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Wednesday, May 06, 2015

General Deflection


After years of debating, politicking, smearing, canvassing, spinning and evading, it finally all becomes clear that the critical issue facing our nation, is how well will our political leaders handle eating awkward food. I suggest next time, instead of a leaders' debate, we simply have the prospective parties' leaders eating a selection of difficult food as chosen by the public.

Picture the scene, glamorous colourful studio, seven podiums, David Dimbleby facilitating.
David Dimbleby: Our first selection is from Sophie of Hendon, Essex.
Sophie: Given the rise in foodbanks, can the panel please explain how they would eat a massively overloaded doner kebab with too much garlic and chilli sauce?
David Dimbleby: Thank you Sophie. Mr Cameron - can you please tackle this first?
David Cameron: Well, Sophie, I think what it's fair to say, is that *chomp*, mmffff mfff ffflm ffmf ,*chomp* is mmf num num oh fuck that's hot....oh I've got it all down my blazer.
David Dimbleby: Thank you Mr Cameron. Now, Derek of Cirencester, you have a question?
Derek: Yes...there's been a lot said about the cost of the Trident programme, but none of the leaders have mentioned the difficulty of eating a burger that's too slippy and is in an inadequate and understrength bun accompanied by lubricated lettuce.
David Dimbleby: Nicola Sturgeon - how will you deal with this?
Nicola Sturgeon: Thanks for your question Derek. For me, Trident is a red line. As is this stupid fucking bun that's about half the size of the greasiest beef patty I've ever had the misfortune to handle. Vote SNP and no more will you be left with a tiny fragment of bread trying to sandwich a gristly fetid chunk of organic matter that may have once been part of a cow. Has anyone got a fucking napkin? For fuck's sake.
David Dimbleby: Now, I believe we have a question from Paul. Yes, Paul.
Paul: Since the last government came to power, a record number of jobs have been created. But most of them have been low paid, low-skilled jobs. How will the panel ensure that when they eat a Flake they don't end up with millions of welded fragments of chocolate all over their expensive black trousers?
David Dimbleby: Nigel Farage?
Nigel Farage: Well, David, that's a simple question and a simple answer. The fact is, that since we opened our borders to the EU, the quality of Cadbury's Flake has severely deteriorated. If we are to reach the dream of *chomp* not soiling ourselves with brittle fat-laden chocolate particles like I've just fucking done right now, we need to ensure that the UK can stand on it's own two feet, have a points-based immigration system that means we only invite people into our country who can eat a Flake without looking like they've been blasted with a small diarroeah gun.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Why We're Here

I wish people really would see the bigger picture. If only you could see it from my enlightened viewpoint - the whole sum of human knowledge, the journey from worshipping an omnipotent skygod to understanding the fundamental forces that drive existence, the sudden flashes of inspiration that turned accepted wisdom on its head and broadened the horizons of humanity, the realisation that we are a small insignificant infestation on an unremarkable rock, all of these billions of slow painful years of evolution and development have one goal:

TO ENSURE THAT BOB DIAMOND CAN AFFORD A REALLY BIG MASSIVE FOOKING YACHT.

Anyone ever get the feeling that we're really wasting our energy as a species in a massively stupid way?

Friday, January 28, 2011

Everton FC - the Season So Far

Well, we've laughed, we've cried, we've wondered about the strange ineffability of the fundamental truth that we are doomed to be eternally unsuccessful.

That is Everton's season so far.

I've had a strange relationship with Everton in my life. Vivid memories include the 2-0 victory over QPR in the title-winning 1984-85 season when I was more concerned with why so many people were pissing at the front of the terraces. Or the season when my Uncle Tony bought us all a season ticket for 1986-87, forcing us to attend every match and resulting in me getting rapidly bored with football and reading the Your Sinclair magazine from cover to cover rather than watching the action unfold in front of me. Or the summer when my younger brother Daniel watched me and older brother John pre-pubescently sing Everton's 1984 FA Cup song for hours on end.

Anyway, all those are happy memories. Ish.

But this season has been the ultimate anti-climax. After a period of what seemed like incremental progress, and the formation of a strong team, Everton now play decent football, create chances, and then miss those chances with the accuracy of a 1990 Iraqi Scud missile.

If we had a purse, the purse strings would be tightened. However, with Bill 'What's my motivation darling?' Kenwright at the helm, it seems to be a struggle to keep the lights on at Goodison, never mind compete with other clubs of a similar standing to purchase players who will improve the squad.

We've performed admirably against the Big Guns, winning at Eastlands, drawing at Anfield and Stamford Bridge, juxtaposed against severe arse rammings at the hands of West Brom and others.

In short, I haven't got a fucking clue what's going to happen next. All I do know is that Everton FC are in my heart, they're in my soul, they're the cause of my stomach ulcers, and greying hair. I love them, I hate them, I wish they'd fuck off, I want to hug them, and then I want to dismember them.

Anyway, all of this angst will be passed on to my 2 year old and 5 month old sons. Poor blighters.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Seriously, what the fuck

The murder of a young woman. Not having change for a toll booth.

In the mind of Liz Jones, journalist extraordinaire for the Daily Mail, these two things seem equally as significant.

A few weeks ago, the body of a young woman named Jo Yeates was found just outside Bristol. CCTV evidence pieced together her last movements through Bristol, and her final purchases. A journalist for the Daily Mail took it upon herself to trace Jo's ultimate journey and provide insight, emotion and poignancy in the form of a newspaper column.

In fact, what she did, was commit the single most egregiously awful, unintentionally funny opinion piece in 21st century media.

I'll let you judge for yourselves:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1347621/Joanna-Yeates-murder-Becoming-just-thumbnail-police-website.html

As a counterpoint, I'd advise you to read this excellent homage to Ms Jones at the Daily Mash:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/opinion/columnists/is-lovely-liz-becoming-just-another-thumbnail-on-the-daily-mail-website?-201101173437/

Just to extract a minuscule sentence from the original (serious) article:

"I almost buy that upmarket pizza; the choice tells me Jo wanted a lovely life, something above the ordinary."

I know someone's died here, but for fuck's sake, extrapolating pizza preference into life aspirations is a fairly bold leap. Personally, I buy 'Cravendale PurFiltr Milk'. Does that mean I yearn for the day mankind can set aside its petty differences and have a big old game of Trivial Pursuit together? Does it fuck.

Further on in the article, our protagonist Liz describes her horror at being unable to cross the Clifton Suspension Bridge due to lacking funds. As a regular traveller through the Wallasey tunnel (£1.40 since you ask), and having experienced the beeping vitriol that gushes forth once people realise you haven't got the means to cross the toll booth, I can honestly say that the murder of a young landscape architect and temporarily inconveniencing a number of drivers through neglecting to carry enough cash to pass by a toll road are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FUCKING THINGS.

Christ on a bike.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Hole in the Wall




For anyone who hasn't seen the BBC's epoch making light entertainment orgasmathon, 'Hole in the Wall', the basic premise is that celebrities have to contort their pampered limbs into certain shapes to comply with a polystyrene wall that slowly moves towards them. Should their bodies not be in the right shape, they are unceremoniously dumped (dumped!!!) into a small pool of water, while the audience laugh like lobotomised hyenas and Strictly Come Dancing's Anton du Beke demonstrates as much charisma as a water butt.

I was watching this, and while an irreparable hole in my soul quietly formed, I was thinking of ideas to make it a genuinely watchable experience, and not a 30 minute period of existential angst. I suppose I could have got off my fat arse, reached for the remote and turned over, but I'd just had a large meal and couldn't move.

Anyway, here are the ideas I came up with to increase the level of viewing pleasure associated with Hole in the Wall:

1. Swap the polystyrene for a reinforced concrete wall.
2. Fill the pool with concentrated hydrofluoric acid.
3. Increase the speed of the moving wall from roughly 4mph (walking pace) to 140mph.
4. The shapes that the celebrity must form to remain intact can only be performed by an eighteen-limbed silicon based life form with fourteen penises.
5. Replace Anton du Beke with the 45-year old corpse of Buster Keaton.

All other suggestions welcome.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Ten Must Have Gadgets for Christmas 2010

No. 10

The fork

It's the craze that's sweeping the nation! Literally billions of people are discovering that using your fingers is unhygienic and can lead to severe disability in later life! Buy your loved one a fork this Christmas, and we'll even throw in a free handle! New for 2011 - the spoon! Sick of forming a rudimentary container from papier mache and watching it dissolve in seconds on contact with your cornflakes or soup? Buy a spoon!

No. 9

The asteroid

People were bored. They grew weary of X-factor, I'm a Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing. They yearned for a better life. And what better way than to name a dreary unexciting rock hundreds of millions of miles away after themselves! Buy your loved one the deeds to a real asteroid that will never be closer that 300 million miles to themselves!

No. 8

Concrete

Now, it's a controversial choice. But what has concrete ever done to let you down? Exactly. Concrete will never suffer a crash, run out of memory, be incompatible with the latest software or corrupt a hard drive. Get your 8 inch cube of concrete now, and lovingly consult it on all your future life decisions. Concrete. You know it makes sense.

No. 7

Commodore 64 Games Console

Some people are saying that I'm only rating the Commodore 64 Games Console as a must-have gadget out of deference to my dearly-departed Nan who bought me and my brother this unsupported shitbox of a gadget in 1990. To them I say, download Fiendish Freddy's Big Top Of Fun, International Soccer, Klax and Flimbo's Quest. And then say that! I dare thee! It's probably worth 10 million quid now as we were the only cunts who had one in the Northern Hemisphere.

No. 6

Plutonium

Be the envy of your friends, with this powdery-white metal. The envy may wear off when your teeth and gums dissolve, your hair falls out and you shit your lungs out due to the effects of massive acute radiation poisoning. But fuck it, what has 2011 ever done for you? It'll probably be the year that Jordan takes control of television newscasting, the coalition government make it legal for Lords to have first dibs on virgin brides, and the price of petrol reaches one kidney per gallon. Wouldn't you rather have a conversation with your friends about how you're the only one in the county with 1kg of deathly actinide on your mantelpiece?

No. 5

The Right Angled Penis

It's a penis. But at a right angle. Where in recorded history has a human sexual organ been both a symbol of fertility and an aid to building perfectly level walls? Exactly. It's no wonder that Which? are saying that 2011 is the year of the Right Angled Penis.

No. 4

Peter Crouch

With the advent of human cloning, came the demand of housewives everywhere to have a lanky, clumsy, fairly affable centre forward doing the hoovering. Better still, the latest generation of Crouch Clones no longer have the inconvenient trait of independent thought! Say goodbye to all your light bulb changing dilemnas with an endlessly interesting 6ft 7in Crouch Clone.

No.3

A Lost Tribe

Ever wanted to have an Amazonian tribe wearing T-shirts with strangely contemporary cultural references worship the ground you walk on? This is your chance. All you have to do is pay a logging firm £10k to intimidate a beautiful people with poetry in their souls into doing your bidding.

No. 2

Robert Mugabe

Having retired from butchering opponents and sequestering funds into several hidden bank accounts, a Mugabe could be yours for a reasonable sum. Having trouble at home? Children ill-disciplined? Wife unresponsive? Simply deploy the Mugabe (and optional thug gang accessory) and you'll have the most compliant family in recorded history.

No. 1

Quasar

No, not the ill-conceived wankathon that involves running round a poorly lit maze pointing a laser gun at barely seen juveniles and constantly moaning "I hit you! I hit you!", but a massive, poorly-understood object that is flying quickly the fuck away from you at close to the speed of light. I like quasars, I always have. Pulsars come a close second, but for sheer, what-the-fuckery value, quasars are the must have Christmas gadget of the year 2010.

God rest ye merry gentlemen. And so on.

Have a splendiferous 2011. All the way up to 2078.




Saturday, February 13, 2010

2012: A Review

Just to clear things up, I haven't got a clue what's going to happen in 2012, but I am absolutely unequivocally certain that there won't be a more cataclysmically idiotic film released between now and the end of time than Roland Emmerich's recently released assault on world famous landmarks, 2012.

Emmerich is famous for blowing 99.8% of his films' budgets on special effects, and then deploying the remaining 0.2% on catering, hairdressing, scriptwriting and acting (in that order).
If you've seen Independence Day (interstellar travelling warrior race blows world to bits and is undone by a 1990s Apple Mac laptop, guess they didn't want to pay £29.99 for decent antivirus software) or The Day After Tomorrow (massive storm floods and then freezes the Northern Hemisphere before easing slightly to leave a mild day with sunny spells and the entire US population emigrating to Mexico), you'll know that Mr Emmerich seems to have some kind of fetish with destroying tourist hotspots. If that turns you on in a slightly puzzlingly erotic way, you're in for an enormous amount of fun with this film.


Anyway, without further digression and padding, our film begins with one of our lead actors visiting some kind of physics experimental type place in India. Prepare to be hit in the face with a dodgy physics shovel. Apparently, this research centre in India, which resembles some kind of half sweat-shop knitwear factory and bat cave hybrid, has discovered that neutrinos have mutated and are now effectively microwaving the core of the Earth.

Oh for fuck's sake.

Just think about this for a second. By way of explanation, neutrinos are particles emitted by the sun which barely interact with normal matter, normal matter being the stuff you and I are made of. Indeed, to detect neutrinos, you generally have to build an enormous underground chamber, fill it with water and hope that one of the zillions of neutrinos that fly through it accidentally nudge something and cause a sensor to go off.

Now the scriptwriters are saying that neutrinos have suddenly mutated and are boiling the earth from within. What about people? Why wouldn't they suddenly be boiled from within? After all, 50 billion neutrinos pass through every person every second of every day. No? Me, neither.

I've heard of suspension of disbelief, but this is luring disbelief into a darkened alley, beating it senseless with heavy objects, tieing it up, shoving it into the boot of a 1980s Cortina, taking it to the docks and putting it in a metal container whose eventual destination is Belize. In short, it's fucking idiotic. Five minutes into the film, and every cell in my single body is embarrassed to be there.

Mind you, I knew it wouldn't be a good day when at least eight people in the cinema laughed at the Vodafone advert, where the baldy titrash says "Catch a goat love, you've pulled."

Hey-ho, on with the film. After what seems like an interminable thirty minutes of presidential edicts and indifferently acted scenes in which people argue the relative merits of whether or not to tell people that the planet is going to boil and they're all going to die, we meet another of the main characters, John Cusack.

Going one better than phoning in a performance, John Cusack texts his performance in. He's a down-on-his-luck writer of pulp science fiction, divorced from his wife, who has a dysfunctional relationships with his kids and is working as the chauffeur of some kind of Russian oligarch and his spoilt twin boys. The Russian is played by Zlatko Buric, a man possessed of the strangest voice in living history. Think of a frog with a heavy cold gargling treacle, and you have some idea of how he sounds. And yes, it does end up grating.

After an obligatory scene showing how crap and unreliable as a father he is, John Cusack takes his children camping to Yellowstone Park*.

*Coincidentally, the largest volcano in the world and home to Yogi bear. It's also the setting for a scene from Star Trek V, but if I told you that you'd think I was a right twonk. You'd especially think I was a twonk if I told you that it was the scene where William Shatner was climbing a mountain, got spooked by a rocketboot-wearing Spock, fell off the mountain and proceeded to sing 'Row Row Row Your Boat' with Spock and Bones. So I'll spare you that. Besides, Star Trek V is the shittest of all the Star Trek films, and I've seen them all loads of times. It's the one where they meet God.

Woody Harrelson pops up here, playing a lank-haired conspiracy theorist, with a map to where the governments are secretly buiding arks for rich people. The price for these tickets aboard the arks by the way, is $1 billion dollars.

I will NOT do the film. I have acting credibility, I have standards, I have dignity...I...I...that's an enormous amount of money. When do we start shooting?

Whilst at Yellowstone, Cusack and his kids inadvertently stumble upon the US military who are investigating increased volcanic and seismic activity at the park. After almost being imprisoned, they are only saved after the chief seismologist (another central character in this film), vouches for him by saying he once read his book.

That's right. Despite gaining access to an area clearly marked as being out of bounds, under control of the US military and with authorisation to use lethal force, Cusack is let off the hook as a government scientist once read his shit book.

Once back at home dropping the kids off in his company limo, we get to the film's first real set piece and the introduction of one of the most egregious abuses of seismology ever to take place. I'm not claiming to be a seismologist, but my vague recollections and a quick trip to Wikipedia tells me that earthquakes tend to occur at a single point, with the energy released in waves radiating outwards from that point (the epicentre).

In this film, we've got a malicious marauder of an earthquake with a limousine fetish. With the gang all aboard Jon Cusack's magic limo, buildings tumbling all around, the very Earth ripped and torn asunder, this limousine-seeking earthquake follows the heroes* through about seventeen right turns. By my calculations, they travelled forty yards and made five U-turns. But anyhow, they escape for now, and manage to fly a plane back to Yellowstone, to pick up the fabled map to where the world governments are building arks for rich people. I'm not sure how these people financed their $1billion tickets, but I'll bet a good portion of them borrowed it from RBS and the British taxpayer will end up footing the bill.

In the next scene, we're treated to Jon Cusack managing to find the map, Woody Harrelson being engulfed by lava on his way to cash his cheque for appearing in this film, and then Jon Cusack being chased by lava. In fact, Jon Cusack ends up being chased by so many forces of nature, he must wonder if the planet holds some kind of gigantic fucking grudge against him. After (yawn) just about evading the lava and avoiding falling into a gaping maw to the roiling pits of flame that below, Cusack manages to reboard the plane. They then just about (bigger yawn) escape the dust and ash cloud from Yellowstone's final cataclysmic explosion and make their way to Las Vegas in the hope of finding some better lines to read.

This film is now developing a pattern of: Journey - Explosion - Near Escape - Journey - Explosion - Miraculous Escape - Journey - Explosion. Don't expect it to change too much.

They reach Las Vegas where they somehow purloin a large cargo plane carrying some extraordinarily expensive cars. I think I spotted a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a 1985 Ford Fiesta. Again, the world below explodes and they (yawn) just about escape from the rising explosion and dust. Further banality continues and then the most massively contrived situation in cineamatic history is committed to celluloid.

The heroes (and I use this term loosely) realise that they haven't got the fuel to travel to China where the arks are going to be launched from and resign themselves to their fate.

Now, as stated above, the Earth is undergoing massive upheaval and our heroes are left tragically short on fuel, meaning they'll be thousands of miles away from their goal when the plane's fuel is depleted. What do you think the odds would be of the Earth rearranging its surface so that our heroes now have enough fuel to reach their destination? Yes, that's right. It really is that tragically bad. Words fail me. Well, swear words don't, but I've already used a lot of those so I'll remain silent and let the glory of this film sink in.

Anyway, the plane reaches it's now conveniently relocated location, and some further unexciting drama takes place which leaves the party having to escape the plane by driving out of the rear of the plane in midair in the sports cars. They meet the family of some Chinese workers and a Tibetan monk (or similar) who agree to let them sneak into the giant hollowed-out mountain where the arks are being built.

Simply put, the arks are four seafaring vessels that each hold 400,000 people. They've been built over a period of three years up in the Himalayas in a hollowed-out mountain. Did I mention that they were built in total secrecy? This isn't just insulting the audience's intelligence, it's carrying out a decades-long campaign of hatred against it.

I don't think I've ever seen such a moronic film. And there's another thirty minutes to go. Holy shit.

Our bunch of boring, cliched twats have now managed to sneak into the base, and are busily trying to stow away on one of the aforementioned arks. Another contrived chain of events now takes place leading to one of the four arks malfunctioning, leaving the 400,000 guests all paid up with nowhere to stay.

They obviously don't like this at all, not one little bit, having paid their $1billion. They storm another of the arks but the head honcho is having none of it. It requires an Oscar-winning speech by the seismologist who earlier saved Jon Cusack before the gates are opening. At this point, I had tears in my eyes. Fuck all to do with the speech of course.

Anyway, the film was nearly at an end, and I had stopped paying too much attention. Another malfunction means that the ark our heroes are aboard can't shut its doors properly, and with a tidal wave fast approaching, it's left to Jon Cusack to save the day by turning some wheels, fixing a few bolts and nipping down to the B&Q for a few bits. And nearly dying another eight times.

In the final five minutes, most of the major characters die, Jon Cusack narrowly escapes death another twenty times, and some shenanigans happen when the ark is almost dashed upon the rocks of Mount Everest by a vast tidal wave. As a result of the profound rearrangement of the Earth's surface, Mt Everest is a lot lower, Africa is a lot higher, and Milton Keynes is at the North Pole.

Our seismologist friend kops off with the late American President's daughter (Thandie Newton), Jon Cusack rekindles his relationship with his ex-wife and children and to be honest, it all gets a bit Love Boat at the denouement. Actually, watching every single episode of The Love Boat at half speed would be better than watching this monumental lake of shit again. The barking mad bastards are actually thinking of making a spin-off series.

Final rating: 0.01 / 9

I would gladly have the world end before another movie of this standard is made.