i like this piece of marketing from the No To AV crowd. for a start, it's the first one that appears to resemble anything truthful. by that, i mean i can believe that someone called "Alice" lives in a place called "Islington". it's far better than some of their other propaganda.
the reason it amuses me, is the poster relies entirely on the concept that popularity is directly linked to how good something is. it puts faith in the theory that 'if more people like it, then it must be good / if less people like it, it must be bad'.
but loads of people like The X-Factor. Whigfield had a Number One single with Saturday Night. Katie Price's latest morony still sells thousands of shitty twat-mags, and the film Titanic won several oscars. none of them have even an inkling of any value.
and don't forget BetaMax, MiniDiscs, Banksy, The Sex Pistols, sharks, De Lorean cars, linux - all very unpopular, but nonetheless all fucking brilliant, and usually much better than their rivals.
that poster, No To AV folk, is an argument with as much validity as saying "this new shampoo can give you ten times more colour radiance".
AV takes more points of view into account than just one very basic sum. the election of who runs our country should be more complicated than it is. you should be able to have an opinion if your first choice is that of principal. politicians should have to work harder.
and there we are. 2011 plops into place as predictably as 2010 did. and 2006. happy new year, you hobos.
welcome to a year that starts under a useless government and will finish under a useless government, that much is guaranteed. so what am i going to do about it? bend over and take a flaccid iron rod, or spin round and grin menacingly into their eyes?
every year for about the last seven, I have said "this was the best year of my life," and it is not without truth. my enjoyment of the world has increased in leaps and bounds since I managed to put behind me how fucking awful i found school, how disappointing university was, and how sorrowful the time i ended up working in sales and retail became. thankfully i'm out of all those things now.
the only thing about 2010 that i didn't enjoy was my job. i liked some bits of it, but the rest was dragging me down. i have now cured that as i sit face-to-face with my own freelance future. i'm happily putting aside the fact that my first freelance booking has been and currently is, covering my old role in my old job; because now i'm doing it on my own terms. it makes a big difference. now i actually care about what i'm doing.
every other aspect of 2010 was the best i've ever had it. i had brilliant friends, i had a brilliant family, i had a brilliant hobby and i had a brilliant lady-freund. i still have all those things in 2011, and now i also have a job that i'm excited about.
2010 was the best year of my life. 2011 will be the best year of my life.
i thought i should bring something to your attention. you may already know about it, or your personal assistant army of bikini-clad chavscum may have missed it while they were engulfing your unbelievable manhood with their desperate lips. if you have missed it, it appears that a bunch of nobodies - including suggs (who?) and the kooks (what?) - have got together to record a single in the lame attempt to knock your x-factor single from the much-deserved and arbitrary Christmas Number One slot.
this group of artists that no-one has ever heard of have decided to cover the legendary John Cage's track "4'33"", which is just four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. how silly! who would even want that? i mean, if people didn't want to hear the x-factor single they could just turn the radio off. i'm listening to 4'33" right now, actually. (i bought the album, including all the remixes.) it's so incredible to think that people would rather pay money for silence than listen to your release.
i haven't bought the x-factor single yet, and as such i don't even know what it is. to be honest i missed the x-factor final as i didn't know when it was on. partly this is because i was normally out meeting other humans on a saturday night, and partly it was because someone offered to gouge my eyes out with a dagger. perhaps you should think about spending more money on advertising, or organise some sort of ridiculous media frenzy surrounding all the performers on your "talent" show, then it wouldn't be so easy to avoid miss it.
actually thinking about it, i think i did accidentally catch some of the x-factor show. the television was on while i was getting ready to go to a music gig of music performed by a real-life band of guys who had worked hard on their art and written the songs themselves. we temporarily lost the signal to the channel we were watching and searched for another one that worked. we ended up on ITV (because that button is largely unused and was therefore easy to operate). we saw about 3 or 4 minutes before my girlfriend vomited and i'm pretty sure it was the x-factor even though it looked like an advertisement for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
during that 3-4 minutes we saw a humanoid who looked like cheryl cole spout-forth a classic hit by music historian Jay Zee which is a re-hash of an annoying song from an old musical starring an precocious little drama-school girl. luckily it wasn't cheryl cole, though; otherwise i think i may have shot myself (that awful pikey scumbag is famous only because she is pretty, and no-one seems to have realised how much of a talentless, wretched bottom-feeder she is). i'm so glad you haven't fallen into the media trap so many others have and allowed that racist on your show. no, luckily this spitting image of cheryl was completely different, even her name "cher" was nothing like "cheryl." and instead of miming to an autotuned backing track like (violent offender) tweedy does, cher stood proud in her complete inability to sing. this bravery was astounding, and i hope that she was rewarded by some sort of fix that enabled her to win the x-factor celebration. i can't imagine there was anyone better.
a christmas without the x-factor single being at number one wouldn't be the same. it would be reminiscent of that horrible year some time ago, when half a million people bought 'killin in the name of..' by rage against the machine instead of whatever that song was that whoever won x-factor did. do you remember that? do you? most of those people probably hadn't even heard of rage against the machine, so they might not have even been buying the song 'cause they liked it, only because they didn't like you. that's hardly a reason to buy a single.
why would no-one like you, simon? why?! you're totally rich and you've made your money by your own level of integrity and the integrity of the people who keep telling you how great you are. you remember 'saturday night' by whigfield, right? that song didn't get to number one because it was good, it got to number one because it got into people's lives and was almost impossible to ignore. like an infection. that's like you, simon. you're like an infection. you've slid into consciousness and remained there despite any attempts to remove you.
your magnificent offering to the integrity of british music has some real backing from some significant people. for example, drugged-up fuckhead Pete Doherty didn't even turn up to the 4'33" recording. i think that was probably in support of you and [insert name of x-factor winner here]. billy bragg was so desperate to not be at the recording of 4'33" of absolutely nothing, that he had to provide his contribution from a mobile phone that sat in the recording studio. he probably even had to pay for that phone call.
the chances of this ridiculous behaviour even achieving it's goal are entirely slim. compare it, for example, to the other online cause of over 630,000 people who are backing the track 'surfin bird' to win. loads of those people would be from other countries like america, so if they buy it the sales won't even affect your x-factor single progress. and americans are from a different continent, so they probably haven't even heard of you. therefore it can't possibly be a reaction against your torrent of musical disease.
perhaps if all the people in the world who didn't like (or even despised) the x-factor got together with one plan they would obliterate you from the music scene altogether. ten thousand here, half a million there, six hundred thousand people somewhere else. coo, there's a lot. however lots of those people have wide and varied tastes in music and don't take too kindly to one single command telling them what they are and aren't allowed to like. if only people weren't such free-thinkers, simon, then this would all be much easier. for example, some want to buy 'surfin bird,' some want to buy '4'33"' and some want to throw their own fecal matter at your hair. not a chance of winning there. millions of people who hate you will have no impact whatsoever. ha!
simon, i once heard that you were thinking of doing the same thing to politics that you did to the british music industry. i heard that you were going to attempt to create a television show where the sorts of viewers that watch the x-factor would also have a contribution to the way our country works. is this true? i hope so, that would be hilarious. imagine the x-factor demographic running the country, it would be like a dickhead being given a shotgun. SO funny.
i should tell you that i also bought surfin' bird by the trashmen to see if it was better than the x-factor single that i haven't listened to. you should also know that i am now going to buy all the other tracks suggested by the various different online rages against your machine. i think i can only draw a fair argument against them if i make sure i've listened to them all. i already have most tracks, but i thought i should buy them again just to make sure i have the latest version. i won't need to buy yours as loads of other x-factor fans will (if their dole money is enough). the money i save not buying yours will be used to buy 4'33" again, to make absolutely sure i am totally up to date. i do this in whole-hearted support of you and your manufacturing system.
i have my fingers crossed that you win this year. that way, people will get to hear a new improved version of whatever original song you decide to recycle. and there will be an overwhelming amount of self-satisfaction for anyone who believes that any proceeds will go to a charity. it will also get loads of airplay on radio stations, which would be better than DJs having to play four and a half minutes of dead-air. i stopped listening to the radio ages ago because it seems to be full of shit, so DJs playing silence would be no different to me. however loads of people still buy compilation albums like Now That's What I Call Music, so there must still be a call for mediocre songs performed by mediocre people.
good luck, simon. you may only have a short time left before the nation can't take it any more. i can't wait for that day.
as i write this the streets of whitehall are being overrun with spotty teenagers, and bright yellow police chaps are playing 'it' with them for the third time in about two weeks. and i think it's great. not much gives me more pleasure that a few thousand people going into westminster to shout "screw you david cameron, you vapid, snivelling sphincter. you damp, elitist swamp of pointlessness. you horrid, horrid, wet lump of old toilet roll. screw you, david cameron; and screw your poor excuse for a chess-team cabinet and their flappy vagina-faces."
those squealing little kids are embodying the fury that is felt across the country by people who would happily join in the taunts, if they didn't have to spend every daylight hour working their dicks off to cover the cost of their council tax. i don't condone the stupidity of the runt who threw the fire extinguisher from the tory HQ roof, but i must applaud the sentiment of the whole get-together.
screw you, david cameron.
and you, nick clegg. don't pretend this has nothing to do with you.
if only the 'riots' had any hope of making any difference. if only those waif-like pimple holders could change the age-old fact that political decisions are all made and finalised by a bunch of wealthy people in a room full of mutual masturbation and social detachment.
well done, children. good for you. smash that window. light a fire.
sadly, of course, even if it does make a difference; even if the average human is able to afford the "accessible" higher education system in the future, what they won't realise is it is largely pointless. even if they do make it to a university, chances are it will be a shit one with budget problems and half-arsed facilities. okay, i admit it, i didn't enjoy uni that much. i mainly wish i hadn't bothered. i mean, it's not like it's benefitted me in any way - it hasn't added endless fortunes onto my salary, or anyone i know. i reckon.. no, i'm certain i would've been better off financially if i'd just used that three years to start a business, or train in something useful. all my degree got me was two years running a clothes shop for a man who thought "make more money you stupid cunt" was an acceptable form of staff motivation, and an ability to write a Curriculum Vitae in basic english - good enough to get me into a job in which i'd learn everything i'd need to know for doing that job.
of course this may have been improved if i'd gone to a good university. instead, i went to northampton. aside from the fact that northampton is a soulless grey square with only a couple of sweat-holes (night clubs) to change the view, there was nothing to do. not one student club appealed to me. not one. the uni was geared toward people who made leather and muscled dumb-wipes who liked stroking the phallus of sports science. that's why i spent most of my free time visiting troubadour at Royal Holloway uni.
actually Royal Holloway was quite nice. a pretty campus and legions of beautiful, unobtainable women. and the syllabus was apparently good too. of course, there's no way i would've got in because entrance was based on what academic grades i got at a-level; not how awesome i am. and i only got two a-levels because when i realised in the first couple of weeks that i didn't want to continue pursuing the pointless folly of Physics, my school decided there was too much paperwork involved for me to change to something else.
for the £300 my parents spent on extra physics classes i'm sure plenty of underpaid teachers would've happily filled those forms in.
oh well.
those little vandals currently infesting the streets around parliament are great, but sadly their efforts are a waste. sorry guys. get a job; under our coalition government those are easy to come by.
or if it's the sex and drugs of uni you're interested in, just grab your free-travelcard and wriggle your way down to clapham. you'll find all the STDs you want down there.
this blog has been rated U, by the writer himself.
suitable for everyone.
the nazis were great censors. they successfully managed to censor anything they liked, on whim. books, newspapers, music, jokes. did you know jazz was illegal in nazi germany? if you listened to it, you could be arrested, beaten and sent to a concentration camp. or worse. if there is anything worse.
instead of reading work by brecht or listening to mahler, the nazi police made sure that your creative influences were limited to a strict list of pro-nazi, pro-hitler, pro-racist gumpf. like mein gumpf. they decided what was good for you, and they made damn sure you didn't get much say in it.
censorship is power over people. power over the way they think or feel. power over their pool of resources. it is the restriction of liberties. none of this paragraph is particularly groundbreaking; suggesting censorship is a way of strangling the people you're oppressing is almost as obvious as saying 'royal blue' is one of the colours you could categorise under the title: 'shades of blue'.
the russians have been pretty good at censoring stuff over the years too. throughout history they've been in and out of censorship laws, making sure that you didn't get to reap the diverse culture that the world has created, in favour of government-chosen material that encouraged you to believe the government were ace. if one were to write "i don't think the government are doing a particularly good job" in something, it would be an automatic banishment to the depths of a secret library a thousand miles below moscow. imagine if we had that now, we wouldn't have any newspapers except The Daily Telegraph. yoik.
the chinese officials are well known for their stance on censorship; they love it. they love deciding what can and can't be read by the 'free' people of the people's republic of china. you've heard of the Great Firewall of China, i'm sure. ask a chinese teenager about the disaster at tianmenman square and they'll look at you blankly, or think you're talking about the colour of the flagstones or something. instead of the truth, they get a rewritten history that is as irrelevant as it is misleading.
iran! there's a good one. iran's regime is one rife with censorship, and if i'd written this blog within their walls i should expect to be whisked away, twatted in the face with the butt-of-a-gun and hidden evermore in an underground room with limited access to comfort or vitamin D.
iran loves a bit of internet censorship, particularly. they even have restrictions on broadband speeds, supposedly so that if you did somehow manage to get into a site that was deemed inappropriate, you'd get bored of waiting for it to load way before the pictures of boobies appeared.
iran officials also think it's okay to chuck stones at a woman until she dies, which does make me question their judgement as to whether something is suitable for general consumption or not. also they eat carrot jam and make gravestones that look like cocks. irany?
thankfully, we live in a country where we have free access to all the creative exploits of humans throughout history. we live in a country of free speech and free media. what a joy it is that we don't have to worry about whether what we're reading is indeed the full story. we can even read mein gumpf if we want; without fear that someone will batter down our front door and punch us in the face.
and we are allowed to say what we want, as long as it's not with the objective of inciting violence (fair enough, that's just rude).
thankfully we can be sure that our voice is heard, even if it is not listened to (this blog for example). it's a basic human right and we get it, so that's nice. support your local library.
in a really backwards way, some MPs are trying to get a bill to stand against the idea that internet service providers are allowed to decide what we can and can't have free access to. rather than ISPs asking for the right to censor material, and being told by our democracy, "no, fuck off," our representatives (heh) in parliament are having to fight it. having to fight, for example, sky broadband deciding what news websites appear on our google search.
have you ever watched sky news? it's like the sun is having a posh wank on camera. and then vomiting. when i type "news" into google, i don't want sky news to be my option, i want real news, not this grubby nonsense. fuck me, it's hard siding with peter andre. that poor, simple man.
hm.
sky is also a business. it is run by executives. therefore it's motivations are finally financial. i think it's safe to assume, then, that if sky broadband get to decide where your internet fun is heading they'll probably lean towards the places that result in a bit of cash in their pockets. or lining the fuel tanks of their aston martins.
what if there was a story about a Sky executive committing fraud or having an illegitimate child. of course, people in powerful positions never ever do anything untoward, but what if...? does Sky then have the right to restrict the news and prevent as many people as possible finding out? where would that right stop?
and i don't want to read fucking sky news.
even if you did want to read sky news (i'll just pause for my prejudices to take root........ there we are) the decision whether you can or can't should absolutely lay with you. i may not agree with your beliefs, but i will fight to my death for your right to believe them. for internet companies to be granted the right to point our thoughts in certain directions, we are one step closer to the censorship in iran. and one step away from the freedom of the speech.
so watch out for that.
----
next on my list of things to do is send a very slightly edited version of this to my MP (basically i'll remove the video of peter andre). my local MP is a human rights lawyer in the labour party, so he might be able to read some of the longer words.
feel free to copy and paste anything you want in a letter to yours too.
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.
i live in a 'swing state' area. some people say whoever wins the seat in tooting will win the general election. i've yet to be in when any lib-dem or labour party campaigners have called round, but i've had my doorbell knocked by a few separate conservatives. each time a similar thing happens. i answer the door. "martin black?" they ask. they are either an old lady with a plum in her mouth or a young banker-looking boy with a proud blue tie and an inability to grow facial hair. "nope, he doesn't live here," i reply with more than an element of truth. we then go through a complicated system of crossing martin's name of the list and writing mine. every time.
"did you know tooting is predominantly a conservative area?" they ask. "no it isn't," i say, "sadiq khan is the MP and it's been a labour area since it's inception in 1974." "oh... could i interest you in a postal vote?" "no thanks, i'll go to the polling station." i wonder what other magical things they can offer as the main contender for the throne.
blah blah blah, nonsense about the tories will clear up litter and keep the council tax as low as the Labour party have done for 35 years.
"so who do you think you'll vote for?" they look at me with a disinterest i imagine the lower classes normally get. "not the tory party." it's the one decision i made at the outset. "okay, bye." and they walk off.
what? no fight? no attempt at trying to sway me or question my reasons? no evidence of a back-bone?
bye then.
this morning one of my housemates received david cameron's contract(seen here writing it himself) in the post. the only housemate that had already stated she was voting tory got it. so presumably most of the 3.5 million copies that have been sent out are just preaching to the already converted. 2 million first class stamps would be more than £50 million. for no reason. yikes. i hope they cleared it with george osborne.
david cameron's team of writers begin with this statement, interestingly criticising the politicians who were at the centre of the expenses scandal and those who remain out-of-touch with the people of the country (which sounds like a description of the tory party to me). ... to apologise?
DC's writers then set out to fit the word 'change' as many times as they can into one document, in a carefully written PR bollock that seems to mainly have been copied from the greatest hits of barack obama (i advise you to click that link. it features one of the most embarrassing political videos of all time).
the contract is then filled with a load of generic statements about the good things the tory party will do. so that's nice. it's pretty much the same list of tasks that any of the parties would send out if they felt they needed to state them in short, simple sentences for the likes of short, simple people like me.
his writers then state that at the next election we can decide not to vote for them. thanks dave, i didn't realise that.
"Dwil Caan"?
the main problem i have with politicians, all politicians, is that parliament seems to be much more about a pissing contest than finding new ways to make the country work better. high level MPs, who should be working together to build the economy, make jobs, cut crime, decrease world poverty, rescue the environment, provide adequate health services, y'know, generally improve the lives of everyone in the world... instead of doing that they automatically take an opposing stance on any policy - regardless of it's merits - and waste their breath on cheap personal insults.
cameron recently joked that tony blair's sun-tan returning to the political stage would do wonders for sales of Tango. jokes that aren't funny are totally worth the time.
labour MP david wright tweeted about the tories: "you can put lipstick on a scum-sucking pig, but it's still a scum-sucking pig." ... constructive.
...and so many more. at least insults don't have a carbon footprint. unlike 3.5 million copies of a pointless document.
thankfully david cameron's writers sign off the whole thing with a message of pride about negative campaigning: although it didn't seem to consider this: or that they must've spent a fair amount of money making sure that if you type "labour" into google you get this:
it's not obvious who you should vote for. none of them are great. i'm a pretty good judge of character most of the time though, and the robotic david cameron just seems to inspire mistrust in every cell of my body. a bit like my new mistrust for anyone who lives in dagenham.
highlights of the second televised debate. it was broadcast by sky news, so there will probably an advertisement for something you don't need at the beginning.
here's the first parliamentary debate between the 3 leaders of the main parties. absolutely no surprise to find that it's just petty squabbling between gordon brown and david cameron, both who are far more concerned with trying to undermine each other than actual politics. it's like a playground, with two bullies scrapping to make sure everyone knows which one is the biggest and bestest, ignoring any rules of engagement and weirdly agreeing with each other on most points, despite presenting themselves as opposites.
to one side of the fight, a quiet little chap is there trying to prevent all the onlookers getting laid out by a stray fist.
"the more they attack each other, the more they start to sound the same."
hmm.
unfortunately it was televised by ITV, so it's a pretty vulgar presentation, that probably didn't help with the WWF smackdown atmosphere.
i have been getting all political of late. in my slightly liberal job, where i get to watch BBC News 24 as much as i want (normally i watch children's TV but this politics thingy seems to be holding my attention for now), i have made time to watch as many Party Manifesto press conferences as possible.
my take is this:
Labour Party: pretty dull and uninspiring. made me phase out of my own head. the cartoons are a partly weird, and mostly patronising. it's pretty hard to get excited about Gordon Brown, as he sucks the atmosphere from a room like a dyson on 3-phase. also, in my local elections, the labour candidate has been found using House of Commons headed paper to send out political 'propaganda' .. he'll probably go to hell for such a travesty against nature and an unforgivable use of stationary. it wouldn't surprise me if someone died because of this hateful crime. god, he's like a terrorist.
Liberal Democrats: unremarkable and empty, seemed realistically accepting of the fact that they'll never win. but i did like that Vince Cable chap, he's the first politician i've ever heard that actually sounds like a human being. and he reminds me a bit of ken campbell.
Scottish National Party: talked sense for people in scotland, but left me cold. i am not scottish, that's probably why.
UKIP: appears to be a joke party. like a parody of the BNP, but without the dedication. their poster campaign seems to have been created by spotty teenagers, dirtily giggling to themselves from behind the bike-sheds.
Plaid Cwmru: sort of inconsequential. but good for them.
The Conservative Party: a lot of amazing sounding promises, that are quickly replaced by the overwhelming feeling of being lied to by a guy who would use the death of his own son as a political crow-bar. alluded to the fact that they were presenting from a building Doctor Who was filmed in, but as a negative. perhaps because david tennant is a labour supporter. they spend a lot of time moaning that Labour are running a tory-attacking campaign, but i've yet to see any of it. i have seen a huge amount of petty bemoaning from the tory camp to the labour camp though, which isn't "real adult politics," more, "jealous children in the playground."
heh heh.. "labour camp"
so, not a great outlook so far. i didn't expect anyone to channel Barack Obama, but it doesn't bode well that we have a complete lack of inspirational leaders. i suppose i'll just stick to my choice of unashamedly voting tactically. my borough is one of the 'swing states' and it's an incredibly fine line between a labour and tory win.
i'll boil it down to this: would i vote for a human rights lawyer who - by all accounts - has noticeably improved the town i live in and rebels against his party when he feels strongly about something, or a management consultant (urgh) for a huge multinational pharmaceutical company based in america, who strikes me as a smug posh-boy?
just the other day i was thinking, "if only there were more paintings of barack obama spending quality time with unicorns." thankfully, there are men in the world like dan lacey who seek to fill that void.
all over the world, we are thankful. for far too long that hole has caused us trouble, and now we can relax.
have a look at the entire gallery here. i am a particular fan of the one with hugh laurie and stalin.
it's either morbidly excruciatingly terrible, or a piece of genius like no man has ever seen.
... pretty sure we can all make an accurate enough guess and go for the former. although because i'm in an average mood i'm going to be double generous and say there were a few moments of greatness.
maybe a bit less than a few.
at least it doesn't pretend to be something more than it is. which is a low-budget zombie flick with as many boobies as possible.
admittedly there is a little bit of trying to be too clever for it's boots - e.g. an 'artistic' choice to name all the characters after classic figures from surrealist theatre (the name of strip club owner is "Ian Esco" .. oh dear). and that sort of thing seems a bit wasteful anyway as i can imagine the only lasting fan-base is going to be made up of socially deffective teenaged boys, and the sort of adult male that gets together with its mates to talk about fisting and play soggy biscuit.
speaking of soggy biscuit ... the marketing is predominantly jenna jameson: the obvious selling ploy of the whole thing. apparently she's the biggest adult-film 'actress' in pornographic history. being more of a fan of german lolita-teen crush gonzo, i've missed most of her work, but - bless her - it's probably hard to find jobs when you're an aging pornstar with seams on your breasts and a face like a bored catfish. at least she was good at pretending like she was enjoying herself while doing something demeaning. i guess that's why she's the success she is.
is it me, or does excessive plastic surgery actually make you look older? jameson has obviously had a fair old facelift, so she's starting to look like that cat-man guy. maybe i'm on my own, but whenever i see a facelift i automatically over-compensate. so to me the old porn-haddock looks to be in her mid-forties..
(pause for a quick bit of research)
Fountain of Knowledge Wikipedia says:
Jenna Jameson (born Jenna Marie Massoli; April 9, 1974) is an American entrepreneur and former pornographic actress ..
so, mathematicians, she's 35. oops.
anyway, this wasn't meant to be about cosmetic surgery, this was supposedly a film review about a crappy movie.
don't watch it unless you're a 15 year old boy... or you love rotting fish.
so it turns out all politicians are dishonest and spend their time working out how to get the tax-payer to buy them dog food instead of preventing job losses and war.
there's a surprise.
of course we could follow david cameron's advice (if we get the chance) and vote for a new government. and what a choice we would have: we could elect a racist, a thief, a dimwit or a misguided eco-terrorist. or we could avoid the tory party and try out one of the other bands of merry men. the list is shamefully exhaustable, very quickly. and unfortunately is dissipated before you arrive at anyone with any obvious value.
literally, i cannot think of one british politician (in the history of me taking any notice) that didn't strike me as a bit shifty or conniving. diane abbot seems quite nice, but surface impressions can't be relied on anymore...
for example, i mean, hazel blears looked like a lady who lived in a forest cooking gingerbread biscuits for the villagers and it turned out she was the biker ringleader of a property fraud gang.
it's a shame twisted-but-straight-talking tony benn has gone to the big pipesmoke cloud in the attic. i disagree with a some of the things he says, but at least he has substance in his words and hasn't boiled his politics down to wet cardboard sound-bites. a bloody rare thing nowadays; in a world where televised house of commons sessions tend to resemble those PC vs. Mac adverts.
'hi, i'm a tory.' 'and i'm a member of the labour party. what's wrong with your face, tory?' 'oh this? i tripped over a power cable.' 'ouch. that was pretty stupid of you.' 'what are you doing about the financial crisis? ugly.' 'i'm saving the world... um.. that is i've cut some budget stuff which will make more jobs and there are 100 more nurses in hamstead.' 'well it would seem - my honourable friend - that you have (INSERT PUN HERE) and blah blah blah your face smells.' (MURMURS OF AGREEMENT FROM THE BACK BENCHERS) 'what my honourable friend doesn't,.. (MURMURS CONTINUE) what he doesn't under... (MURMURS LOUDER)...' ... speaker of the house interjects; 'udder UDDER'
'what my immoral.. [cough].. honourable friend doesn't seem to understand is that i've made loads of nurses jobs happen all on my own. and my power cable pops right out on a magnet. and the nurses jobs. and also i've seen the report on my learned friend's handwriting skills and it really is awful.' 'well you don't see the wood for the trees. or the fish for the chips. or the smut for the internet connection.' 'good popular culture reference.' 'thanks, ron weasely.' 'new nurses jobs.' 'the apprentice.' 'the economy.' 'facebook.' 'dick.'
'udder.'
and that's modern politics, i'm afraid. that's how it works. well, that and stuff like The Thick Of It.
it's not something i'm particularly thrilled about and until yesterday i was very excited to be leaving on friday to start a new job with people who are less responsible for the pig-vomit in which we currently reside. i use the past tense regarding my upcoming job as i have just yesterday discovered i'm a victim of The Crunch before even starting employment, and consequently have nowhere to move to.
anyway, at least i can take some solace in the fact that i'm not directly employed by The Bank, only to work as a contractor for them in their HQ. very little solace, but some at least.
more solace came (past tense again) from the fact that it's one of the very few banks that have performed quite well and haven't taken huge wads of taxpayers' money to prevent liquidation and drive nice cars.
so why the past tense back there?
well, far more important, permanent and damaging to the population of the world than a shortage of money is the fact that we're rapidly approaching the day when we've gone past the point of no return on the whole climate thing. there are a fair few africans who'd suggest we've already done that, but, y'know, it doesn't matter until it reaches our plates does it?
pause for sanctimonious reflection
“but how does my bank's average financial performance have dick to do with my self-righteous attitude to climate change?” if you were reading this properly you might have asked. after I punched you in the crotch i’d explain that i just spent the last few hours of my shift listening to lord lawson. if you can’t be roused enough to click that link, i’ll explain that he gave a pre-dinner speech detailing the pros of global warming. the pros.
obviously he spent some time explaining that the problem is all a big lie and we don’t need to worry about it, this based on the fact that it’s a difficult science and can’t possibly be worked out using maths. this is backed up by at least one third of scientists.
and there will be an average temperature increase of between 1-4 degrees, but that's actually only a small issue really because people in the developed world are pretty good at adapting to their environment.
and as for the developing world, their average GDP will only drop from $95 to $85 per capita which is hardly any different. i expect this woman will be pleased to know that.
other benefits include the obvious: there will be a huge decrease in the amount of people who die from hypothermia. again, that woman will be relieved.
also, it means we can grow more tropical fruit in britain. although i thought we could do that anyway... with greenhouses.
some of his more interesting theories included the idea that all those trying to fight global warming are merely victims of a short term religious fad, like christianity... wha?!
it concerns me quite a lot that this kind of conversation is taking place at all, with someone who genuinely thinks that it's not worth doing anything to combat climate change because china or india will never sign up to kyoto agreements. as britain's impact is only 2% of the problem, it's pointless to even try. what's even more concerning is that it's happening at the top level of financial institutions. i should mention that this dinner event was attended by 20 of the most senior bankers in the country, people who have publicly accepted personal responsibility for their part in the economic crisis. to ease their guilty hearts - i suppose - he did suggest the silver lining on the environmentally deluded, un-economical mass-panic of the nation... that if we're all spending our time worrying about climate change, we'll be distracted from what the banks are doing.
yeah, i get to hang out with some quality people at work.
if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. i think that's fair and simple to understand. this twat is definitely part of the problem. this is a guy who (apart from being a lord, whatever that means) puts the economy far far above the environment. that's pretty easy to do in the current (economic) climate; you'll easily gain some followers. the way i see it though, is the economy is just information on sheets of paper. if everything really goes tits up and the world economy reaches an irreparable point, it's just an abstract concept that the human race can live through. as for the environment, if that goes we're screwed. seriously. we can't produce food. the end.
we survived millions of years without money, we'll survive a couple of weeks without water.
the trouble is, it's a hard battle. to all you readers (and if you've got this far through my ignorant pontification, well done), those of you who already consider climate change a problem then you'll perhaps be nodding in agreement to these words. otherwise, unfortunately our ammunition is made up of stupid sounding words and phrases, and self-regarding holier-than-thou attitudes that will make skeptics even more bloody minded.
i can't blame them. recently one of the most well-read, well-informed people i know told me "the gulf stream has already stopped, we are just experiencing 'echo' effects" which - frankly - sounds ridiculous and is a concept so out of my personal realm it becomes simply a random sequence of words. while she is most probably completely right, she is having to resort to these wacky, abstract, distant claims to get her point across. and that's where we'll always fail to increase our numbers.
tell someone their choice is between a load of ice melting in their lifetime, or not being able to pay next months rent, they'll make an obvious and forgivable decision.
oh god, it's 01:28. i should go to bed, i need to be up for work in the morning to help them talk about the money they make. then i'll work on my tan.
i like this piece of marketing from the No To AV crowd. for a start, it's the first one that appears to resemble anything truthful. by that, i mean i can believe that someone called "Alice" lives in a place called "Islington". it's far better than some of their other propaganda.
