The politics of ignorance

Today's headline-grabbing burst of Newspeak centered around the annual EU budget adjustment that sees the UK having to stump up a staggering £1.7bn by the end of the month, or Barroso's sending the boys round. This announcement sees the majority of the nation howling in rage in typical knee-jerk fashion at the unjust nature of the out of control EU monster.

But...hang on a minute. This is an annual adjustment, which means it happens every year...yes, really. In some years past we have received refunds, just as in some years we have made payments. Barroso, being a seasoned Brussels apparatchik has made the public announcement of this frankly staggering amount that our Treasury must have known about for months for one reason and one reason only - David Dipshit Cameron. A man who continues to dig himself into a deeper and deeper hole, and a man who conversely is the only serious threat from the UK to the Brussels status quo.

There is a by-election coming up that the Tories are desperate not to lose to the beer'n'fags myopic little Englanders (and they're the liberal wing) who constitute UKIP. By announcing that the UK must pay £1.7bn yesterday, or Liz will find her favourite horse's head where Phil The Greek should be in her bed, Barroso is feeding on the knee-jerk reactions that the majority of the UK are prone to in these situations, thereby making the Tories chances of winning that seat much less than they otherwise would have been. Not that it's difficult, but the Eton chancer has more than met his match in Barroso, for sure.

Now, I do not consider myself particularly intelligent, but the second I heard this headline on BBC Breakfast I thought there must be more to this than meets the eye. Ten minutes of research will confirm that in the past we've had refunds from the annual adjustment. You didn't see Camerong wringing his hands in liberal guilt and suggesting we give our refund to Spain or Greece, who obviously needed it more, did you? Obviously, spending ten minutes on the internet finding out what lies behind the headline before mouthing off in the manner of an ignoramus is too much for most people.

Yes, the amount is way too much when you consider it amounts to a fifth of our entire net annual contribution. Its esoteric calculation, that includes estimates of the amount made in our black economy, is yet another example of the excessive and blundering bureaucracy at the heart of EU being its main failing point, but the principal behind it is right, the richer nations should support those not doing so well. Trying to square that with giving France and Germany rebates takes more than a bit of swallowing it has to be said. Why not scrap all this adjustment nonsense and have fixed budgets?
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The way the BBC reported this on tonight's Six'O'Clock News was a tad disappointing. They got it right up to the point where they explained the UK's annual EU contribution, which, if I remember correctly was £8.3bn. The logical thing to have followed that with was "...and Germany contributes £xbn, and France £xbn". Instead, the £8.3bn is left hanging there in the minds of the wilfully ignorant like a maniacally grinning bile magnet. Fail.
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I'm not finished yet, oh no. The reason we have to make this extra payment is because, relative to all the other economies in the EU, we are growing at a much faster rate. All well and good, but I don't feel any better off now than I did six years ago, how about you?

Of course the only reason our economy is doing so well on paper is down to growing employment rates that are almost exclusively the result of Multinat Corp Inc (based in Luxembourg, thereby getting away with paying no tax on their profits here, natch) being able to employ vast numbers at minimum wage rates. This is what makes the UK so attractive to immigrants, not just from outside the EU, but from within it as well. To a lot of these people, these shit jobs at shit wages represent a nirvana that their home countries cannot supply.

Immigration per sé is not the problem, although you would have to be a Guardian-reading Tarquin or Jemina living in splendid Brit-only white-only isolation in the Cotswolds not to have noticed that the sheer numbers coming in have got out of hand. No, the problem is that since THAT BLOODY WOMAN successive governments of both colours have continued at a pace with the deregulation she started in 1979 to the point where it is for all intents and purposes irreversible. Wages are suppressed to the bare minimum and unions have become an irrelevance with absolutely no power to stop the continual draining of money and resources from the general population to the elite. This laissez-faire attitude towards the control of capitalism's excesses and the resultant boom in poorly paid jobs is what attracts the immigrants from their poverty stricken countries of origin, and who can blame them?

As for "they come over here and live off benefits they've not contributed to", well, that too is an almighty red herring of convenience for the right wing. Again, ten minutes of research will tell you that the amount of immigrants fraudulently claiming benefits is a tiny proportion of the whole.

As I said, I do not consider myself brain-dazzlingly intelligent, so if I can do the research if only to confirm what my political instincts tell me anyway, why can't anyone else?
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Now, time to put another cat picture up. Have a nice weekend.
Roger McNasty

Stupidland

Mornin' peeps...

eBay, despite being weighted far too much in favour of the buyer is nonetheless very useful for gettring rid of accumulated clutter. Just lately I've sold a keyboard, a guitar amp, a hi-fi amp, and a CD player. As these are all bulky items they were all listed as "Collection Only", and all four items were duly picked up from chez moi by the buyers. One guy even came all the way down from Cheshire!

It seems however, that people who read books are not capable of assimilating the simple instruction "COLLECTION ONLY" - now stated in capitals for extra clarity. B and I are decluttering some of our book collection. I am selling the Game of Thrones box set (7 blockbusters in a box), and B is selling the True Blood box set plus 6 other True Blood books, some hardback, as a job lot.

Again, as these are bulky items they are clearly marked "COLLECTION ONLY". That has probably sunk in by now, eh? The other instruction to note is "cash on collection only, please". The other day I get an email from eBay telling me I had sold the GoT box set...Woohoo!...briefly. The buyer had ignored my instruction to pay cash on collection and paid by Paypal, and I am more than slightly perturbed that the buyer resides in West Lothian, Scotland. 

The next day she sends me this delightful message "hello, i ordered the game of thrones book box set and didnt realise it was a pick-up from northhampton, there is no way i can ever pick the books up, so i would like my money back please" (sic, a lot). Note the indignant tone, as if it's my fault she didn't read the instructions properly, or indeed, at all. Of course, I wanted to reply along the lines of "Yes, of course I will refund your money, no problem. Next time open your bloody eyes and read the fucking instructions, ya daft bint", and I did...but omitting the last sentence, diplomat that I am.

After that I re-listed the Got sale and amended the other sale currently running with "COLLECTION ONLY" now in the sale heading as well as in the instructions. This morning I get this priceless piece of stupidity in my eBay inbox "Are you sending to Estonia? If yes, then how much will it cost? And from Estonia I can pay for the goods only with paypal". I am still composing my reply...does anyone know how long donkeys have to stay in quarantine at customs in this country? He can send the cart on by FedEx, no problem.

By the way if any of you fine folk are interested, here are those two auctions. Send me a message and I'll take them off eBay, and, don't forget YOU HAVE TO COME AND GET THEM... :)

Game of Thrones books

True Blood books

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It would be remiss of me to exclude myself from the stupid-o-meter, and I will now lay myself open to ritual humiliation. Most of you will know that B has gone through treatment for a serious illness, and now all is well as she is well down the road to recovery. The two of us need a break, so I headed off to Expedia and booked a week in Jersey, just the ticket. The only direct flight from Birmingham leaves at daft-o-o'clock in the morning so I took the more civilised option that leaves in the afternoon. This one flies to Jersey via Guernsey. In the flight details I notice that the turnaround in Guernsey is only 15 minutes.

Sez me to B "How on earth are we supposed to get off one plane, collect our luggage, and get on another in 15 bloody minutes?"... 

In the yoof vernacular that is a massive fail, is it not? Have no fear, I did award myself fuckwit of the day for that one!
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I can't find me slippers, I think they must be in the fridge...see ya

Chicken Hammock

I'm only posting this here in order to blow the cobwebs off Brouhaha, a blog that is in danger of ossifying I've neglected it so much...

Bugbears of Modern Life #12: The Delivery Window

You know the kind of thing: "Thank you for ordering our Orgone Accumulator from us here at The General Synod. It will be delivered by our couriers, Surly Truckers Ltd. Now please choose a delivery window 8am-12noon, 12noon-4pm, 4pm-8pm" so you have to hang around for the allotted 4 hours waiting for the thing to turn up. As we live in Warehouse Central, that usually means right at the beginning or end of the window.

Last week I ordered a new mobile phone from that nice Indian company, Virgin Mobile. The usual message about delivery, but get this; have you ever come across a delivery window that runs from 7am to 9pm? That's not a window, it's a bleedin' yawning chasm. Donning my never far away Victor Meldrew persona, I'm straight on the phone to Mumbai. Yes, I know it won't do any good, but it might make me feel better.

Having torn "Julie" off a strip for the ludicrous time gulf offered by Satnav Dichotomy Ltd, she attempted to placate me with "Well, they will send you a text before delivery", which is something I suppose. It's not her fault, so I apologise for being an arse and hang up.

They better not send me a text at 6:45am, I'm thinking, and this morning I do get a text, but at a far more civilised 8:07am. The text said "Your goods have been dispatched"...can you guess what's coming?..."they will be with you before 9pm".
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The Trip to Italy was rather good. Loads of self-referential humour, but Coogan and Brydon carry it off brilliantly. Particularly liked the Michael Caine impression competition, and the Batman pisstake.
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While we're on telly, it's all a bit shit really. I probably spend half the time I did a couple of years ago watching The Box. Daftest thing I'm watching at the moment is an ultra convoluted Norwegian suspense drama by the name of Mammon, on More 4, another channel with "4" in its name getting into Scandi-dramas. Why is it that so much stuff is coming out of that strangely wonderful part of the world? I suppose when it goes dark for most of the winter, you either have sex or write, and industrial strength contraception aside, as there doesn't seem to be a Scandinavian population explosion, it must be the keyboard tapping that takes up their time. Or seal punching.
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Tomorrow sees my team's biggest game of the season. Win it and we are in the driving seat for 4th place in the Premiership and qualification for the preliminary rounds of the Champions' League. I added that apostrophe, being a grammar nerd, admittedly one who seems incapable of spotting his own mishtakes.

As Everton have a habit of bottling big games, most annoyingly against their lovable neighbours, I very much doubt we will win, aside from the more logical footballing factors, which I will not bore you with here.  Of course, you're not allowed to put such heresy into words on fan sites, they accuse you of being negative rather than the pragmatic beastie that you are. They wouldn't understand "pragmatic" anyway. In the few months I've been a member of the Everton Facebook group I've quickly learned to dumb down my language, as my first posts saw accusations of "poncey words", and of me being a "posh cunt". I should realise by now that showing that you actually paid attention in class is a heinous crime in this fuckwitted country of ours. These same dumbasses think that having "belief" and "faith" is enough to outplay a team that spend more on haircare products than we do on wages.

Even if we did win, and by a series of miracles thereafter eventually finish 4th, you can guarantee that "The Shite" as they are affectionately known, would steal our thunder (again) by winning the bloody thing. We'd never hear the last of it. Come on, Citeh!
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Haha...the word "blog" is not in blogger's spellchecker!
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Your window has now closed.

Sowing The Seeds Of Obsession - A Beginning

He powered down the central hub for the weekend, locked the pod, and made his way down the long flight of stairs to the exit. By the street door and lying on the floor was a small envelope. He picked it up, turned it over to inspect it, but found no indication of its origin; indeed, there was no writing or typed text on it at all. He opened the envelope and inside was a small key and a handwritten note. "You will need this when you arrive home" was the sum of its content.

Deposited at the city transport hub at the top of his street, he walked on down to the entrance to his block. Taking the opportunity to forgo the lift he ascended the three flights of stairs at speed, the only exercise he got all day in the week, and, breathing hard he arrived at his door. He passed the keycard through the lock and stepped into the hallway.

When he walked into the living space, there it was. He approached it with a mild curiosity. Viewed from the left side it appeared to be orange. He noticed that changed as he looked at it from different angles. It spoke to him without a voice. He sat down cross-legged in front of it and stared deeply at it. He was aware that a passage of time had passed as a faintly gnawing hunger eventually forced him to leave it and make his way to the kitchen. As soon as he opened the fridge door he realised he was missing it already. Hurriedly, he grabbed a bottle of beer, opened it and threw together a cold meat sandwich, and then rushed back to the living space fearing it would be gone.

It was still there. He resumed his position of supplication, this time at a different angle, to see if another perspective would be illuminating. Again it tugged at his soul. He was compelled to pick it up, and passing it from one one hand to the other he noticed it was warm to the touch in one hand, icy cold in the other. After an indeterminate while he put it down and saw a slit in one face of it.

Then he remembered the key. He rushed to the coat stand by the front door where he had hung his jacket, seemingly in another era. He retrieved the envelope, tore it open and extracted the key, while running back to the living space. He sat back down in front of it. The slit was no longer there. Panic rose through the very core of his being. His heart rate was increasing alarmingly. He picked it up again in his left hand and it stung like a thousand wasps, but he could not let go. Shaking with the pain that had subsumed his fear, he discovered that simply by transferring it to his right hand, all the pain went away. He put it down and the slit was there again.

Gingerly, but knowing it had to be done, he inserted the key. He could not recall turning the key, but he was suddenly filled with a surge of joyous wonderment as everything was revealed in its stark beauty.

Days later, he told his psychepractor "I remember very little, but I know it took a long long time. And when it was over, it had really only just begun".

...there may be more...but then again, there may not...

Anesthetise me, now...

Gawd, was 90s UK indie music dull, or what?

We found this out, or rather had long forgotten memories of "meh" rekindled last night. You remember the Malt Shovel Music Quiz on Monday, the quiz that never was? Well, The Fucktard Brothers and P went to the damn thing on the correct night last night.

The quiz is hosted by a shambling tribute to every Working Men's Club MC there ever was, and his soma-inducing style has in the past made us say that we would never go to one of his quizzes again. But that was General Knowledge, this is Music, so what have we got to lose? Three hours of our lives we'll never see again, that's what. To think we paid £2 per person for the privilege, too!

We started off well enough, playing our Joker (meaning double points) on the first round, a musical general knowledge thang where we got ten out of ten. The next round, a missing words from titles of tunes thing, we got eight out ten. So far so good, although we were already struggling to stay awake, to the point where round three, the place where our rapid decline started in earnest, has been entirely erased from our my memory already...ah...got it; food related song titles and artist names...or was that round two?

Anyway, this third round we scored a miserable four out of ten. Then....music, at last! The first of two rounds, played from a cassette deck (no, really) was name the musical from the tune. None of us know much about musicals, but I'm not complaining, specialist rounds are to be expected, and it gives teams lagging in other areas the chance to catch up. I believe we got four of them.

The last of the two actual music rounds was "Groups". That sounds a bit more like it we thought. It wasn't anything like it at all. Trying to identify a group from a too short snippet of a song, cut short before any hookline comes round, is difficult enough. This is compounded when all the groups concerned were taken from the same genre, and mostly from the same time period. My opening sentence says it all. One dreary Razorlight was followed by another ennui-inducing Starsailor, to the point where IT ALL SOUNDED THE SAME.

Two points illustrate the sheer anodyne whiny vapidity of it all. One - standing out like a stream of bat's piss when all around is dark was a song by The Verve, taken from their recent utterly forgettable Fourth album. At least this one ventured outside the 90s. Two - we failed to identify Bonio's dulcet tones on a U2 song near the end, because by then we wanted to bite the MC's face off.

And, yes, had the round been twenty second cut-outs of prog rock classics, I'd probably have got them all, but it would honestly give me no pleasure to watch everyone else in the room becoming more and more pissed off.

If you're going to do a Groups round, by all means bung in one or two highly eclectic tunes to sort the men from the boys, but making most of it unrecognisable by leaving out hooklines of songs unknown to most in the room is pointless. Vary the genre for fucks sake, and throw in a few popular things that most will know, otherwise folk will just lose interest and not come back again. More than one team left before the end.

This may read like sour grapes because we didn't win, but coming third in an enjoyable and involving quiz would have been no problem at all, believe me. This was about as enjoyable as being forced to listen to an endless loop tape of prosaic and dishwater-grey UK indie....err...

Out of the eight or so teams present only half got more than half marks. We came third with 80 points out of a possible 120, there being two points per correct answer. The winners got 86.

Wombat Omnishambles will not be returning to a Malt Shovel quiz of any variety while it is hosted by this sack of lard who is to quizzes what Hot Spot is proving to be to cricket. Worse than useless.

Wastes Of Space in Time Travelling Omnishambles

A 30 minute programme to announce the new Dr Who? I know TV schedules are poor in the summer, but come on; this makes Countryfile look like must-see TV. Good result though!

This was inevitable, and you've probably seen it already, but it's worth repeating: .



Ooh...sweary! I have often thought of hanging a sign in my office that reads "Come the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off" :)
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Spam scams from Nigeria, land the morally suspect opportunist, have not really changed much over the years, but "Harry Black wants to give you part of his Lottery winnings as charity" did make me laugh. If anyone falls for that, they deserve to have their bank account raided until it is sore.
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Butterflies are magnificent and beautiful creatures as well as performing an important role as pollinators. Apparently due to a combination of successive appalling summers and the increase in pesticides they have been suffering a rapid decline in recent years. This year however, the budlea outside my office window has been swarming with large and small whites, peacocks and tortoiseshells in particular. It must be down to the glorious summer we are having, for once.

There is a National Butterfly Count here in the UK this year, so my stats have been winged (ouch) off. However, holding a count in a rare example of a "proper" summer may well give skewed results, methinks.
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Talking of wastes of space...

Last Thursday while stood in the bar of the very fine drinking establishment that is The Malt Shovel, Phill and I cast our eyes over an advert for their Music Quiz the following week. We thought we'd give it a go, having never experienced a quiz of the musical variety in this venue, and so this Monday, Phill, P and I turned up all expectant, and probably wassname.

Monday was the 5th of August. On reading the same advert again, it said, clearly too, the quiz was on Thursday 8th of August. Considering I'm an accountant (allegedly) it seems I can no longer read numbers. Phill has just set up a publishing company where he is, amongst other things, editor-in-chief. It seems he can't read words.

The conclusion is that we are each 50% of an idiot. P was by turns exasperated and amused at our thorough uselessness. :)
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I met a record collecting legend today. Back in the late 60s and early 70s there were many UK bands without record labels who made private pressings of albums that were either given away or sold to their usually very localised and very small fan bases. The print runs were never more than 99 copies to avoid Purchase Tax, the forerunner of VAT. All of these have been collectable over the years, but the jewel in the crown, for no discernable logical reason, other than it looked and sounded great, is Dark Round The Edges by Shoesville's very own Dark.

The album has recently been given a deluxe reissue, and Dark's guitarist Steve Giles, who some of you who reside in these parts may remember as the Giles in Giles Photography of years gone by, visited my office today and loaned me some examples of the new lavishly tooled reissue for a soon come review by moi in my other guise as the very pale reflection of Lester Bangs. Steve's a lovely bloke; we chatted about all things Dark, and I even managed to correctly guess the street name from the photograph on the front cover (see above), taken in Steve's then living room. First guess, too! A prize of an unripened banana to any Shoesville residents who can do the same.

The review will either be on DPRP or Astounded by Sound! in the hopefully not too distant future, if any of you read that nonsense.
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England 2 English weather 1 Aussies 0 - Ashes retained. Wahey!
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"No, it's my pet bishop"

Some pictures...

Is it my grubby little mind, or...how the blazes did this get past Advertising Standards? Mucky girl!
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On the day of the birth of Prince George Anaconda Flange-Triptych D'Steel Wheels Windsor-Battenburgcake or whatever the tyke's name is, I along with what I suspect was actually a majority of the populace were more than slightly annoyed at the meeja feeding frenzy over this non-event, and took little or no notice. I did laugh when they referred to "The crowds outside Buckingham Palace", which must have numbered...ooh...tens.

Entering into the spirit of the occasion, starting early in the morning on the day of the Second Coming, I posted a trio of bon mots informing the world (well, my 14 friends on Farcebook, at any rate) that there was a "Woman, Pregnant", and later a "Woman still pregnant", and when finally the Goddamn Miracle Of The Gilded Getoutofmyfuckingsightyouuselesswasteofspace Shouting At Husband Spectacular happeneth; "Woman gives birth", elaborated with "Ginger afterbirth eats nurse!" This is of course essential information that everyone must be endlessly informed of until they die of ennui....zzzz....

It seems no less than lawyer's friend Mr Ian Hislop has nicked my joke, judging by this billboard, snapped yesterday.

As someone has already said to me; try and sue him, just try! :)

Now, let's be clear on this, I'm no Republican, as it is fairly self-evident that The Royle Family bring in more in tourist income alone than the £40m or so they cost the public purse every year. Just ask any Japanese or American tourist, at least those over 40, or in other words, the ones with the money, why they're in London, and I guarantee you one of the items on The Itinerary is to go and gawp at Jim Royle in Buck House so they can send the pics home of Uncle Jim-Bob keeping his over-stuffed gut out of profile in front of said Victorian pile. I will admit there probably aren't many Japanese blokes called Jim-Bob, and why they seem equally obsessed with our bunch of undeserving privileged Germans is beyond me, given that they have their own version of royalty and attendant daft outmoded class system back home.

Digression is my middle name...no, I ain't no Republican, but the saturation coverage given to this rather common natural phenomenon was enough to get me to seriously consider joining the ranks of the revolutionaries, until some bloke fronting a Republican group appeared on BBC Breakfast to rightly criticise the Beeb's OTT coverage. I have never seen such a determined miserablist, well, not since I saw Joy Division at a wrist slicing ceremony in Accrington in 1978, at any rate. What do these dour sods do for fun one wonders?
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It's a summer of sporting triumph for Team GB (especially the Siff Iffricun branch). Dull Scottish bloke wins tennis match, which was actually rather good considering how he stuffed the favourite against probably even his own expectations. The British & Irish Lions won a dwarf-throwing competition Down Under. It's always good to stuff the Aussies, especially on their own turf, but I paid no attention, as Rugger is a sport that breeds indifference in me like no other.

Then we had another Afro-Brit, this time Kenyan by way of a Siff Iffricun education, winning Le Tour in spectacular fashion. And, he did it on a bicycle, would you believe!

Of course, the real action is ongoing with our stolen Siff Iffricuns showing those Aussies how it's done (again) in the crikit. Having appropriated some of South Africa's finest sporting talent as our own, it is ironic that the real tests of how good we are both at rugby and cricket will probably come when we play...South Africa!

Oh, and we didn't win The Open Golf wassname, but golf is merely a right wing talking shop and an excuse for a piss up that is only played by odious salesmen and middle management types, masquerading as a sport, and of course a waste of good countryside, so I care not a jot.
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It's no longer unbearably hot, so I'm off to put some clothes on and clean that nasty stain off the carpet.
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Finally, finally...I know most of you consider, perhaps rightly, who knows, that most of the music I bang on about in my other list of scribblings is akin to a choir of Ornette Colemans playing kazoos, but if you like yer rawk, you cannot fail to like this righteous racket. If you do find this unpleasant you really need to take your ears to the doctors...



Ifangyewandgudnite.....