I'm Back - And I'm Still Angry

Weell hello, I'm back! It's a new year, the Mayans were wrong or at least inaccurate, and we're all still here so I've decided to resurrect this moribund monologue and inflict my random thoughts on an unsuspecting cybespace.
When I first began aerosoling on the cyberwall little did I know that my scribblings would elicit a response and when they did I rapidly scuttled away to lick my wounded ego and do some study into quantum physics. During this exercise I realised that, while some Marvins with planet-sized brains might indeed understand this subject, the majority of us mere mortals can only take their word for it and hope that Marvin monitors are checking their homework with sufficient diligence to ensure the planet doesn't disappear down an inter-dimensional plughole somewhere in the vicinity of Geneva. I still have thoughts on the whole quantum physics thing and how at it's most fundamental level it begins as an act of faith but that's way too complicated a stream of heresy to begin 2013 with.
So, what's been happening since my self-imposed exile in June 2009?
Well we've lost Steve Jobs for a start which for me was a major blow. Opinions on Mr Jobs are myriad and I don't know which of them is correct, perhaps all of them are, but I do know that the company he founded, lost, won back again and built into one of the biggest on the planet has provided me with tools and toys in equal measure for nearly 35 years and for that I'm personally very grateful. In the process of providing me with playthings Steve coincidentally changed the face of computing and how the human race interacts with technology. With the help of both design, sofware and technical innovators he has shifted the emphasis from the programmers to the public and made the power of computers available to all. All this earth re-shaping is, of course, only a side effect of keeping my toy box full to bursting but, hey, no body's perfect. I hope that in whatever form Steve Jobs' constituent parts have been reassembled he's bringing as much joy and hope to his new dimension. I for one miss his presence. And another thing...

What a little ray of sunshine the Olympics were in 2012 - both streams. The poor old Queen tried to brighten up the country with her shiny jubilee but, between the weather and the God-awful BBC commentary the whole shebang was enough to give you a bladder infection. But just when we though all was lost and the doom and gloom merchants were revving up for another bout of whining, lo and behold the sun came out, the athletes arrived and little old UK knocked one into the back of the net in some style. It was all helped by an amazing opening ceremony created by Danny Boyle. I don't know what we expected but I'm sure we were all holding our collective breath after the Bejing extravaganza which was both awesome and unrepeatable. How could it be followed? Well Danny boy certainly brought home the rashers with a show that was avant garde, spectacular with references that were tangential but not so obscure that our bewilderment was permanent. No mean task that and it all went off like clockwork. Most un-British. Also most un-British was the unbridled enthusiasm that the opening ceremony released among the populatioin and from the soggy trail of the Olympic flame round the nooks and crannies of the UK to Boyle's potted history encompassing all that's good about this little nation it all went to swell our enthusiasm to a perfectly timed crescendo. Brilliant.

But you knew it was too good to last. True SPOTY has attempted to breath new life into the fading corpse of our national pride but the unending doleful news of financial shennanigans, bloated bankers, tax-dodging fat cats and so on ad infinitum soon had us back in the doldrums waiting for the next bad thing.

But hey, we had two glorious weeks where we consistently punched above our weight and a further two when the paralympians, not to be outdone by their more able bodied colleagues, again raised our spirits and emotions with their strength and determination. What a year it was.

And so to 2013.

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.