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.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
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
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