is usually measured as a percentage of GDP. GDP (gross domestic product) is a measure of all the goods we make and all the services we sell for the whole country in the entire year. Currently we owe around 66% of GDP. Let's put that into context, if you were this much in debt and you earned £40k per annum that means you just got a Barclaycard bill for £26,400. That's definitely getting stuffed in the back of the sofa, can't let the wife see that one.
Question 2, this is for the John Lewis cutlery set, with all these cuts how much will the debt have gone down by in the next 6 years? The actual answer is this was a trick question. By 2016/17 the debt would have gone up to over 80% of GDP and stand at around £1.5 trillion pounds sterling. So Mr Context has somehow managed to get a new job and he is now on £50k a year, but unbeknown to him Mrs Context has been hammering the plastic and he now owes his flexible friend a whopping £40,000. We aren't cutting our debt we are just trying to stop it getting too much bigger, not quite what we get told is it. Neither side have a plan to cut the debt, one wants to make it a lot lot bigger.
Now questions get more difficult and this is for an Ipad 2. Question 3, How much of the current debt was caused by the bankers and the debt crisis? This is a toughie, the bloodsuckers are to blame aren't they, surely it's got to be most of it? I'm going to have to hurry you for an answer..... Times up, the answer is none of it, the numbers quoted above and supplied by her majesty's government in the budget statement doesn't actually contain any of that money. 'Why is that', you ask, well the bank bailout was initially costed out at around £500 billion, but most of this was in loan guarantees and underwriting so we actually have no idea how much it could cost us?
The only money actually spent was a mere £50 billion that we used to buy shares in our failing banks and this money could yet see a positive return, in fact we could make money on the whole deal, but that is highly unlikely. If it all went completely tits up tomorrow then me could be in hock to the tune of £2.2 trillion. Basically Mr Context has got home to find the wife has run off with a Spanish waiter and they are sailing the med in a posh new yacht kindly funded by Mr Context's red hot credit card. The Bailiff's have knocked on the door with a court summons for a mind blowing £127,000.
Okay contestant, you're two questions away from the star prize. Question four is for £2000 in cash. The question is as follows; The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that by 2016 the UK will have balanced the budget and we will then live within our means, is this true? You're going for true, are you sure? That's your final answer? And our survey said.... unlikely. Sorry contestant you went for true, but history says otherwise. Balancing the budget just means not borrowing any more and we will still have the massive debt hanging over us. It's highly unlikely that any government no matter what side of the political divide they are from will have the balls to take on the total debt, the pain would just be too great. To pay it off we would need to run massive surplus's for decades to come. If we reintroduced slavery and manual labour for the under 9's we might have a chance, but I don't see those as vote winning policies for the 21st century. In the last 33 years we have run a surplus just 5 times and these were tiny ones whos combined value is less than half of the debt we will run up in 2013 alone.
Now deep breaths, the final question is for Bully's star prize, a slightly crap speedboat. Take your time, we all wish you well, good luck. For this week's star prize Question 5 is (dramatic pause) is this the worst the debt has ever been? The clock is ticking , queue the countdown clock, I need an answer! You're going for yes, this is the worst it's ever been. I'm so sorry love the answer is no, this may be the most money in actual terms that we have owed, but in terms of GDP we have been a lot worse off. These were in times of war and we did spend the money on beating Napoleon, then resisting 2 German attempts in world domination in the world war series, but we have been up to around 250% of GDP on these 3 occasions so it's not all doom and gloom, well maybe a bit.
So you go away with nothing except a tacky piece of TV memorabilia, thanks for playing!! As you can see we are in really deep and we really need to reassess what we as a society think is really important and what we really need to survive. Do we really need all this stuff? Currently we spend more on our debt interest charges (£48 billion this year) than we do on most of our government departments. Only Social Security and Health and Education have bigger budgets than this. Does it matter which bunch is running the show? Not really because the red ones will just run the debt up quicker, but the blues will get there in the end as well. This debt has been used to buy your vote every 5 years or so. Did the bankers cause this, not really, they helped, but we took out the inexpensive loans to buy shit we really didn't need, no one was forcing us. Collectively we've been very greedy and now the shit has very much hit the fan. We need to learn to be happier with less and pay for it with our money not someone elses as they will want their cut some time soon
Now I'm off to watch Man v Food on my unfeasibly large TV.
Friday 2 December 2011
Who you Poking?
Sometime last year I suggested that America was a good idea that's got out of hand and after reading back the blog I do stand by those comments and just about all the slightly witty comments that came after it but I'd like to use that same turn of phrase again as I think I've found something even more out of hand and I didn't want anyone to think I was just churning out the same stuff as no one was likely to read the older post anytime soon.
For me Facebook is the new mac daddy, a very very good idea that has got monumentally out of hand. For me it's become very much like the X Factor, it's a massive phenomenon that is 95% complete crap with 5% of entertainment and informative insight lightly sprinkled throughout its entirety in a beautifully subtle way that forces you to wade waist deep in the cesspool of dross and mediocre scum for the small gems of exquisite beauty. Then at the end we all send in our text and Simon Cowell orders another Bentley.
Facebook is great to keep in touch and let people who you can't always contact know important events. I like the fact that you can post nice pictures of this and that, chat to your friends online while not running up a monstrous phone bill, plan get togethers and generally be social without having to make that much effort. Also having loads of "Friends", I'm doing that stupid finger quotation mark thingy, makes us feel good, even if you would only send 3% of them a birthday card. This basically covers the 5%, let's move swiftly on to the remainder.
The 95% can be split into 4 main categories
1. The Bored as hell
2. The Lonely Heart Plea
3. The Bandwagon
4. The Strop
Bored as hell
These are the posts that are posted by people who are either bored and have decided that another 5 more minutes of masturbation this week could cause permanent blindness or who really think we care about what little Johnny did at breakfast this morning. We know that morning TV is shit, we know that dogs are stupid, we fully appreciate that the weather can sometimes be bad and frankly we don't care that your little ray of sunshine is so cute today. Everyone has to walk their dog, we all go to the shops and yes I get tired as well and sometimes like to go to bed early. The same team that was shit today will be shit again some time in the future and yes you told us so. Just because you own an iphone it doesn't have to be on facebook all day long and you don't have to type messages all day long, get a life.
The Lonely Heart Plea
These beauties are often the follow on from the bored posts as highlighted above. For some reason people seem to think they need to be told repeatedly how nice they are and they measure their popularity and standing in society by how many people speak to them on Facebook and the frequency of said communication. If they haven't been spoken to for a while (I'm using the word while loosely here as it differs from seconds to maybe whole minutes for some), you get the classic "Sad today!!!" or "Is it me???". Nearly always multiple punctuation for affect. I've got a good idea, if you are actually feeling down in the dumps why don't you use your posh phone to ring one of your real friends and have a proper chat, you'll almost certainly feel better for it. It takes just about 0 effort for people to type a naff 6 word comment and you'll get about 9 seconds of comfort from it. As I've said nearly all of your cyber friends won't pay bugger all attention to the post as most of them are just there because you want more friends than the rest of the mum's on the school run. I bet you don't like at least 20 of them.
The Bandwagon
These little gems just show how little we think for ourselves and just how sheep-like we can be. We all love a bandwagon and we wouldn't want to be left out would we. Why O why do we just spout out the same old crap just because 17 other people have, surely it must be true because all my mates say it is. Christ if this carries on we'll start burning witches again. I read it on Facebook so it must be true. RIP Joe Bloggs whoever you might be. I'm pretty sure you won't get bad luck if you don't look at this picture of a shamrock and pass it on to all your friends and I''m sure there is no scientific proof that happiness comes from me passing on this picture of a rose. Please ignore this rubbish and do something constructive with your 9 year old son who you have left on the PS3 playing Call of Duty.
The Strop
My absolute favourite, someone's done something you don't like so rather than say something to them or face the situation like an adult you post a cryptic post that half tells the story. This gets others to contact you so you can tell them the almost full story so it gets passed around maybe even to the other person who will then feel bad and all the while your conscience remains clear. Sometimes these strops are complete flannel, when you ask the person what's up they say it was nothing at all. Why post it then you pratt? Sometimes you even get the double bluff. You ask what's the matter, they say nothing really, then later you find out that they were really cross but you weren't friends enough for them to tell you. Fuck off you annoying dickheads. If you post it we are all programmed to respond so at least back it up or leave it unsaid.
Real friendship is a beautiful thing that isn't played out on Facebook. You don't judge the quality of your existence by the number of Facebook friends you have or the number of twitter followers you possess. Just because you can be on facebook doesn't mean you have to be. Honestly you can go a whole day without someone paying you a compliment, you are the same person today as you was yesterday, you didn't become a hunchbacked social misfit overnight. Friends are few but acquaintances are many. William Maugham wrote ,
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
And finally would Facebook stop sending me all those bloody emails, it's really annoying.
For me Facebook is the new mac daddy, a very very good idea that has got monumentally out of hand. For me it's become very much like the X Factor, it's a massive phenomenon that is 95% complete crap with 5% of entertainment and informative insight lightly sprinkled throughout its entirety in a beautifully subtle way that forces you to wade waist deep in the cesspool of dross and mediocre scum for the small gems of exquisite beauty. Then at the end we all send in our text and Simon Cowell orders another Bentley.
Facebook is great to keep in touch and let people who you can't always contact know important events. I like the fact that you can post nice pictures of this and that, chat to your friends online while not running up a monstrous phone bill, plan get togethers and generally be social without having to make that much effort. Also having loads of "Friends", I'm doing that stupid finger quotation mark thingy, makes us feel good, even if you would only send 3% of them a birthday card. This basically covers the 5%, let's move swiftly on to the remainder.
The 95% can be split into 4 main categories
1. The Bored as hell
2. The Lonely Heart Plea
3. The Bandwagon
4. The Strop
Bored as hell
These are the posts that are posted by people who are either bored and have decided that another 5 more minutes of masturbation this week could cause permanent blindness or who really think we care about what little Johnny did at breakfast this morning. We know that morning TV is shit, we know that dogs are stupid, we fully appreciate that the weather can sometimes be bad and frankly we don't care that your little ray of sunshine is so cute today. Everyone has to walk their dog, we all go to the shops and yes I get tired as well and sometimes like to go to bed early. The same team that was shit today will be shit again some time in the future and yes you told us so. Just because you own an iphone it doesn't have to be on facebook all day long and you don't have to type messages all day long, get a life.
The Lonely Heart Plea
These beauties are often the follow on from the bored posts as highlighted above. For some reason people seem to think they need to be told repeatedly how nice they are and they measure their popularity and standing in society by how many people speak to them on Facebook and the frequency of said communication. If they haven't been spoken to for a while (I'm using the word while loosely here as it differs from seconds to maybe whole minutes for some), you get the classic "Sad today!!!" or "Is it me???". Nearly always multiple punctuation for affect. I've got a good idea, if you are actually feeling down in the dumps why don't you use your posh phone to ring one of your real friends and have a proper chat, you'll almost certainly feel better for it. It takes just about 0 effort for people to type a naff 6 word comment and you'll get about 9 seconds of comfort from it. As I've said nearly all of your cyber friends won't pay bugger all attention to the post as most of them are just there because you want more friends than the rest of the mum's on the school run. I bet you don't like at least 20 of them.
The Bandwagon
These little gems just show how little we think for ourselves and just how sheep-like we can be. We all love a bandwagon and we wouldn't want to be left out would we. Why O why do we just spout out the same old crap just because 17 other people have, surely it must be true because all my mates say it is. Christ if this carries on we'll start burning witches again. I read it on Facebook so it must be true. RIP Joe Bloggs whoever you might be. I'm pretty sure you won't get bad luck if you don't look at this picture of a shamrock and pass it on to all your friends and I''m sure there is no scientific proof that happiness comes from me passing on this picture of a rose. Please ignore this rubbish and do something constructive with your 9 year old son who you have left on the PS3 playing Call of Duty.
The Strop
My absolute favourite, someone's done something you don't like so rather than say something to them or face the situation like an adult you post a cryptic post that half tells the story. This gets others to contact you so you can tell them the almost full story so it gets passed around maybe even to the other person who will then feel bad and all the while your conscience remains clear. Sometimes these strops are complete flannel, when you ask the person what's up they say it was nothing at all. Why post it then you pratt? Sometimes you even get the double bluff. You ask what's the matter, they say nothing really, then later you find out that they were really cross but you weren't friends enough for them to tell you. Fuck off you annoying dickheads. If you post it we are all programmed to respond so at least back it up or leave it unsaid.
Real friendship is a beautiful thing that isn't played out on Facebook. You don't judge the quality of your existence by the number of Facebook friends you have or the number of twitter followers you possess. Just because you can be on facebook doesn't mean you have to be. Honestly you can go a whole day without someone paying you a compliment, you are the same person today as you was yesterday, you didn't become a hunchbacked social misfit overnight. Friends are few but acquaintances are many. William Maugham wrote ,
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
And finally would Facebook stop sending me all those bloody emails, it's really annoying.
Wednesday 30 November 2011
More Toasters Please Mr Ping
While spending a moment in quiet contemplation somewhere between Excel and Adobe Acrobat Professional I was, for some reason, struck with the lunacy of the world we live in and just how ironic things had become. Irony whilst meaning like iron is also and I quote …the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect… now the one thing that current world wide turmoils seem to not need is additional emphatic effect but I think we need a little humor to get us through the shit storm of financial melt down hellfire that we seem to be heading inexorably to at a great rate of knots.
The Americans, the bastion of free market ideology have a national debt of around $15 trillion and it's going up by around $100,000 every 3 seconds. That works out to just under $50,000 per person. Who do they owe this money to, well mainly the Arab oil nations with their rather less than resounding endoresment of the one man, one vote policy or the Chinese who well let's just say are being forced kicking and screaming into accepting the modern outlook on human rights and the fact that killing your own people in vast numbers isn't very nice. Classic case of can't live with them but can't live without their inexpensive electrical appliances.
How ironic that the only way for a fat man in Boyce Indaho to get an extra large pair of pants for less than $20, which is his god given right, is to have it made by 9 old Vietnamese peasants on 50 pence a week with all the profits going to Sheik Ivalot of camels. Democracy in action! We all know Greece and Portugal are skint as is Italy, Ireland and Spain. What's even more astounding is that all the major industrial nations of the world run a national debt, some like Japan's (which is an eye watering 197% of GDP, that's basically equal to everything the whole counrty makes in nearly 2 years) are massive. Some like China's is quite small, less than 15%, but if everyone owes money to someone then who's money is it in the cash machine?
Here's more irony for you. We currently have a tented protest outside St Pauls in London, an instant demonstartion highlighting people's concerns regarding our capitalist system. Who are these people? Mostly sons & daughters of middle class parents who could afford to give their kids a decent university education only because of 250 years of great British money making, exactly what they are demonstrating against. It is also the very reason they can afford those instant pop-up tents so reasonabily priced at their local camping outlet. Hello China 20,000 more tents for camping and general please. How are we going to pay for them? Barclaycard? If they wanted to make a point they should have brought a bunch of those World War One canvas scouting numbers complete with guide ropes, toggles and rubbish campfire songs. Maybe even living in them would have been better, rather than going home every other night to have a shower and cheat people out of their savings by running over 40's dating websites from the comfort of their mortgaged one bedroom studio flat commanding stunning views of the marina and picturesque harbour.
I'll finish on a lighthearted story I found that is ironic to the core and is completely true. In New York a 60 year old violinist who is suing a music competition for age discrimination because he wasn't allowed to enter a youth competition has asked for the alloted judge to be changed because at 88 he is too old. Classic.
The Americans, the bastion of free market ideology have a national debt of around $15 trillion and it's going up by around $100,000 every 3 seconds. That works out to just under $50,000 per person. Who do they owe this money to, well mainly the Arab oil nations with their rather less than resounding endoresment of the one man, one vote policy or the Chinese who well let's just say are being forced kicking and screaming into accepting the modern outlook on human rights and the fact that killing your own people in vast numbers isn't very nice. Classic case of can't live with them but can't live without their inexpensive electrical appliances.
How ironic that the only way for a fat man in Boyce Indaho to get an extra large pair of pants for less than $20, which is his god given right, is to have it made by 9 old Vietnamese peasants on 50 pence a week with all the profits going to Sheik Ivalot of camels. Democracy in action! We all know Greece and Portugal are skint as is Italy, Ireland and Spain. What's even more astounding is that all the major industrial nations of the world run a national debt, some like Japan's (which is an eye watering 197% of GDP, that's basically equal to everything the whole counrty makes in nearly 2 years) are massive. Some like China's is quite small, less than 15%, but if everyone owes money to someone then who's money is it in the cash machine?
Here's more irony for you. We currently have a tented protest outside St Pauls in London, an instant demonstartion highlighting people's concerns regarding our capitalist system. Who are these people? Mostly sons & daughters of middle class parents who could afford to give their kids a decent university education only because of 250 years of great British money making, exactly what they are demonstrating against. It is also the very reason they can afford those instant pop-up tents so reasonabily priced at their local camping outlet. Hello China 20,000 more tents for camping and general please. How are we going to pay for them? Barclaycard? If they wanted to make a point they should have brought a bunch of those World War One canvas scouting numbers complete with guide ropes, toggles and rubbish campfire songs. Maybe even living in them would have been better, rather than going home every other night to have a shower and cheat people out of their savings by running over 40's dating websites from the comfort of their mortgaged one bedroom studio flat commanding stunning views of the marina and picturesque harbour.
I'll finish on a lighthearted story I found that is ironic to the core and is completely true. In New York a 60 year old violinist who is suing a music competition for age discrimination because he wasn't allowed to enter a youth competition has asked for the alloted judge to be changed because at 88 he is too old. Classic.
Thursday 24 November 2011
Protein or protons
Man has learnt to master many things, we have sent a man to the moon which is 250,000 miles away in a tin can, landed the tin can, gone for a stroll where there was 0 atmosphere and got the can back again. This is no mean feat as to actually get out of the earth's gravitational pull takes an escape velocity of 40,320 kilometers an hour. This is somewhat faster than your average Golf Polo. The Saturn 5 rocket that got the tin can off and running weighed over 3 million kilograms and was 111 metres high by 10 metres across. I'm no scientist but by my calculations that's a shit load of thrust (don't be dirty !!) and that's a whole load of amazing numbers.
Man has also travelled to the bottom of the deepest ocean and that's a seriously long way down, around 11km at the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. If you dropped Mount Everest into the trench, other than making a really big splash and ruining people's hiking holidays there would still be over 2000 metres of water over the top of it. If you could manage to walk to the bottom on a long, long, long staircase and each step was 1 feet high, you would have to manage a descent of 35,798 steps. When you got to the bottom not only would you feel knackered you'd probably have a bit of a headache because the pressure down there is 15,750 pounds per square inch which is over 1000 times that of sea level. One positive note is I can guarantee no McDonald's franchises in the local area and no one selling fake Rolex watches.
Modern science is also full of some pretty amazing number and some catastrophic dress sense as well. In 1917 Ernest Rutherford split the first atom. An atom is so small, even smaller than Simon Cowell's chances of getting into heaven, that I can't write a number that makes any sense on my keyboard and I'm not using all that physics mumbo jumbo! The numbers involved here are so big and the sizes so small that it makes my hair ache. An average size droplet of rain would have 100,000,000,000 atoms in it. I believe the technical term for that number is 'fuck loads'.
Now here is the real amazing stuff, so wake up and pay attention. An atom is made up very much like our solar system with the sun in the middle and planets orbiting around it at different distances. As with the atom around 99% of the total mass of the solar system is the sun itself or in the atom's case its called the nucleus and the planets or electrons flying around it have little or no mass. That means practically all the mass is concentrated in the relatively small area in the very centre of each atom. This means the entire universe is 99.9999% empty. That's pretty amazing, OK, sit down, there is reason for all this number bollocks I'm trying to prove a point here.
If we are so clever and know all this astounding number blah blah then explain this simple child like problem to me. A man needs 2500 calories per day to survive. If he consumes more than 2000 too many calories in a week he will increase in weight by 1lb. How many cakes can he eat before his pie arm suffers bingo wing failure and stops working? Also how fat is fat? Why do people think they can eat pizza, crisps, Chinese, burgers and alike all day every day to the tune of over 5000 calories or so yet think they won't end up looking like Mr Blobby's fat brother. Worst of all why do they do it to their kids? Are we really that stupid that we actually believe that the amount of food we shove in our faces has anything to do with how hungry we are or how much energy we need? There is a supposed world wide food crisis, no there isn't, there's plenty of food but most of it is going in the bellies of people who just don't need it. Now I'm off for a cup of tea and a Belgian bun.
Man has also travelled to the bottom of the deepest ocean and that's a seriously long way down, around 11km at the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. If you dropped Mount Everest into the trench, other than making a really big splash and ruining people's hiking holidays there would still be over 2000 metres of water over the top of it. If you could manage to walk to the bottom on a long, long, long staircase and each step was 1 feet high, you would have to manage a descent of 35,798 steps. When you got to the bottom not only would you feel knackered you'd probably have a bit of a headache because the pressure down there is 15,750 pounds per square inch which is over 1000 times that of sea level. One positive note is I can guarantee no McDonald's franchises in the local area and no one selling fake Rolex watches.
Modern science is also full of some pretty amazing number and some catastrophic dress sense as well. In 1917 Ernest Rutherford split the first atom. An atom is so small, even smaller than Simon Cowell's chances of getting into heaven, that I can't write a number that makes any sense on my keyboard and I'm not using all that physics mumbo jumbo! The numbers involved here are so big and the sizes so small that it makes my hair ache. An average size droplet of rain would have 100,000,000,000 atoms in it. I believe the technical term for that number is 'fuck loads'.
Now here is the real amazing stuff, so wake up and pay attention. An atom is made up very much like our solar system with the sun in the middle and planets orbiting around it at different distances. As with the atom around 99% of the total mass of the solar system is the sun itself or in the atom's case its called the nucleus and the planets or electrons flying around it have little or no mass. That means practically all the mass is concentrated in the relatively small area in the very centre of each atom. This means the entire universe is 99.9999% empty. That's pretty amazing, OK, sit down, there is reason for all this number bollocks I'm trying to prove a point here.
If we are so clever and know all this astounding number blah blah then explain this simple child like problem to me. A man needs 2500 calories per day to survive. If he consumes more than 2000 too many calories in a week he will increase in weight by 1lb. How many cakes can he eat before his pie arm suffers bingo wing failure and stops working? Also how fat is fat? Why do people think they can eat pizza, crisps, Chinese, burgers and alike all day every day to the tune of over 5000 calories or so yet think they won't end up looking like Mr Blobby's fat brother. Worst of all why do they do it to their kids? Are we really that stupid that we actually believe that the amount of food we shove in our faces has anything to do with how hungry we are or how much energy we need? There is a supposed world wide food crisis, no there isn't, there's plenty of food but most of it is going in the bellies of people who just don't need it. Now I'm off for a cup of tea and a Belgian bun.
Thursday 17 November 2011
Babara where's my other sock?
A menacing dark force is prowling the land, a hideously vile and uncompromising force of nature that rolls unstoppably from house to house eating away at the very fabric of society, sucking us into an abyss of hopelessness and generally scaring old people quite a bit. What is this horror you ask, well it's the unruly, neigh ferral children of an age ending in een. So these teenagers, are they really that bad? Is this a new thing? Of course it's not, the crap you see on the TV is frankly Tish and Pish as my Nan never says as she wasn't alive in the 17th century.
The term teenager didn't even exist until after the second world war, before then you were either fighting a war, growing food or in the north you might be down pit. But you were generally doing whatever you could to survive. There wasn't time for the kids to sod about being moody or wear black clothes with optional eye liner. If you did feel the need to be an arse your dad would simply beat it out of you with a random kitchen utensil or equally painful leather based garment. It wasn't until the 50's when companies needed people to sell their cheaply made plastic crap to that they decided to market their wares to the teenagers!
But kids were so polite and nice in those days weren't they? Really? Picture this, Granny Andrews is sitting in her rocking chair listening to big band magic featuring Glen Millar on her crackly gramophone when in walks her sweet little nephew Francis who she hasn't seen for 6 months. As she turns to greet him she is struck by how he has changed. "Well bless me what happened to you sonny?" "I'm a Teddy boy Nanny." Originally known as Cosh Boys (I wonder why!!) they wore strange clothes, stupid shoes and were generally known for not giving a shit about what anyone else thought. Funny enough papers of the time said they were a menace to society. Weapon of choice was often the knuckle duster. Teddy boy gangs were involved in the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. Sound familiar?
So into the 60's and we had the greasers and I quote "A working class youth sub culture", again very familiar terms. We had a whole decade of peace, love, drugs and rock n roll. Basically everyone, especially teenagers doing exactly what their parents and polite society told them not to do. In the mid 60's we then had the Mods and Rockers. The Rockers being the leather jacket wearing bikers and the Mods were parker wearing scooter riders. These groups both enjoyed drug taking, drinking and bunk ups and on a bank holiday they sodded off to Brighton or Clacton to kick the crap out of each other. These groups caused a "morale panic" with the papers calling them "louts" and "vermin", the Birmingham Post called them "the internal enemies of the UK." Sounds like something I heard last week! Weapons of choice were the bike chain, flick knife and the trusty snooker ball in a sock.
We also saw the rise of the hippies and later the skinheads, imagine how the parents of the 60 and early 70's dealt with those kids? "Doris pass me my spare belt would you pet, the boy still hasn't washed." In the 70's the Mods, Rockers, hippies and skinheads were joined by the ultimate blow to the fabric of society the Punks. Crazy hair, bonkers colours, mad clothes with nothing off limits, but sex and drugs were a must. It's here that the rockers seemed to die off and into the 80's the mods found a new adversery to fight, "The casuals" These well dressed lads in their designer jumpers, pringle T-shirts and Sergio Tacchini tracksuits had been fighting on the football terraces for years, but decided to branch out to seaside resorts on the bank holiday as way of meeting more mods and putting them in hospital.
The last 20 years have seen similar groups spring up from these sub cultures. These were usually based on their musical tastes and driven by young men's desire to annoy their parents to the max while hoping to massively increase their chances of having sex with women. New Romantics, Ravers, Metalheads, Goths and a whole lot more that annoyed the press, sent Mary Whitehouse into a biege frenzy and were labelled the harbingers of destruction and were leading us all to the brink of a total morale breakdown.
So when you hear an older member of society bemoaning the kids of today with their gangs and hoodies please remember that they were almost certainly either born during the second half of the last century or grow up through it. Which either meant they were part of one of these groups or they were a virign till they were 34.
The term teenager didn't even exist until after the second world war, before then you were either fighting a war, growing food or in the north you might be down pit. But you were generally doing whatever you could to survive. There wasn't time for the kids to sod about being moody or wear black clothes with optional eye liner. If you did feel the need to be an arse your dad would simply beat it out of you with a random kitchen utensil or equally painful leather based garment. It wasn't until the 50's when companies needed people to sell their cheaply made plastic crap to that they decided to market their wares to the teenagers!
But kids were so polite and nice in those days weren't they? Really? Picture this, Granny Andrews is sitting in her rocking chair listening to big band magic featuring Glen Millar on her crackly gramophone when in walks her sweet little nephew Francis who she hasn't seen for 6 months. As she turns to greet him she is struck by how he has changed. "Well bless me what happened to you sonny?" "I'm a Teddy boy Nanny." Originally known as Cosh Boys (I wonder why!!) they wore strange clothes, stupid shoes and were generally known for not giving a shit about what anyone else thought. Funny enough papers of the time said they were a menace to society. Weapon of choice was often the knuckle duster. Teddy boy gangs were involved in the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. Sound familiar?
So into the 60's and we had the greasers and I quote "A working class youth sub culture", again very familiar terms. We had a whole decade of peace, love, drugs and rock n roll. Basically everyone, especially teenagers doing exactly what their parents and polite society told them not to do. In the mid 60's we then had the Mods and Rockers. The Rockers being the leather jacket wearing bikers and the Mods were parker wearing scooter riders. These groups both enjoyed drug taking, drinking and bunk ups and on a bank holiday they sodded off to Brighton or Clacton to kick the crap out of each other. These groups caused a "morale panic" with the papers calling them "louts" and "vermin", the Birmingham Post called them "the internal enemies of the UK." Sounds like something I heard last week! Weapons of choice were the bike chain, flick knife and the trusty snooker ball in a sock.
We also saw the rise of the hippies and later the skinheads, imagine how the parents of the 60 and early 70's dealt with those kids? "Doris pass me my spare belt would you pet, the boy still hasn't washed." In the 70's the Mods, Rockers, hippies and skinheads were joined by the ultimate blow to the fabric of society the Punks. Crazy hair, bonkers colours, mad clothes with nothing off limits, but sex and drugs were a must. It's here that the rockers seemed to die off and into the 80's the mods found a new adversery to fight, "The casuals" These well dressed lads in their designer jumpers, pringle T-shirts and Sergio Tacchini tracksuits had been fighting on the football terraces for years, but decided to branch out to seaside resorts on the bank holiday as way of meeting more mods and putting them in hospital.
The last 20 years have seen similar groups spring up from these sub cultures. These were usually based on their musical tastes and driven by young men's desire to annoy their parents to the max while hoping to massively increase their chances of having sex with women. New Romantics, Ravers, Metalheads, Goths and a whole lot more that annoyed the press, sent Mary Whitehouse into a biege frenzy and were labelled the harbingers of destruction and were leading us all to the brink of a total morale breakdown.
So when you hear an older member of society bemoaning the kids of today with their gangs and hoodies please remember that they were almost certainly either born during the second half of the last century or grow up through it. Which either meant they were part of one of these groups or they were a virign till they were 34.
Tuesday 15 November 2011
Credit cards all round
So just how unpopular are bankers at the moment, how do they stack up against other upstanding members of society? Picture this if you will, its 1975, the wall paper is horrible, collars are massive, the food is boring and your 12" TV is filled with the grinning face of Dave Lee Travis with an unfeasably large afro, thick bush-like beard, gold medallion, rose tinted sunglasses that are only slightly smaller than a side plate and a nylon beige suit that is 2 sizes too small for him.You've just spent the last 4 minutes in a semi-erotic Pan's people trance and now DLT gives you the top ten.
Queue the music....
In at number ten, they never turn up on time and often smell of shit it's the plumbers.
Down 2 places to 9 it's £250 an hour and more for each letter, it's the lawyers.
Up 1 place to number 8, they get 6 weeks off each summer and finish at 4, it's the teachers.
Going straight in at number 7, they'll hack your phone and pay the police, it's the journalists.
Staying put at 6, it's always twice what he quoted you this morning, it's the motor mechanics.
Up 3 place to 5 this week, one lady owner aren't they always, it's the 2nd hand car salesman.
At 4 a non-mover, they'll throw in the cat, but the carpet is extra, it's the estate agents.
Down 2 places,after 3 weeks on top of the charts, it's last weeks number 1, I don't care if your dog just died it's 3cm over the line, I'd rather eat a cow pat than be one, by the traffic warden.
Up a whooping 23 places, cash for questions and I don't keep receipts, it's your local MP.
And this week's number one, they've been unpopular for years, but this week saw them top the pile. The latest track from their mutli-platinum album "Piss off we're too important to fail" put your hands together for those filthy bankers and "Where's all your money gone"
Although we all want someone to blame for the current crisis and the obvious culprits seem to be the bankers or the whole banking system in general, is it really their fault? I'm sure they have to take their portion of the blame for which a swift kickings or rather heafty whack in the plums would seem a most satisfying punishment, but did they engineer this catastrophy or did we all get sucked into believing we could have our cake, eat it and then sell the plate on ebay for twice what the cake cost? If it looks like a dog, smells like a dog and barks like a dog then surely it can't be a 2 week holiday in Florida with 10 days admission to Disney World thrown in. Are we really saying that we weren't in on this as well, but prefered to hitch a ride on the gravy train, next stop new BMW central.
We have to take resonsibilty for our own actions. We ran up credit bills we coudn't pay back, took out mortgages for more than we could afford just because some idiot in a suit said it would be okay and we really thought a new car every year and a 2 week holiday in the sun was our god given right. Just because the bank said we could have an overdraft doesn't mean we have to use it, it's not our money and the interest paid back is just wasted money. We went into a shop saw a coat at half price, whipped out the plastic, but when we finally cleared it off our credit card we find we could have bought a sofa instead for the same money. A credit card limit is the most you can spend not a monthly retail challenge played out in Next and John Lewis. Holy crap, REALLY!!
So where are we now? Basically we've had the fun and now we have pay back time. We've spent all our money for this year plus next years money as well. It's like the morning after the best party ever, we've just woken up and can't remember why someone has written cat flap on our forehead in permanent marker. We've got a stinking head ache, a mouth dryer than a camel's knee cap and we've just remembered we're off to a kids party in 15 minutes. It's going to be painful and we're going to get zero sympathy because it was self-inflicted. Time to man up.
Queue the music....
In at number ten, they never turn up on time and often smell of shit it's the plumbers.
Down 2 places to 9 it's £250 an hour and more for each letter, it's the lawyers.
Up 1 place to number 8, they get 6 weeks off each summer and finish at 4, it's the teachers.
Going straight in at number 7, they'll hack your phone and pay the police, it's the journalists.
Staying put at 6, it's always twice what he quoted you this morning, it's the motor mechanics.
Up 3 place to 5 this week, one lady owner aren't they always, it's the 2nd hand car salesman.
At 4 a non-mover, they'll throw in the cat, but the carpet is extra, it's the estate agents.
Down 2 places,after 3 weeks on top of the charts, it's last weeks number 1, I don't care if your dog just died it's 3cm over the line, I'd rather eat a cow pat than be one, by the traffic warden.
Up a whooping 23 places, cash for questions and I don't keep receipts, it's your local MP.
And this week's number one, they've been unpopular for years, but this week saw them top the pile. The latest track from their mutli-platinum album "Piss off we're too important to fail" put your hands together for those filthy bankers and "Where's all your money gone"
Although we all want someone to blame for the current crisis and the obvious culprits seem to be the bankers or the whole banking system in general, is it really their fault? I'm sure they have to take their portion of the blame for which a swift kickings or rather heafty whack in the plums would seem a most satisfying punishment, but did they engineer this catastrophy or did we all get sucked into believing we could have our cake, eat it and then sell the plate on ebay for twice what the cake cost? If it looks like a dog, smells like a dog and barks like a dog then surely it can't be a 2 week holiday in Florida with 10 days admission to Disney World thrown in. Are we really saying that we weren't in on this as well, but prefered to hitch a ride on the gravy train, next stop new BMW central.
We have to take resonsibilty for our own actions. We ran up credit bills we coudn't pay back, took out mortgages for more than we could afford just because some idiot in a suit said it would be okay and we really thought a new car every year and a 2 week holiday in the sun was our god given right. Just because the bank said we could have an overdraft doesn't mean we have to use it, it's not our money and the interest paid back is just wasted money. We went into a shop saw a coat at half price, whipped out the plastic, but when we finally cleared it off our credit card we find we could have bought a sofa instead for the same money. A credit card limit is the most you can spend not a monthly retail challenge played out in Next and John Lewis. Holy crap, REALLY!!
So where are we now? Basically we've had the fun and now we have pay back time. We've spent all our money for this year plus next years money as well. It's like the morning after the best party ever, we've just woken up and can't remember why someone has written cat flap on our forehead in permanent marker. We've got a stinking head ache, a mouth dryer than a camel's knee cap and we've just remembered we're off to a kids party in 15 minutes. It's going to be painful and we're going to get zero sympathy because it was self-inflicted. Time to man up.
Monday 14 November 2011
Anyone for Tennis and Tank Shells
As the season slowly moves from spring to early summer I thought it about time to reflect on what has been a some what turbulent, ney chaotic 2011 parts I and II. Part I, or the cold bit seemed to be puddling along quite nicely for at least a fortnight before all hell, that's the Muslim version, broke lose.
The Tunisians decided that they'd had enough and told their president of 23 years that they would like the beatings and oppression to stop and if at all possible they'd like a say in how things were run and if he didn't like it they would send him home to his mummy in very small pieces that resembled Turkish delight. After a short struggle Ben Ali thought long and hard about the icing coated sugar after dinner fancy and took his suitcases stuffed with everyone else's cash and booked himself a one way ticket to Costa Del Despot or Saudi Arabia has it's commonly known.
Now, not to be outdone and seeing what was possible, just about every general populous in every Muslim dictatorship in the area and a few a bit further a field as well decided to get in on the act. I'm not religious in anyway in fact if you have read any of my blogs you'll know what I feel about the 3 pre-eminent Abrahamic religions. All of which are based on the same old testament, a cracking read for the more vicious and vindictive of you by the way. But haven't we been in a war of terror or a Jihad, depending on what side your on, where the way in which we live our lives in the West (freedom of speech, religious tolerance, freedom of expression and equality) were the root of all evil. Now it seems half the Muslim world has decided that you know what this fairness and a right to be heard isn't actually all that bad and we would like a bit of the action. I don't think these guys are mucking around either as anyone willing to take on tanks with sticks, stone and the odd land cruiser really really would like some change.
Funny enough your friendly despotic leader is quite fond of his cushy number that was either handed to him by his dad or brutally rested from the dying hands of the former maniacal ruler and they have resisted to differing levels. Egypt was in comparison to the other reasonably bloodless, Yemen they had riots and someone shot the president with a rocket launcher, guess where he went for medical treatment, yep Saudi Arabia, the country where woman can't drive cars or go out on their own. King Hamad he's been running over people in armoured cars and shooting them in the street, never mind the 3 month state of emergency. Libya is now in a full civil war because Muammar Gaddafi thought that shelling woman in the street and snipers on every roof was a reasonable response to placards in Tripoli. In Jordan protests lead to the King sacking the government and god only know what's going on in Syria, but whatever it is it ends up with lots of dead people on cell phones.
Perhaps it was the work of one of the gods as not to be outdone the others got involved as well, in the east we had a flood in Australia, an earth quake in New Zealand and then another in Japan. In the west Brazil had the mother of all mud slides, America had the worst tornados in years. Iceland got covered in ash again and not to be out done mount Puyehue (I can't pronounce it) had a go as well.
Maybe there is a god, maybe there are many, but what ever the answer is I think we have been very naughty and we need to get our house in order.
The Tunisians decided that they'd had enough and told their president of 23 years that they would like the beatings and oppression to stop and if at all possible they'd like a say in how things were run and if he didn't like it they would send him home to his mummy in very small pieces that resembled Turkish delight. After a short struggle Ben Ali thought long and hard about the icing coated sugar after dinner fancy and took his suitcases stuffed with everyone else's cash and booked himself a one way ticket to Costa Del Despot or Saudi Arabia has it's commonly known.
Now, not to be outdone and seeing what was possible, just about every general populous in every Muslim dictatorship in the area and a few a bit further a field as well decided to get in on the act. I'm not religious in anyway in fact if you have read any of my blogs you'll know what I feel about the 3 pre-eminent Abrahamic religions. All of which are based on the same old testament, a cracking read for the more vicious and vindictive of you by the way. But haven't we been in a war of terror or a Jihad, depending on what side your on, where the way in which we live our lives in the West (freedom of speech, religious tolerance, freedom of expression and equality) were the root of all evil. Now it seems half the Muslim world has decided that you know what this fairness and a right to be heard isn't actually all that bad and we would like a bit of the action. I don't think these guys are mucking around either as anyone willing to take on tanks with sticks, stone and the odd land cruiser really really would like some change.
Funny enough your friendly despotic leader is quite fond of his cushy number that was either handed to him by his dad or brutally rested from the dying hands of the former maniacal ruler and they have resisted to differing levels. Egypt was in comparison to the other reasonably bloodless, Yemen they had riots and someone shot the president with a rocket launcher, guess where he went for medical treatment, yep Saudi Arabia, the country where woman can't drive cars or go out on their own. King Hamad he's been running over people in armoured cars and shooting them in the street, never mind the 3 month state of emergency. Libya is now in a full civil war because Muammar Gaddafi thought that shelling woman in the street and snipers on every roof was a reasonable response to placards in Tripoli. In Jordan protests lead to the King sacking the government and god only know what's going on in Syria, but whatever it is it ends up with lots of dead people on cell phones.
Perhaps it was the work of one of the gods as not to be outdone the others got involved as well, in the east we had a flood in Australia, an earth quake in New Zealand and then another in Japan. In the west Brazil had the mother of all mud slides, America had the worst tornados in years. Iceland got covered in ash again and not to be out done mount Puyehue (I can't pronounce it) had a go as well.
Maybe there is a god, maybe there are many, but what ever the answer is I think we have been very naughty and we need to get our house in order.
Sunday 6 March 2011
Gordon is a Moron
As I flick through the 423 million sky channels I often stop my perusing at the news channels, I like to know what's going on in the world. It's good to have something to talk about, something other than the usual trot of Simon Cowell wannabes, Katie Price relationships and what bottle Kerry Katona has been poured out of this week. It's good to know the important stuff, the news that actually makes a difference not the location of David Beckham's next tattoo or the secret life of the last person to be voted off master chef. Do I really care that Bob McNobody used to stick carrots up his arse live on Turkish TV in the early 70's.
The old adage still holds true that no news is good news and bad news makes good news. There is no getting away from the fact that death and destruction will always get a higher profile than record fluffy animal rescues by the brave men of blue watch, Bury St. Edmonds. We just love a bit of doom and gloom, perhaps it's because we want to empathise with those in trouble, more likely we need to know that there are others in the world that are as unhappy as us and that god dumps on all of his chosen children. The main stay of the News at Ten is the much trusted and ever reliable expert. When there's a subject that the average beer drinking, tabloid reading, shaved monkey can't understand they trot out some professor of blah blah blah from just outside civilisation or the channels chief correspondent on inter dimensional travel in post modern art to explain the issue at hand in words of less than three syllables. Exactly how many hacks does the BBC need? The thing is do some of these subjects really need an expert to describe the blatantly obvious to us? When you cut through the bullshit and fancy words the issues and solutions are pretty straight forward.
The biggest subject at the moment is the fact that we are all skint and lots of people are losing their jobs. What caused the global crash? In simple terms a bunch of rich stupid people who wanted to get even richer believed a bunch of number crunching nerds when they said they could make money out of thin air. They forgot the basic fact that if a bank lends you money they will actually want their money back at some stage and if you lend people money perhaps it would be a good idea to check that they have a job and can pay it back.
Supposedly the country is now pot less and it's all so very complicated. No it's not, it's really very simple indeed. The so called experts will tell you that running the country is not like running a home. Rubbish, it's exactly the same, things just happen over longer periods of time that's all. Simple logic tells you that you can't continually spend more money than you earn. If you spend more than you earn then you have to use your credit card and once you max it out you're skint and in the shit. If you have 5 credit cards maxed out then your interest repayments take up all your money and you have absolutely no money to spend at all. Welcome to our current situation, hundreds of millions of pounds a month going straight into the bank accounts of the royal families of Oilistan. Basically we've only been paying off the minimum payment on the credit card, the rent's gone up, we are now only working part time at Pets R Us, the food bills have gone through the roof and the wife crashed the car into next doors Aston Martin DB-expensive and the garage have demanded your kidney in payment for the repair bill. The picture is as bleak as a winters day on a polar ice cap.
The thing is we can't complain because we had the money and we spent it, most of it before we earned it, we enjoyed it and rode the gravy train happily while it lasted. Exactly how many notches does this belt go in? Please could everyone remember this simple guide to macro economics for next time, write it down and keep it somewhere safe. Then when things are all rosy in the garden please send it to whatever thieving bastard is running the exchequer. When your income outstrips your out goings how about sticking some of the extra money in the bank for a rainy day. It always rains, maybe not today, maybe not next week, but it will start pissing it down at some stage. If some fat Scottish cyclops tells you otherwise, that he's made rain a thing of the past don't listen to him, he's lying and needs to be tarred and feathered and sent home on the back of a small pony. When you hear the pitter-patter of tiny rain drops on your window and your outgoings becoming larger than your income you can go to your little pot of money and that will tied you over until the sun comes out. How very very simple.
Last month everyone was banging on about all these unemployed students with degrees and how things were worse than ever. Of course there are more unemployed work shy workbook wonders now and it doesn't take a genius or an expert (does that quotation finger gesture thing) to work out why. It's because there are tens of thousands of under 25's with degrees in David Beckham's hairdos or the relative popularity of Darth Vader's helmet. Yep that's got all those blue chip CEO's moist in their pants. When I was young only the posh and really gifted went to Uni, the rest of us went to college or to a polytechnic where we smoked pot with the local goths for two years. A few years back we had a great idea, close all the colleges and open them the next day as universities, then everyone can have a degree. I actually know someone who is at university because he couldn't find a job, not even at McDonald's and he had nothing better to do. I reckon if we shaved him properly even he could be a TV expert.
So I leave you with this thought, beware of so called experts, if it looks like a dog and barks like a dog then it probably isn't a greater spotted patagonian mountain goat.
The old adage still holds true that no news is good news and bad news makes good news. There is no getting away from the fact that death and destruction will always get a higher profile than record fluffy animal rescues by the brave men of blue watch, Bury St. Edmonds. We just love a bit of doom and gloom, perhaps it's because we want to empathise with those in trouble, more likely we need to know that there are others in the world that are as unhappy as us and that god dumps on all of his chosen children. The main stay of the News at Ten is the much trusted and ever reliable expert. When there's a subject that the average beer drinking, tabloid reading, shaved monkey can't understand they trot out some professor of blah blah blah from just outside civilisation or the channels chief correspondent on inter dimensional travel in post modern art to explain the issue at hand in words of less than three syllables. Exactly how many hacks does the BBC need? The thing is do some of these subjects really need an expert to describe the blatantly obvious to us? When you cut through the bullshit and fancy words the issues and solutions are pretty straight forward.
The biggest subject at the moment is the fact that we are all skint and lots of people are losing their jobs. What caused the global crash? In simple terms a bunch of rich stupid people who wanted to get even richer believed a bunch of number crunching nerds when they said they could make money out of thin air. They forgot the basic fact that if a bank lends you money they will actually want their money back at some stage and if you lend people money perhaps it would be a good idea to check that they have a job and can pay it back.
Supposedly the country is now pot less and it's all so very complicated. No it's not, it's really very simple indeed. The so called experts will tell you that running the country is not like running a home. Rubbish, it's exactly the same, things just happen over longer periods of time that's all. Simple logic tells you that you can't continually spend more money than you earn. If you spend more than you earn then you have to use your credit card and once you max it out you're skint and in the shit. If you have 5 credit cards maxed out then your interest repayments take up all your money and you have absolutely no money to spend at all. Welcome to our current situation, hundreds of millions of pounds a month going straight into the bank accounts of the royal families of Oilistan. Basically we've only been paying off the minimum payment on the credit card, the rent's gone up, we are now only working part time at Pets R Us, the food bills have gone through the roof and the wife crashed the car into next doors Aston Martin DB-expensive and the garage have demanded your kidney in payment for the repair bill. The picture is as bleak as a winters day on a polar ice cap.
The thing is we can't complain because we had the money and we spent it, most of it before we earned it, we enjoyed it and rode the gravy train happily while it lasted. Exactly how many notches does this belt go in? Please could everyone remember this simple guide to macro economics for next time, write it down and keep it somewhere safe. Then when things are all rosy in the garden please send it to whatever thieving bastard is running the exchequer. When your income outstrips your out goings how about sticking some of the extra money in the bank for a rainy day. It always rains, maybe not today, maybe not next week, but it will start pissing it down at some stage. If some fat Scottish cyclops tells you otherwise, that he's made rain a thing of the past don't listen to him, he's lying and needs to be tarred and feathered and sent home on the back of a small pony. When you hear the pitter-patter of tiny rain drops on your window and your outgoings becoming larger than your income you can go to your little pot of money and that will tied you over until the sun comes out. How very very simple.
Last month everyone was banging on about all these unemployed students with degrees and how things were worse than ever. Of course there are more unemployed work shy workbook wonders now and it doesn't take a genius or an expert (does that quotation finger gesture thing) to work out why. It's because there are tens of thousands of under 25's with degrees in David Beckham's hairdos or the relative popularity of Darth Vader's helmet. Yep that's got all those blue chip CEO's moist in their pants. When I was young only the posh and really gifted went to Uni, the rest of us went to college or to a polytechnic where we smoked pot with the local goths for two years. A few years back we had a great idea, close all the colleges and open them the next day as universities, then everyone can have a degree. I actually know someone who is at university because he couldn't find a job, not even at McDonald's and he had nothing better to do. I reckon if we shaved him properly even he could be a TV expert.
So I leave you with this thought, beware of so called experts, if it looks like a dog and barks like a dog then it probably isn't a greater spotted patagonian mountain goat.
Sunday 27 February 2011
How Copper Wire Invented
Today I heard a man who runs an NHS Trust, a man responsible for millions of pounds of tax payers money use the phrase service user rather than simply saying patient. Come on who are you going to offend by using the word patient, or is he afraid that by using the word patient he makes the person sound like a victim. It's not an admission of guilt its what we call people who go to hospital when they aren't well. Everyone is too busy worrying about who they are going to offend or who is going to not like them because they said something bad. How much energy do we waste dreaming up weird and wonderful ways to remain completely magnolia with a hint of beige.
Look I'm not saying its alright to publicly humiliate a quadriplegic whilst wearing a turban and face paint then goose stepping your way across the local Jewish cemetery. That's not on, but surely some friendly banter should be okay and everyone should be a bit more sensible about things. The classic for this is the old and much maligned stereotype. Whilst being a complete caricature of the real thing they do have a little hint of the truth in them, that's why they can be funny. Although if there is anyone out there that actually thinks all Irishman dig ditches, lay tarmac and enjoy nightly get togethers involving formation dancing and pipe bombs then the joke is on them. They are slightly less dense than a neutron star but slightly thicker than a whale omelette (Blackadder I think).
Everyone doesn't hate the English, but until the Americans came along and we started giving everyone their countries back, with better schools and public services I might add, the fact is we weren't the most popular people around the world. I'm sure the Romans and the Mongols had the same popularity issues, but if you spend a couple of centuries nicking people's land and taking all their money you're not going to be top of their Christmas card list. The Americans have taken this hate thing to a whole new level, it took us 300 years to be that hated they've managed it in a matter of months.
Now I was born in Scotland and the Scots do have one very obvious national characteristic that revolves around the collection and more importantly the retention of their fiscal amassing. Thankfully I'm not blessed with this genetic marker, but I would be lying if I denied the fact that a larger than expected proportion of my countryman seem to display this frugal tendency. It's the reason why the Scots are renowned for their scientists, engineers and boffins. All kids in Scotland are taught their times tables up to 43, this allows them to split any dinner bill into the right individual contributions whilst factoring in children, desert eaters, the person who had the extra After Eight and allowing for the usual 3.725% tip. Not all of us are tight, but if you wore a skirt all the way through a Scottish winter and didn't own a pair of pants you would naturally find yourself becoming tighter.
Are the French all good lovers? I'm guessing not, but if you are the English's arc enemies then that is going to make you more popular with zero effort. My enemie's enemy is a friend of mine and all that. We all know that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but quickest way to a woman's knickers is through Champagne and we all know where that comes from. That sounds like the pub landlord but I'm sure it's not.
Now the Aussies I've mentioned before, maybe more than once but I feel it's still worth mentioning again. Our Antipodean brothers have a reputation for all being blond, tanned, happy go lucky bar stewards (people who work in a pub, please I do have standards). The reason for this is three fold. One, if you lived in a country where it's sunny all year long then you are going to be blond and more tanned than the average Brit. Two, if I'd escaped from a country where the spiders, crocodiles, kangaroos, sharks, jellyfish, snakes, scorpions, fish and rays kill you I'd be relieved as well and lastly they are all descendants of cheeky cockney criminals who everyone knows are genetically prone to bouts of inane grinning and saucy joke telling.
So let's talk Americans shall we, now I was lucky enough to live in America and Canada, or America Lite as I referred to it in 1988 many years before Al Murray. The Yanks are renowned for being loud, crude, Gung-Ho, 'in your face' airheads. How I'm not saying that they are not, what I will say is at home they are less so than they are when they are away from the land of our fathers. The reason for this reputation is quite simple. Up until the invention of mass transportation by air there were only two possible types of Americans to be found in England. The first was the filthy rich who could afford to come here on a posh cruise ship. Now very rich people the world over, regardless of where they come from are so far up their own arses that they would naturally exhibit many of the suggested American's national virtues. The second Uncle Sam type on general display in good old blighty would have been the American GI, usual around the time they were bailing us out of some ghastly war and to be honest if I was looking to fill an army with able bodied soldiers guess what I'd be looking for in my grunts. If you guessed, sensitive, well spoken, demure, sophisticated gentlemen then you would be talking about the Italian army in error.
We all know that the Welsh aren't all ginger and still follow the national pastime of sheep shagging, the Italian aren't all greasy lazy mummie's boys, I'm sure the Top Gear boys got it wrong about the Mexicans and I'm pretty certain that the Germans can tell a good joke and make the odd bad car from time to time. Lets stop taking everything so seriously, lets stop worrying about upsetting each other from time to time and enjoy life a whole lot more. Laugh at yourself, laugh at others, laugh at babies eating ice cream too quickly, but most of all laugh at men when they get hit in the balls.
Look I'm not saying its alright to publicly humiliate a quadriplegic whilst wearing a turban and face paint then goose stepping your way across the local Jewish cemetery. That's not on, but surely some friendly banter should be okay and everyone should be a bit more sensible about things. The classic for this is the old and much maligned stereotype. Whilst being a complete caricature of the real thing they do have a little hint of the truth in them, that's why they can be funny. Although if there is anyone out there that actually thinks all Irishman dig ditches, lay tarmac and enjoy nightly get togethers involving formation dancing and pipe bombs then the joke is on them. They are slightly less dense than a neutron star but slightly thicker than a whale omelette (Blackadder I think).
Everyone doesn't hate the English, but until the Americans came along and we started giving everyone their countries back, with better schools and public services I might add, the fact is we weren't the most popular people around the world. I'm sure the Romans and the Mongols had the same popularity issues, but if you spend a couple of centuries nicking people's land and taking all their money you're not going to be top of their Christmas card list. The Americans have taken this hate thing to a whole new level, it took us 300 years to be that hated they've managed it in a matter of months.
Now I was born in Scotland and the Scots do have one very obvious national characteristic that revolves around the collection and more importantly the retention of their fiscal amassing. Thankfully I'm not blessed with this genetic marker, but I would be lying if I denied the fact that a larger than expected proportion of my countryman seem to display this frugal tendency. It's the reason why the Scots are renowned for their scientists, engineers and boffins. All kids in Scotland are taught their times tables up to 43, this allows them to split any dinner bill into the right individual contributions whilst factoring in children, desert eaters, the person who had the extra After Eight and allowing for the usual 3.725% tip. Not all of us are tight, but if you wore a skirt all the way through a Scottish winter and didn't own a pair of pants you would naturally find yourself becoming tighter.
Are the French all good lovers? I'm guessing not, but if you are the English's arc enemies then that is going to make you more popular with zero effort. My enemie's enemy is a friend of mine and all that. We all know that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but quickest way to a woman's knickers is through Champagne and we all know where that comes from. That sounds like the pub landlord but I'm sure it's not.
Now the Aussies I've mentioned before, maybe more than once but I feel it's still worth mentioning again. Our Antipodean brothers have a reputation for all being blond, tanned, happy go lucky bar stewards (people who work in a pub, please I do have standards). The reason for this is three fold. One, if you lived in a country where it's sunny all year long then you are going to be blond and more tanned than the average Brit. Two, if I'd escaped from a country where the spiders, crocodiles, kangaroos, sharks, jellyfish, snakes, scorpions, fish and rays kill you I'd be relieved as well and lastly they are all descendants of cheeky cockney criminals who everyone knows are genetically prone to bouts of inane grinning and saucy joke telling.
So let's talk Americans shall we, now I was lucky enough to live in America and Canada, or America Lite as I referred to it in 1988 many years before Al Murray. The Yanks are renowned for being loud, crude, Gung-Ho, 'in your face' airheads. How I'm not saying that they are not, what I will say is at home they are less so than they are when they are away from the land of our fathers. The reason for this reputation is quite simple. Up until the invention of mass transportation by air there were only two possible types of Americans to be found in England. The first was the filthy rich who could afford to come here on a posh cruise ship. Now very rich people the world over, regardless of where they come from are so far up their own arses that they would naturally exhibit many of the suggested American's national virtues. The second Uncle Sam type on general display in good old blighty would have been the American GI, usual around the time they were bailing us out of some ghastly war and to be honest if I was looking to fill an army with able bodied soldiers guess what I'd be looking for in my grunts. If you guessed, sensitive, well spoken, demure, sophisticated gentlemen then you would be talking about the Italian army in error.
We all know that the Welsh aren't all ginger and still follow the national pastime of sheep shagging, the Italian aren't all greasy lazy mummie's boys, I'm sure the Top Gear boys got it wrong about the Mexicans and I'm pretty certain that the Germans can tell a good joke and make the odd bad car from time to time. Lets stop taking everything so seriously, lets stop worrying about upsetting each other from time to time and enjoy life a whole lot more. Laugh at yourself, laugh at others, laugh at babies eating ice cream too quickly, but most of all laugh at men when they get hit in the balls.
Tuesday 22 February 2011
Nut Cutlets From Beyond The Grave
On the 12th of September 1962 John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered a speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He said We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.
The reason it is so memorable, other than the fact that he bedded Marilyn Monroe, was way too good looking for a Politician and 2 years later he had his brains splatted all over the back of his presidential Limo just down the road in Dallas, is because he set out to do what humans rarely try to do, what is hard. Please no penis innuendos. We just love an easy option.
Although the pinko leftie liberals might tell you otherwise, we are basically animals and we live by our animal instincts. Every animal in the wild only worries about the 3 basics in life, food, shelter and horizontal gymnastics. In the pursuit of these needs animals will almost always take the easy option. It’s natural and it’s normal, it aids survival. Picture a giant panda taking an afternoon nap in his favourite bamboo forest, the warmth of the late afternoon sun begins to pierce the tree canopy. As the beams of light begin to slowly flicker across his face, Yang Yang leisurely stirs. Slowly rolling onto his side the master of all he surveys begins to consider the day ahead. “Food, me want food” or whatever that is in panda talk. What does he do now? He farts, scratches his nuts and reaches for the closest bamboo shoot to eat. He doesn’t consider the days to come and possible changes in the seasons, walk 2 minutes away to eat something else and he doesn’t create a Ven diagram to work out the best plant to eat based on distance, colour and mineral content. He does what’s easy. He uses the least amount of energy possible to get by because that’s what keeps him alive and gets him to his next shag.
In life we nearly always do what’s easy rather than what we know is right. Our instincts tell us what to do and this conflicts with all the other bullshit we have dreamt, stuff that just complicates things. Look at what we eat and look at how many fat, yes I said fat not horizontally challenged or chubby, or cuddly people there are. Why is that? It’s not because we don’t know what we are doing to our bodies, we do, even the thickest, sorry mentally challenged moron knows that eating burgers, cream cakes and pies all day while drinking coke, beer and Bacardi Breezers all night is going to kill you or at least make you look like Jabba the Hutt’s fat brother. So you’re a touch on the rotund side and you’re feeling a bit peckish, you’ve just put down the letter from the doctor saying your arse is bigger than your 50” TV, what do you do? We do what is easy and ignore that rocket and garden vegetable salad in the fridge because we can’t be bothered to cook the succulent skinless chicken breast that beautifully compliments the salad in both taste and texture and order that 47” meat feast pizza from Dominos, especially when you get free wedges and a 2lt bottle of Pepsi cola with every order over £93 this week. Pass me the phone, they deliver.
Food is energy, its just fuel nothing more. What we should do is eat enough food to fill full up, the right food that our body needs and wants and then stop eating. We wouldn’t do to our car what we do to our bodies. With your motor you drive around and after a while the car tells you its hungry and needs dinner so you go to the petrol station. Now if your car is an omnivore car you give it omnivore food you don’t think, no today I’m going to feed it nuts and berries because if you do that you get a big fat bill from the garage and all your mates take the piss and rightly so. You’ve decided to give it the right fuel, even veggies like bacon, in goes the nozzle and you squeeze the trigger. The numbers on the dial go around and around at an alarming speed until you get that clicking that says the stomach can take no more. What do you do now? Do you a. continue pulling the trigger so the petrol pisses all over your shoes, wasting another £20 and a perfectly good pair of trainers or b. stop filling, pay the bill and drive home? We all know the answer is c. Fill the car then before paying the bill, pick up a super size snicker, a bottle of something fizzy and a Thinsulate hat and glove combo that at £2.99 is too good to pass up.
We just over complicate things we eat because it makes us feel good, then feel bad when we eat too much, then feel bad when we put on weight, so we eat and feel better, but then feel bad because our arse doesn’t fit in our new jeans that you couldn’t afford anyway, but put on your credit card because shopping makes you feel better. Now that is completely stupid, which for the most intelligent species on the planet seems like a bit of a waste of 4 billion years of evolution.
Life would be so much more fun if we just kept it simple, removed all the crap and enjoyed ourselves a bit more. Don’t listen to those high and mighty plonkers you see a TV. If god wanted you to be a vegetarian he would have made cows run really fast, never have invented brussel sprouts and made bacon taste like sweaty football socks. If people could predict your future by just using your star sign then surely they might have thought to do something important with this skill, like stop all the bad bombers in the world. Why is it that people who say they have lived other lives are always the reincarnation of someone famous? They are never the village idiot from Great Wakering circa 1746.
And last but absolutely least if people can speak to the dead then why do they always speak to someone completely pointless, who has nothing to say, but makes someone in the audience cry and pay £40 a week for the next 2 years for more of the same shit, rather than dragging up someone really important who could tell us who really shot JFK, where did they put the Lost Ark that the raiders are looking for and who nicked my bike from the golf course in 1986? Wankers
Tuesday 25 January 2011
A Trip to Cloud Cuckoo Land
So the festive period is done and life is returning to normal but it seems most of society has decided that life is much more fluffy in cloud cuckoo land and they've decided to stay there for an extended holiday, warm weather, cheap beer and plentiful sunbeds included. The more I think about it the more I've come to the realisation that a rather large slice of the population actually live in the land of cuckoo's and only rent a small weekend holiday home here in sunny England.
I haven't written for a while and I'm sure my desire to mini-rant about the things I see has been dulled by the general goodwill to all men that abounds during the Christmas holidays, but my "how can you be so stupid" threshold has been compromised and it's definitely time to vent one's spleen.
Honesty is a great thing, but reality is something all together more powerful and practical. What people say to someone with a camera or microphone is completely different to what they really feel like because the honest truth is altogether too selfish and scary. Andy Gray ponit in question. Today lots of people have been banging on about the NHS and what they think is right and best for us. What people say is they want the best service in the world, but if you asked them to pay for it you would be met by a chorus of sucked teeth and the mechanics "well....." The fact is if you asked almost everyone what would you like more, lower taxes or a better health service you know what the answer will be and it won't be more plasters and consultants earning £150K a year.
People are just looking after themselves, it's not wrong, it's just natural. It's just the way it is, most of the population are more interested in football, beer, posh shoes and who Katie Price is divorcing this week. Not alturistic thoughts of improving things for the greater good. Some people do think of others first, they become politicians and as soon as they get some power they just feather their own nests and fail miserably like the rest of us. They can't help themselves they just have a higher selfish overload alert default overide level to most, but they nearly all crumble given enough time. Even John " The Gray" Major succumbed. He was the most boring prime minister ever and an upstanding pillar of society, but he still found time to sort out the right honourable Edwina Curry whilst still managing to run the country.
If you lived in a shoe box in a back water northern mining ghetto as a nipper where your dad worked 27 hours a day and your only childhood toys were a bike tyre and a barbie doll with no head what do you expect will happen. You get to the Houses of Parliment on the back of your mining buddies union, full of brother comrade idiology and heart felt principles, then you get a strong whif of crisp £20 notes and you're game for just about anything as long as it doesn't involve rectal penetration. How many poor Labour MPs are there after they have done their time in the big house, not many.
But I digress from the NHS. Look I know that the best way is to do things, for the common good, but it doesn't work, it's a shame but it just doesn't. If it did then everything would have stayed nationalised and no one would have invented money. Life is a big game and money is the way we keep score. No man wants to come last and that's the problem. The fact is if you want something done effeciently then you have to motivate the people to do it and the best way is money. If everyone got a cut of the savings you would be laughing, but that sounds way to capitalistic for anyone to agree with. As I said it's honest and practical, but no one would agree to it on TV.
Here is something my old papy said to me when I was young and it's as true today as it was then. If I want to spend £1 I can walk to the shops and get £1 worth of food for my £1 which is a good rate of return. If my government wants to spend the same £1 it needs a shed load of civil servants to decide what to buy, where to get it from and how much to pay for it. After 2 years they finally spend the £1 and get 2 penny chews and 4 cola cubes. It's just the unfortunate truth. Smaller government and less tax is better for just about everyone, but it's not very fluffy.
There is a simple cure for all this, in fact there are two of them, but unfortunately one is highly unlikely and the other is even more so. Firstly get rid of money, stop the game altogether announce a winner and give him a prize, maybe even stretch to a runners-up trophy. Get everyone to do things for that greater good I spoke about and all pull together. What a beautiful picture, but there are 2 major draw backs firstly everyone would need to agree and if you get 5 people in a room they couldn't agree on what pizza toppings to order let alone dismantling the global order and world peace. Secondly the people with all the money and the most to lose are the people with all the power, there is no way they will end the game unless they have all their hotels on Park Lane and everyone else is in jail.
The second cure is what I like to call the Will Smith effect. We need some world wide catastrophy, a disaster of biblical proportion or an alien invasion. Something that kills most of us or leaves us so shit scared of what might happen that we forget about all the petty stuff, reject the need for greed and Simon Cowell and live a better life and what is left of the scorched planet. This option is a touch extreme, but slightly more likely than the first.
It's a shame, but Gordon Geeko was right
I haven't written for a while and I'm sure my desire to mini-rant about the things I see has been dulled by the general goodwill to all men that abounds during the Christmas holidays, but my "how can you be so stupid" threshold has been compromised and it's definitely time to vent one's spleen.
Honesty is a great thing, but reality is something all together more powerful and practical. What people say to someone with a camera or microphone is completely different to what they really feel like because the honest truth is altogether too selfish and scary. Andy Gray ponit in question. Today lots of people have been banging on about the NHS and what they think is right and best for us. What people say is they want the best service in the world, but if you asked them to pay for it you would be met by a chorus of sucked teeth and the mechanics "well....." The fact is if you asked almost everyone what would you like more, lower taxes or a better health service you know what the answer will be and it won't be more plasters and consultants earning £150K a year.
People are just looking after themselves, it's not wrong, it's just natural. It's just the way it is, most of the population are more interested in football, beer, posh shoes and who Katie Price is divorcing this week. Not alturistic thoughts of improving things for the greater good. Some people do think of others first, they become politicians and as soon as they get some power they just feather their own nests and fail miserably like the rest of us. They can't help themselves they just have a higher selfish overload alert default overide level to most, but they nearly all crumble given enough time. Even John " The Gray" Major succumbed. He was the most boring prime minister ever and an upstanding pillar of society, but he still found time to sort out the right honourable Edwina Curry whilst still managing to run the country.
If you lived in a shoe box in a back water northern mining ghetto as a nipper where your dad worked 27 hours a day and your only childhood toys were a bike tyre and a barbie doll with no head what do you expect will happen. You get to the Houses of Parliment on the back of your mining buddies union, full of brother comrade idiology and heart felt principles, then you get a strong whif of crisp £20 notes and you're game for just about anything as long as it doesn't involve rectal penetration. How many poor Labour MPs are there after they have done their time in the big house, not many.
But I digress from the NHS. Look I know that the best way is to do things, for the common good, but it doesn't work, it's a shame but it just doesn't. If it did then everything would have stayed nationalised and no one would have invented money. Life is a big game and money is the way we keep score. No man wants to come last and that's the problem. The fact is if you want something done effeciently then you have to motivate the people to do it and the best way is money. If everyone got a cut of the savings you would be laughing, but that sounds way to capitalistic for anyone to agree with. As I said it's honest and practical, but no one would agree to it on TV.
Here is something my old papy said to me when I was young and it's as true today as it was then. If I want to spend £1 I can walk to the shops and get £1 worth of food for my £1 which is a good rate of return. If my government wants to spend the same £1 it needs a shed load of civil servants to decide what to buy, where to get it from and how much to pay for it. After 2 years they finally spend the £1 and get 2 penny chews and 4 cola cubes. It's just the unfortunate truth. Smaller government and less tax is better for just about everyone, but it's not very fluffy.
There is a simple cure for all this, in fact there are two of them, but unfortunately one is highly unlikely and the other is even more so. Firstly get rid of money, stop the game altogether announce a winner and give him a prize, maybe even stretch to a runners-up trophy. Get everyone to do things for that greater good I spoke about and all pull together. What a beautiful picture, but there are 2 major draw backs firstly everyone would need to agree and if you get 5 people in a room they couldn't agree on what pizza toppings to order let alone dismantling the global order and world peace. Secondly the people with all the money and the most to lose are the people with all the power, there is no way they will end the game unless they have all their hotels on Park Lane and everyone else is in jail.
The second cure is what I like to call the Will Smith effect. We need some world wide catastrophy, a disaster of biblical proportion or an alien invasion. Something that kills most of us or leaves us so shit scared of what might happen that we forget about all the petty stuff, reject the need for greed and Simon Cowell and live a better life and what is left of the scorched planet. This option is a touch extreme, but slightly more likely than the first.
It's a shame, but Gordon Geeko was right
Jacknifed Reindeer on the M25
Christmas is a time of cheer and happiness and a time aimed at those on the right side of 20 rather than those of us well over 35. Most the the seasonal magic is lost on those of us that have finally decided that perhaps the fatman in the red suit isn't real and that the scarlet nosed flying wonder is about as realistic as a liberal election pledge. Christmas is a time that usually divides us into our little interest groups which invariably leads to conflict over the holiday break.
The youngest are mainly interested in the magical visit on the 25th and the sack of well earned presents that appear mysteriously at the end of their bed. They happily believe that pixie dust not only stops time to allow Santa to visit 2 billions kids in one night but also allows Santa to deliver the presents even if you don't have a chimney. All mum and dad think about is firstly how are they going to pay for all this stuff, secondly if both kids have exactly the same amount of gifts with each pile being absolutely equal in both cost and weight and thirdly if the 20lb of turkey that would usually feeds 30 people will be enough for the 8 people sitting down for lunch on Christmas day. For those in-between the break is an excuse not to work for nearly a week and the only time they use advanced mathematics all year. They have to carefully calculate exactly now many Jagerbombs they can consume allowing for a kebab chaser and maybe even a bottle of very cheap champagne substitute and still be able to make it to boxing day lunch without emptying the contents of their stomachs into uncle Barry's brussel sprouts.
This year I've experienced a couple of small events that have lead me to stick two fingers up at middle aged boredom and flash my buttocks at those who think that life is all about working hard and putting away something for a rainy day. Now these weren't moments of great joy or some kind of religious epiphany but just little moments in my week that made me smile, feel good for a few minutes and gave me a warm glow. The first was the best made of a bad situation.
Picture this, Tuesday evening, it's raining, not hard, but a constant drizzle that forces you to keep switching the wipers from on to that delayed thing that either leaves a horrible dirty streak that needs constant washing or makes that wretched scrapping noise. The M25 is crap as usual and as you enter the road works you hear on the radio that the road is blocked at your junction. Taking this bad news in your stride and rather than shouting at the lorry in front you you do something positive and text the radio station to let them know it's got worse and you are in fact stationary and have been for the last 15 minutes. Now you are happy that you've shared your pain and that would be enough, but imagine how you would feel if the lady on the traffic report actually reads out your text and tells you that you, yes just you, that the accident has been cleared and that you and only you will be home in time for your tea. I smiled like the proverbial Cheshire cat and I carried that joy all the way home. Now I know it's a little sad and almost no one knew other than me, but it was a moment of childish giddiness. I was on the radio.
My second moment was even more touching in a completely insignificant way, but it made me feel great. A different day, a different road, no road works and no break lights, but an average drive home. I'd left work a little early, the snow was coming again and as Michael McIntyre said I didn't want to get snowed "out". It was not completely dark, but it was getting that way. Everywhere was covered in snow, the fields were covered in a fair dusting and the street lights reflected off the whiteness to give that strange semi dark effect. The roads were passable but way too dangerous for school run mums in their massive 4x4s, so there were only a few cars on this stretch of road. Then on the other side of the road my attention was grabbed by a bright red lorry with it's main beam piercing the gloom. As it came close I realised it was a Coca Cola lorry, but not any old delivery lorry, but the American style Mac tractor unit with a large bright red trailer on the back, bedecked in lights on all sides and with a massive picture of Father Christmas on the side. It was the lorry from the adverts, from the tele all those years and it was here and it was magical.
It was the bollocks and it instantly turned Monday into Christmas eve.
So when you are feeling a touch on the old side, when you feel that your life has passed you by just find any reason to enjoy yourself. Children smile five times as much as adults because they are having more fun. Take some time to roll back the clock and do something for shits and giggles, not because you have to or need to just do it for the pleasure of being able to smile. Come on people all the crap we get wrapped up in is exactly that, crap. You live this life just once, it's about the journey not the destination and you might as well smile all the way there.
The youngest are mainly interested in the magical visit on the 25th and the sack of well earned presents that appear mysteriously at the end of their bed. They happily believe that pixie dust not only stops time to allow Santa to visit 2 billions kids in one night but also allows Santa to deliver the presents even if you don't have a chimney. All mum and dad think about is firstly how are they going to pay for all this stuff, secondly if both kids have exactly the same amount of gifts with each pile being absolutely equal in both cost and weight and thirdly if the 20lb of turkey that would usually feeds 30 people will be enough for the 8 people sitting down for lunch on Christmas day. For those in-between the break is an excuse not to work for nearly a week and the only time they use advanced mathematics all year. They have to carefully calculate exactly now many Jagerbombs they can consume allowing for a kebab chaser and maybe even a bottle of very cheap champagne substitute and still be able to make it to boxing day lunch without emptying the contents of their stomachs into uncle Barry's brussel sprouts.
This year I've experienced a couple of small events that have lead me to stick two fingers up at middle aged boredom and flash my buttocks at those who think that life is all about working hard and putting away something for a rainy day. Now these weren't moments of great joy or some kind of religious epiphany but just little moments in my week that made me smile, feel good for a few minutes and gave me a warm glow. The first was the best made of a bad situation.
Picture this, Tuesday evening, it's raining, not hard, but a constant drizzle that forces you to keep switching the wipers from on to that delayed thing that either leaves a horrible dirty streak that needs constant washing or makes that wretched scrapping noise. The M25 is crap as usual and as you enter the road works you hear on the radio that the road is blocked at your junction. Taking this bad news in your stride and rather than shouting at the lorry in front you you do something positive and text the radio station to let them know it's got worse and you are in fact stationary and have been for the last 15 minutes. Now you are happy that you've shared your pain and that would be enough, but imagine how you would feel if the lady on the traffic report actually reads out your text and tells you that you, yes just you, that the accident has been cleared and that you and only you will be home in time for your tea. I smiled like the proverbial Cheshire cat and I carried that joy all the way home. Now I know it's a little sad and almost no one knew other than me, but it was a moment of childish giddiness. I was on the radio.
My second moment was even more touching in a completely insignificant way, but it made me feel great. A different day, a different road, no road works and no break lights, but an average drive home. I'd left work a little early, the snow was coming again and as Michael McIntyre said I didn't want to get snowed "out". It was not completely dark, but it was getting that way. Everywhere was covered in snow, the fields were covered in a fair dusting and the street lights reflected off the whiteness to give that strange semi dark effect. The roads were passable but way too dangerous for school run mums in their massive 4x4s, so there were only a few cars on this stretch of road. Then on the other side of the road my attention was grabbed by a bright red lorry with it's main beam piercing the gloom. As it came close I realised it was a Coca Cola lorry, but not any old delivery lorry, but the American style Mac tractor unit with a large bright red trailer on the back, bedecked in lights on all sides and with a massive picture of Father Christmas on the side. It was the lorry from the adverts, from the tele all those years and it was here and it was magical.
It was the bollocks and it instantly turned Monday into Christmas eve.
So when you are feeling a touch on the old side, when you feel that your life has passed you by just find any reason to enjoy yourself. Children smile five times as much as adults because they are having more fun. Take some time to roll back the clock and do something for shits and giggles, not because you have to or need to just do it for the pleasure of being able to smile. Come on people all the crap we get wrapped up in is exactly that, crap. You live this life just once, it's about the journey not the destination and you might as well smile all the way there.
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