Goodbye Web, Hello Reality

Like giving up smoking, this move has been a while coming. Earlier this year I dumped Facebook then re-activated it in December as Irish relations requested friending. I've slowly come to realise that the web and it's diverse symptoms, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, NetNewsWire, iPhone apps and, yes even this blog, have taken over my spare time with inexorable creeping efficiency. Meanwhile my real life has been taking a back seat as I spend more and more time online reading stuff that enrages and amuses me by turns. While the enraged/amused balance was well in the amused section of the dial all was well but recently I have found more to be enraged at and less to be amused at and, since recent ideas on the physically damaging effects of futile and unfulfilled enragement have intruded in my post-chemotherapy brain, I've realised that something's got to change and change it will. I managed to break a 40-a-day cigarette habit thirty years ago and I see no reason why I can't do this especially since I've discovered this amazing app called Real Life 3.0. This is a multi-platform app running 24/7 and is provided under a free software license. It offers all the functionality of a Wii or an Xbox without the proprietary tie-up. Pretty neat eh? In addition it boasts over-the-air software updates though sadly these seem to reduce the apps efficiency as the hardware ages. Firmware updates take place in the background and the hardware renews itself approximately every seven years. What's more the hardware is also free though only one per individual is allowed. All in all it's an unbeatable system and I'm very excited about it's potential.

So, at midnight tonight I will tweet my last tweet, vacate all social networks and will blog only irregularly if at all. On the plus side I will spare you all the inanities that float to the top of my consciousness, the croutons from the soup of my unquiet mind, the vituperative vomit projected from my seething psyche so that's all good.

This is my second attempt to go cold turkey on the virtual world. I hope it'll be successful and I'll blog about it when it's been progress for six months or so. Oh wait...

Who's Disrespecting Whose Memory

My own views of Gordon Brown and New Labour are far from complimentary but the latest storm of bollocks issuing via the Sun is just too silly to avoid comment. I heard the Sun's editor on Radio 4 saying that it wasn't Sun but the distraught mother who was mud-slinging at GB. Oh puleease! How disingenuous can you get. Rebecca Wade could come up with better justification than that which is probably why she's moved onward and upward. Apart from the obvious comment about the PM taking the time to write personally, Mrs Janes readily admits that she only read the first part of the letter before hurling it from her like a very thin asp. I suspect that this is just the opening salvo of Rupert & James Murdoch's anti-Labour campaign leading up to the next election. I presume they hope that a Conservative government will see the wisdom of taking the flagship BBC and holing it below the waterline so it's less competition for the great competitor Murdoch. Funny how free marketeers are all for the free market until they're getting their arses kicked whereupon they come over all protectionist.

In the end I think that the memory of the poor sod whose life drained away in some god-forsaken desert is not best served by using his death to beat up an incumbent PM. It doesn't bring much glory to anyone. But what do I know?

The Delusion of Action

I was musing the other night, on the verge of sleep, y'know the green bit at the side of the B road of life, well my life anyway, about saving the planet from the idle destruction of the human race. I'm sure you've whiled away time pondering the futility of feeble actions carried out too little, too late and with not much thought. Joined up thinking is not so joined up I'm thinking. Let me give you an example.
Recently we have all been abjured the use of plastic carrier bags from the local hypermarket of your choice lest the planet implode under the combined burden of all that plastic much of it non-biodegradable. Over a similar time frame, local authorities have encouraged dog owners to pick up their pet's newly laid and frequently warm faeces for disposal in...a plastic bag? Now it seems to me that there is a definite lack of joined up thinking here and we have a decision to make on which is more dangerous to the planet, plastic or canine faecal matter. Note only canine faecal matter is to be collected in these little warm parcels not feline, vulpine, equine, bovine or avian all of which can be deposited wherever, whenever and from whatever height the shitter deems appropriate and over what ever area the fancy takes the perpetrator. Apart from the incongruity of controlling the use of placky bags in shops and simultaneously bagging the poohs of our doggy pals there's the aspect of decomposition or lack thereof of the aforementioned crap. How's it supposed to break down into it's component parts and filter back into the ground, there to be converted into further nutrients for the plant life? Or are we saving it for a rainy day when all fertiliser and soil has been converted to dust by our insatiable hunger for cheap food whereupon we can raid the landfill sites for these little semi-permanent bags of rich goodness. I dunno. You tell me.

Rat Rebranding On Course

They said it was a waste of money. They said the reputation had slipped too far down the slope of slime. It would never recover from the Black Death Thing and the living in the sewers thing and the eating anything and everything err..thing. But they were wrong and here's the proof. Cuddly or what. Personally I think this one is slightly fey but hey, it's a PR triumph and Raatchi & Raatchi have done a majestic re-branding job and worth every red cent. Two legged world rulers (current) seem to go all gooey over Pablo here who's had a few extensions, a fluff-up and blow dry, some orthodontics and little Prozac to prevent from biting the bejazus out of the moron who's holding his tail but, all-in-all it's a major coup for Rodentiae.

Look out world the rats are back on the front page. Next stop Vogue.

On the plus side I'm so glad to see that he still retains some of his gutter ways - eating your own dandruff is just so street, man. Way to go!

Mercury Nominations Come and Go Yawn!

Am I the only one not to have noticed the Mercury nominations recently. They came and went with a kind of damp squib effect that, for me at least, sounds the death knell of the ailing music awards and the final hiccup of the old music order. It seems the public in general and the music buying public in particular couldn't care less about the waning music industry's masturbatory propensities. The annual strokefest has become so soporific, self-congratulatory and dull that the only people remotely interested in these festivals of ennui are the industry faces and the over-excitable radio execs with the arrested development who're terrified of missing the 'next big thing'. The rest of us couldn't care less and the whole affair seems to matter only to a very limited audience and the 'next big thing' has already reached a worldwide public through a YouTube stunt video that's captured the imagination of the goldfish generation, the one with the 'short little span of attention' as Mr Simon put it so succinctly all those years ago. Perhaps 2010 will be the year that Big Brother, the Brits, the Mercurys et al. all disappear up their own fundamental orifices leaving just the faint whiff of their former glory behind. Fingers crossed.

The Benefits of a Mercedes Benz

I'm just now, one week on, descending from the euphoric cloud to which I was elevated last Saturday after watching Leonard Cohen and a bunch of musical virtuosi entertain a packed venue at Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands in Surrey. I was the brief owner of a MB, not I hasten to add in my inverse snobbery, one of their oh-so competent cars, but a van-like vehicle more mobile PortaCabin than sex-on-a-stick like their saloon or sports car output. Because of this minor aberration I was offered the opportunity of an early crack at the tickets for this concert and jumped at the chance to see one of the sounds of my early years made manifest.

Now, my introduction to Mr Cohen was from the early CBS samplers, possibly The Rock Machine Turns You On, and consisted of either Suzanne Takes You Down or Bird On A Wire I forget which. I'm at that sort of age. It was, I thought then, music to slit your wrists to. Dirge like, undoubtedly poetic but not my main musical staple diet. Many years later I clocked First We Take Manhattan and Dance Me To The End of Love and woke up to the fact that I had missed out on years of a major musical talent. So when MB made this offer I jumped at it. After all he's not getting any younger and neither am I. There might not be another chance.

So I, my better half and two friends braved the light drizzle and headed for the outdoors and what a night it was. To say we were blown away by his enthusiasm, joie de vivre, charisma and pure unadulterated talent is an understatement. A week later I'm still stoked by the experience and I would recommend it unhesitatingly to anyone even a non-Cohen addict. Apart from Cohen himself, his musicians were brilliant in their own right and the performance was a tight-knit one with some spectacular soloing. Watching this 74-year old skipping on and off stage between encores and the obvious joy and pleasure he showed in the music was one of the most exhilarating experiences I ever had at a gig. Although he was the centre of the show, he was more of a pivot round which his band revolved and he introduced them twice during the performance much to the audience's approval. By the end of the evening the light drizzle had developed to a steady downpour but it couldn't have mattered less and the whole crowd went away more than satisfied, me included.

Opening the show was Susan Vega who was good but seemed two-dimensional compared to the richness of the words and music that followed.

Two Tons, Five Days - How Long?

Whilst on the aforementioned Irish sojourn, we happened, one glorious evening, to fetch up on the small harbour near Dunfnaghy, Co Donegal to spend a picturesque night and morning on the harbour wall. Whilst there, a large articulated vehicle hove into view and much frantic activity ensued in and on the harbour while the local fishermen loaded crab onto said artic. In conversation with one of the locals it appeared that the lorry was bound, with its two-ton load of crabs, for France and was expected to arrive there in a couple of days loaded with Irish crab for the French market. It was also revealed that the two tons being loaded that night was the result of five days fishing and that the same scenario would be repeated in another five days. At this point I wondered for how long this can continue before the seas are stripped of crabs and anything else that can be consumed by an eager population. You can't blame the local fishermen. It's hard enough to find a way to make a living in this part of the northwestern British Isles and, by all accounts, the boat owners are only just breaking even at this level of catch. But you just have to wonder for how much longer the seas can sustain the ever-burgeoning world population's appetite for anything that moves.

Fuel Price Discrepancies

So, I've been travelling in a sort of camper in Ireland both North and South and it was all very picturesque and very pleasant. Firstly the population density is low countrywide; In the large conurbations the distance between folks is much the same as the UK and you can be ignored with as much enthusiasm as you can here, but as you leave the towns the people are more friendly, more welcoming and definitely more garrulous. I'm told if you coral rats into ever more confined spaces they eventually start to eat their young; I'm sure Johnathan Swift would have approved. What I can't understand is the fuel prices. My camper is diesel and in the UK I pay the penalty for that by being charged anything up to 5p/l more than petrol for my fuel. In Ireland not only is diesel cheaper than petrol by a significant amount but it works out at about 88p/l. I don't understand this discrepancy since on occasions there was just about 2 or 3 miles in the difference from North to South. Whatever it is, it provides a vibrant business opportunity for petrol stations just south of the border which is only matched by the equally flourishing trade in alcohol in the North from Southerners. Swings and roundabouts indeed

Mea Maxima Culpa

OMG – 134 posts nothing, no followers, no comments, nothing, nada, zip and other words from the thesaurus meaning nothing. Post number 135, posted 6.15am on a sleepless night and by 12 noon the provisional wing of the skeptics movement has moved into action letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that I had really pissed on the WRONG lamp post this time. Damn but that Google thing is good innit?

I'm quite obviously out of my depth. I'm certainly out of touch with reality and also out of interest in the whole us versus them mentality that has dogged CAM for years and, since the most cursory study of my posting history will reveal that this is supposed to be humorous blog with the odd vituperative belch as punctuation, this will not be a dialogue. So my apologies to those who were looking forward to a minor skirmish, if I'd thought before I posted that anyone would be reading this crap I wouldn't have whetted your collective appetites. I've folded up my tent and stolen away with my tail firmly clamped between my legs. What can I say, it was early, I was delirious. Mea culpa. Must get out more...

Cop out!

Undoubtedly

Running scared?

Indubitably

No balls?

Half right

Can't take a joke, shouldn't'a' joined

You're not wrong there

PS - apologies to all those waiting for my response. Owing to a slip of the click this got delayed while I holidayed in the Emerald Isle with my ill-gotten gains.

Chiropractors Reaping The Whirlwind

Holy crap, nearly a month since my last post. In my defence I've been twittering and maybe that has been releasing the pressure on my over-active ire. But a story has been building in the webverse that requires, nay demands, comment. To wit:

A media science guru, one Simon Singh, who amongst other things has co-authored a book with Professor Edzard Ernst, the worlds only professor of Alternative Medicine, has been hauled over the coals in the libel courts for saying in a piece in the Guardian that The British Chiropractic Association were promoting 'bogus' treatments. I don't propose to go into the details of the case because, frankly, all this yah boo sucks stuff bores me shitless and it's been going on ever since I first started as a chiropractor in 1974. Which is why, when I saw that the BCA were bringing this action, my heart sank. The two sides in this argument are never going to agree. As the chiropractic profession trims itself to fit some kind of acceptable model of what the likes of Simon Singh and his germanic mentor require, the model will change until all semblance of chiropractic as I knew it will have disappeared and its skills and scope will be emasculated beyond recognition. This has already happened to a large extent with the General Chiropractic Council's policing techniques eschewing all but the most anodyne claims to those that are 'evidence based'. The fact that approaching 50% of all medical procedures have no evidence base whatsoever does not seem to matter or is ignored. Also the fact that the so-called double blind trials so beloved of the champions of evidence based medicine are being called into question by advances in quantum physics also seems to have escaped many of the pack baying for the blood of the alternative movement.

Back to Simon Singh vs BCA. The BCA, no doubt under legal advice, saw fit to bring this case under the libel laws and who should it appear before but m' learned friend Lord Justice Eady. Anybody interested in the wider world will know that Lord Eady is the justice who has been single-handedly turning the justice system in this country into a laughing stock in the free-speaking world by supporting libel actions against book authors and publishers and preventing publication, at least in the UK, of several controversial tomes about shady characters in the international sprectrum.

So, it comes to pass that Simon Singh gets his knuckles rapped in round one of this saga for using the term 'bogus' which m'learned friend deems to have implications of fraudulent intent. And that, you might think, would be that. Done, dusted, time for quick one before home time. Sadly, and this was entirely predictable, things do not work that way in this day and age and a veritable firestorm is brewing on the internet including among other things a campaign of complaints against chiropractic clinics deemed to have broken the GCCs guidelines. So hundreds, if not thousands, of nit-picking geeks with nothing but time on their hands are currently pouring over the clinic literature of any chiropractic clinic they can get their hands on looking for guideline breaking verbage with which to beat the profession. Conveniently the GCC has made it very easy for them by making it's guidelines very exacting so it's pretty obvious when they're not being followed. The original guidelines were deliberately vague to allow maximum scope for varying interpretations but the GCC changed those rapidly once the full council got it's act in gear.

Still, one advantage of this coming storm is likely to be that the GCC will be far too busy covering it's arse to continue to persecute the members of its register.

At this point I should point out that I am no longer a chiropractor but an ex-chiropractor, having resigned from the register in 2004, I am free to pursue my particular form of unregulated bogus quackery which has kept me and an unspecified number of no doubt gullible clients happy since 1974 with little or no sign of an evidence base. Woohoo!

Here Be Dentists

Off to the dentist this morning. This is, without doubt, my least favourite occupation since I was drilled sans anaesthetic by an Oxford dentist named, I kid you not, Savage. This, as you can no doubt imagine was an unforgettable experience and has left ruts in my psyche deeper than those on the most used bits of the Ridgeway. Thanks largely to the Gestapo-like tactics of my batty old ma I have led a life of low-ish sugar intake so my gob is not the bacterial war zone it could have been without her Nature Cure philosophy. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand I have needed little dental work, on the other I have had minimum desensetising contact with dental personnel. The one and only extraction I've had was done under general anaesthetic and turned my previously pain free mouth into a raging week-long toothache in the extracted tooth. So my historical dental experience is not good to begin with. Add to this negatively balanced equation the fact that one can no longer have extractions done under GA, that I know I need two wisdom teeth pulled out and that my current dentist gleefully related a tale of doing and extraction on a Red Sea dive boat crew member with no anaesthetic and a sterilised screwdriver and it becomes apparent why I'm viewing this mornings appointment with some trepidation. Wish me luck

Gaia Like Balance

Two adjacent headlines from the Reuters Health eLine appear to support the Gaia hypothesis. This suggests that the Earth behaves like a giant organisim and reacts to threat levels in ways that try to restore a balanced state to the planet. Today I see a) Goal of eliminating malaria in sight: experts and b)Deadly flu breaks out in Mexico, U.S.

Gaia seems to be substituting one threat for a new more virulent threat which will kill countless numbers of people before we get a handle on it and eradicate it.

It is just possible that, unless we find some way to control our propensity for limitless breeding, the poor old Earth will find ways to do it for us. We can but hope.

Politicians Call Each other Names - Hold The Font Page

What is all this tosh about Damien McBride. Portly prat he may be but can anyone imagine that this kind of crap isn't going on in the corridors of every political party in the UK. It's a fact that politicians will find new and innovative ways to smear their opposite numbers before they save the country. Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic has been a priority for party activists since time immemorial and power hungry pillocks have been clawing their way up the political greasy pole for generations by digging the dirt on their opponents. What's changed? The only thing more sickening than the spectacle of McBride and the other one chortling nto their expense account blubber is the faux horror evinced by the 'wronged' conservative MPs at whom the relevant emails were directed. Please give us, the poor hapless goons who vote, some credit for knowing the score and get on with extricating the country from the shithole you and your American special friends have dropped us into.

Evil Monsters/Damaged Children - Life and Death in the World of Pain

I read this not knowing much about the Mary Bell case and, like many I'm sure, wondering what it is that makes kids do this kind of thing. That the two boys were in foster care meant that there was some kind of back story and as yet we don't know what it is but for all of us who jump for the 'evil monsters' label this thought provoking examination of some of the past's 'children who kill' stories is a must read.

I was horrified and sometimes I think I'm living in a rose-tinted separate reality far from the horror film sets these kids have had to survive in. That they survive at all is nothing short of a miracle, a testament to the human spirit. That they're severely damaged by the levels of abuse they have to suffer is unsurprising. The people who work to repair these damaged small humans deserve all our admiration and support.

Russian Doll Attempt Leads to Short Exchange and Even Shorter Shrift

I never cease to be amazed at the idiocy of the so-called master race. Humans I mean. Whilst not strictly a rodent, the racoon must at least merit honorary rodent status and this little Russian Racoon should be getting the highest accolade in the quadruped Hall of Fame. So a big high five to the little gnasher for forshortening the career of this slavic wierdo. Neither beer or vodka goggles can excuse this level of stupidity. Now we all know about the traditional Russian Doll but at least they're a)the same species b)the same sex c) sober and d) most importantly smaller than the one they're trying to get into.

On the plus side if he wants to repeat the experiment he'l have to go in feet first next time.

(Link)

Pacemakers Good, Vampires Bad

Oh the injustice of it. It seems that Canadian scientists have developed a fuel cell that runs on the glucose present in human blood. So if your pacemaker starts to flag you can go eat a doughnut and the resultant sugar hit will fire up your little metal friend and kick your ailing ticker back into action. But wait, I hear you cry, when the unded bretheren of the leathery wing variety used to get up to this kind of caper they were hounded from pillar to post by the unspeakable Snipes/Kristofferson axis. It all seems so unfair.

$100k Tantrum Come to An Electrifying End

Oh dontcha just love this one. All the wonderful ingredients of the American Way of life bundled up and served hot by a Florida Sheriff. The names, the Mercedes, the 'gators and finaly the taser. Destry Wymborough, for it is she, should just have painted a sign on her forehead reading 'light me up bro' and marched into the cop shop with a semi-automatic weapon. If you want to test your pacemaker here's a short 'How To' for you. Enjoy

A Bit Rich This

A study by the LibDems under FOI queries has found that councils regularly use powers meant for use in anti-terrorist measures to finger people for dog fouling, littering and suspected schools application fraudulence. This according to the LibDems is not what the increased powers were for. What about the Government using anti-terrorist legislation to freeze Icelandic assets after the collapse of the banks in Iceland. Correct use of powers? I think not.

Sanity At Last

Just when you think that the whole world has gone stark staring batshit crazy along come a story to restore your faith in the intrinsic sanity of the human race. Check this out, line two is the pertinent entry if you'll pardon the phrase.

Thinks: there may be horses at this party, I'll bring my 5' inflatable penis just in case. You can't be too careful.

Bummer of an Allergy Pandora

There's a Gary Larson cartoon featuring a deer with a huge target on it and it's partner saying 'Bummer of a birth mark Ralph'. This from the BBC website evoke a similar response. How cruel is this, a herbivore with a grass allergy. Intelligent design my arse.

Unf**kingbelievable

I'm a bloke but this report certainly gave me a scrotum tightening moment. Thinks: 'I'll attach this dildo to this reciprocating saw. What could possibly go wrong?

The Serpent Eats Itself

This report from the States suggests that AIG, the massive ailing insurance giant bailed out and essentially 80% owned by the American taxpayer, is suing er... the American Government aka the American taxpayer. AIG is suing for the return of tax paid on income with money it got from Uncle Sam and, if it wins, it will be paid by... Uncle Sam. Meanwhile the traders who finagled this giant into the shitter are expecting $160m in bonuses. Hmmm can anyone see who's the biggest looser here?

I'm reminded of Kurt Vonnegurt's three laws of life a) You cannot win b) You cannot break even c) You cannot get out of the game. Visionary or what?

The Writing's On The Wall

This from the Guardian shows what a ridiculous situation we have arrived at. Under this great Labour government our long-cherished freedoms are under constant threat as the fuzz get more and more sweeping powers unfettered, it seems, by any resemblance of control from central government. Still at least we're safe from the evil chalk-wielding hordes of terrorists thronging onto our streets encouraged, no doubt, by the new pinko Prez in the big white bog in Washington. Boy, do I feel safe!

PS - I notice that the Guardian section is called 'Comment is Free' - have they got a surprise in store.


-- Post From My iPhone

It'll end in tears

Just clocked this on the BBC website. Now , being a rat, I know a certain amount about the lure of the music and great great grandfather got his comeuppance in Hamlin after an unfortunate bit of crowd-surfing hero worship of the pied piper variety.

Otters following harmonica players? You just know it's not going to end well.


-- Post From My iPhone

Is This The Answer to the Bonus Problem

I see from many posts on teh internets that the AIG thing is raising temperatures all across the USA in much the same way that Fred Godwin raised 'em over here. It seems that in the USA at least congress has the power to impose small specialised taxes in unusual or extrraordniary circumstances. Now, it seems to me, that if you bail out a bank or a company to the tune of some $170m and when you suggest that lare bonuses are inappropriate in the circumstances and that bank/company's CEO essentially tells you to 'blow it out your ass' then the imposition of a tax on bonuses at, say, 95% is not unreasonable. Congress can do this apparently. Can the House of Commons?
Footnote: all our bile seems to be directed at Fred Godwin but all the Bank of Scotland are getting bonuses. How come we haven't heard about them?

Headlines - Again

Newsfeed readers are great if time consuming but inevitably as you're scanning the headlines your mind hyperjumps a couple of lines and you arrive at a place you never wanted to be.
This caught my eye on Digg and I immediately visualsed a necropolis-like bunk system. Who got the bottom bunk I wonder?

I Know Just How He Feels

This from the Timesoline about a chimp who gathers projectiles to hurl at the hairless apes that leer at him throughout the day. On the rare times I visit a zoo or wildlife park and observe the behaviour of the naked apes viewing I get the distinct impression that it's difficult to decide who's viewing whom and impossible to predict the intelligence level based on which side of the bars the viewers are.

Lord of Darkness' DJ found in Hants Pond

This just in (via BoingBoing) is proof, if proof were needed, that the woman arrested for throwing green slime on Peter Mandelson, Government Representative for the Dark Side, is entirely INNOCENT and was merely trying to prevent the contents of a leaking business secretary from burning a hole in the tarmac.

Surprised pond life enthusiasts from Hampshire, England found Mr Mandelson's evening wear covered in green slime in a pond whilst cleaning it. Interesting that Davos and Davros are not a million miles from one another semantically though philosohically they differ slightly.

Has the Lord of Darkness spung a leak? I think we need full disclosure and we need it now.

Disingenuous or What?

BBC reporter suggests that PM is reluctant to admit fault for credit crunch because it might be a trap. Well, duh! In todays nahnahnahnah politics opposition MPs are just waiting for such an admission as are the media. Fiddling while Rome burns or what?


-- Post From My iPhone

What Is This Thing Called Twitter?

I've had a Twitter account for seven or eight months and frankly I've hardly used it because I still don't get it. I'm told that until you've got x followers then no, you don't get it but in reality I have yet to see anything interesting on Twitter that stirs the vaguest interest in my jaded brain. Even Stephen Fry, who's blog I read avidly for its elegant use of language and ideas has failed to maintain my interest in Twitter for more than a couple of tweets and as for Jonathan Ross, well his many daily tweets are rapidly causing me to re-evaluate him. Twitter is, I believe, the digital equivalent of the Kings New Suit of Clothes and those that are twittering are desperately trying to justify the time investment by professing a relevance that just doesn't pertain. I'll persist for now but I'm waiting expectantly for some shining moment of revelation.

Stating the Obvious - Part 3

This from Reuters is number x million in the No Shit Sherlock Awards for 2009. Strangely if you teach toddlers to swim you reduce their risk of drowning. Who knew?

Rodent Origami May be the Key to A Long Life

Meet an African cousin, the Naked Mole Rat. Cute ain't he? Not all of us arrived in the UK with the Black Death, some emigrated to the colonies but usually in small close knit family numbers. Here you see the result of a lot of inbreeding. Apart from shedding the velveteen pantaloons we have had a considerable wallop with the ulgy stick and some orthodontics wouldn't go amiss. However, one benefit to the kissing cousins seems to have been some unusual proteins which are deemed to contribute to an extraodinarily long life...for a rat.
It's all to do with folding and unfolding protein molecules apparently, which fold and unfold periodically and, anyone who's tried to fold a Landranger map numerous times will tell you, the process causes damage and that damage causes ageing. So it seems that studying the process by which the naturist rodents practice their origami skills might help us extend our useful life for a few decades. Just think how many Twitters you could fit into that time frame. I can't wait. (via The Register )

What Happened to 'It Wasn't Me'?

It seems that there may be two other teenage fathers in the frame for 13-year old Alfie Patten's girlfriend's newborn. Crikey! Money and fame, no matter for what, seems to be a tremendous motivator. In my teenage years the very thought that your girlfriend might be pregnant was enough to make you change your identity as fast as possible and maybe even leave the country. Now it seems that a contract with The Sun and the resultant glare of publicity is enough to have these adolescents scrabbling for parental rights like dogs with a bone. One of them I note is 16. Doesn't this open him up to crimnal charges?

Spot The Discriminatory Headline

Saw this today. Still the height police work their devious plan to make the world conform to 'normal' standards. It has to stop. 

Oh bum. The headline on my news reader (NetNewsWire if you're interested) says 'BMW to shed 850 Mini workers' which aroused my silly headline antenna. Unfortunately the actual headline differs and makes me look stupid. No change there then.

Holy Hot Air Batman

You - could - not - make - it - up. Not content with bringing us the first electronic whoopee cushion, the owner of iFart, flatulence generator for the iPhone, is suing his nearest rival for... oh I can't be bothered to read any further. Life is too short. You read it. Anyway, one iPhone fart producer is suing another iPhone fart producer presumably because there are too many farts being produced on the iPhone and nobody, but nobody, has found a way to light them yet. This fart thing is getting out of hand or trousers or iPhone, I don't know which and frankly I don't care but I present it to you, who ever you are, for comment or despairing looks. You choose.

Oh My Another Press Mention

You know how it is, nothing for years then you're all over the news like an STD on a Club Med fortnight. And so it comes to pass. First a rat population explosion, then more rodents exploding in Yorkshire and now this. Whoeee guys we are finally getting our fifteen minutes. 

Heart Stopping Headline

This made me stop and look twice. Good subbing or poor use of English? The thought of a county-wide lemming-like popping made my blood run cold. That and the potential waste of all those yummy carcasses.

Opportunism Still in The White House

Sheeeit! Having just purged the White House of one type of vermin last month agents of poor old Uncle Sam are in hot pusuit of another bunch of opportunists. Plus ça change.

Off With His Head

OMG, the tumbrils are rolling and the knitting needles are coming out for the next public celebrity execution. Jeremy Clarkson's jibe at the PM has been declared 'unforgiveable' by the howling mob who've been primed by the Ross/Brand affair, stoked by the Carol Thatcher nonsense and are hard on the heels of the hapless overgrown schoolboy that is J. Clarkson (aged 141/2). This time the RNIB has been roped in to comment on the subject. 
Who's next, I wonder, in the Search For The Offended? I feel a new 'reality' show coming on. Wait a minute, you don't think we're already in the show, I'm An Intelligent Species, Get Me Out Of Here? 
Broad Geordie voice - This week the team will have to complete the difficult task of managing a global financial meltdown. Will they manage it and get fed next week? Will Gordon Brown overcome all odds to save the planet? Will his feeble attempts be thwarted by the cruelties of golliwog Clarkson?
Naw. Couldn't be. Could it? What do you think Mr Anderson?

Brown Savaged By Sheep

Jeremy, Jeremy you really should stay out of grown-up fights and confine youself to the boyish bollocks that you, Hammond and the other one regale us with on our screens. Even your insults are laughably childish. 'One eyed idiot' ? Please either up your game or STFU.

Ha! Told You So

BoJo leaps to the defence of 'sister'. Remember you read it here.

Prescience 101

No.1 in the No Shit Sherlock clips for today. Cost of Olympic Stadium Doubles. No comment required.

In The Vanguard of a New Trend

No sooner do I finish my last post about Twitter than I read this in the Guardian by Bobbie Johnson which crystallises very well my growing unease about this whole internet phenomenon of 'social networking'. The net is just so uncritically voracious. It inhales ephemera like it's life depended on it and perhaps it does. But does mine? Do I care what Ross or Brand think about anything. They certainly haven't earned my respect for their elegant use of the language unlike Stephen Fry whose jotting's are both well informed and erudite and leave me feeling enriched rather than debased. Do I care about the minutiae of the lives of virtual strangers in anything but the most superficial way. And if I do imbibe this tedious diet of pixellated pasta how do I avoid information constipation?

I suppose the answer is, in cybespace as in life itself (where ever that is these days), one needs to watch ones diet and not allow Ross/Brand type plaque accumulation to clog up the arteries. Eject it with a good Fry-up. Begin a new trend.

What's that then?

Blogonic irrigation.

I don't believe you wrote that.

I'll get my coat.

To Twitter or Not To Twitter?

I've been a moderate Twitter user since Twitter first poked its beak over the parapet but, to be frank, I just don't really get the whole Twitter thing. Shorts tweets of peoples mundane random thoughts are just annoying and why the inane ramblings of millions of vacant brains, mine included, should be clogging up bandwidth is anyones guess. Anyway, I'm luke warm on the idea from the get go but then I learn that the Ross/Brand axis is twittering away good-oh and the whole idea begins to look like the chattering classes are beginning to invade every space I once thought I was safe in. It's as though every vertical surface of every city on the planet has been fly-posted with the dreary banalities of even drearier celebs. There's no escape except to vacate the twittesphere forthwith. I've already been driven from Radio 2 by this desperate duo I need a good reason not to be exiled from Twitter and thankfully here it comes in the unexpected form of Stephen Fry who, it would seem, is a Twitter user of some stature if his followers figures are to be believed. 

I still don't get Twitter but I'll give it one more chance because of Mr Fry. 

Lucky Twitter.

Rat Curse Strikes - Part the First

Shortly after a mention on this blog, wild Boris Johnson twin Carol Thatcher is in very hot water indeed for the use of the g-word in the hallowed and, it has to be said, shit-scared halls of the BBC. Apparently, as repoted in The Guardian, Ms Thatcher compared a tennis player in the Australian Open to a g-man (sorry folks, can't say it, PC police are everywhere and they know where I live ) and presenter Adrian Chiles and Jo Brand were so appalled that they immediately complained to the producer.
Carol Thatcher's response is eagerly awaited and whether Boris is going to support his twin is yet to be confirmed.

Is it just me or are these McCarthy-esque witch hunts on hapless reactionaries taking on a very dark demeanour. Messrs Chiles and Brand had already confronted the frenetic Thatcher immediately in private, do they really need the publicity so badly that they have to escalate what is probably a brain fart into a major diplomatic incident. The BBCs mimosa-like reaction is entirely predictable and no doubt Thatcher will be cast upon the stakes of correctness forthwith but really is this all that's exercising our minds at this particular point in history? I almost, repeat almost, feel sorry for her.

Oops bummer. It was a twitter post not this blog in which I compared Carol and Boris so the curse does not apply. Please completely ignore all of the foregoing.

All the same I don't think I've ever seem them in the same room. Hmm.

Waiting For the Other Shoe

I don't know if it still happens but when I were a lad shoe shops often displayed their wares outside the shop so that passers by could admire the fine leather-work and style of their footwear. Because, even in those far off rose-tinted days, scallys would abscond with a pair were any retailer foolish enough to provide one, only one shoe was displayed the demand for one shoe being rightly assumed to be low. Now, however ,if the trend for raining footwear on unpopular politicians continues or grows this enticing practice will probably have to cease. Still, they (the politicos) should think themselves lucky it's not white phosphorous.

A Snow News Day?

Blimey we must've had it easy all these years. No less than 5 out of the first twelve news headlines on my news reader from the Guardian concerned the snow that fell on Sunday night and, don't panic, continues to fall today. You'd think nothing else happend in Britain on Monday... sorry nothing else happened in London on Monday. For that's the clue folks. It snowed in LONDON! News and media tarts are so South-East-centric that anything that happens down there transcends whatever ocurs in the rest of the country, even the rest of the world.
As someone who was in my early teens in 1963/4 when the snow in Oxfordshire was higher than the roof of the van we were trying to deliver milk from, the light sprinkling of 2009 is laughably slight. But hey, I'm in Dorset not London. Who knows what wild beasts roam the streets of the capital.

Wrong Kind of Snow

The first meeting of a lobbying group for pop and rock stars was called off because of snow. Not the first time, I'll warrant, that powdery white stuff has affected the music industry's performance.

Farmers Organic Holiday

So farmers are seeking an organic 'holiday' because of the pressures of the credit crunch. I can almost guarentee that those wanting this 'holiday' are the more recent 'converts' to the organic movement - you know the one's following the money. The same ones that followed the money when there were subsidies to be had for growing for the rapeseed industry or anything else where subsidies were the primary motivation. It wont be those that farmed organically from a deep philosophical conviction that is was 'the right thing to do.' The ones who swam against the tide when they were called yoghurt knitters and the 'beard and sandal' brigade. They're in it for reason other than pure profit. I'm sure they have to make a living but their motivation is more deep rooted than the extra organic premium.
I'm not against people wanting to earn money but, to paraphrase a recent well known speaker, do we have to compromise our principals for the sake of monetary expediency? I for one think this is a compromise too far. 

Hand Shandy Handy

It seems that apart from the fabled visual disturbance properties of the abuse of self it's all good in the world of Mrs Palm and her five sisters. New research has shown that masturbation in males over the age of fifty has a protective effect against prostate cancer. Unfortunately the news for the under fifties is not so good and frequent visits to the opticians are still the order of the day. As for you ladies sorry but there no good excuse for the old washing machine rodeo. More research needed perhaps.

24-Rolling News Spells The End of TEH World!

I was interested in this via Boing Boing because it gels with a slowly forming hypothesis that I've had inexorably spreading in my brain for some time. That we have nothing to fear but news itself. 
Ever since the advent of 24 hour rolling news the motivation to fill the 24 hour schedule with anything and everything however crass or alarmist is proving irrestistable to whoever produces it. Hence the point that News helped to stimulate the climate in which the poisonous thinking that led to the sub-prime crisis and also, when push came to shove, turned the escalating financial markets into reverse far more rapidly than they would otherwise have managed without nightly promotion on our TVs.
The problem is that, somewhat like the banks, insurance and mortgage companies, 24 hour rolling news is in a no loose situation. Whatever happens is grist to their mill. In the same way that newspapers frightened the parents of young children into avoiding the MMR vaccine and thus stimulated a measles epidemic which they then reported with equal glee , the credit crunch shows the same cause and effect cycle. The media get copy whatever the story - news on the fat cats, news on the unemployed and who can say, hand on heart, that they are not thoroughly sick of Robert Peston and the emmisaries of doom that parade across our screens every night. You know, the ones you appear to delight in news of the recession to the extent that they predicted it for 3 months before it actually arrived and when it did almost rubbed their hands and said 'I told you so.'
So here's my answer to doom and gloom. Shoot every news anchor, financial analyst, link man, reporter and news producer you can get into your cross-hairs. Yes. Do shoot the messenger because they're no longer just messengers are they? They are the fulfillers of their own prophesies. They deserve to be killed to death.

No More Attacks On Ws Watch?

Just exactly how many attacks were there before 11 September 2001? Much is being made of George Bush's protection of the USA and the fact that there have been no further attacks since. Even some Democrats have said that W must be given credit for this fact. I have yet to hear any one of our penetrative media pundits ask him how many attacks there had been before the Twin Towers attack. As far as I can remember America hadn't been attacked since Pearl Harbor and that's in the Pacific. So let's not get all maudlin and in a sort of post-coital torpor (you know, the one you get after you've been fucked) let this man off the hook.

Pudenda Pleasured by Prolific Portfolio

As if having your mortgage stifled by the financial brouhaha recent research by'scientists' has found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their horizontal jogging partner's bank balance. The financial whizz kids with the money haven't just fucked the economy successfully but their heading for your women and they're fiscally tumescent. 
So not only have they got our money, destroyed our economy and got away scott free they've also scored on the sex front as well. Oh goody. That makes me feel so much better.

On another tack altogether just how do the 'scientist' discover this? I think we should be told.

How Difficult Can It Be?

Now let me get this straight. If I get myself into serious financial difficulties and go to see a debt counsellor, God forbid but just for the sake of the blog. I will be asked firstly to itemise my liabilities in order to estimate my likely level of debt and I'm just an amateur. How come, six months down the line from the Credit Crunch inception, the professionals, the bankers, cannot tell us, the poor saps who will be doing the bailing out as usual, what the level of their toxic assets are. 

Is it just (a) Incompetence in which case why haven't they been given their marching orders as any of us exhibiting the same level of incompetence would have been. Is it (b) unwillingness to disclose the level of their greed and the duplicitous extent of their financial feeding frenzy or is it (c) the usual level of arrogance that the city shows towards the 'little people'. (No not the leprechauns, though gnomes are traditional enemies of leprechauns or so I've been told.) Us, the great tax-paying public, the mugs that always end up paying for these financial shennanigans while the suited and booted roar off into the Caribbean sunset in their Porsches, Lear Jets and Sunseekers clutching their £1m bonuses in their sticky little mitts. 

Some in the financial sector are undoubtedly paying the price for this charade but as usual the main players seem to be Teflon coated and the only thing that sticks to them is money. 

Phrase du Jour...

Where in the hell did the phrase 'back in the day' spring from. I first noticed it in several Lee Child 'Reacher' novels where he seems to have a particular phrase in each of his many escapist novels that's repeated until you start expecting it on every page...almost. Now it seems to have descended into the common consciousness and it even graced the pages of last Sunday's Observer no less. 
Perhaps someone will write an algorithim to calculate the next likely ocurrence in the literature or the next likely phrase. 'Yes we can' maybe.

Remember You Read It Here First

One of the many groups to which I subscribe is a Yahoo Group on Mercedes Sprinter vans and their many derivatives. Whilst casually browsing its post t'other day I came upon a post by a Sprinter owner who has been tasked with erecting the PA system for the Obama inauguration which consists of many (3000 if memory serves) speakers mounted on poles in Lafayette Park with repeater amps at various points all of which is dull stuff except for the guy doing it I suppose, and he's having a blast. 

Oops careful with the bomb-specific terminology Rico, Homeland Security will be paying you a visit.

They're welcome to anytime. I'll make 'em a cup of tea. Anyway, dull stuff as I say but interestingly enough he mentioned in his post that his satnav was unable to lock onto a signal and he presumed it was being jammed by the aforementioned DHS and I don't mean the Social Services. Apparently they do this around George Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX for some reason, probably to prevent low level shoe-straffing runs by the local Muslim fanatics.

Lot of those in Texas are there?

Probably not on balance, but that's by the way of mentioning the mad Channels Islands flying vet, Maurice Kirk, who got himself in to all sorts of bother when he landed his light aircraft near said spread in order to hand deliver a thank-you note to the waning Prez for his (Maurice's) rescue by US Coast Guards. 

You could not make this stuff up!

Indeed not. He was detained with extreme prejudice, even unto the local funny farm, until is was established that he was a harmless British nutjob who'd done this sort of thing all over the world at varying times over the past twenty years or so whereupon he was deported back to Blighty with a stoney 'So long and don't come back'. 

Maurice Kirk, for it was he, was locked in chokey while the security services established his credentials. His long-suffering wife, asked to comment, said something to the effect that she hoped he'd be back by Sunday because it was his turn to do the washing up. 

Don'tcha just love the way it takes an englishwoman to bring everything back down to earth with humour.

I do, I do. Unfortunately, it seems, the US Authorities aren't seeing the funny side.

Think Right, Think Rat

I knew that some day the rat-based out-of-the-maze thinking that the old Rattus genus is justly famed for would come to the fore. This from The Register just proves my point. Just think you're never more than 12 feet from this kind of wisdom. I think we should move a motion in the UN for a warfarin moratorium. What say you?

What's In A Name

Names are important as Norwich Union, an insurance company with whom I have had some serious issues, will tell you as they try to infer that the name change will somehow miraculously bring commercial success and make them sexy overnight. But the latest reports of the Cyberknife on the BBC are interesting in that, without searching out the visuals, my imagination painted a picture of a thin-bladed switchblade-like surgical tool for slicing and dicing the dreaded malignant tumours that so plague society. I imagined the surgeon, flexing his fingers like James Coburn in the Manificent Seven, before sliding his Cybeknife from its sheath with a suitable steely sound effect and advancing on the diabolical tumour in a knife fighters stance, knees slightly flexed, eyes heroically narrowed. 

Imagine my surprise to find that the so-called Cyberknife is a massive robotic presence more Optimus Prime than Gillette. I've no doubt that it's a brilliant bit of technology and will advance the surgical treatment of tumours no end but I'd still rather my surgeon was James Coburn than that annoying robot that paints 'Picasso' on an endless lines of Citroëns.

Chaos and Opportunity

It is said that the Chinese ideogram for chaos contains, within it, the ideogram for opportunity.

Said by who?

What?

Said by who?

By those who know

Oh I see. 'Those who know.' The mystical cognoscenti.

The very same. 

To return to the matter in hand. According to this in Boing Boing chaos in the Californian housing market, with a multitude of foreclosures, is presenting the ever opportunistic CA skateboarders with the chance of using the emptied swimming pools of repossessed homes as improvised sk8tr parks.

See how down with the kids I am with the txt-speak and all.

Pillock!

Thanks.

You made up the stuff about the ideogram didn't you?

No.

Who then, is it said by?

I forget.

Yeah, right.