Miscellaneous musings that I couldn't think of putting anywhere else.
Life is utterly miserable because of you personally
I can't take credit for this next piece. A work colleague gave it to me about a year ago and I've been meaning to put it up for an age. We don't know who the writer is but you have to applaud them for getting almost all of the worst human traits possible into one piece. It affected me when I first read it because there are things in there that seemed like they were directly aimed at me and it made me question how bad/shallow/empty am I?
I guess the wonder of the piece is that probably only Ghandi or Mother Theresa could have read it and something not apply to them. See what you think.
"Issues of injustice are passé, you complain of compássion fatigue. When in your car, you curse the traffic. A sacrifice for you is not buying what you know is tainted. A luxury is buying it anyway. If your hypocrisy is illuminated you smirkingly quip lighten up. Your desires are steeped in boredom: neophilia overrides ever appreciating what you might know well. Thinking, for you, is something that one can do too much of - it's the only thing that you do in moderation. When you choose to perfrom the indefensible, you moan that you were tired of there is no one else to blame. Howling in a storm of self-constructed anguish, the worst of your traumas would always centre upon yourself. Events of importance leave you cold whilst you remain obsessed with the oft repeated minutiae of your trivial existence. You effetely surrender to a reliance on hope so as to hobble any active involvements, just as you satisfy yourself with demonstrations of potential: validation through action would be too radical and dangerous. The course of your life has no qualitative difference to that of any other animal, save for the quirk that you have the cleverness to make pseudoconscious noises about your predicament. It has been a studied effort for you to take the cultures available and banalise then into the specious rhetoric that glosses the veneer of your comfort seeking. Happiness becomes the catch-all legitimiser for any personal indulgence. Compassion is something that you might theoretically advocate but in practice it's fuck-thy-neighbour-for-fear-that-they-fuck-thee.
Puerile minds would sneer at the semblances of reason that are contorted to be your considered approach. You, of all, have options to change and yet all you do is consolidate your privileges; in the face of difficulty you use these privileges to evade any cause. Conformism and medicrity are the comforting norms: any deviation is couched in bleated excuses of why you had no choice. You seek to sustain the unsustainable by grouping with the equally flip-minded and then insisting that your collectively held lies define some universal truths - with the remarkable coincidence that you emerge at the centre of things. Paralysis is what you aspire to if you thought your motives through. The complete form of this would be death. Rarely do questions fill your mind since your prefer to just preen your complacency with a mass of fucile truisms. Accept it, the future cannot lie with your kind. Then spend the rest of your life lying to yourself about knowing this. Forever defensive, you misconstrue open-ness for weakness and leap to exploit any trusting offer. For fear of thinking you hide behind tradition. For fear of commitment you utter only platitudes. For fear of feeling, you wallow in sentimentality. For fear of affirmation, you lean on cynicism. Expedience becomes the term for doing now what seems most personally profitable. Planning is the cunning to ensure that this remains so. When things are well things are as they should be; when something does not suit you it becomes a monstrous injustice: that the two are different sides of the same thing is carefully elided. Your wants overwhelm others' needs. The inequities are gloated upon with teleological argument that they demonstrate the natural order of things. Ordure more like. Give something more than detritus back you bastard."
Myspace and Facebook profiles set to private
What a waste of time on a social networking site. The only people that can see your profile are those that already know you. Why bother having a profile?
It’s almost as stupid as those that want to add you whilst making no attempt to engage you.
Stickiness of shit
I know this is an icky subject but you do have to put your hand up and congratulate the adhesive qualities of human shit.
I mean here’s something that can affix itself to what must be the most slippery surface known to man. Vertical, wet porcelain.
Amazing.
How sad I’ve become with those late night text adverts
It seems that because I find myself stumbling across so many of those late night, text ‘sexy’ adverts that I’ve actually started to notice a model who has been appearing in a ‘series’ of these adverts.
Now it’s not like I’ve been sitting in front of the TV with a stack of Kleenex on my knee in preparation but I’m always guilty of flicking when the adverts come on and it seems many channels time their adverts to come at the same time.
Normally the models are fake titted munters trying way too hard to look sexy and never seem to appear in more than one advert. This particular company however must be doing well as it appears that they’ve commissioned a run of adverts with the same three models. So far we’ve had the indoor pool, the Jacuzzi, the gym and now the outdoor pool.
What makes this one girl stand out? Needless to say it isn’t her acting skills or her sense of humour but rather a pretty face, blonde hair, a little softness and a killer rack.
Man, I either need to get out more or go to bed earlier!
Why I wear my silly t-shirts
A woman recently emailed me to ask why I wore my ‘insulting’ t-shirts (check in the galleries for some examples) when girls preferred chatting to nice guys. Here is the bones of my response:
“As to your thoughts on the t-shirt, it's a valid point but ultimately when out in a bar/club, people don't look over and see the 'nice guy' tag floating above your head. They need to see something else to make you stand out. Some rely on their looks, some on revealing clothes.
Why do many women wear short skirts, high heels or low cut tops to accentuate parts of their body, if not to look more attractive than others and be noticed? I've had many years of anonymity from wearing smart shirts and not hiding as you would call it. Trust me, very little happens.
I don't know if you are in a relationship or are married but I would say that those who are have a completely skewed perception of what male/female interaction is like in the real world. You don't just walk up to someone and say 'Hey I'm a nice guy, can I buy you a drink'. They'd look at you like you were a weirdo or seek a restraining order.
You also don’t meet people at the gym, in the bread aisle of your supermarket or at a pottery class. In most cases it’s either work, where they get to know you as a person, or in a pub/club, where they go on first impressions.
Girls rarely approach guys, so you need to give them an excuse or an ice breaker if they wanted to. That t-shirt, and other similar ones, has got women talking to me on quite a few occasions and it seems the more risqué they are, the more they comment. Ok, the easily offended, morally righteous, humourless ones might not comment but really, why would I want them to?
I don’t expect it to lead to marriage or even a date but if the t-shirts amuse people (and I’ve seen them bring a smile to many) then so be it and if not, then you can't please everyone."
What hand do you wipe your arse with
Another totally unimportant question but I am right handed yet I wipe with my left.
Going from a straw pole in the office this seems to make me an oddball. Does everyone else who favours a hand (ie right handed / left handed) use that same hand to wipe?
Your favourite Mr Man character
Mine was always Mr Funny. I just loved that crazy hat with the flower sticking out and those huge shoes.
The media bothering to cover the
I know I'm being hugely cynical but really, why are the media wasting so much coverage on the elections in
Does anyone really believe that they are anything close to democratic? Or that Mugabe would ever say 'fair cop, I've been voted out, here's the keys, off you go'.
With the kind of corruption existing there, more white farms being 'seized' (I didn't know there were any left to be honest) and some rather dubious tactics going on it's hard to believe that if anyone new did get in they would be radically different.
Paedophile paranoia
Paedophilia is wrong, sick and demented. I just thought I’d get that in before I get labelled as some kind of advocate of it.
I have to say that the media and government really do work themselves up into a frenzy about paedophiles and the internet. Read any alarmist paper and you would believe that it’s possible to go on any social networking site and have an 11 year old girl sucking on your cock in under 3 hours.
Ok precautions might need to be taken but really is it that easy to groom someone that quickly. Kids are pretty clever nowadays and I do sometimes think that maybe it’s older adults lack of understanding of the net that makes so many go ‘knee-jerk’ about it.
I see the government are trying to introduce a rule where all sex offenders have to provide an email address which will then allow the social network sites to ban them. Are they aware how easy it is to get another email address?
You can’t police the internet, you can only try to control those that use it. So as well as preventing the so called millions of middle aged paedos, maybe parents could be encouraged to take a little control or interest in what their kids are doing.
Talking on the internet is one thing but surely it’s actually meeting up with strangers where the real danger lies and instead of distracting talk about chatting on the net maybe we should ram home the campaign that ran when I was younger of not getting in cars with or accepting gifts from strangers, let alone arranging to meet up.
A survey by Ofcom found that nearly half of children aged eight to 17 had a profile on a social networking site and a third of those aged nine to 19 who used the internet weekly had received sexual comments via e-mail, instant message, chat or text message.
I just did a quick search on faceparty for girls between 16 and 17 and in just two pages came across profiles and pictures of ‘Kinky-bitch-is-hot’, ‘Ashleigh-lvz-u’, ‘getwanked’ and ‘l-a-u-r-e-n-p who describes herself as being loud, bubbly and having massive jubblies’. There are more tit shots on there than a Channel 5 text ‘sexy’ advert.
Makes you wonder what percentage of the Ofcom stats are of the 16-19 age bracket and how their manipulation of the overall results is deliberate to make this sound more alarming.
Now again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be cautious and I think convicted Paedos deserve surgical castration but I think some balanced, sensible heads should be looking at this rather than crowd pleasing, ill advised headlong rushers.
Homosexuals and showers in the Armed Forces
I don’t necessarily have a problem with gays in the armed forces. People’s sexual preference is up to them and if they are good soldiers and don’t make a big deal or fuss about it I would hope that it wouldn’t get in the way. When though the gay lobby are so keen to keep banging on about it and blowing it up into this big issue I would like to know what their thoughts are on how the shower situation should be played.
With men and women now serving together in the armed forces, why do they not have mixed showers? (as they show in the film Starship Troopers for instance) It would cut down on time and money and if sex isn’t an issue in the armed forces anymore why would it be a problem?
Of course the problem is that females would undoubtedly feel uncomfortable being naked in front of gawping heterosexual males and the men would apparently not be able to control their sexual lust. How come then if gays are being openly debated with this goddamn fanfare are they not creating separate hetero and homosexual showers?
Why is it deemed that a homosexual soldier showering with other men would maintain his self control and arousal level and that heterosexual males should not feel uncomfortable BUT that a heterosexual soldier in the company of a woman would turn into a raging, sex crazed ape?
I’m sure gays would respond with a typical “we don’t fancy all men you know” and I’m sure this is true but why is it assumed that straight men would fancy all women?
Before I get flamed for being fascist and homophobic just ask yourself: If it’s not right for males and females to shower together in the armed forces, why is it ok for hetero and homo males to do so?
Best boxing matches you’ve ever seen
Following on from the excitement of Saturdays Hatton vs Mayweather what are the best boxing matches you have seen? I've put mine below with YouTube links where possible.
Benn vs McClellan
Probably my favourite for balls to the wall guts was Nigel Benn vs Gerald McClellan. It's a shame what happened to Gerald but he was a hard punching thug who thought he would roll over Benn.
He didn't reckon on one of the most courageous boxers we've ever had refusing to surrender and despite getting knocked out of the ring in the 1st round and then knocked down in the 8th, batter McClellan to the point where he simply gave up in the 10th. A truly awesome display of boxing but one that Benn has never truly got the respect for due to what happened post fight to Gerald.
This fight makes Benn my all time favourite boxer. He embodies everything I want to see in a British fighter. He refuses to give up and gave it back to the cocky yanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ9yRbrKLxw
This just shows the first couple of rounds. Look at the profile of the uploader to see the other parts. It's definately worth it.
Eubank vs Watson II
I remember this being on whilst I was in a nightclub and seeing it on a huge screen. The two had met before and Watson had been denied, as many saw, a points victory. When they met again Watson was far more aggressive and the two duked it like nobody’s business. Their 11th round is one of the most amazing I've seen.
Two boxers punching themselves out to exhaustion. Watson looking tired and then coming back to catch Eubank with two bombs flush on the chin that forced him down to the ground. Eubank should technically have taken a count but full credit to the man. The first time he ever gets put down and he gets up and hits Watson so hard with an uppercut that Watson crashes to the ground smacking his head on the ropes which most likely contributed to his brain damage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvh9-xr0gOQ
The quality is pretty poor and only shows the last two rounds but it's enough for you to get the idea of the fight. Like the Benn v McClelland fight it's hard to find any decent footage.
Hagler vs Hearns
Quite possibly the best three rounds of boxing, definitely the best first round, that you might ever see. Two different styles, just toe to toe swinging and pounding away at each other.
With the ferocity of the punching and the fact that Hagler was cut meant it couldn't have really lasted more than three rounds without someone crumbling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYHSHd1xfpY
Bruno vs Tyson
Some may laugh at me for this and I admit that it wasn't a great fight. There is also the fact that big Frank didn't win it. What does need to be noted though is that when Bruno is dismissed as some kind of pantomine fool he did have the courage to get in the ring with 'Iron' Mike Tyson when he was at his most dominant and dangerous.
Frank might have got put down within the first 20 seconds but he still got back up, brawled with Tyson enough to be deducted a point for punching him in the side of the head and most importantly landing a bomb on the side of Tyson's head that proved to the world that Tyson could be rocked. Remember that this was a time long before Buster Douglas, when Mike drove fear into the hearts of many boxers and he was believed virtually undefeatable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ladnb7-ciLc
Wary of reporting crime at the Notting Hill Carnival
Why is it that the police and media are so wary of reporting negatively on the crime that takes place at the Notting Hill carnival? Is it because they are scared of negatively reporting on a predominantly ethnic event?
The police talk about the amount of arrests being down this year but it would be interesting to know the amount of incidents reported because let's face it, not all criminal acts result in an arrest.
Although desperate to keep everything upbeat, the news had to report that even though there were less incidents, there were still TWO shootings and ONE stabbing at the carnival this year.
Over dramatic home appliance failures
I was in the sauna recently and heard a guy talking about how his boiler had blown up and I got to thinking, really did it actually blow up? I wondered if there were any other appliance malfunctions that received similar inflated descriptions. The only other one I've heard is about dishwashers exploding.
Length of shorts
OK I'll put my hand up. I'm a middle aged man that isn't adverse to wearing shorts. If the weather is hot enough then I think I little fresh air blowing around my legs is quite pleasant and cooling.
If I can I'll wear shorts that end above the knee though nothing as tight or as short as what Magnum used to wear. I can even take the more recent fad of 3/4 lengths and actually have a couple of pairs.
But can someone explain the latest offering which are like 7/8th's. What's the point? They are too long to be considered as shorts and hence have none of the cooling abilities, yet are too short to be trousers. People who buy them might as well just buy a pair of ankle swingers.
I really like snails
I'm not usually a big insect fan. The kind that fly deserve immediate extermination, apart from bee's and butterflies that is, and spiders are treated with a modicum of respect. There's just something about snails though that I find really endearing.
I don't know if it's because they carry their homes on their back, that they move slowly or that they don't look offensive but I always do everything I can not to accidentally tread on them. I remember times when we lived at our other house and after a drive I'd come home, open the gate to drive my car in and have to carefully move about 10 - 15 snails off the drive so I wouldn't crush them.
Fat men and the waistband of their trousers
I've always been intrigued at what point it is that really fat men go from having the waistband of their trousers under the over hang of their belly to having it over the top?
If you think about it's a huge decision as it can add a lot of inches to the waistband as well as a big increase in the amount of material needed for that front gusset.
Well done to Take That
I have to say that I'm delighted that these guys have got back together. I'm not a massive fan who goes to their concerts or even has any of their albums. But I wish them well because they seem nice, down to earth, happy to have another chance kind of guys.
What's especially sweet is how just as they re-find success that Robbie Williams seems to fall away. I never could stand him. Granted some of his earlier songs were good but I got very tired at his continual bleating and whining about how unhappy he was. What was more astonishing were the amount of girls who thought he could do no wrong.
Here was this arrogant chump who could and would shag a bevy of beauties but never be tarred with the playboy brush because he'd pull on the sad eyes and say how he was just looking for love and the right girl. Meaning that he kept all his options open because every woman would think maybe they could be the one that could make him happy.
I'm not knocking him having for fun and if I was in the same position I would have the same fun though I wouldn't always talk about it negatively. It's just the blind gullibility of some girls that can't see him for what he is, that is so infuriating.
Jimmy Saville. Godfather of bling
Really. If you look at Sir Jimmy he was the very first to live the bling dream that so many rappers aspire to.
Always in a leisure suit, dripping with massive, chunky jewellery, smoking a fat cigar and certainly when he introduced Top of the Pops surrounded by sweet honeys.
The case of the missing Madeleine girl
Considering so many parents have those baby listening monitors when they are simply downstairs the idea of leaving not one, but three, children alone in a room when you are in another building, 100 metres away is a touch irresponsible in my book.
I realise the temptation to have some time to yourself must be strong but surely your kids are your most precious things, especially at that age, so pissing off out for a meal while they fend for themselves is plain wrong. Even if they were all asleep, there's a good chance that one out of three will wake up.
Harsh maybe, but if you want to be a parent you have to accept that there will be sacrifices needed, inconveniences to suffer and responsibilities to take. The hotel complex offers the services of a drop off crèche for parents along with designated room sitters if required but none of these were taken.
Don’t get me wrong I hope little Mady is returned safe and sound and she shouldn’t pay for the failings of her parents but I do find my sympathy levels a little restricted when I see the mum and dad crowing about how worried they are for Mady when having dinner with friends was more important. I know someone shouldn’t break into your hotel room but we’ve all got CNN or see the news and we know that the world is an increasingly unpleasant place.
I find just as distasteful the ‘you must feel overcome with sympathy’ line and the ingratiating manner in which celebrities/politicians etc are jumping on the band wagon to appear sensitive and curry favour with the moronic public.
It's up to an individual to decide who they wish to sympathise with and I find unpleasant the pressure and brow beating that everyone has to share the same level of concern, otherwise they are unfeeling animals. The same kind of mass outpouring occurred with Diana's death. It turned into a media frenzy with people vilified if they didn't display similar over dramatic, tokenistic wailing that others did.
I mean look at this one. We’ve got John Terry making an appeal,
People's hypocrisy can be illuminating. Most couldn't give two shits that kids are dying every day in
Let's keep it in perspective. It's a nasty thing that has happened, there are nasty people out there, the parents didn't behave brilliantly and our thoughts, for those that wish to have them, are with the frightened little girl.
Guide dogs
It never ceases to amaze me when I think of guide dogs how wonderful they are. To think that they take the responsibility of a human in their paws and that people are prepared to put their faith fully in that of an animal is both wonderous and incredible.
Traffic light jumpers
It never ceases to amaze me when driving in London that on the few (!) occasions that I might scrape through a set of traffic lights when they are on amber, how a quick look in the mirror reveals another three and sometimes four cars that have followed me through.
You can't help but laugh and think 'Christ, I was close but they must have blatantly run a red'
Racism or bullying
This thought was helped into my consciousness by the recent big brother furore. I'm not a racist and cannot abide bullies but it's an interesting line that if you ridicule someone:
For being fat (fat bastard) - you are a bully
For their ginger hair (ginge bastard) - you are a bully
For wearing glasses (four eyed bastard) - you are a bully
For the colour of their skin (brown bastard) - you are a racist
All are unpleasant yet why are the first three considered unkind and the last one almost criminal. Being made fun of for the colour of your hair must be just as uncomfortable as that of your skin.
Legislating against what people say as opposed to what they do will always be a contentious issue.
Greenpeace car stickers
Can anyone else see the irony
Feeling for the Conservative leader
You have to laugh at the fickle nature of the media and public when discussing opposition leaders. They are currently berating David Cameron for being too image obsessed and populist when he should be concentrating on sound policies.
Wasn't that what the previous leader, Ian Duncan Smith, did but was then ridiculed for not having a persona or enough razzmatazz. With the media so quick to pigeonhole and label everyone is it any wonder that the public simply can't be arsed anymore.
Really cheap toys
I must confess that when younger the idea of cheap toys horrified me. By cheap I don't mean inexpensive, but rather the nasty tat you find for sale on dusty shelves in post offices & newsagents above the cigarette rack, made by companies that you've never heard and using the sharpest, thinnest and most brittle plastics.
Normally they'd be fire engines or such, supplied with unbranded batteries that contained enough charge for 15 minutes, buttons that wouldn't work and the only element of real creation being in the packaging copy which was perfect for wooing the lazy purchaser that this was in fact the greatest toy ever made.
Even now the notion of anyone ever buying this for a child is still concerning and I think stems from my father once buying me an aforementioned piece of shit.
Never seeing an emergency vehicle stuck in traffic
I realise that when racing to an emergency they shouldn't hang around but what about when they are coming back or just driving around. I've never seen one being delayed so either they are incredibly fortunate or simply class heading back to HQ for a cup of tea as another emergency.
Chav's and exterior christmas decorations
Really, what award is it they are going for or hoping to win with these energy sapping, un co-ordinated arrangements of colour on the side of their house. Is it to divert people's gaze from their gaudy stone cladding. Is it to be the biggest prick in the street. What pleasure do they get from it when they can't actually see it and what does it say about the quality of their interior decorations.
I've nothing against some of the more subtle ones where they've highlighted the line of the roof in plain white fairy lights or decorated a garden tree but these gaudy mis-matches of bright colour replete with illuminated figures of Santa in a sleigh, or even more irrelevant a hot air ballon, do confound me.
The world's strongest man
Are these televised events worth watching anymore. Not since the years of Geoff Cape, and that was a good twenty years ago, have I seen one that's been hard fought or even remotely close. There is always a contestant who wins every event with ease and then has to explain to the 'struggling for anecdotal material' host why he excels in this particular event.
Differing tap pressures at other people houses
How many times have you been to someone else's house, turned on the tap to get a drink or wash up and the pressure has taken you by surprise and you ended up doused in water.
Even better is how some taps turn one way and others the other way. This can in turn generate hilarious soakings as you attempt to turn off a tap yet end up increasing it to fire hose levels of force.
I like David Hasselhoff
You gotta love the Hoff. Not only was he the star on a seminal 80's show that I loved as I grew up he also put his and some other investors money where his mouth is to buy the rights of Baywatch and market it to the world.
He doesn't take himself seriously, does have a good voice (my bro saw him live in Chicago and confirmed that he can certainly hold a note) and isn't one of those actors who makes his name in something and then does all he can to distance himself from it.
He's self deprecating, entertaining, funny and obviously likes a drink. I think he'd be great to hang with.
Using your head to increase the range of your car key
It never ceases to amaze me how when you get too far away from your car that clicking the remote locking button doesn't seem to work that if you hold the key against your head the range of the fob increases and you can now lock or unlock your car.
Maybe it's irradiating my brain or just turning my body into one big antenna but it always makes me smile.
The arrival of 'indulgent offerings' in fast food chains
I was reading a welcoming article recently about how fast food chains are bringing in large meals and burgers that are vegetable free and unashamedly unhealthy. It's in response to how even though members of the public might have filled in surveys and questionnaires saying that they wanted more fruit and veg, in reality they didn't.
What they seemed to forget was that the fast food chains customers weren't the self righteous filmmakers or pompous healthy eaters who would never visit a McDonalds. They were in fact Joe Average who only had four or five pounds in his pocket, was hungry and wanted some hot food pronto.
I'm glad that the chains offer healthier options if customers want it but moreso delighted that they haven't completely bowed down to the food fascists. That they still assume that there are members of the public who would like the choice to consume a big, juicy, meaty, fattening burger if they damn well please.
The failure of Multiculturalism
I see that high profile figures within the ethnic communities, Michael Phillips and George Alagia, are now admitting that the policies of appeasement and over tolerance of an immigrants culture at the expense and detriment of our own are doing more harm than good. Frustrating really that many people in the late 80's and early 90's said the same thing but were told to be quiet and branded racists.
Accepting anothers culture is fine but the culture of the country which that individual has chosen to live in should prevail. Attempts to alter this to suit the desires of those coming in or worse still an acceptance that they can live outside of the existing culture only leads to disharmony and a lack of integration. How annoying that we have to wait for members of the ethnic communities to acknowledge it before we are allowed to address or discuss it.
Maybe now that this foolhardy and short sighted policy has been critisized, we can embrace other ideas that were swept under the carpet by the sandal wearing, PC liberals all those years ago such as competitive sports actually being good for our kids or that tougher sentences might actually work and/or prove more of a deterrant.
Have DFS, or any other store, ever sold a piece of furniture at full price
I don't think there has ever been a time that DFS didn't have a sale on or be offering interest free credit until 2020. Makes you wonder how they'd react if you said I would like to buy this item at full price and in cash.
Nike or Adidas
I'm not a chav who regularly bums around in tracksuits drinking Stella but I was pondering when in the gym recently which sport brand I prefer, Nike or Adidas?
You can't deny that Nike always feel like quality items. If you stayed round someones house and they lent you a Nike hoody, although not normally that colourful and crazy they do have an assured quality feel to them. Their logo is very distinctive and they are exceptional at what they do.
For me though it has to be Adidas. I like their brand and I think they do more with it. Their materials are a little more innovative and they are more prepared to experiment with colours. They also aren't afraid to use, albeit sparingly, neon green and fluoro orange, two colours that I really dig. I think they are a little more creative with, and integrate more, their three stripes logo into all the clothes that they produce.
Carrying shopping from your car
Next time they do The Worlds Strongest Man or Superstars they really should have a contest that involves seeing who can carry the most amount of shopping bags/items from the car in one journey.
I don't park my car that far away from my front door but it's just enough that I'd rather struggle to the door with my arms practically coming out of their sockets and the handles cutting off the circulation to my fingers than have to go back a second time.
I think my limit is about seven or eight, with a gym bag over my head and shoulders and a set of keys dangling precariously from my mouth.
The West Wing
Ok I know my favourite TV shows like Angel and Quantum Leap are hardly realistic but I did get very tired, very quickly of the supermen and women that were meant to be employed in The West Wing.
These people apparently work from 6.00am in the morning, write three speeches, handle a diplomatic crisis in Latin America, chair an urban regeneration forum, spend the afternoon with a trade delegation from Indonesia and stay up late prepping for the following days live broadcast from the senate. They are eventually told to go home by their boss at around 4.00am yet still apparently manage an hour in the gym, the chance to grab a shower and a bagel and return to the office 50 minutes later having explained the small business tax situation in North Dakota to the bus driver. What's more they manage all of this without getting haggard or older, creasing their clothes, smelling or even getting a five o'clock shadow.
I can understand the need to make them seem aspirational but plain unbelievable is another thing.
The skin on your arse
After thanking god or evolution for the wonder of self pleasure you have to raise a glass to thank him / it for the layer of skin covering your bottom (and for us blokes the skin of the nut sack).
No matter how many times you scratch it, it never gets sore and delivers the same dose of tingling, relaxing pleasure on the 100th scratch as it did on the 1st.
Lebanon and Beirut
I'm not going to get embroiled in the politics of who fired first in the latest troubles in the area but I must comment on one aspect. Seeing journalists doing reports from rubble strewn Beirut and talking about the piazza's of laughing children and bustling, colourful markets that existed before does stick in my craw.
Beirut has been one big, anarchic, lawless, crumbling mess of destroyed buildings for about fifteen years now and although the bombing isn't helping it certainly hasn't been fully responsible for the state that city is in now.
They say a picture paints a thousand words
This might be true in the real world but I've got to say that in the blog world that I've been recently perusing it's the opposite. Sifting through a multitude of images of peoples kids, dogs, kitchens or obscure, artistic photographs tells me zippo about the person.
In the blog world you can paint a far more personal and illuminating portrait of the person with what they write and how they write it. I read blogs to get into the minds of maybe similarly like minded people and images have the opposite effect. They are also a cheap way I think of hiding an inability to generate written content. I guess some people are turned on or tuned into pictures and others, and for me, it's writing.
The smell of the inside of your nose
What does this smell like I wonder. If you think about it you never really get to find out because you are always smelling everything in the air around you. I have a theory though.
When you sneeze the very first smell you get immediately afterwards is like an oxide smell and I think that this is actually what the inside of your nose smells like. Almost as if the sneeze forcibly expels all the air from your nostrils so that the first inhalation you take is nose smell before the surrounding smells come in to dilute it.
A mad theory maybe but something at least to ponder.
Everything ending up inside the duvet cover
I wondered if they have invented a mathematical formula yet to explain how it is that everything within the washing machine will end up inside the duvet cover unless you popper it up. When I pull that baby out after a wash I feel like hoisting it over my shoulder and setting off on an expedition.
Getting dressed in a swimming pool cubicle
At home I can have a bath or shower, dry myself off and get dressed quite comfortably so how come as soon as the location is changed to a cubicle in a swimming pool I have more difficulty than Stephen Hawking.
Underwear and trousers refuse to rise up my legs without getting stuck at the ankles and knees, by the time they get there they have managed to completely twist round, the wristband on my jumper has shrunk to stop my hand getting through and a hump suddenly appears at the base of my neck preventing any top from sliding down and covering my back.
Couple this with socks that refuse to go on, hair that refuses to stay down and a wet towel that seems to have trebled in size and I end up walking out looking like some kind of special needs retard or a skateboarding youth.
Being a misery at my local supermarket
Do you want help with the packing - No but thanks
Do you have a nectar card - No, I'm afraid I do not
Do you have a car parking ticket - No
Are you collecting school vouchers - Jesus, no I'm not
Do you want cashback - For fucksake no, just take my money and let me leave.
The new lottery TV advert
What a lovely advert this is. Simple concept but bearing in mind what they normally turn out this is surprisingly good and with its classical music and recreation of bricks as migrating birds is almost moving.
Buying plots of land on the moon
Really, who is stupid enough to buy these. Don't these people ever wonder who will be enforcing their ownership if and when we colonise the moon.
It's the same with naming stars. Do we expect future space captains to grandly announce that they are entering the John Smith system.
Life expectancy (shelf life) of stick deodorant
I might not be the best looking guy in the world but I do try to smell nice and am paranoid of kicking up. Hence in the morning I apply both underarm stick deodorant and then an all over spray.
The thing about the stick though, and I'm not saying I've got acid sweat, is that after two months or so your pits seem to develop immunity to it and it just gives up. Almost like the stick creates a barrier and then over time your body figures out a way to beat it. This means that every two months one has to upgrade or source a new stick as your old one has become so useless that you might as well rub an ice cream under your arms.
The gym and pub/clubbing is always a good leveller
Whenever you go to the gym, pub or a club you can always guarantee that you will see someone worse than you - be it fatter, uglier, smellier, worst dressed to make you feel better about yourself and think 'hey, maybe I'm not that bad'.
Within five minutes though you can be certain that you will see someone that is bigger (ie muscley), more handsome, better dressed than you to remind you of your place. Oh, what it must be like to be top of the food chain.
Premature toilet flushing
This could well be limited to us guys but I do find I'm somethimes prone to starting the flush process before I've actually finished pissing. It's a hollow victory when you consider what's left in the pan but there is something immensely satisfying in just beating the flush.
The pitfalls of corn flakes
How frustrating is it when you fancy a nice bowl of corn flakes or frosties, shake them into the bowl, pour on the ice cold milk and then manage to hit that one upturned flake that manages to piss the milk back out of the bowl and across the counter.
Good vest wearers
Overlooking the fact that a crisp white vest has been tarred with the labelling of yellowing, sweat encrusted, food drying wife beaters there are some good advertisements for the wearing of vests:
Bruce Willis - Die Hard
Mickey Rourke - Sin City
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game video
Ed Norton - American History X
The joy of Ikea
As well as having fantastic meatballs and gravy I do love taking the time to amble round Ikea at half speed. I never seriously consider buying anything but prefer instead to dream whimsically of owning an empty, blank canvas style apartment where I could move around selecting different items of furniture to populate my pad with.
Better to have this utopian dream than corrupt it by purchasing the odd piece here and there I say (you now think I live in a dank cave).
Rain is romantic but not as much as snow
I've decided that I like the rain. I don't do as many things that are weather dependant as most and I know that after saying this I will be cursed with bad weather for ever more but there is something good about rain I think. It clears the unnecessary folks from the streets. Less people walk for fear of getting wet and people will be more inclined to stay indoors hence the roads seem a little emptier.
Yes it can be miserable but clothes can dry and with short hair I'm never worried about that getting wet. Walking in the rain, if isn't too cold can almost feel cathartic. Almost like as you feel the dirt being flushed out of the air you can somehow feel some of your own worries or concerns being cleansed with it. There's also something lonely about walking in the rain, like you just don't give a damn anymore. I've always imagined that the most passionate kiss would be in the rain. Where both parties were more concerned with each other than the triviality of getting wet.
Even with all these reasons the ultimate wonder for me lies with falling snow. Anything else that falls from the sky (rain, sleet, hail) makes a noise but snow just simply falls. You can't hear it, you can just see it. Like it's quietly getting on with it's business of creating a white blanket and not making a fuss. Maybe I also have images of women wrapped up warm yet with cold, rosy cheeks and flakes of snow gently landing in their hair.
Either way snow is the most romantic but rain's benefits should not be overlooked.
Mother's day and every single woman
Why does every single woman, no matter how old or whether they have children feel compelled to remind every man of his duty to buy a Mothers day card.
You never see the same amount of pressure or persuassion from men, or even women, approaching Fathers Day.
Record breaking months for weather
Why does every single month have to be, or feature, a record breaking event of pointless tedium.
"The wettest consecutive Tuesdays in a month, the mildest Saturday of an Easter holiday for 100 years or the most snowfall on a Thursday in Exeter in the month of November".
Same shit, different year
Examples of things repeated to us year in, year out.
The media talk of an 'Indian' summer - let's get it straight that in the UK the summer runs from July to October.
The rail fare commuter group - Every January they get on their high horse 'demanding an improvement to services' yet by February are queuing with the rest of the mugs to pay an extra 7% for their ticket with no increase to the level of service.
Exam results (GCSE) - How many times have you got to hear about how easy they are 'now', and to prove your point get a swotty girl (live on GMTV) at a private school opening her envelope to reveal 9 A stars and look surprised.
Exam results (A level) - Repeat the whole episode above word for word about two weeks later.
and Finally when the media in the event of there being no 'real' news ask "how long can houses prices stay so artificially high?" - Well I guess as long as people keep buying them.
Tip of your knob touching the inside of the toilet bowl
I'm not claiming to have a huge one and I wouldn't say that I sit that far forward but there is something really unpleasant when you are innocently sitting on the toilet and feel the tip of your knob touch the cold enamel of the inside of the toilet bowl.
As if its not enough that you receive that sudden jolt of retraction it's the notion that your tip has just brushed the area where some would concentrate their urine flow. For all the bacteria that might be present there you might as well have just flopped your tackle into the mouth of a Komodo dragon.
What's worse
Imitation alloy hub caps or the multitude of plastic ties holding them on.
Feeling compelled to complete a million tasks when you sense an imminent dump
You can laze through a day at home, pottering around, perusing old newspapers and making unneccesary cups of tea yet feel the tingle of an oncoming toilet trip and suddenly there are loads of things to do.
Almost as if the 'dump time' will be such wasted time that it will be easier to enjoy it if you have accomplished, or at least started, some tasks.
Indeed you spend so much time suddenly putting on washing, refilling the kettle, turning it on, putting the dishes into soak and grabbing some reading material that you run a genuine risk of actually shitting yourself.
Discarded underwear in the shower cubicles at my gym
What is that about? Who just drops their kacks, showers and then wanders off? You could fully stock a Primark from the amount of clothing that I must see on the shower floor.
Messages on Faceparty, hotmail or tidyaddict
Feeling your heart lift as you think 'hey someone might have written or responded to one of my tentative messages' for it to come crashing back down again as you realise, and deep down knew, that its just an advert offering you to upgrade your membership so you can highlight in greater detail the lack of action your profile gets.
Feeling a little wary of
Having the car stereo volume at number 13. I've got a stalk for the controls on mine and I might flick it a few times, see the 13 and then think well it could be a little quieter or louder.
People that drive wearing hats
Aren't these just the worst drivers ever. Either baseball cap attired chavs or flat cap wearing doddery old bastards.
Buying a DVD that you haven't seen in years
Only for it to then be on TV less than a week later.
Are you a folder or scruncher?
When I go to the toilet I'm a definite folder. Anyone who scrunches is subscribing to anarchy and chaos and that ain't a good thing when you are about to wipe your arse.
I like the Polish
I always feel they've gotten a real bum deal out of the last century. We might have gone to war for them but it didn't stop them being invaded by Germany and then after the country had been smashed to pieces being taken over by the Russians. Poor sods, they try to do the right thing but end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Even when they had the balls to stage an uprising in Warsaw to liberate their own city they fell foul of international politics and a Red Army that didn't want to help for fear that Poland would want independance after the war. After killing nearly 16,000 Germans and fighting for over two months the Poles were broken with over 200,000 civilian casualties, the remaining 700,000 forced to leave Warsaw and almost 85% of it destroyed.
They seem a tough, plucky little race and I've got a lot of time for their national identity.
I Tunes radio
Wow, wicked. No more having to play the same old playlist. I now have a host of dance, trance and house stations which ever changing fresh music to listen to while I pontificate on what next to write on my site. Outstanding!
The so called curse of winning the lottery
I saw in a paper recently an article about lottery winners who haven't found happiness and had been struck by the curse of the lottery.
It isn't a curse, it's just they were too stupid to not keep their anonymity and are now blighted by begging letters and people watching their every move coupled with jealous/greedy friends and relatives who assume they are entitled to some of the cash and will sell their story if they don't get any.
Someone winning millions is hardly a curse.