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.
Friday, 2 December 2011
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.
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