woolly bully

lamb and mint pasty; 100% pure ingredients.

as opposed to a balti chicken pasty, which is made from the dying wishes of a knife-fight victim.

idiocracy

a very brief complaint i just sent to the 'right honourable' george osbourne. georgie pays accountants to search for loopholes in the law to avoid paying tax. he's dodging about £1.6 million in taxes that would otherwise go back into the damaged-by-people-like-him system that we're having to live in at the moment.

"we're all in this together" - george osbourne

so it'd be nice if - being a multi-millionaire - you helped out a bit.

of course, the spin-doctors would argue that he's not doing anything illegal and it's just attentive book-keeping. wouldn't it be nice to even have the option of paying £1.6 million?

dear george osbourne,

stop being a prick. seriously. how do you ever expect to be respected as a valid member of society if you place yourself above it in a self-decreed god role. this is no different to the billions in tax dodges that multinational companies operate around the world, that takes money away from the struggling people in the countries they operate.

honestly, that's just a real dickish thing to do.

from
[my name]

gorillas in the mist

i will be giving local, personal adverts a makeover.
i will be taking all the content from shit posters and creating much nicer ones with pretty graphics.
i will then replace the poster with my better version.
i will have one rule: the content will be exactly the same, including spelling errors and grammatical dickery.this is the first one. it is situated on a bus stop in tooting bec.
if you see any more that you want me to 'guerillaise' .. email me: info@funkhouse.me.uk

stars of CCTV

"this is a business conference in a cool room. in early winter. why are you wearing a tight fitting, short sleeved shirt? that just looks weird.
I suppose it would be okay if you were a young, good looking chap.. although I'd still consider you a tool. but you're old and bald. and you must be freezing. seriously, what possible justification do you have for this terrible fashion dickery?"

"ich habe grosse muscles"

"okay, bruiser. well done"

dawn of the dead

a tiny but majestic perk from the top floor of corporate nonsense-land.
well done iPhone.

free willy

this cloud looks like a fish.

wake up, boo

99% of corporate presentations cannot ever hope to fall into this category.

paranoid android

good presenters don't use presentation software.

a simple plan

if you can't present properly, get the fuck out of my presentation theatre.

still fighting it

the things that make me weep uncontrollably are usually things to do with collaboration.
- a welsh male-voice choir hitting a particularly haunting harmony.
- a group of disabled people finally reaching the atlantic after a hike across south america.
- ewan mcgregor and charlie boorman making it round the world on motorbikes.
- my friends and I doing a show at the edinburgh fringe this year.
- the coalition government.

*sob

on another note, I also cry like a little girl when father/son relationships are portrayed in films and music.
dunno why. maybe i think my dad is awesome or something.

wheel of fortune

CONSULTANT
CNSULTANT
CSULTANT
CULTANT
CUTANT
CUANT
CUNT

the taming of the shrew

10 ways I could resign (but will probably do it normally so I stand a chance of getting freelance work):

1. distribute fliers advertising my new seminar on "how to avoid your work-based pedophile ring being detected".
2. release a flock of canadian geese into the restaurant.
3. punch the next woman I see in the neck.
4. sit on my boss's lap and make out with his ear.
5. spend all day, every day on my laptop, not talking to anyone or taking my job seriously. oh, I already do that.
6. ride my bike to work, then all around the building. inside. my motorbike.
7. smear all the computer keyboards on my floor with my own fecal joy.
8. start taking a well-advertised poll on which member of the Exec. Committee likes to spend horizontal time with stray dogs.
9. while someone is presenting, fade out their microphone and play-in excerpts from hitler's recorded speeches.
10. write another letter like when i wrote this - letter of resignation

help yourself

i don't need to comment on this at all. i needn't have even written that. or this.

the man from uncle

a letter i just wrote to my MP about a vote this evening to cut BBC funding:

Dear Sadiq

I know that the current government are massive pricks, content on slowly destroying the way of life for average British people all over the country, but if there is any way you can help with the BBC that'd be ace.

The beeb is one of the few things remaining that make me proud to be British, and has been key in creating our finest exports: Monty Python, Dr. Who and Stephen Fry... without which we might as well give up as we're only left with Cheryl Cole, teen pregnancy and football hooliganism.

Please do all you can, if you can. Admittedly it seems that all hope is a waste of time and the results of the last general election warrant that, but we live in a country that celebrates mediocrity and one of the last bastions of aspiration and achievement lay within the walls of BBC Television centre. Don't let it fade away like an old, forgotten pensioner.

Thanks.

steamy windows

I reached a conclusion with some friends a few days ago. it's a conclusive part of that whole PC vs. Mac argument.

mac users are widely criticised for their apple-evangelism, and it's well warranted. even as a mac user myself I've found the militant apple-vangelist to be irritating and the whole argumentative dialogue to be fruitless. I've tried to convert a few people, with the genuine motivation to improve their life. a lot of the time you get in return 'but they're so much more expensive' ... and suggesting that they'd have to buy 3 or 4 PC laptops to cover the life of my one MacBook seems to fall on deaf ears.

so basically the conclusion is this: if you want to use a PC... fine.
see if I care.
if you want to spend your life failing to connect to a wifi network for no reason,
or worrying that every new Microsoft update is going to ruin your week,
or losing 10 hours of word processing to an emailed trojan virus,
or waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting..
...
fine.

look up at that bilboard for PowerPoint 2010. is that the worst written caption for a poster of all time?

"I want to make
it great because
you will agree
with what I have
TO SAY."

holy crap. is that meant to be some sort of haiku of something?! how did Microsoft let that happen? did they not hear alarm bells when they said it out loud and it sounded like their marketing was being conducted by an angry tramp in odd shoes?

still, I'd put money on the media company who did the poster design having done it on iMacs.

to catch a thief

"a study of two things" - photography by j. funkhouse

1. note the silver glint of the forensic powder placed directly on the glass. deliberate and convincing.

forensic powder is the substance police use to try and convince you that the burglars will be identified and your property recovered. if you have the spare time to waste, and have sat through any one of the CSI:Propaganda episodes (they're all the same), you may be under the impression that the soft sheen of fingerprint powder is a route to justice.

however if you are like me and have been subject to a (now) total of 3 burglaries, 1 motorcycle theft and 1 car broken into, forensic powder is just a weird looking mess that's almost impossible to remove from a painted wooden surface.
it is false hope.
it gets on your clothes when you're trying to secure your home by screwing metal strips to your broken kitchen window.

2. note the split in the central wooden structure; now difficult to see after you've forced splintered wood back into it's original position and secured aforementioned metal strips. when the window lay open to the world - freshly crow-barred - the split was easy to see. now it is more difficult, a mere ghost, but still undeniably there.

undeniably there like the niggling spectre of discomfort that someone has been unwelcome into your home, touched your things, crept about in your sanctuary. undeniably there like the uncertain security of your house, your home, teetering on a fulcrum. undeniably there, juxtaposing the existence of three laptops and an iMac... which are now - undeniably - not there.

fuckers.

doll on a music box

what do you see
you people gazing at me?
you see a doll on a music box
that's wound by a key

music box is a long-form improvised musical company based in london, run by some friends of mine who are all excellent.

they are auditioning for new members!

if you are a keen improviser and you're looking for a group to be in; that statement should bring you to a slather.
if you fancy auditioning for this group, who do regular gigs around london and are totally up for the world... go here: music box casting .. and seek out your new, brilliant future.

how can you tell
i'm under a spell
i'm waiting for love's first kiss.

all your base are belong to us

i've just given myself brain ache trying to get this signature to appear at the bottom of my macmail emails, as a clickable HTML banner.
it took fricken ages as macmail doesn't support HTML signatures.
ouch.

TEL: 07971 284 979

EMAIL: INFO@FUNKHOUSE.ME.UK

WEB: FUNKHOUSE.ME.UK

philadelphia

right this minute I am on my own, wandering through the streets of london. I have nowhere to go and nowhere to be. I am slightly alcoholed and have just spent the evening with a good friend and building full of immersive theatre.

good friday to you.

three small words

when you see a banker out on the street, on public transport or self-destructing in all.bar.one, nine times out of ten you probably don't know you've seen one. there are tell-tale signs, oh yes. they'll probably be in an unjustifiably expensive suit and tie. they'll be talking loudly so everyone knows they make a lot of money. they'll probably try and flirt with you despite you and all your friends clearly displaying aggressive disinterest and pointing out the wedding ring on their dangerously rapey finger. that sort of thing.

the one thing that you might've thought would be a dead giveaway, probably isn't. if you see someone out and about wearing the Uniform of a bank, they probably aren't to blame for the shit that leaves your purse half empty every day. if they're in a uniform they are most likely a receptionist. or a branch worker. or a cleaner. or an.... audio visual technician at head office. hello.

hyper rich investment bankers have earned the human right to wear their own clothes to work. we peasants, however, have to bear the constant embarrassment of a cheap, airless polyester suit with a shirt/tie combo that makes a Jeremy Kyle guest look tasteful and interesting.

yeah, if you see someone in a bank uniform, before you make a snap judgement as to whether they're a world-fucker, check their eyes. more than likely you'll see the infinite sadness of someone who goes to work every morning only to be moaned at by some over-rich over-fed over-confident asshole, because the asshole doesn't know how to use the room booking software properly. or how to shit inside the toilet bowl. or what button to press on their computer to make the letter 'A' appear. the uniformed are so marked against their accord; like 'thief' branded on the forehead of a petty medieval criminal. and they probably earn less than you.

those in uniforms are no more to blame for your mortgage troubles than an IT network technician at Sony Records HQ is responsible for the crushing inner torment you go through when you're strapped down and forced to listen to a lady gaga song. they probably hate their job and the idiots they work for as much as you hate everything their plastic bell-boy costume stands for.

except phones4u sales staff. those guys are prominently wankers.

look for those dead eyes. chances are they've the constant anguish of their soul dribbling out, memory by memory, every hour they're at work. any remaining sense of self pumped out of their ear by the air-sterilising unit conveniently positioned next to their head. if it's near the end of the day give them a cuddle. it is very likely they've spent the day with accountants and crave some form of human interaction.

it can have an excessive effect, that torment. for example; this morning I went to do my daily AV checks in the VIP suites (meeting rooms reserved for the very wealthy clients, because in the bank world if you're richer you're a more deserving human). as I walked past the receptionist her eyes focused on somewhere nearby my left ear and, as a sorrowful tear fell from her lifeless glance, she said to me without punctuation, "morning did you have a nice weekend" ...

it is friday today.

even the basic ability to make small talk totally failed. she couldn't make sense of the week. time had become even more abstract than the concept of time already is. I wanted to rest my hand on her shoulder and tell her it's okay, she's not going through this on her own, but there's probably some corporate-branded document somewhere that tells us basic personal contact is automatically regarded as sexual harassment by robotic soul police. she'll have to wait until she's out of the confines of our work facility before she gets respite from her vicious circle. sad.

come on people of the outside world, give us a hug. we need it.
look at this blog again. that's not the writing of a mentally healthy person.

red

by all accounts, this plate of food should never have existed. it might not still.

this was one of those times where you literally have no food in, but your saddlebags and wallet are informing you to avoid phoning up Mr. Pizza's Chicken Shack and getting them to deliver you a kebab.

so this is not a bad plate of food, considering. here are the ingredients that made this meal a possible antidote to total failure:

some potatoes. a beetroot. a small tin of tuna. some old spinach that should've been in the bin. 8 tiny chili-prawns that hadn't been finished from a snack lunch. two carrots. a bit of old broccoli. salt remnants.

in some lights that portion of potato/beetroot mash looks like churned up offal, doesn't it?

mo money, mo problems

yup. a hitler moustache.

it's tempting. richard herring attempted to bring it back into the mainstream last year with his hitler moustache themed show, and according to interviews seemed to get reactions that ranged from down-right horror to total apathy when he walked round the streets of london.

some real great men have sported the toothbrush moustache. that bloke from On The Buses, what i never watched because it looked a bit average. charlie chaplin had a hitler moustache and he was one of the funniest men in the world... hmm... wait.. actually that sentence is not entirely correct.

adolf hitler had a charlie chaplin moustache and he was one of the funniest men in the world.

... that'll have to do.

moustaches in general are pretty fricken ace. even if you don't care for a magnificent fascist one you could grow a lip-adornment reminiscent of burt reynolds, ron jeremy or jason lee and be satisfied.

or a generic cowboy situation on your face would burst pleasure all about.


i've just signed up for movember and invited a fair collection of sea-faring gents and lady-hangers-on to join together in raising some money for prostate cancer... when i say for prostate cancer, i actually mean against it, but thats the way the english language works sometimes.

if the team comes together we will spend the entire of november forcing out some facial sprouts and hopefully get some financial praise for our efforts, which we will deliver (indirectly) up the rectums of men around the world who've had to suffer from the frightening infection of the smooth muscle just up behind their perineum that helps us all provide a steady and fluid ejaculation. and we all like ejaculating, don't we?

you can join my team if you like. we're called 8-foot M0LEcule. i'm not exactly 100% on why, but that's the name i gave the team. in hindsight, i wish i'd called it Smooth Ejaculate, but that's what you get for doing the research after the team name. cart before the horse and all that.

anyway, speaking of come .. come and join us! grow a tash! make money for some bloke's gunpowder!

wise guys

norman wisdom died yesterday. I remember watching his films when I was younger and it wasn't a case of whether or not I liked them, it was just a fact that they were good comedy films and you have no other option but to enjoy them.

about wisdom, the news would (and probably did) happily spout that happy allegation, "Norman Wisdom was one of the 'true greats' of British slapstick comedy."

it's true, he was.

he's part of a dying breed. an actual dying breed. a breed of great entertainers that include Ronnie Barker, Bob Monkhouse and Graham Chapman. and loads of others, too numerous to list.

would it were that I could say an unending list. how good that'd be. unfortunately it's not, and that's what wisdom's death made me immediately consider.

- where are the new 'true greats' coming from? -

who is there under the age of 30 that will one day be called a jewel in the entertainment crown? who is having the impact now, that the truly great entertainers have had for the last ten decades?

of course, this accolade has to be earned and when Norman Wisdom was 25 years old people probably hadn't predicted that he would become Great. we probably do have these people in our midst but we don't know who they are yet.

but who the hell are they?

simon cowell sure as buggery isn't searching for them.

ride a cock horse to banbury cross

BRIEF NOTE TO ALL EMPLOYERS

what workforce would perform better?:
a group of people who are trusted, democratic and given free reign to be creative in their job,
or a line of workers micromanaged into boredom, low morale and submission?

creativity vs. uniformity.
which one makes for a constantly vibrant, ever-changing, always improving workplace? which one makes a workforce feel like a bunch of mindless nobodys?

for me it's a no-brainer, but then I don't spend my working day creating problems where there are none.