Next up is an advert for a ‘Project Implementation Executive / Project Manager’. That sounds exciting doesn’t it...let’s find out more...
”Our client was established in 1989 as a specialist provider of bespoke fleet solutions, concentrating on the provision of innovative management services for mid to large corporate entities".
I think this might mean ‘we’re a car hire company’...But in an attempt to find meaning in gaseous emmission let's have a look at what the job involves...
Well, “the main purpose of this role is to be responsible for leading and managing customer implementations and developing relationships with new and existing customers to form the foundation of a successful ongoing contract. Within this role your main responsibilities will include leading and managing customer implementations, project managing all aspects of the implementation process including leading meetings, ensuring project deadlines are met, documenting tasks and allocating roles / responsibilities and creating, managing and delivering the entire project scope and the seamless transfer into our account management teams. You will also be expected to manage internal resources and build effective relationships with team members, proactively manage customer expectations and timescales and communicate with key internal and external stakeholders whilst continually enhancing / developing the company's reputation as a quality service provider”.
So now you know! They could have put 'being good at hiring cars to people' but that would have been too quick and easy to understand I guess...I wish I could manage customer implementations – and deliver the entire project scope of course. They don’t say how big a delivery truck would be needed though.
One final thing – they want to employ someone who can ‘hit the ground running’! Hurray!
I’d definitely give them a name check but I didn’t copy that bit.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Top Jobs from Top Companies
I came across a couple of jobs today. First up is a ‘Multimedia Creative Assistant’. The company advertising this job (‘Nunwood’) has so they say "been uniquely designed to help clients lead their businesses using astute, visionary insight firmly linked to action and return”.
Golly, that’s good isn’t it?!
Not only that but they’re “based out of hubs in North America, Europe and APAC, we work alongside the research, marketing and strategy functions at many of the world's most inspirational brands. To do this, we employ a mixture of smart-technology, ROI-focused services and some of the best business thinkers in the industry”.
There's more...“by redefining the role of a customer insight agency, Nunwood's unique structure and approach has earned 'top agency' status and numerous awards”.
And you thought advertising people were a bunch of tossers didn’t you!?
Finally, if anyone should ever ask you to define the word 'oxymoron', try the phrase 'the world's most inspirational brands'...
Golly, that’s good isn’t it?!
Not only that but they’re “based out of hubs in North America, Europe and APAC, we work alongside the research, marketing and strategy functions at many of the world's most inspirational brands. To do this, we employ a mixture of smart-technology, ROI-focused services and some of the best business thinkers in the industry”.
There's more...“by redefining the role of a customer insight agency, Nunwood's unique structure and approach has earned 'top agency' status and numerous awards”.
And you thought advertising people were a bunch of tossers didn’t you!?
Finally, if anyone should ever ask you to define the word 'oxymoron', try the phrase 'the world's most inspirational brands'...
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Britain's got stupidity - and a limited vocabulary
Another great thing that happened on holiday (in Majorca by the way) was watching Britain's Got Talent on a big telly with a load of other Brits (I told you it was an ironic holiday) to hear Amanda Holden say that someone's song was "kind of anthem...'ic'...if that's such a word"
Hey Amanda, yup, there's a word called 'anthemic'. That is such a word! This reminded me of that singer / songwriter bloke who went on BGT and played one of his own songs. Amanda screwed up her little ageing badly face and asked him if he could 'play something we know' - and he did. That his talent might be writing his own songs never seemed to occur. The trouble is that had he pointed out to her that she's a bit thick and doesn't even grasp what is supposed to be the raison d'etre for the show she's a judge on it wouldn't have been broadcast.
At least none of the contestants I've seen have less talent than her though.
In the end of course one should get off the telly, get off the internet, get off the sofa and get a life...
Hey Amanda, yup, there's a word called 'anthemic'. That is such a word! This reminded me of that singer / songwriter bloke who went on BGT and played one of his own songs. Amanda screwed up her little ageing badly face and asked him if he could 'play something we know' - and he did. That his talent might be writing his own songs never seemed to occur. The trouble is that had he pointed out to her that she's a bit thick and doesn't even grasp what is supposed to be the raison d'etre for the show she's a judge on it wouldn't have been broadcast.
At least none of the contestants I've seen have less talent than her though.
In the end of course one should get off the telly, get off the internet, get off the sofa and get a life...
Lady Gogo!
I’ve been on holiday. An ironic holiday obviously...Highlight of the week (apart from the Dutch Beatles tribute act) has to be watching a Lady GaGa tribute act from Essex! – partially obscured by owls!
She'd been on 'Snog, Marry, Avoid' too apparently. Dare I suggest 'avoid'?
It may ruin it a bit to explain but she was on after the kids owl show - so I couldn't see her properly for owls...
She'd been on 'Snog, Marry, Avoid' too apparently. Dare I suggest 'avoid'?
It may ruin it a bit to explain but she was on after the kids owl show - so I couldn't see her properly for owls...
Zippy or no zippy?
It’s been a while since I had any update on etiquette from ‘the locker room’ but I have a brief note from today. I was getting changed after swimming. I needed to use the urinal. I had my trousers on but hadn’t done the zip up. It was a walk of maybe 20ft to the urinal. Should I do the zip up for the 20foot walk only to undo it a few seconds later? Or should I leave it, there being no point in awkwardly doing up the zip only to undo it a moment later (to do it up again a short while after that). Which way did I go? Well, I thought ‘it would be stupid to do the whole zippy / unzippy thing' - so I strode the few paces across the changing room with zip noticeable open.
Well, sad to say it felt really wrong. The whole ‘don’t walk around with your trousers undone’ training I’ve been undertaking since childhood kicked in and it just felt plain wrong. I’ll try it the other way round next time and let you know...
Incidentally, I would have gone to the loo earlier since you ask, but that would have involved that whole 'standing at the urinal in bare feel and dripping' thing which really doesn’t feel right either.
I’m not sure I mentioned the bloke urinating in the shower through his swimming shorts? This was I should say on a previous occasion, not on one action packed Sunday morning...In theory I shouldn’t object to this as it all goes down the same drain after all. However given the choice one must urinate in the urinal, wash one’s hands and then get in the shower, even if each activity is spaced within a few feet of the others.
Well, sad to say it felt really wrong. The whole ‘don’t walk around with your trousers undone’ training I’ve been undertaking since childhood kicked in and it just felt plain wrong. I’ll try it the other way round next time and let you know...
Incidentally, I would have gone to the loo earlier since you ask, but that would have involved that whole 'standing at the urinal in bare feel and dripping' thing which really doesn’t feel right either.
I’m not sure I mentioned the bloke urinating in the shower through his swimming shorts? This was I should say on a previous occasion, not on one action packed Sunday morning...In theory I shouldn’t object to this as it all goes down the same drain after all. However given the choice one must urinate in the urinal, wash one’s hands and then get in the shower, even if each activity is spaced within a few feet of the others.
Bus drivers are ace!
Just a quick congratulations from a few days ago to the Firstbus driver in Leeds (on either a 49 or 50 since you ask) who refused to open the door of his bus for a total of three people waiting at the stop ('the Light' since you ask) to get on his bus and one waiting to get off it! (I was one of the people waiting to get on) – He’d shut the doors after stopping you see, ready to pull away - and though he wasn't physically able to do this (so was still at the bus stop) he had shut the doors. So he would have had to press the door button once to open the doors and again to close them afterwards. Much easier to let 3 people wait ages for another bus and to let an elderly woman off at the wrong stop!
Old fashioned bloody minded miserable shit mean bastard attitude! I bet he felt much better afterwards!
Old fashioned bloody minded miserable shit mean bastard attitude! I bet he felt much better afterwards!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Crikey Moses!
Bloomin' 'eck etc. Is t'internet finally imploding under its own weight? I'm talking about promoting bands and whatever using it.
I've just logged into myspace for the first time in months - and I can't work it and it's full of shite - not a single 'proper' message and I've been 'friended' by all kinds of people I don't know. Most of the messages are from a fat hip-hop guy who lives thousands of miles away - and apparently has nothing to do but add stuff to myspace. What an utter waste of time!
I'm really really sick of Faceboook and people talking about Twitter and whatnot. I'm thinking of bailing out completely. Who has time to spend hours on the bloody internet? (yes, I am aware of some irony here...)I'd be better off phoning round and giving out paper leaflets.
Sorry, this isn't very amusing but I reckon that there are certain things that as an artiste are considered 'essential'. It used to be a myspace page and or a website and then it was Twittering and Facebook. Well I'm sick of the lot of them and I'm sick of reading trivia. It really is a way to get sick of people you know.
And not a way to promote your band. Back to square one unsuccessful artistes looking for 'the answer'
I've just logged into myspace for the first time in months - and I can't work it and it's full of shite - not a single 'proper' message and I've been 'friended' by all kinds of people I don't know. Most of the messages are from a fat hip-hop guy who lives thousands of miles away - and apparently has nothing to do but add stuff to myspace. What an utter waste of time!
I'm really really sick of Faceboook and people talking about Twitter and whatnot. I'm thinking of bailing out completely. Who has time to spend hours on the bloody internet? (yes, I am aware of some irony here...)I'd be better off phoning round and giving out paper leaflets.
Sorry, this isn't very amusing but I reckon that there are certain things that as an artiste are considered 'essential'. It used to be a myspace page and or a website and then it was Twittering and Facebook. Well I'm sick of the lot of them and I'm sick of reading trivia. It really is a way to get sick of people you know.
And not a way to promote your band. Back to square one unsuccessful artistes looking for 'the answer'
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Job Spec
As some of you will know I'm currently looking for a job. I saw an advert for one job that helpfully tells you about different aspects of said vacancy - job 'Purpose' for example and 'Typical Tasks and Problems'. All very sensible. All very helpful. Ad performance dips a little with 'Key Result Areas', 'key' being a word that kind of implies unlocking but is rarely used in that way. However, one of the aspects described is 'Illustrative Dimensions'!
I'm not applying for a job that has 'Illustrative Dimensions' thank you very much. Nor am I working for a company that talks like that. This bit tells you where the job is and a bit more about what the job involves. Nowt to do with how big you can crayon...I think they should be made to speak English...
I'm not applying for a job that has 'Illustrative Dimensions' thank you very much. Nor am I working for a company that talks like that. This bit tells you where the job is and a bit more about what the job involves. Nowt to do with how big you can crayon...I think they should be made to speak English...
Sunday, May 01, 2011
There's a riot going on!
Last time I remember there being riots over shops it was the un-edifying spectacle of people fighting each other to buy stuff at a new IKEA. So it's a whole new experience to hear about people rioting against a supermarket. Perhaps there's hope yet...
Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit!
Yeah, sorry to go on about the Royal Wedding...I mostly avoided it but I did see a couple of minutes here and there, so definitely enough to be horrified by the BBC and their coverage. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the BBC have some sort of comittment to neutrality somewhere? I mean if they started telling you that you should be a Socialist or a Muslim or go bleedin' fly fishing you'd tell them to take a jump wouldn't you?
Well, I saw Huw Edwards and other newsreading bods spewing out propaganda promoting deference and irrationality in huge grinning soft-headed bucketfulls. Half-wits and buffoons were given hours to go on about wedding dresses and fairytales and generally take up time that could have had telly programmes on instead. Even the continuity announcer introduced the one and half hour long 'highlights' programme as the event that 'brought the whole country together'. Well, I didn't watch it and nor did my next door neighbour; the tat on sale at Wilkinson's was reduced to half price before it happened; the Council weren't giving permission for people who wanted to hold anti royal wedding street parties and even a survey I noticed in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph had 72% of people saying they weren't going to watch it.
So, my experience tells me that the news was a lie, the BBC mis-represented what was going on in the country and just broadcast hours and hours of propaganda and nonsense. Why should I believe a word these people say?
Incidentally, the 'news' did report 45 arrests - but did they say what the offences were? Did they fuck. Was anybody charged? Dunno. That's what happens in China and places isn't it - they talk darkly of 'trouble makers' but fear that if they tell you what they were actually doing / saying there's a danger you might have some sympathy.
One final thing. Did anybody notice that the crowd for the royal wedding (that 'united the whole country' remember) was a lot smaller than the crowds who demonstrated against spending cuts or the Iraq war or for CND in the 80's? Those demonstrations that 'divided opinion'.
It just makes me feel a bit ill and that no-one can be trusted.
Well, I saw Huw Edwards and other newsreading bods spewing out propaganda promoting deference and irrationality in huge grinning soft-headed bucketfulls. Half-wits and buffoons were given hours to go on about wedding dresses and fairytales and generally take up time that could have had telly programmes on instead. Even the continuity announcer introduced the one and half hour long 'highlights' programme as the event that 'brought the whole country together'. Well, I didn't watch it and nor did my next door neighbour; the tat on sale at Wilkinson's was reduced to half price before it happened; the Council weren't giving permission for people who wanted to hold anti royal wedding street parties and even a survey I noticed in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph had 72% of people saying they weren't going to watch it.
So, my experience tells me that the news was a lie, the BBC mis-represented what was going on in the country and just broadcast hours and hours of propaganda and nonsense. Why should I believe a word these people say?
Incidentally, the 'news' did report 45 arrests - but did they say what the offences were? Did they fuck. Was anybody charged? Dunno. That's what happens in China and places isn't it - they talk darkly of 'trouble makers' but fear that if they tell you what they were actually doing / saying there's a danger you might have some sympathy.
One final thing. Did anybody notice that the crowd for the royal wedding (that 'united the whole country' remember) was a lot smaller than the crowds who demonstrated against spending cuts or the Iraq war or for CND in the 80's? Those demonstrations that 'divided opinion'.
It just makes me feel a bit ill and that no-one can be trusted.
They should be forced to speak English!
More NHS cocktalk for you. I recently received an email inviting me to "Smaller Provider Engagement Workshops: Developing the Provider Landscape and the role of choice and competition"
If you need me to explain how awful this is please leave now, you've come to the wrong place. But for those who play 'Bullshit Bingo' or just despair at idiots wasting time here's another wodge of 'stuff' from the same email - I've highlighted a few choice phrases for those worried about lapsing into a coma or dying of a rage induced thrombosis if they try and read it all - or for your enjoyment possibly...
"We want to engage with as wide a range of providers of health care as possible on how to create the best environment that allows improved services for patients, enabling increased patient and carer choice and control, better outcomes, and increased value for taxpayers. We see small to medium providers (whether from the voluntary or social enterprise sector or for profit) as being key to driving innovation and personalisation, but are aware that there can be barriers to entry to the marketplace and expansion. We are therefore currently planning a series of four workshops in early to mid May, specifically aimed at smaller providers.
The Department of Health’s command paper ‘Liberating the NHS: legislative framework and next steps’ available at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/LiberatingtheNHS/DH_122624, set out a clear vision of a diverse provider landscape, with organisations from all sectors both working together and competing to deliver innovative services that are responsive to patients. The government has also now made clear its intention to take advantage of a natural break in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill to pause, listen to patients, clinicians and the public, reflect and improve its plans for modernisation of the National Health Service. These engagement workshops will also feed into this wider listening exercise".
I think secretly they can speak English you know...
If you need me to explain how awful this is please leave now, you've come to the wrong place. But for those who play 'Bullshit Bingo' or just despair at idiots wasting time here's another wodge of 'stuff' from the same email - I've highlighted a few choice phrases for those worried about lapsing into a coma or dying of a rage induced thrombosis if they try and read it all - or for your enjoyment possibly...
"We want to engage with as wide a range of providers of health care as possible on how to create the best environment that allows improved services for patients, enabling increased patient and carer choice and control, better outcomes, and increased value for taxpayers. We see small to medium providers (whether from the voluntary or social enterprise sector or for profit) as being key to driving innovation and personalisation, but are aware that there can be barriers to entry to the marketplace and expansion. We are therefore currently planning a series of four workshops in early to mid May, specifically aimed at smaller providers.
The Department of Health’s command paper ‘Liberating the NHS: legislative framework and next steps’ available at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/LiberatingtheNHS/DH_122624, set out a clear vision of a diverse provider landscape, with organisations from all sectors both working together and competing to deliver innovative services that are responsive to patients. The government has also now made clear its intention to take advantage of a natural break in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill to pause, listen to patients, clinicians and the public, reflect and improve its plans for modernisation of the National Health Service. These engagement workshops will also feed into this wider listening exercise".
I think secretly they can speak English you know...
Friday, April 29, 2011
News suspended
I turned on Radio 4 this morning - 4 times I think. I expected the Today Programme. Each time they were talking about wedding cars and dresses and all sorts of shite. I sent them this brief message....
Dear 'Today'
I kept trying to tune in to the Today Programme this morning and all I got was a lot of tabloid type twaddle about some kind of celebrity wedding. I assume the Today Programme was suspended due to there being no news?
I wish you wouldn't kow-tow to tabloid prejudices
Yours sincerely
John Parkes
Dear 'Today'
I kept trying to tune in to the Today Programme this morning and all I got was a lot of tabloid type twaddle about some kind of celebrity wedding. I assume the Today Programme was suspended due to there being no news?
I wish you wouldn't kow-tow to tabloid prejudices
Yours sincerely
John Parkes
Not a good day in the UK...
It’s not a good sign in any country when there’s a news blackout and the state media start broadcasting patriotic music 24/7. So today is not a good day in the UK.
By the way, we all know that the royal wedding stories have already been written - but I'll give a tenner of my own money to anyone who forwards me a piece from any newspaper that reports 'royal wedding flop - royal tat fails to sell' or anything similar.
Today I feel like a prisoner washed up on an island ruled by some strange cult. Most of the country seems moronic, irrational and decades if not hundreds of years behind reality. I just don't get it
By the way, we all know that the royal wedding stories have already been written - but I'll give a tenner of my own money to anyone who forwards me a piece from any newspaper that reports 'royal wedding flop - royal tat fails to sell' or anything similar.
Today I feel like a prisoner washed up on an island ruled by some strange cult. Most of the country seems moronic, irrational and decades if not hundreds of years behind reality. I just don't get it
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Shitpipe!
News from my job search - there was a job vacancy for a 'Pipeline Administrator'. Where was the pipeline? I wondered - oil or gas? - or water? Would the job be tracking leaks or charging for its use or what? To be honest I can't even be bothered checking what the job actually was - well, it was actually 12 grand a year. And there was no pipeline. Except some sort of metaphorical one I suppose. Shit job, shit language, shit pay. Shit!
Surely not the 'royal wedding'?!
Damn! Here I am talking about the 'royal wedding'. Really the best thing to do in my opinion is to ignore it rather than apposing it like it was something worth engaging with in the first place. However, I did want to mention that Wilkinson's in Armley were flogging off their royal wedding tat at half price - some time before the wedding! This (strongly) implies that people are less interested than at least one chain of shops thought they would be. A small cheer for that.
However the most depressing thing about the whole thing is the conspiracy in the media. All the papers etc will be reporting that the 'whole country' celebrated and the 'whole country' ground to a halt and whatnot - and it will be a lie. The 'story' will be written in advance and it'll be all shit. A bare-faced big lie - told to us by the BBC and others who should know better. I've lost count of the amount of times I've turned off the telly and radio this week because 'The Today Programme' for one are discussing royal wedding dress design over the centuries or whatever. In the case of the BBC they are of course shit scared of being accused of being leftie and unpatriotic and whatnot (as if patriotism somehow implied support of the royal family...)so they'll follow the tabloids and report on what a great success it all was and how we all bought into it. If there are protests for once they won't be reported for fear of spoiling the special day.
The main depressing thing about it all is that so many people are interested - what do these people actually believe? Hopefully they believe in celebrity rather than royalty but you never know.
Even the free 'day off' is costing loads of struggling organisations a load of money. Enough...
However the most depressing thing about the whole thing is the conspiracy in the media. All the papers etc will be reporting that the 'whole country' celebrated and the 'whole country' ground to a halt and whatnot - and it will be a lie. The 'story' will be written in advance and it'll be all shit. A bare-faced big lie - told to us by the BBC and others who should know better. I've lost count of the amount of times I've turned off the telly and radio this week because 'The Today Programme' for one are discussing royal wedding dress design over the centuries or whatever. In the case of the BBC they are of course shit scared of being accused of being leftie and unpatriotic and whatnot (as if patriotism somehow implied support of the royal family...)so they'll follow the tabloids and report on what a great success it all was and how we all bought into it. If there are protests for once they won't be reported for fear of spoiling the special day.
The main depressing thing about it all is that so many people are interested - what do these people actually believe? Hopefully they believe in celebrity rather than royalty but you never know.
Even the free 'day off' is costing loads of struggling organisations a load of money. Enough...
Thursday, March 24, 2011
You're just cynical, you!
In case anyone out there thinks that any numbers relating to bands on t’tinternet are real, here’s part of the price list from ‘mymusicsite.com’
And you thought I was cynical...
Bronze Package:
facebook – 1,000+ likes
twitter – 1,000+ followers
youtube – 2,500+ views to a video, 10+ ratings
myspace promos for 2 weeks
TOTAL – $250 flat
Silver Package:
facebook – 2,000+ likes
twitter – 5,000+ followers
youtube – 10,000+ views to a video, 100 subscribers, 100+ ratings
myspace promos for 2 weeks
TOTAL – $700 flat
Gold Package:
facebook - 5000+ likes
twitter – 10,000+ followers
youtube – 20,000+ views to a video, 300 subscribers, 300+ ratings
myspace promos for 2 weeks
TOTAL – $1250 flat
Platinum Package:
facebook – 10,000+ likes
twitter – 20,000+ followers
youtube – 100,000+ views to a video, 1,000 subscribers, 500+ ratings
myspace promos for 4 weeks
TOTAL – $2400 flat
We can also do 500+ real plays on reverbnation for $75.
We can also do 1000+ real plays on reverbnation for $125.
And you thought I was cynical...
Bronze Package:
facebook – 1,000+ likes
twitter – 1,000+ followers
youtube – 2,500+ views to a video, 10+ ratings
myspace promos for 2 weeks
TOTAL – $250 flat
Silver Package:
facebook – 2,000+ likes
twitter – 5,000+ followers
youtube – 10,000+ views to a video, 100 subscribers, 100+ ratings
myspace promos for 2 weeks
TOTAL – $700 flat
Gold Package:
facebook - 5000+ likes
twitter – 10,000+ followers
youtube – 20,000+ views to a video, 300 subscribers, 300+ ratings
myspace promos for 2 weeks
TOTAL – $1250 flat
Platinum Package:
facebook – 10,000+ likes
twitter – 20,000+ followers
youtube – 100,000+ views to a video, 1,000 subscribers, 500+ ratings
myspace promos for 4 weeks
TOTAL – $2400 flat
We can also do 500+ real plays on reverbnation for $75.
We can also do 1000+ real plays on reverbnation for $125.
News from my job search
‘jobsgopublic’ think that Knowsley is in West Yorkshire.
I guess they think that anything ‘oop North’ must be Yorkshire. They've probably seen it in an old Hovis advert or something.
I guess they think that anything ‘oop North’ must be Yorkshire. They've probably seen it in an old Hovis advert or something.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Firstbus Info Triumph number 2!
I'm gratified to find that Firstbus have a new instructional poster on display on some of their buses - this one tells you how to get off a bus! More useful than the one that tells you (when you're on the bus) how to er, get on a bus but still a bit daft.
It tells you to ring the bell when you want to get off the bus - that bit's fine! I agree with that bit. For idiots with no observational skills determined not to copy anyone else that's fine. Helpful even. Then they tell you to stay in your seat until the bus has stopped! Ha Ha! Yeah right firstbus!
I wonder if any of them have ever been on a bus?
They are my favourite company, like ever! - toadally!
It tells you to ring the bell when you want to get off the bus - that bit's fine! I agree with that bit. For idiots with no observational skills determined not to copy anyone else that's fine. Helpful even. Then they tell you to stay in your seat until the bus has stopped! Ha Ha! Yeah right firstbus!
I wonder if any of them have ever been on a bus?
They are my favourite company, like ever! - toadally!
The Social Network
It's a bit late for this one but all this talk of how rubbish Facebook is reminded me that we had a band outing while waiting to go on stage in Aberdeen and went to see 'The Social Network'.
I don't know if anyone spotted this and why I get nostalgic for the days of feminism but if you believe the film all the women at Harvard (or wherever the fuck it was) seemed to do all day was to a) drape themselves nearly naked over the cool guys b) get nearly naked and dance on tables for the cool guys and c) wait for the guys to talk to them. Oh and they substituted for table lamps.
And of course the cool guys are all utter tossers. A very depressing film all round really.
I don't know if anyone spotted this and why I get nostalgic for the days of feminism but if you believe the film all the women at Harvard (or wherever the fuck it was) seemed to do all day was to a) drape themselves nearly naked over the cool guys b) get nearly naked and dance on tables for the cool guys and c) wait for the guys to talk to them. Oh and they substituted for table lamps.
And of course the cool guys are all utter tossers. A very depressing film all round really.
Bloody Myspace!
Beware - SWEARY RANT APPROACHING!
How come when I go into myspace for Whole Sky Monitor there are millions of messages saying 'you and spamming wanker are now friends' Who fucking says? - don't you have to be asked? I suppose I could set stuff up to filter messages but there’s so much noise who cares any more. There are pictures of teddy bears by the hundred saying ‘I love everything that you do’ and bands inviting you to gigs in Ontario and oh, it’s just too boring to bother with. There aren't even Russian gangsta bride cons any more - And every page takes ages to load.
Bloody on line shite - I'm off to flog a cassette off the back of a van.
And I'm getting really impatient with people I actually do know popping up like wankers on facebook saying fuck all about fuck all to fuck knows who. I don't even know who they think they're talking to but they appear to be talking to me in some sort of endless list of garbage that comes up and jumps about as you scroll down.
I blocked some of those fuckers on our myspace and removed them as friends. I blame the Arctic Monkeys.
I used to use it to actually send messages about stuff - but now you've got no chance. I'm sick of being chained to a computer (he says rather ironically)
How come when I go into myspace for Whole Sky Monitor there are millions of messages saying 'you and spamming wanker are now friends' Who fucking says? - don't you have to be asked? I suppose I could set stuff up to filter messages but there’s so much noise who cares any more. There are pictures of teddy bears by the hundred saying ‘I love everything that you do’ and bands inviting you to gigs in Ontario and oh, it’s just too boring to bother with. There aren't even Russian gangsta bride cons any more - And every page takes ages to load.
Bloody on line shite - I'm off to flog a cassette off the back of a van.
And I'm getting really impatient with people I actually do know popping up like wankers on facebook saying fuck all about fuck all to fuck knows who. I don't even know who they think they're talking to but they appear to be talking to me in some sort of endless list of garbage that comes up and jumps about as you scroll down.
I blocked some of those fuckers on our myspace and removed them as friends. I blame the Arctic Monkeys.
I used to use it to actually send messages about stuff - but now you've got no chance. I'm sick of being chained to a computer (he says rather ironically)
Making your job search easier!
I’m currently looking for a job. The world is full of really shite ones at 12 grand a year – and people advertising jobs who won’t tell you who they are or how much they pay! Well, I’m not going to tell them who I am either. So there.
I was looking at one job earlier today but couldn’t find out what they needed without actually applying - which seemed to involve uploading a CV (which I don't have). My suspicion is that they sell on lists of hopeless jobseekers to other sharky on-line HR people who like to have inflated numbers so they can sell them loans and whtever...
I just want to know what the job is, where it is, how much it pays and what they need – if I’m interested I’ll fill in the application form – is that too much to ask? Apparently so.
People advertising jobs don’t seem to have any concept of the meaning of words like ‘senior’ or ‘manager’ or ‘assistant’ or ‘executive’ either.
Hell in a handcart etc - and they were all made of wood...
I was looking at one job earlier today but couldn’t find out what they needed without actually applying - which seemed to involve uploading a CV (which I don't have). My suspicion is that they sell on lists of hopeless jobseekers to other sharky on-line HR people who like to have inflated numbers so they can sell them loans and whtever...
I just want to know what the job is, where it is, how much it pays and what they need – if I’m interested I’ll fill in the application form – is that too much to ask? Apparently so.
People advertising jobs don’t seem to have any concept of the meaning of words like ‘senior’ or ‘manager’ or ‘assistant’ or ‘executive’ either.
Hell in a handcart etc - and they were all made of wood...
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
NHS furniture
An NHS facility near where I work has been chucking perfectly good furniture into a skip. A lot of the furniture we currently use at work was from there too. I hear that they have to spend their budget before the end of the new financial year. Good to know some organisations have got money to piss away eh?
Armley baths
Just thought I'd mention that Armley baths doesn't have changing rooms - it has a 'changing village'. I wonder if the village is big enough to have a swimming pool?
Do you know how to catch a bus?
On the inside of buses in Leeds you may well see a sign that says “Hands up if you know how to catch a bus – Just hold out your hand to let the driver know you want the bus to stop”. Please note that this is on the inside of the bus - upstairs in fact. So if you don't know how to catch a bus how did you manage to er, catch the bus you're currently on? And do you have zero observational skills? Have you not noticed what people do at bus stops the world over? Or are you a moron thirsty for validation of your recent bus catching behaviour?
What it doesn't say of course is that unless you hold out your hand the bus driver will have no clue as to what on earth that line of 25 people are doing waiting at that pole on the pavement with 'bus stop' written on it - and he'll cruise past.
What it doesn't say of course is that unless you hold out your hand the bus driver will have no clue as to what on earth that line of 25 people are doing waiting at that pole on the pavement with 'bus stop' written on it - and he'll cruise past.
Can I have a human sized one please?
I saw some video cameras in Comet or somewhere. It struck me that they were all about 2 inches in size – clearly designed for small children or midgets. Meanwhile mobile phone type devices have keyboards too small for fingers so they give you a cocktail stick to poke them with. I have a screen on my home computer about 15 inches wide. It’s just about big enough. Why would I want to look at the internet on a half inch screen? Why don’t they design people sized stuff?
Still, another few quid saved eh?
Still, another few quid saved eh?
It's mainly fat and sugar you know...
Cadburys are the “official treat provider of London 2012”. I promise you I am not making this up. And the advertising industry is the official wanker provider for the UK...
All the really shit food that's really bad for you will be the official gut bucket filler of the Olympic movement.
All the really shit food that's really bad for you will be the official gut bucket filler of the Olympic movement.
Unfixability
Appliances and gadgets and hardware are out of control this week – and it seems nobody can do anything about it.
Pay for someone to come and fit a new oven and hob? Nah, can’t do it, the electricity supply is all wrong, you’re gunna need an electrician mate (we just fit ‘em)...Oh and we don’t have a piece of paper that says there’s enough clearance for the hob so we can’t fit that either - what do you think we are, cooker fitters? Get the electrician in, sort out the leccy and we’ll come back – but we still can’t fit the new hob (with the piece of paper that says there’s enough room) – yer gas pipes are all wrong mate...
The toilet flush went and the plumber didn’t know how to fix it; Yorkshire Water sent another of those ‘we don’t own dem water pipes any more and dey dem sure gunna burst’ letters flogging insurance; and finally a card came through the door saying someone had turned up to service the Dyson – I mean what kind of person gets someone in to service the tossing vacuum cleaner once a year? Not me before you ask. Most of us don’t even get to service the wife once a year (boom boom – the 70’s dontcha love ‘em!)
So our experiment with buying new stuff and getting things sorted falls flat on its consumery fool face – no one can actually do anything you want doing - while the rest of the world is trying to do things that don’t need doing via dodgy insurance schemes.
We’re keeping the bleedin’ hob – too much effort to buy new...
The car clock still insists that it knows better than us and the other toilet flush doesn't work after the plumber had fixed it...and we got a puncture - and you don't even get a proper spare tyre these days so it'll need changing again. Let's hope the tyre man knows how to change a tyre eh? - Unless the regulations have changed and he's not allowed...oh, and have you got the special nut for the clever car?
Pay for someone to come and fit a new oven and hob? Nah, can’t do it, the electricity supply is all wrong, you’re gunna need an electrician mate (we just fit ‘em)...Oh and we don’t have a piece of paper that says there’s enough clearance for the hob so we can’t fit that either - what do you think we are, cooker fitters? Get the electrician in, sort out the leccy and we’ll come back – but we still can’t fit the new hob (with the piece of paper that says there’s enough room) – yer gas pipes are all wrong mate...
The toilet flush went and the plumber didn’t know how to fix it; Yorkshire Water sent another of those ‘we don’t own dem water pipes any more and dey dem sure gunna burst’ letters flogging insurance; and finally a card came through the door saying someone had turned up to service the Dyson – I mean what kind of person gets someone in to service the tossing vacuum cleaner once a year? Not me before you ask. Most of us don’t even get to service the wife once a year (boom boom – the 70’s dontcha love ‘em!)
So our experiment with buying new stuff and getting things sorted falls flat on its consumery fool face – no one can actually do anything you want doing - while the rest of the world is trying to do things that don’t need doing via dodgy insurance schemes.
We’re keeping the bleedin’ hob – too much effort to buy new...
The car clock still insists that it knows better than us and the other toilet flush doesn't work after the plumber had fixed it...and we got a puncture - and you don't even get a proper spare tyre these days so it'll need changing again. Let's hope the tyre man knows how to change a tyre eh? - Unless the regulations have changed and he's not allowed...oh, and have you got the special nut for the clever car?
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Swimming lengths
I can't believe it. I owe Leeds City council an apology. Not nearly as big as the one they owe me - but that's another story. But so far as swimming pool size goes I was wrong. The pool at Armley Leisure Centre is as big as the other one I go to - took me the same number of strokes to get to the end...Must be an optical illusion (to do with Armley being a really high roof maybe?) I was wrong anyway...
Not only that but the bloke at the pool today didn't give the VAT line to explain the inflation busting price increase. Instead he gave me that vaguely sympathetic 'yeah, it is a bit rubbish' kind of look that you would expect.
It was busy today - that's because they won't let you in without kids in tow until 12 so everyone has to go at once. That's another complaint and another story.
Not only that but the bloke at the pool today didn't give the VAT line to explain the inflation busting price increase. Instead he gave me that vaguely sympathetic 'yeah, it is a bit rubbish' kind of look that you would expect.
It was busy today - that's because they won't let you in without kids in tow until 12 so everyone has to go at once. That's another complaint and another story.
Consumer affairs 4 – The Race to Easter
I’ve noted before that shops allow you to buy stuff in the run up to a festival so long as you stop a few days before so you don't interfer with them setting up for the next consumerfest – so ask for an Easter egg on Good Friday and they’ll look at you like you’re some sort of tardy retard who must have just got out of prison or something. However, Christmas seemed to be an exception this year with loads of people being allowed to buy Christmas stuff even on Christmas Eve. Terrible. However, normal service ran in some sort of parallel with this.
Wilkinson’s for example started Easter before Christmas – though it’s taken the other supermarkets several days into the New Year to start palleting in the eggs and all the rest. I wonder how close to Easter they’ll let it run?
And hang on...they’re a bit late with Valentine’s Day aren’t they? We’re nearly a third of the way through January. I've probably just not noticed it.
Wilkinson’s for example started Easter before Christmas – though it’s taken the other supermarkets several days into the New Year to start palleting in the eggs and all the rest. I wonder how close to Easter they’ll let it run?
And hang on...they’re a bit late with Valentine’s Day aren’t they? We’re nearly a third of the way through January. I've probably just not noticed it.
Consumer Affairs 3 – Play.com
I ordered an album from play.com last March (Broadcast and the Focus Group since you ask). I waited and waited but no CD. By the summer I contacted them asking where it was – I think I got ‘standard bollocks email number 54’ where they say they’re having trouble getting copies from the supplier. A few months later I sent them a rather cross email asking what was going on and pointing out that the CD was still being advertised on their website. No reply. Finally, 9 months in I contacted them again explaining what had happened and asking them to note that I’d ordered 72 items from them over the last couple of years. I also asked them to note that I’d completely stopped ordering from them since their failure to send me the CD. I also provided them with a link to the album on their own website in case they couldn’t find it.
This time I got a reply saying “Unfortunately this item was only available in limited quantities and all stock has now been sold. As it is unlikely that we will be able to offer the item again in the near future we have cancelled the order. rest assure you were not yet charge for this order. Please be advised that the item you are seeing now on the website is not from play.com anymroe. Instead, thisi tem is being sold by a Playtrade seller or third party seller. You may order the item if you still want it”.
Leaving aside the grammar and spelling, what they’re saying is ‘yeah, it’s for sale on our website but it’s nuffing to do with us chief’. So there you go. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it appears on the ‘Ducks R us’ website and you pay We Supply Ducks Ltd to supply you a duck – but actually it's not a duck and they don't know what you're so upset about. It must be from another firm and somehow got on the Buy a Duck from Us website by accident.
So if you want a CD from Play.com they probably have fuck all to do with it, it’s just there for sale on their website but nowt to do with them.
In case everything else on their website isn’t really from them and they can't supply it I’ve decided to try to find someone who does have some responsibility for what’s in their shop.
This time I got a reply saying “Unfortunately this item was only available in limited quantities and all stock has now been sold. As it is unlikely that we will be able to offer the item again in the near future we have cancelled the order. rest assure you were not yet charge for this order. Please be advised that the item you are seeing now on the website is not from play.com anymroe. Instead, thisi tem is being sold by a Playtrade seller or third party seller. You may order the item if you still want it”.
Leaving aside the grammar and spelling, what they’re saying is ‘yeah, it’s for sale on our website but it’s nuffing to do with us chief’. So there you go. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it appears on the ‘Ducks R us’ website and you pay We Supply Ducks Ltd to supply you a duck – but actually it's not a duck and they don't know what you're so upset about. It must be from another firm and somehow got on the Buy a Duck from Us website by accident.
So if you want a CD from Play.com they probably have fuck all to do with it, it’s just there for sale on their website but nowt to do with them.
In case everything else on their website isn’t really from them and they can't supply it I’ve decided to try to find someone who does have some responsibility for what’s in their shop.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Consumer Affairs 2 – WH Smug comedy prices
More on prices – You have no idea how annoying I find this (or maybe you do...) – I really hate WH Smiths for this (though never as much as I hate Firstbus and printer ink dealers obviously - oh, and anti-virus software pedlars).
Anyway, a chunky Kitkat in WH Smiths in town yesterday was 82p! Yup – 82 tossing pee – that’s nearly a quid! For a Kit-kat! - some for a Twix by the way. Tesco’s price today was 48p. So a bar of yer standard sort of chocky bar is about 50p in sensible places (hey, I’m calling Tescos sensible!) and over 80p in WH Smug. Why is there no boycott? Why is no-one distributing leaflets in the shop? Why is no-one squeezing poo under the roller shutters? Anyway, I’m not buying owt from them. 82p for a Kit-kat – they’re ‘avin’ a laarf
By the way, when you get to the counter they’ll probably offer you cut price chocolate. I guess the staff are all too aware of the irony. Maybe a KitKat Chunky inserted up them by irate customers would learn ‘em?
Anyway, a chunky Kitkat in WH Smiths in town yesterday was 82p! Yup – 82 tossing pee – that’s nearly a quid! For a Kit-kat! - some for a Twix by the way. Tesco’s price today was 48p. So a bar of yer standard sort of chocky bar is about 50p in sensible places (hey, I’m calling Tescos sensible!) and over 80p in WH Smug. Why is there no boycott? Why is no-one distributing leaflets in the shop? Why is no-one squeezing poo under the roller shutters? Anyway, I’m not buying owt from them. 82p for a Kit-kat – they’re ‘avin’ a laarf
By the way, when you get to the counter they’ll probably offer you cut price chocolate. I guess the staff are all too aware of the irony. Maybe a KitKat Chunky inserted up them by irate customers would learn ‘em?
Consumer Affairs 1 – Leeds City Council
Re my suspicions re the pool length at Armley Leisure Centre, you’ll have to wait for that...
Anyway, I went there yesterday (though the snow by the way). It cost £3.20 for a swim with a ‘Leedscard’ not long ago. Then it went up to £3.50. I wish I could remember when that happened – I’ve come to the conclusion that if you want to track price increases the only way to do it is to write them down at the time, as organisations (even the ones you pay for like Councils) won’t be keen on telling you. First Bus for example told me that there was no graph of their prices against inflation – yeah right!
Anyway, thing is that today the cost of swimming had gone up from £3.50 to £3.80 – that’s with a Leedscard – it’s more without. The person on reception said it had gone up ‘due to the VAT increase’. I accepted this for a minute until I worked out that an extra 2 ½ % on £3.50 was less than 9p – so an increase to £3.60 would be reasonable. They’ve added an additional inflation busting 5 ½ % increase. Mind you, people in Armley are loaded... (erm, no...that’s a joke).
So are Leeds City Council sneaking through increases hiding behind the excuse of VAT? It would seem so. If they were planning an increase anyway (I wonder if they’d try that one on?) they could have postponed it (or even brought it forward!) so it didn’t coincide with the VAT increase.
By the way, I checked the prices on a list on their website. They call the price list “Sports centre charges - Key Benchmark Prices”. Yow! ‘Key benchmark prices’. Priceless...
Anyway, I went there yesterday (though the snow by the way). It cost £3.20 for a swim with a ‘Leedscard’ not long ago. Then it went up to £3.50. I wish I could remember when that happened – I’ve come to the conclusion that if you want to track price increases the only way to do it is to write them down at the time, as organisations (even the ones you pay for like Councils) won’t be keen on telling you. First Bus for example told me that there was no graph of their prices against inflation – yeah right!
Anyway, thing is that today the cost of swimming had gone up from £3.50 to £3.80 – that’s with a Leedscard – it’s more without. The person on reception said it had gone up ‘due to the VAT increase’. I accepted this for a minute until I worked out that an extra 2 ½ % on £3.50 was less than 9p – so an increase to £3.60 would be reasonable. They’ve added an additional inflation busting 5 ½ % increase. Mind you, people in Armley are loaded... (erm, no...that’s a joke).
So are Leeds City Council sneaking through increases hiding behind the excuse of VAT? It would seem so. If they were planning an increase anyway (I wonder if they’d try that one on?) they could have postponed it (or even brought it forward!) so it didn’t coincide with the VAT increase.
By the way, I checked the prices on a list on their website. They call the price list “Sports centre charges - Key Benchmark Prices”. Yow! ‘Key benchmark prices’. Priceless...
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
The full 25 yards
The Council website says that the swimming pool in the new Armley Leisure Centre is 25 meters long. It also says that the pool where I usually go is 25 metres long. I think the Armley one is much shorter. It takes me about 30 strokes to swim a length of the Armley pool. Next time I get in the one I usually go to I'm going to count strokes. I'll let you know. The alternative by the way would be to turn up with a big tape measure.
Incidentally the place where I normally go doesn't seem to want me there. They were closed this Sunday for instance. Sunday 2nd Jan - a special day in some way? Nope. A day they're usually open? Yup. A Bank Holiday? Nope. In the school holidays when people are looking for things to do with their leisure time? Yup (quick reminder - this is a 'leisure centre we're talking about). Just the Council having a few days off for no reason I guess.
I usually go as part of a group of three of us. I went on my own a couple of Sundays back and though I go every week (sort of) they wouldn't let me in - as it was time for 'family swimming'. I didn't have a family with me so they didn't let me in. There are usually about 8 people in the pool on a Sunday morning. I think they've come up with this to deal with demand that isn't there. It would have been big enough to fit me in. It's 25 meters long you know...
Incidentally the place where I normally go doesn't seem to want me there. They were closed this Sunday for instance. Sunday 2nd Jan - a special day in some way? Nope. A day they're usually open? Yup. A Bank Holiday? Nope. In the school holidays when people are looking for things to do with their leisure time? Yup (quick reminder - this is a 'leisure centre we're talking about). Just the Council having a few days off for no reason I guess.
I usually go as part of a group of three of us. I went on my own a couple of Sundays back and though I go every week (sort of) they wouldn't let me in - as it was time for 'family swimming'. I didn't have a family with me so they didn't let me in. There are usually about 8 people in the pool on a Sunday morning. I think they've come up with this to deal with demand that isn't there. It would have been big enough to fit me in. It's 25 meters long you know...
Hit the Ground
I saw a job advert today which said that “you will be required to hit the ground running”. 'Back of the net!' as Alan would say. Shit lives!
Lady Boys of Bangkok
Good to see that the Lady Boys of Bangkok have their own yellow AA sign. I was in a shoe shop with some of them once...
Congrats from the Engine Room
Just for information - The project I work on (we're talking about 'work work' now...) is part of "a regional collaborative programme" which (wait for it...) "reports to a multi-agency Engine Room". It seems that "all projects are achieving milestones and targets and demonstrating delivery of high quality work".
I've never been congratulated by an engine room before, least of all a multi-agency one. Amusingly the 'engine room' is also the steering group! The Tiller Girls or the boiler room? I dunno. Add this to 'Community Anchors' as an illiterate would be nautical metaphor.
I've never been congratulated by an engine room before, least of all a multi-agency one. Amusingly the 'engine room' is also the steering group! The Tiller Girls or the boiler room? I dunno. Add this to 'Community Anchors' as an illiterate would be nautical metaphor.
Robin Hood Robin Hood
Went to a primary school Christmas show just before Christmas – Robin Hood. It was top notch of course though there were a few missed cues and the prompt at the back of the hall had to help out on a few occasions.
My favourite was when one of the cast yelled ‘three cheers for Robin Hood!’ The kids then proceeded to look at each other for a few seconds clearly not knowing what came next. The prompt came in with what might have been a rather disappointed sounding ‘hip hip...’
My favourite was when one of the cast yelled ‘three cheers for Robin Hood!’ The kids then proceeded to look at each other for a few seconds clearly not knowing what came next. The prompt came in with what might have been a rather disappointed sounding ‘hip hip...’
Half price at Wilkinson's
Wilkinson's have a sale on. A half price sale. They have large cards up on the displays telling people what half of each price is - mmm. Almost like they think their customers can't divide 3 quid into 2. Or work out what half a tenner is...Oh well...
Terry’s Chocolate Orange Goes minty
Post-Christmas dispute about the Chocolate Orange (a product incidentally which I have had to explain to people used to be posh).
Anyway, I said that the produce labelled as ‘Chocolate Orange goes minty’ would be er, minty. However, it was put to me that as it was a chocolate orange it must therefore be orangey - Though it was allowed that as it had gone minty it would be minty and orangey. I thought that this would involve a triumph of logic over a brand name – so no contest, it was going to be minty and not orangey – the idea that a chocolate orange had to have some connection with orangeyness – nonsense. And so I was proved right – It was minty. Not orangey at all.
Anyway, I said that the produce labelled as ‘Chocolate Orange goes minty’ would be er, minty. However, it was put to me that as it was a chocolate orange it must therefore be orangey - Though it was allowed that as it had gone minty it would be minty and orangey. I thought that this would involve a triumph of logic over a brand name – so no contest, it was going to be minty and not orangey – the idea that a chocolate orange had to have some connection with orangeyness – nonsense. And so I was proved right – It was minty. Not orangey at all.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Boxed set
That old Dad rock nostalgia thing is a real problem. I complain about 'old rock' and in theory I'm against the whole 'boxed set' thing - but who finally bought the Beatles re-masters? Yup, bloody me, that's right. My excuses - you'll know them I guess - and it wasn't expensive (see, I wasn't going to spell out my excuses and now here I am with an excuse)
Problem is that as ever 99% is shit (as the man said) - somebody help me to todays 1% before I go mad.
If you don't at this rate i'll be checking out Genesis...(OK, OK, don't worry, I'm not that far gone yet)
Problem is that as ever 99% is shit (as the man said) - somebody help me to todays 1% before I go mad.
If you don't at this rate i'll be checking out Genesis...(OK, OK, don't worry, I'm not that far gone yet)
Five Years - That's all we got
Blimey! I just realised I've been writing a blog for nearly 5 years. None of the publishing companies that have offered me 6-figure sums to publish it on paper mentioned that to me.
Five years left to cry in.
I may have made a bit of that up...
Five years left to cry in.
I may have made a bit of that up...
Nostalgia - for a world yet to come
I bought a monthly music mag this week – Uncut as it happens. There’s usually a lot of ‘classic’ Dad rock in most of the monthies (it seems to me as an 'irregular' reader) and I’m as up for articles on Neil Young and John Lennon as anyone else – and yup, I’ll go for the stuff on Talking Heads and Dylan and the rest (not so bothered about Eric Clapton though...) too. However, what surprised me was looking at the adverts for gigs in the back. Who are all the thrusting young whipper snappers on tour this Autumn? Well...here’s a sample...
Wilko Johnson, Barclay James Harvest, John Cooper Clarke, Mudhoney, the Human League, Eric Clapton, Paul Weller, Van Morrison, the Waterboys, Nils Lofgren, Tom Paxton, Edwyn Collins, Lloyd Cole, The Wedding Present, the Selector, the Psychedelic Furs, Ian Hunter, the Bluetones, the Stranglers, Skunk Anansie, Marc Almond, Cast, Echo & the Bunnymen, Squeeze, Madness, James, The Pogues, The Charlatans, Primal Scream and Suede.
It’s not that all of these are rubbish – some are great. But can it really be that rock music (and ‘proper’ pop music come to that) is now almost exclusively played by and for the over 40s? Is it really dead on it's arse? Is there really no point in being in a badn trying to do something slightly new?
Maybe I'm just reading the wrong magazines but if one thing rock and roll isn't about it's nostalgia.
I'm depressed now...
Wilko Johnson, Barclay James Harvest, John Cooper Clarke, Mudhoney, the Human League, Eric Clapton, Paul Weller, Van Morrison, the Waterboys, Nils Lofgren, Tom Paxton, Edwyn Collins, Lloyd Cole, The Wedding Present, the Selector, the Psychedelic Furs, Ian Hunter, the Bluetones, the Stranglers, Skunk Anansie, Marc Almond, Cast, Echo & the Bunnymen, Squeeze, Madness, James, The Pogues, The Charlatans, Primal Scream and Suede.
It’s not that all of these are rubbish – some are great. But can it really be that rock music (and ‘proper’ pop music come to that) is now almost exclusively played by and for the over 40s? Is it really dead on it's arse? Is there really no point in being in a badn trying to do something slightly new?
Maybe I'm just reading the wrong magazines but if one thing rock and roll isn't about it's nostalgia.
I'm depressed now...
Sandwich Bored
I note from my lunch this week that the Co-op was awarded the “Sandwich convenience retailer of the year” award from the British Sandwich Association. A quick question, what is a sandwich convenience? Is it bread that soaks up piss?
Anyway, there’s a ‘sandwich designer of the year’ award too - and a “Cheese Cellar Leerdammer Lightlife Cheese Sandwich Designer of the Year” Very much like getting a Nobel prize I imagine...
So there you go...and you thought you were wasting your life on the dole...Actually, I wonder what would happen if you told the dole off ice you were a sandwich designer?
I just had a look and downloaded an entry form for the sandwich awards – these are the categories:
- English Provender Ploughmans Plum Chutney Sandwich
- The Cheese Cellar Leerdammer Lightlife Sandwich
- Moy Park Corned Beef Sandwich
- Bernard Matthews Turkey Sandwich
Please note – I am not making this up...Perhaps these are winners and not categories? Could one invent a new version of these?
Mind you, the marketing industry is totally barking and out of control as you'll have noticed so who knows...
Anyway, there’s a ‘sandwich designer of the year’ award too - and a “Cheese Cellar Leerdammer Lightlife Cheese Sandwich Designer of the Year” Very much like getting a Nobel prize I imagine...
So there you go...and you thought you were wasting your life on the dole...Actually, I wonder what would happen if you told the dole off ice you were a sandwich designer?
I just had a look and downloaded an entry form for the sandwich awards – these are the categories:
- English Provender Ploughmans Plum Chutney Sandwich
- The Cheese Cellar Leerdammer Lightlife Sandwich
- Moy Park Corned Beef Sandwich
- Bernard Matthews Turkey Sandwich
Please note – I am not making this up...Perhaps these are winners and not categories? Could one invent a new version of these?
Mind you, the marketing industry is totally barking and out of control as you'll have noticed so who knows...
Baader news
Who’d have thought the Baader Meinhof group (no, they’re not a band...) would be in the news again? Seems that a member of said group Verena Becker is being tried for murder after new DNA evidence emerged connecting her with the killing of 3 people in 1977 (it says 'ere...)
This in interesting to me as the Whole Sky Monitor song ‘Drone (Revolution)' from the new album makes a couple of references to members of the group (specifically Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin). Erm, that’s it really. Best to read up on them if you have some time. It all looks a bit mad and un-heroic from here – despite Joe Strummer wearing the t-shirt...
This in interesting to me as the Whole Sky Monitor song ‘Drone (Revolution)' from the new album makes a couple of references to members of the group (specifically Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin). Erm, that’s it really. Best to read up on them if you have some time. It all looks a bit mad and un-heroic from here – despite Joe Strummer wearing the t-shirt...
Saturday, September 18, 2010
DON'T READ THIS!!! - Distraction Devastates
When driving one should always concentrate on the road - right? Right. No watching people or adverts or whatever no matter how eye catching eh? So you'd think road safety people would be against distractions such as billboards wouldn't you? - Distraction can be dangerous.
So imagine the irony of a massive distracting poster BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD WHEN YOU'RE DRIVING that says 'Oi, eyes on the road, what's so important?' and 'Concentrate on the Road' (though they seem to have missed out the word 'on'...) I saw this on Roundhay Road in Leeds - my mouth hit the floor and I nearly hit the car in front...
So what tossing numpty sort of organisation would try to get away with such a moronic no sense of irony or responsibility wheeze? It seems to be something calling itself the 'West Yorkshire Safer Roads Group' - presumably making the roads safer by getting everyone driving onto the pavements in disbelief.
What hope is there when a whole process of design and discussion and whatever is gone through (presumably) for someone to let through such a transparently and massively stupid and counter-productive advert? It's like jumping in front of someone dresed as a clown on a goat screaming 'DON'T LOOK AT ME, I MIGHT PUT YOU OFF!!!
At no stage (presumably) did anybody say 'no, come on, this is mad, people will assume we're taking the piss, let's not waste money on making laughing stocks of ourselves'
I was hoping to tell them what tossing numpties they were directly but I can't find much on-line about them - I bet they're a consortium or 'partnership' of some kind and I bet local government is involved. Blimey though guvnor!
So imagine the irony of a massive distracting poster BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD WHEN YOU'RE DRIVING that says 'Oi, eyes on the road, what's so important?' and 'Concentrate on the Road' (though they seem to have missed out the word 'on'...) I saw this on Roundhay Road in Leeds - my mouth hit the floor and I nearly hit the car in front...
So what tossing numpty sort of organisation would try to get away with such a moronic no sense of irony or responsibility wheeze? It seems to be something calling itself the 'West Yorkshire Safer Roads Group' - presumably making the roads safer by getting everyone driving onto the pavements in disbelief.
What hope is there when a whole process of design and discussion and whatever is gone through (presumably) for someone to let through such a transparently and massively stupid and counter-productive advert? It's like jumping in front of someone dresed as a clown on a goat screaming 'DON'T LOOK AT ME, I MIGHT PUT YOU OFF!!!
At no stage (presumably) did anybody say 'no, come on, this is mad, people will assume we're taking the piss, let's not waste money on making laughing stocks of ourselves'
I was hoping to tell them what tossing numpties they were directly but I can't find much on-line about them - I bet they're a consortium or 'partnership' of some kind and I bet local government is involved. Blimey though guvnor!
McAfee
Add McAfee to Firstbus as a company which deserves to die - I downloaded Firefox t'other day and I wasn't watching - so I ended up with this tossing McAfee bloody virus that gets in your computer and you can't get rid of. Actually, you can get rid of it but you have to work out how. Forcing your software involuntarily onto someone's computer should be illegal - either that or it's OK for me to find the head of McAfee and force my cock in his ear. How dare they bloody invade my computer! I should point out that this isn't the first time this has happened either.
I bet they say it's voluntary because if I'd read everything I could have read I could have worked out a way to say no - not bloody good enough. So...I will never buy a McAfee product and I will advise everyone I know not to buy a McAfee product and if anyone suggests burning their offices to the ground I'll buy the petrol! - Hey this is the sort of stuff that supposed to go on blogs - real hate!
I bet they say it's voluntary because if I'd read everything I could have read I could have worked out a way to say no - not bloody good enough. So...I will never buy a McAfee product and I will advise everyone I know not to buy a McAfee product and if anyone suggests burning their offices to the ground I'll buy the petrol! - Hey this is the sort of stuff that supposed to go on blogs - real hate!
Calm down dear
Well darn it - that stone ear is actuaLly from a mould - not a mold (I used to go to school with a Tony Mold) - BUT IT'S STILL DEAD COOL!
Monday, August 16, 2010
Anna Parker's stone ear
Well! Someone in my house got a present today - what? I hear you ask -
A BLOODY STONE EAR THAT'S WHAT!
The Sunday Telegraph probably have a section in their magazine for people with more money than sense on 'original Christmas gifts' round about this time of year - all made in crofts in the Hebrides by Southerners who got tired of 'the rat race' and making squillions of squid in the city - who moved up there to make sure that the locals had to move out.
But I bet none of them have a 10 year old daughter who's just been given an EAR CARVED OUT OF SOLID STONE.
Anna Parker is the artiste - and before long she'll be up on the scaffolding re- carving the Lincoln Imp. 'Kin BRILLIANT present!
And bizarrely just what was asked for!
A BLOODY STONE EAR THAT'S WHAT!
The Sunday Telegraph probably have a section in their magazine for people with more money than sense on 'original Christmas gifts' round about this time of year - all made in crofts in the Hebrides by Southerners who got tired of 'the rat race' and making squillions of squid in the city - who moved up there to make sure that the locals had to move out.
But I bet none of them have a 10 year old daughter who's just been given an EAR CARVED OUT OF SOLID STONE.
Anna Parker is the artiste - and before long she'll be up on the scaffolding re- carving the Lincoln Imp. 'Kin BRILLIANT present!
And bizarrely just what was asked for!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Tiny children are coming to burgle my house
By visiting Argos (yuk!)I managed to buy a cat flap (the old one just broke into pieces, this isn't some keep up with the Whiskers upgrade)...
The maximum dimension of the new flap is about 16cm and it says that it’s suitable for cats up to 7kg with 162mm shoulder width – All fairly acceptable you'd think - but with this being the mad world it is the box has a sticker on the top explaining ‘WARNING – This product will not prevent unwanted animals or people including small children from passing through the pet door’.
So there you go, if you have access to a tiny kleptomaniac child with shoulders less than 6 ½ inches wide send them round to my house, the cat flap is wide open – though has none of the magnetic collars and whatnot it goes on about in the instructions. They can escape up the balnaced flue.
And on the subject of instructions – I got bought a Black and Decker Workmate. I couldn't work out for bloody ages how to put it together! Diagramatic instructions y'see...
The maximum dimension of the new flap is about 16cm and it says that it’s suitable for cats up to 7kg with 162mm shoulder width – All fairly acceptable you'd think - but with this being the mad world it is the box has a sticker on the top explaining ‘WARNING – This product will not prevent unwanted animals or people including small children from passing through the pet door’.
So there you go, if you have access to a tiny kleptomaniac child with shoulders less than 6 ½ inches wide send them round to my house, the cat flap is wide open – though has none of the magnetic collars and whatnot it goes on about in the instructions. They can escape up the balnaced flue.
And on the subject of instructions – I got bought a Black and Decker Workmate. I couldn't work out for bloody ages how to put it together! Diagramatic instructions y'see...
Store-ing
I recently went shopping in town. I don’t do shopping as I’ve previously said. I now find that shops just don’t make any sense to me. For example I went in HMV - which I still see as a ‘record shop’. Thought I’d have a look at some of the CDs I might be buying off ebay. But they don’t have any CDs – or hardly any CDs anyway. It was like a cross between a DVD shop, Dixons and WH Smiths – with a few racks of CDs. Lush sell puddings that smell strongly of soap (or possibly they sell soap that looks like puddings) and Body shop sell soaps that sound like drinks – and puddings. I noticed another place called a ‘lifestyle salon and spa’. Now you can perhaps take a poodle to a salon – but a lifestyle? Supermarkets sell ‘spreads’ and ‘solutions’ but half the stuff in the shop (which they call a ‘store’ of course) - lottery tickets for example - they stop selling at 9pm when the shop is open 24 hours a day (except for the days it’s not of course…) Wilkinson’s in Leeds centre have stopped selling cat flaps – but think their Armley branch still does. Dixons host hundreds of people swarming round having opinions on tiny bubble packs. How does it all work? Why is it so difficult to just get stuff? Like I say, I don’t do shopping. Or store-ing…
Friday, July 16, 2010
The worst bus company in the world?
I set off to meet Ian our UK press person in town this evening. Went for a bus. Stood at a bus stop, watched the satellite tracking count 'em down, the 'out of service' bus cruise past, the bus times come and go and finally spoke to the driver of the bus that did arrive (far too late to get to the meeting - this was an hour later) and told him it wasn't good enough. Wandered off home. Spent the rest of the evening writing a letter to Firstbus. Measured and reasonable I was - like I was to the driver. 1 out of 4 buses (to be fair it could have been 3) is not good enough. What if passengers decide to pay one in three fares?
I wrote to Firtbus and I wrote to Metro. I may pass it on to others for all the good it'll do. I like to think the below proves my measured tone. I urge other bus travellers (if you actually find one to travel on of course) to do the same.
Here's most of the letter to Metro. I'm tired now...
...Please find enclosed copy of a letter I’ve just sent to Firstbus. I’m really fed up with their buses not turning up, the satellite tracking system counting down the minutes to ‘due’ with no bus actually arriving and the fact that they keep putting the fares up by multiples of the rate of inflation – that particular one has been going on for years. And this is not to mention the lateness and ‘going round in threes’ which I concede is probably more to do with traffic etc than the company.
They waste my time, they waste my work’s time, they cost too much and I’m sick of it.
I’d just like to register this with you. My particular complaint is specific to tonight and I have posted it direct to Firstbus but similar things have happened far too often – and there were going to be trams from the bottom of our road starting in 2007 – though that’s a separate issue it adds to the general rubbishness of it all.
If you have anyone who gets to meet the people from Firstbus I’d be grateful if you’d pass this to them.
As I mentioned in my letter to Firstbus, I work as a project manager for a local charity in Leeds. We have staffing, transport and other problems but we keep our service working – why can’t they?
Yours sincerely
I wrote to Firtbus and I wrote to Metro. I may pass it on to others for all the good it'll do. I like to think the below proves my measured tone. I urge other bus travellers (if you actually find one to travel on of course) to do the same.
Here's most of the letter to Metro. I'm tired now...
...Please find enclosed copy of a letter I’ve just sent to Firstbus. I’m really fed up with their buses not turning up, the satellite tracking system counting down the minutes to ‘due’ with no bus actually arriving and the fact that they keep putting the fares up by multiples of the rate of inflation – that particular one has been going on for years. And this is not to mention the lateness and ‘going round in threes’ which I concede is probably more to do with traffic etc than the company.
They waste my time, they waste my work’s time, they cost too much and I’m sick of it.
I’d just like to register this with you. My particular complaint is specific to tonight and I have posted it direct to Firstbus but similar things have happened far too often – and there were going to be trams from the bottom of our road starting in 2007 – though that’s a separate issue it adds to the general rubbishness of it all.
If you have anyone who gets to meet the people from Firstbus I’d be grateful if you’d pass this to them.
As I mentioned in my letter to Firstbus, I work as a project manager for a local charity in Leeds. We have staffing, transport and other problems but we keep our service working – why can’t they?
Yours sincerely
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The healthy drink rock and roll people
I got an email t’other day from the nice people at Pepsi Max. It’s another of those competition things. In short you can upload a video of your band where you get your mates to vote for it online. A person called ‘strings’ tells you to ‘rock on’! (I am not making this up!) The prize is apparently ‘legendary’
I even considered doing it. Obviously there are no issues around sugar or caffeine or selling sugary water to those who can’t afford it around the world with Pepsi…
But here is a list of what they say is “unacceptable video content”:
Anything which contains any works (such as musical, artistic or literary works) in which the intellectual property rights are owned by a third party, and which you do not have written permission to use
Any depiction of alcohol consumption
Any depiction of smoking
Anything which could bring the Pepsi Max brand into disrepute
Anything which could cause offence generally or which could be considered discriminatory behaviour in particular in relation to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and disability
Anything which could cause fear or distress
Anything which involves children under 16
Anything which depicts or encourages unsafe practices, such as drink driving and drug taking
Anything which depicts or encourages violence or anti-social behaviour
Anything which portrays or refers to people in an adverse or offensive way
Anything which refers to or portrays members of the public without their permission
Anything which refers to or portrays people with a public profile without their permission
Anything which refers to or portrays members of the royal family
Anything that refers to or promotes religious, political or racial views
Anything that contains or promotes cruelty to animals
Anything which contains nude scenes or sexual interaction
Well crikey Moses!
I spent a few seconds on my response. I did a pitch for the video - or possibly a synopsis for the story. If you saw the full thing you'd be massively offended. Particularly if you're both PC and stupid. So some self censoring went on - I removed a couple of words. It now reads like this...
"The Q***n is a *****r ***g who ****s Cheryl C***'s drug taking ****** one legged ****** with a ******* shouting 'die *** priest die'! And if anyone doesn’t believe it we will demontrate via our **** tatoos that we have their addresses and me and David Cam**** are taking our clothes off and coming round in the unlicensed peado-mobile singing Mull of Kintyre to kill them by poisoning them with disgusting P*psi M*x (the well known child ********* b**** water) in the name of baby **** and ******ism"
Not particularly elegant I grant you, but I think it gets the point across.
But I won’t countenance smoking.
If anyone needs this explaining I’d like to say that I’m in a rock and roll band and we say what the fuck we like - or perhaps we don't...Tell 'strings' that working for an advertising company is neither big nor clever.
Perhaps this competition is not for us...
I even considered doing it. Obviously there are no issues around sugar or caffeine or selling sugary water to those who can’t afford it around the world with Pepsi…
But here is a list of what they say is “unacceptable video content”:
Anything which contains any works (such as musical, artistic or literary works) in which the intellectual property rights are owned by a third party, and which you do not have written permission to use
Any depiction of alcohol consumption
Any depiction of smoking
Anything which could bring the Pepsi Max brand into disrepute
Anything which could cause offence generally or which could be considered discriminatory behaviour in particular in relation to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and disability
Anything which could cause fear or distress
Anything which involves children under 16
Anything which depicts or encourages unsafe practices, such as drink driving and drug taking
Anything which depicts or encourages violence or anti-social behaviour
Anything which portrays or refers to people in an adverse or offensive way
Anything which refers to or portrays members of the public without their permission
Anything which refers to or portrays people with a public profile without their permission
Anything which refers to or portrays members of the royal family
Anything that refers to or promotes religious, political or racial views
Anything that contains or promotes cruelty to animals
Anything which contains nude scenes or sexual interaction
Well crikey Moses!
I spent a few seconds on my response. I did a pitch for the video - or possibly a synopsis for the story. If you saw the full thing you'd be massively offended. Particularly if you're both PC and stupid. So some self censoring went on - I removed a couple of words. It now reads like this...
"The Q***n is a *****r ***g who ****s Cheryl C***'s drug taking ****** one legged ****** with a ******* shouting 'die *** priest die'! And if anyone doesn’t believe it we will demontrate via our **** tatoos that we have their addresses and me and David Cam**** are taking our clothes off and coming round in the unlicensed peado-mobile singing Mull of Kintyre to kill them by poisoning them with disgusting P*psi M*x (the well known child ********* b**** water) in the name of baby **** and ******ism"
Not particularly elegant I grant you, but I think it gets the point across.
But I won’t countenance smoking.
If anyone needs this explaining I’d like to say that I’m in a rock and roll band and we say what the fuck we like - or perhaps we don't...Tell 'strings' that working for an advertising company is neither big nor clever.
Perhaps this competition is not for us...
Single Mom in the Mancunian clutch
Yeah, I know, internet scam thingies are just a tax that criminals put on the terminally stupid but despite some amusement this one annoyed me: http://www.janesgrantblog.com/uk.php?t202id=86112&t202kw=GUK1125728C5
The link said ‘you can get a grant from the British government’ so I was intrigued having been involved in grants. Basically it says to send them an admin fee and collect your ‘check’. The thing that annoyed me is that the ‘blog’ mentions several times that ‘Jane Jones’, the supposed writer is from Leeds. This is annoying because their computer knows I’m in Leeds. It’s a 'blog' complete with comments saying things like
“Hi, single mom here, Took me a bit longer than you said to receive my grant-- 44 days. But in the end it was worth it, I receive $14,300. I cannot explain how much this has bettered my life, especially in these exceedingly tough times. Here is a picture of it!”
And
“Laid off and living in manchester. Need some income, and this came through in the clutch. This will give me atleast another month of job searching. $3765!”
They have a funny way of talking (and paying for things in dollars) those Mancunians eh?
I suppose one shouldn't really get annoyed.
The link said ‘you can get a grant from the British government’ so I was intrigued having been involved in grants. Basically it says to send them an admin fee and collect your ‘check’. The thing that annoyed me is that the ‘blog’ mentions several times that ‘Jane Jones’, the supposed writer is from Leeds. This is annoying because their computer knows I’m in Leeds. It’s a 'blog' complete with comments saying things like
“Hi, single mom here, Took me a bit longer than you said to receive my grant-- 44 days. But in the end it was worth it, I receive $14,300. I cannot explain how much this has bettered my life, especially in these exceedingly tough times. Here is a picture of it!”
And
“Laid off and living in manchester. Need some income, and this came through in the clutch. This will give me atleast another month of job searching. $3765!”
They have a funny way of talking (and paying for things in dollars) those Mancunians eh?
I suppose one shouldn't really get annoyed.
Self Serving Bastards
I am really sick of either being ripped off or people trying to rip me off.
First up we have those who rip you off and there’s not much you can do – Firstbus, printer ink companies, insurance companies and the like. All of them can just take your money and there’s little you can do about it. Self serving bastards all.
There are also the second lot are those people who help themselves around misfortune. So, for example, our driver at work had a 5mph bump about a year ago. Definitely some damage to the van. Needed a new radiator for one thing, and a couple of panels. We reckoned that at a proper professional rate it’d be about £2,000 to fix it. That’s quite a lot of money – if you won it on a scratch card you’d be happy. The insurance brokers told me quite recently that the claim was now about £15,000 and liable to rise. Everybody piled in – the people who fixed the van helped themselves and it seems everyone had whiplash injuries that weren’t mentioned at the time and no doubt lawyers and insurance people took their cut. Selfish self serving trough snouting ambulance chasing bastards all. Have I already told you about this? Probably...
More recently we took a hire van back to the company we got it from. After 6 months of use it has some minor scraping to the paint on one side – and a tiny dent about ¼ of an inch long. We guess this was pretty much gradual wear coupled with rubbish paint. Fair enough though, there was a bit of a paint scrape and the tiny dent. Bit of touching up and smoothing over perhaps? I’m sure there are clever ways of doing this kind of thing these days. £50? £100? £200 even? The company have 2 quotes for us - £750 or £1,000! Nowt we can do, it’s business, we’ll have signed the blank cheque when we hired the van. More SSBs
This sort of thing genuinely makes me feel ill - even when it's not my money
First up we have those who rip you off and there’s not much you can do – Firstbus, printer ink companies, insurance companies and the like. All of them can just take your money and there’s little you can do about it. Self serving bastards all.
There are also the second lot are those people who help themselves around misfortune. So, for example, our driver at work had a 5mph bump about a year ago. Definitely some damage to the van. Needed a new radiator for one thing, and a couple of panels. We reckoned that at a proper professional rate it’d be about £2,000 to fix it. That’s quite a lot of money – if you won it on a scratch card you’d be happy. The insurance brokers told me quite recently that the claim was now about £15,000 and liable to rise. Everybody piled in – the people who fixed the van helped themselves and it seems everyone had whiplash injuries that weren’t mentioned at the time and no doubt lawyers and insurance people took their cut. Selfish self serving trough snouting ambulance chasing bastards all. Have I already told you about this? Probably...
More recently we took a hire van back to the company we got it from. After 6 months of use it has some minor scraping to the paint on one side – and a tiny dent about ¼ of an inch long. We guess this was pretty much gradual wear coupled with rubbish paint. Fair enough though, there was a bit of a paint scrape and the tiny dent. Bit of touching up and smoothing over perhaps? I’m sure there are clever ways of doing this kind of thing these days. £50? £100? £200 even? The company have 2 quotes for us - £750 or £1,000! Nowt we can do, it’s business, we’ll have signed the blank cheque when we hired the van. More SSBs
This sort of thing genuinely makes me feel ill - even when it's not my money
Oh no - It's Facebook
Is it just me or is Facebook a bit rubbish? I don't mean the concept of it all (let's not go there) but the fact that when you write people a message it all goes wrong and you can't see what your typing and the cursor won't hold if you type more than about 4 lines. Then you go to 'friend requests' or various other pages (oh yes, friends, I do get 'em) and it says 'done' at the bottom left but the page is just blank - so technical glitches is what I mean.
I thought these sites were worth millions and were supposed to work?
There are things in the modern world that work. Just not car clocks, digital gizmos with batteries, oh batteries of course, Satnav, buses and well...there are some things that work in the modern world. Honest
By the way, please please please let me know what you're up to in Farmville (is that what it's called?), I couldn't bear it if you kept it to yourself
And I still can't track down me old mate Gordon Duffy from school!
I thought these sites were worth millions and were supposed to work?
There are things in the modern world that work. Just not car clocks, digital gizmos with batteries, oh batteries of course, Satnav, buses and well...there are some things that work in the modern world. Honest
By the way, please please please let me know what you're up to in Farmville (is that what it's called?), I couldn't bear it if you kept it to yourself
And I still can't track down me old mate Gordon Duffy from school!
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
More politics
Question - according to the new (ish) government the current economic problems are a result of 'the previous government's mismanagement'. My question is, how much money that New Labour gave away to banks would they not have given to the banks?
I also want to know when we get it back - was it a loan or a gift? And what was the interest rate?
Blimey, sounds like I've been listening to 'Any Questions'
I also want to know when we get it back - was it a loan or a gift? And what was the interest rate?
Blimey, sounds like I've been listening to 'Any Questions'
World turned upside down
Tory Home Secretary (or Justice Sec or whatever) accuses the previous 'Labour' government of making up prisons policy with "a chequebook in one hand and the Daily Mail in the other". Did that really happen? He's absolutely right of course (if he did say it).
But how did this happen? Labour are friends of the rich, crack down on the poor, everything in 'the private sector' is brilliant, pay all our taxes to their mates in 'the city' and blah blah blah. If only I could believe that the Tories were somehow more 'on the left'.
But what do us pinko Commie liberal bed wetters do now?
But how did this happen? Labour are friends of the rich, crack down on the poor, everything in 'the private sector' is brilliant, pay all our taxes to their mates in 'the city' and blah blah blah. If only I could believe that the Tories were somehow more 'on the left'.
But what do us pinko Commie liberal bed wetters do now?
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Gibbon Time - WSM are back
No, not Gibbon time, advert time.
Whole Sky Monitor would like you to (pay to) download their new single and watch the video of 'Sold' on youtube.
Buy the single / ep at
http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download-Album/4-/15240944/-/Product.html
(other supplieers are available)
And http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOYMBqyvH6w
After that 'rock 'n' roll' related telly programme I'm prepared to say that we're very very rock and roll
Whole Sky Monitor would like you to (pay to) download their new single and watch the video of 'Sold' on youtube.
Buy the single / ep at
http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download-Album/4-/15240944/-/Product.html
(other supplieers are available)
And http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOYMBqyvH6w
After that 'rock 'n' roll' related telly programme I'm prepared to say that we're very very rock and roll
Hey Dudes, Rock 'n' Roll
Despite lazy (and mostly inaccurate) generalisations like ‘drummers are always a bit crazy’ (illustrated by guess who…yes, Keith Moon of course and erm, not really anybody else) and ‘singers always have massive egos’ and all that sort of tosh I’ve quite enjoyed the bits of the telly programme ‘I’m in a Rock ‘n’ Roll band’ that I’ve seen over the past few weeks. Evan that bloke with the hat (Slash?, or is he Axel, I dunno who cares – metal is fantasy nonsense for 13 year old American boys anyway…) standing in a big field miming in screaming Spinal Tap fashion at least made me laugh.
This week though, I realised that they were having some kind of vote – the kind of competition that asks is pizza ’better’ than roast beef or are cars ‘better’ than helicopters or is green ‘better’ than blue. Pointless comparing of people from different genres of music I mean. Anyway, leaving that aside, I chanced across a bit of the final programme this week - hosted by Jonathan Ross (for fuxxsakes) and a load of people some of whom should know better (come on Mark Radcliffe – I’m sure he at least looked rather embarrassed to be there) were on some sort of panel arguing the case for their favourite – ‘Hendrix is jazz, vote for Page’, that kind of thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing in theory against pointless comparisons – WSM for example argued for hours about which decade of music was ‘best’ (it was clearly the 60s followed by the 70s, and the 80s - with the 90s and 50s in a poor 4th place) and there’s much fun to be had. But there were 2 things that pushed me over the edge and literally made me turn off before I became any more sullied through having to watch any more.
1 – Loyd fucking Grossman came on to go on about how great Keith Moon was – Mr fucking Masterchef pasta sauce ‘who cares who would live in a house like this’ tossing Grossman. I mean fair enough if it had been Liam Gallagher or someone at least a leedle tiny bit rock and roll but no, Loyd Grossman’s agent had bagged the gig. Alan Titchmarsh was clearly busy or his agent wasn’t quick enough on the draw. But that wasn’t the really offensive bit. The really offensive bit was when they introduced a Led Zeppelin TRIBUTE BAND. A TRIBUTE BAND! How more un rock and roll can you get than a tribute band? The answer is NO MORE. Paul McCartney singing about having a cup of English Tea or Mary had a Little Lamb is a million times more rock and roll than any tribute band. Tribute bands are less rock and roll than any crooner, wedding DJ or clown at a kid’s party – at least kiddies entertainers don’t pretend to be rock and roll.
I know it’s not worth getting annoyed about this. Tribute bands surely have their own circle of rock and roll hell where they will be pitied by Chuckles the Clown as he jams with Kurt and Jimi and the rest. Don’t hate them, PITY them. £20 a night each and a couple of beers and they're happy to put their bollocks in a blender and have their sense of shame removed or left to gnaw away in their conscience until death claims them (or they get booked to play at the New Roscoe in Leeds I suppose).
Some bright spark at the BBC with a degree is TOTALLY MISSING THE FUCKING POINT and some PhD in NOT HAVING ANY SENSE OF IRONY clearly decided that a Led Zep TRIBUTE BAND had something to contribute. Probably the same one that got Paul McCartney on to the X-Factor – where our Paul sang 2 great great songs thereby illustrating the crushingly obvious point that not one of the bastards was anything other than a shit karaoke turn with an 18 month career at Butlins and 6 weeks in panto at Skegness as their best shot at contributing to the musical landscape.
This incidentally reminds me of Gareth Gates (or one of the other ones?) singing a version of ‘Light My Fire’ – to be honest another contender in the all time all comers contest for spectacularly missing the point.
It's tiring being angry and even more tiring to check for a high neat phrase count and low bad grammar count so that'll do.
I emailed Mark Radcliffe asking what on earth was he thinking. I signed it 'John from Whole Sky Monitor - an actual rock and roll band' - and I wasn't kidding
I'm off to give Simon Cowell his special award for contribution to whatever it was - the death of irony?
This week though, I realised that they were having some kind of vote – the kind of competition that asks is pizza ’better’ than roast beef or are cars ‘better’ than helicopters or is green ‘better’ than blue. Pointless comparing of people from different genres of music I mean. Anyway, leaving that aside, I chanced across a bit of the final programme this week - hosted by Jonathan Ross (for fuxxsakes) and a load of people some of whom should know better (come on Mark Radcliffe – I’m sure he at least looked rather embarrassed to be there) were on some sort of panel arguing the case for their favourite – ‘Hendrix is jazz, vote for Page’, that kind of thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing in theory against pointless comparisons – WSM for example argued for hours about which decade of music was ‘best’ (it was clearly the 60s followed by the 70s, and the 80s - with the 90s and 50s in a poor 4th place) and there’s much fun to be had. But there were 2 things that pushed me over the edge and literally made me turn off before I became any more sullied through having to watch any more.
1 – Loyd fucking Grossman came on to go on about how great Keith Moon was – Mr fucking Masterchef pasta sauce ‘who cares who would live in a house like this’ tossing Grossman. I mean fair enough if it had been Liam Gallagher or someone at least a leedle tiny bit rock and roll but no, Loyd Grossman’s agent had bagged the gig. Alan Titchmarsh was clearly busy or his agent wasn’t quick enough on the draw. But that wasn’t the really offensive bit. The really offensive bit was when they introduced a Led Zeppelin TRIBUTE BAND. A TRIBUTE BAND! How more un rock and roll can you get than a tribute band? The answer is NO MORE. Paul McCartney singing about having a cup of English Tea or Mary had a Little Lamb is a million times more rock and roll than any tribute band. Tribute bands are less rock and roll than any crooner, wedding DJ or clown at a kid’s party – at least kiddies entertainers don’t pretend to be rock and roll.
I know it’s not worth getting annoyed about this. Tribute bands surely have their own circle of rock and roll hell where they will be pitied by Chuckles the Clown as he jams with Kurt and Jimi and the rest. Don’t hate them, PITY them. £20 a night each and a couple of beers and they're happy to put their bollocks in a blender and have their sense of shame removed or left to gnaw away in their conscience until death claims them (or they get booked to play at the New Roscoe in Leeds I suppose).
Some bright spark at the BBC with a degree is TOTALLY MISSING THE FUCKING POINT and some PhD in NOT HAVING ANY SENSE OF IRONY clearly decided that a Led Zep TRIBUTE BAND had something to contribute. Probably the same one that got Paul McCartney on to the X-Factor – where our Paul sang 2 great great songs thereby illustrating the crushingly obvious point that not one of the bastards was anything other than a shit karaoke turn with an 18 month career at Butlins and 6 weeks in panto at Skegness as their best shot at contributing to the musical landscape.
This incidentally reminds me of Gareth Gates (or one of the other ones?) singing a version of ‘Light My Fire’ – to be honest another contender in the all time all comers contest for spectacularly missing the point.
It's tiring being angry and even more tiring to check for a high neat phrase count and low bad grammar count so that'll do.
I emailed Mark Radcliffe asking what on earth was he thinking. I signed it 'John from Whole Sky Monitor - an actual rock and roll band' - and I wasn't kidding
I'm off to give Simon Cowell his special award for contribution to whatever it was - the death of irony?
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The triumph of Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut once again define the term ‘a waste of time’. This is how it goes:
1. Design and print a glossy ‘Pizza Hut Delivery’ leaflet advertising one of your take away shops
2. Put it through my letter box
3. Make sure that the shop you’re advertising doesn’t actually deliver to this address
4. Do this time after time, year after year
5. Bob is, as they say, you uncle – paper wasted; ink wasted; time wasted for potential customer; time wasted for leaflet delivery person; time wasted for sap at shop who turns down any orders; customer annoyed – ‘good jaarb’!
1. Design and print a glossy ‘Pizza Hut Delivery’ leaflet advertising one of your take away shops
2. Put it through my letter box
3. Make sure that the shop you’re advertising doesn’t actually deliver to this address
4. Do this time after time, year after year
5. Bob is, as they say, you uncle – paper wasted; ink wasted; time wasted for potential customer; time wasted for leaflet delivery person; time wasted for sap at shop who turns down any orders; customer annoyed – ‘good jaarb’!
Gimme a Break
Dunno if you've seen it but there's a kids’ TV programme on the BBC called ‘Gimme a Break’. Kids get to choose what kind of holiday they’d like to go on. The parents then have to go and the kids are 'in charge' (I'm sure you get the picture).
One day last week the kids were offered a ‘beaver safari in Sweden’. They turned it down. The following day they were offered a ‘water sports experience’.
Someone’s having a laugh I think…
One day last week the kids were offered a ‘beaver safari in Sweden’. They turned it down. The following day they were offered a ‘water sports experience’.
Someone’s having a laugh I think…
The war on the car
Seems the transport bod from the 'coalition' government thinks there's been a 'war' on the car. Surely everyone knows by now that no bastard can afford public transport these days so a car is often the only option.
You want to get one person and a child 3 miles into Leeds on a bus these days - about a fiver. In a car - about £2.50 if you allow for depreciation and all that lot. If you pay for parking it's a bit more - but still cheaper.
We were promised a tram at the end of our road by the end of 2007. Half the time there isn't even a bus.
What happened to lefty politics - the sort that believed in public transport for the good of all. It's fucking depressing...
You want to get one person and a child 3 miles into Leeds on a bus these days - about a fiver. In a car - about £2.50 if you allow for depreciation and all that lot. If you pay for parking it's a bit more - but still cheaper.
We were promised a tram at the end of our road by the end of 2007. Half the time there isn't even a bus.
What happened to lefty politics - the sort that believed in public transport for the good of all. It's fucking depressing...
Staples
I visited 'Staples' recently. I'm doing a mailout of the new Whole Sky Monitor single and getting ready for the album (oh yes!) I couldn't easily get envelopes from my usual source so I signed up with Staples as FR Records. All I needed was 2 or 3 boxes of 100 padded envelopes. I had of course forgotten that this might involve having to visit a shopping centre but no matter, this is about Staples.
I THOUGHT THEY WERE A TOSSING STATIONERY SHOP!
I was clearly mistaken. The biggest pack of padded envelopes they had was 10. Ten! What kind of business wants to buy 10 envelopes? I even asked. No, the biggest amount was 10 - at 35p per envelope. I ended up buying some off ebay at just under 9p each.
The weird thing is that you do still have to be, at least in theory, a business to buy from Staples. So they sell nothing but individual pens and stuff.
I wonder if I'll be back?
I THOUGHT THEY WERE A TOSSING STATIONERY SHOP!
I was clearly mistaken. The biggest pack of padded envelopes they had was 10. Ten! What kind of business wants to buy 10 envelopes? I even asked. No, the biggest amount was 10 - at 35p per envelope. I ended up buying some off ebay at just under 9p each.
The weird thing is that you do still have to be, at least in theory, a business to buy from Staples. So they sell nothing but individual pens and stuff.
I wonder if I'll be back?
Shopping
I visited a shopping centre today – on a Saturday! A drive in one, full of shit chain shops, cars and ‘shoppers’. This must be the 4th time I’ve done this in as many years – why will I not learn? It is just so damn depressing. It kind of makes me feel like it must do giving blow jobs to strangers in public toilets to feed a drug habit. Please remind me to just not do this stuff. The world cannot surely be as bad as this?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Swines!
Not long ago my ex boss was talking about using our meeting room at work as a temporary mortuary! Yes, she was joking but at the time all the people we worked with who worked for the NHS were being taken off their normal jobs to work on the major threat that was swine flu.
We had piles of leaflets, national publicity, '2 people taken ill in Leicester after holiday abroad' headlines and all that stuff. At our work we were going to be asked to volunteer to deliver food to old people when the infrastructure collapsed and all that. And when the 'first wave' turned out to be fuck all they told us that the second wave was going to lay millions low. Millions of doses of vaccine that shortened the symptoms by 24 hours in return for making you really ill were ordered and...oh well, you might remember the rest. All panic, all bollocks, all expensive, all paranoid, all nonsense.
So where the fuck is our apology? Who's been sacked, who's had to pay back the money they wasted?
Trouble is that if there ever is a real emergency I for one will die due to not believing a word of it - but the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour!
We had piles of leaflets, national publicity, '2 people taken ill in Leicester after holiday abroad' headlines and all that stuff. At our work we were going to be asked to volunteer to deliver food to old people when the infrastructure collapsed and all that. And when the 'first wave' turned out to be fuck all they told us that the second wave was going to lay millions low. Millions of doses of vaccine that shortened the symptoms by 24 hours in return for making you really ill were ordered and...oh well, you might remember the rest. All panic, all bollocks, all expensive, all paranoid, all nonsense.
So where the fuck is our apology? Who's been sacked, who's had to pay back the money they wasted?
Trouble is that if there ever is a real emergency I for one will die due to not believing a word of it - but the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
MSN top info on inventions
Referring to Nikoli Tesla the MSN homepage today says 'he invented electricity yet died broke'. Further illumination is provided by following the link to more information. Here it says he 'contributed to the birth of electricity'.
Gosh! I wish I'd have invented electricity - or soil, or animals perhaps. But maybe I'd have been happy just to have contributed to the birth in some small way -boiling towels or something. Mind you, would have to have used gas to heat the water I suppose. I wonder who invented gas? Bet he didn't die broke...
Gosh! I wish I'd have invented electricity - or soil, or animals perhaps. But maybe I'd have been happy just to have contributed to the birth in some small way -boiling towels or something. Mind you, would have to have used gas to heat the water I suppose. I wonder who invented gas? Bet he didn't die broke...
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
I just don't understand! Aaarghhh!
These are quotes from real work email from real people who would be upset and appalled if they knew I was blogging them off. So, no names, no organisations but a couple of direct quotes:
“I hope you will be able to use the review as an important driver and lever to help to make the case for a community and workplace champion approach in your locality”
Eh?
Someone else was explaining what they are ‘passionate’ about – Football? Food? Injustice? Nope, they announced via email that they’re passionate about...
“community based learning and the dissemination of health and well-being messages to improve local health aspirations and increase positive well-being outcomes”
Go them!
Decent human beings, nice people, good at their jobs - no doubt.
Unfortunately though, thoughtful intelligent people are training themselves to speak like this, or at least write like this. After my current job comes to an end I expect to be able to 'concentrate on my music career' because I just can't play this game.
Hang on...that might be a good thing. Trouble is you can get paid for talking like this.
Oh dear...
“I hope you will be able to use the review as an important driver and lever to help to make the case for a community and workplace champion approach in your locality”
Eh?
Someone else was explaining what they are ‘passionate’ about – Football? Food? Injustice? Nope, they announced via email that they’re passionate about...
“community based learning and the dissemination of health and well-being messages to improve local health aspirations and increase positive well-being outcomes”
Go them!
Decent human beings, nice people, good at their jobs - no doubt.
Unfortunately though, thoughtful intelligent people are training themselves to speak like this, or at least write like this. After my current job comes to an end I expect to be able to 'concentrate on my music career' because I just can't play this game.
Hang on...that might be a good thing. Trouble is you can get paid for talking like this.
Oh dear...
Summer of the Monkeys
Summer of the Monkeys’ is a DVD for kids – labelled as approved for family viewing by some American evangelical organisation. It has a picture of chimps on the front (i.e. not monkeys – not a good start). However, I digress...
Now we all know that this, like Christian Rock will be awful. Thing is though that I keep giving this sort of stuff the benefit of the doubt. For example, someone at a previous job had some CDs plugging (‘teaching about’ I suppose they’d call it) the Muslim religion. The weird thing was its massive similarity to similar Christian stuff. Half an ounce of logic makes one react with ‘erm, hang on...’ after almost every sentence. The overall impression is that it’s purely for people of a religious bent who may be looking for an alternative to the irrational mediaeval belief system to the one they currently follow. I’ve also given time to tapes and books all purporting to put the case for religion – they all just spectacularly (and worryingly) defy all logic and end up saying ‘it must be true, it’s in the Bible’ or the equivalent.
The thing about ‘Summer of the Monkeys’, potential creationist claptrap aside, is that it went to the cheriddy shop still in its wrapper. I actually have got to the stage that I have had so much experience of this sort of stuff that I for the first time have not taken the trouble to even let it annoy me by watching it – just its existence and my experience is now sufficient. I know many others have sensibly reached this conclusion much quicker. Actually I think with me it was lack of time. In 5 years I’ll be searching the internet desperate for a copy of ‘Summer of the Monkeys’ so I can watch it and hate it properly.
I suppose the positive is that as soon as you stop listening because you just 'know' your mind is closed. So there. it's because I'm open minded see...
If I could be bothered I'd make the prose above a bit neater by the way. I'm not a natural writer('you don't say' says everyone!, it's kind of speech written down - which isn't always good reading.
Now we all know that this, like Christian Rock will be awful. Thing is though that I keep giving this sort of stuff the benefit of the doubt. For example, someone at a previous job had some CDs plugging (‘teaching about’ I suppose they’d call it) the Muslim religion. The weird thing was its massive similarity to similar Christian stuff. Half an ounce of logic makes one react with ‘erm, hang on...’ after almost every sentence. The overall impression is that it’s purely for people of a religious bent who may be looking for an alternative to the irrational mediaeval belief system to the one they currently follow. I’ve also given time to tapes and books all purporting to put the case for religion – they all just spectacularly (and worryingly) defy all logic and end up saying ‘it must be true, it’s in the Bible’ or the equivalent.
The thing about ‘Summer of the Monkeys’, potential creationist claptrap aside, is that it went to the cheriddy shop still in its wrapper. I actually have got to the stage that I have had so much experience of this sort of stuff that I for the first time have not taken the trouble to even let it annoy me by watching it – just its existence and my experience is now sufficient. I know many others have sensibly reached this conclusion much quicker. Actually I think with me it was lack of time. In 5 years I’ll be searching the internet desperate for a copy of ‘Summer of the Monkeys’ so I can watch it and hate it properly.
I suppose the positive is that as soon as you stop listening because you just 'know' your mind is closed. So there. it's because I'm open minded see...
If I could be bothered I'd make the prose above a bit neater by the way. I'm not a natural writer('you don't say' says everyone!, it's kind of speech written down - which isn't always good reading.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
More on the enfolding drama that is cup-a-soup
I just bought some cup a soup – you got a problem with that? Well, actually, fair play if you have, pretty crappy stuff – but that’s not the point.
I was in a little Tescos and the only cheap type they had was some very weird flavour. So I went for the Batchelors – it’s ‘slim a soup’ too which isn’t a good start obviously. Losing weight via the consumption of salty floury gunk doesn't sound ideal to me. Anwyay, the strange thing is that it had the phrase “My boyfriend’s just found my granny-pants-a-soup” printed on the packet. There it was, on the front of the packet in big curly letters like it was all done on purpose and everything. Surealism in action - corporate sales surrealism showing that these people really are out of control. WTF!? Etc.
Further research (i.e. turning the packet round) reveals an invitation to tell them ‘what makes you reach for a cup-a-soup’ and they’ll print the best reasons on the packet (or ‘pack’ as they call it). So there you go, a full explanation. Why it didn't say 'I wanted summat to go with me sandwich, I know they're crap but it's a change once in a while' they didn't explain.
So, someone bought a cup a soup and it seems their boyfriend has found their ‘granny-pants-a-soup’ I'm not even going to start going into what this can possibly be about. Stealing elderly relatives underwear is just not on frankly - and making soup from such items is even worse. And as for talking about it on soup packets...
Presumably the marketing people didn’t feel they needed to add anything to this.
Actually, to be fair, the sheer madness of advertising (sorry, ‘marketing’) has always been a wonder to behold.
But there's more. I had a trawl around the interweb and found the following:
"Cup-a-Soup…rebrand
Batchelors, the Premier Foods-owned soup brand, has handed its roster agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy a brief to rename and rebrand its entire Cup-a-Soup range.
The agency, which works on Premier Foods brands including Hovis and Oxo as well as on ad projects for Cup-a-Soup, has renamed the 42 instant soup products to fit with the demographic that each is targeting.
New names developed by MCBD for the range include one for the brand's 99 per cent fat-free minestrone soup, which is aimed at calorie-conscious young women. The soup will now be called: "My boyfriend's just found my granny-pants-a-Soup."
Cup-a-Soup's chicken and mushroom variety will now be called "His new girlfriend is fatter than me-a-Soup" and others include "Still no signs of bingo wings-a-Soup" and "I thought he winked at me but it was a twitch-a-Soup".
So there you go – and you thought your job was a bit pointless eh?
I think it's too late for suggestions but I'm sending in
I thought they wanked at me but it was twats a soup
What can you say though really?
I was in a little Tescos and the only cheap type they had was some very weird flavour. So I went for the Batchelors – it’s ‘slim a soup’ too which isn’t a good start obviously. Losing weight via the consumption of salty floury gunk doesn't sound ideal to me. Anwyay, the strange thing is that it had the phrase “My boyfriend’s just found my granny-pants-a-soup” printed on the packet. There it was, on the front of the packet in big curly letters like it was all done on purpose and everything. Surealism in action - corporate sales surrealism showing that these people really are out of control. WTF!? Etc.
Further research (i.e. turning the packet round) reveals an invitation to tell them ‘what makes you reach for a cup-a-soup’ and they’ll print the best reasons on the packet (or ‘pack’ as they call it). So there you go, a full explanation. Why it didn't say 'I wanted summat to go with me sandwich, I know they're crap but it's a change once in a while' they didn't explain.
So, someone bought a cup a soup and it seems their boyfriend has found their ‘granny-pants-a-soup’ I'm not even going to start going into what this can possibly be about. Stealing elderly relatives underwear is just not on frankly - and making soup from such items is even worse. And as for talking about it on soup packets...
Presumably the marketing people didn’t feel they needed to add anything to this.
Actually, to be fair, the sheer madness of advertising (sorry, ‘marketing’) has always been a wonder to behold.
But there's more. I had a trawl around the interweb and found the following:
"Cup-a-Soup…rebrand
Batchelors, the Premier Foods-owned soup brand, has handed its roster agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy a brief to rename and rebrand its entire Cup-a-Soup range.
The agency, which works on Premier Foods brands including Hovis and Oxo as well as on ad projects for Cup-a-Soup, has renamed the 42 instant soup products to fit with the demographic that each is targeting.
New names developed by MCBD for the range include one for the brand's 99 per cent fat-free minestrone soup, which is aimed at calorie-conscious young women. The soup will now be called: "My boyfriend's just found my granny-pants-a-Soup."
Cup-a-Soup's chicken and mushroom variety will now be called "His new girlfriend is fatter than me-a-Soup" and others include "Still no signs of bingo wings-a-Soup" and "I thought he winked at me but it was a twitch-a-Soup".
So there you go – and you thought your job was a bit pointless eh?
I think it's too late for suggestions but I'm sending in
I thought they wanked at me but it was twats a soup
What can you say though really?
Would you like pointlessness with that?
We all know that thing – you say ‘just a burger please’ in the burger shop and you get asked ‘would you like fries with that and you say “Hey what?! You do fries?! – Yes of course I’ll have fries. I mean, if you’re sure you do them, wow, I never fail to be impressed by the choice you have available and your tip top customer service, in fact I’d like to ‘go large’ too please”.
Mm, well, maybe not. But today I bought a cup of coffee from Greggs. This is the first time I’ve done so and it’s one of the maybe half dozen occasions in the past 10 years that I’ve bought take away coffee. Anyway, I asked for a coffee and they responded by saying ‘would you like breakfast with that?’
If this happens to you I suggest the following possible replies:
Breakfast? Never heard of it, what kind of thing is that?
Damn it, I knew I’d forgotten something; that’s brilliant, thanks for reminding me – breakfast, breakfast, breakfast! YEEESSSS!
Excuse me, but what kind of person decides to buy breakfast on a whim? Surely of all the things you can buy a meal is one of the things that you know in advance that you want, what the toss is wrong with you Mrs Greggs? If this is training you must fight it! I will try to give you the strength - you must join me on a sacred quest.
Or you could just look slightly confused, wonder what on earth they asked that for and say ‘no thank you’.
You can guess which one I did…
Mm, well, maybe not. But today I bought a cup of coffee from Greggs. This is the first time I’ve done so and it’s one of the maybe half dozen occasions in the past 10 years that I’ve bought take away coffee. Anyway, I asked for a coffee and they responded by saying ‘would you like breakfast with that?’
If this happens to you I suggest the following possible replies:
Breakfast? Never heard of it, what kind of thing is that?
Damn it, I knew I’d forgotten something; that’s brilliant, thanks for reminding me – breakfast, breakfast, breakfast! YEEESSSS!
Excuse me, but what kind of person decides to buy breakfast on a whim? Surely of all the things you can buy a meal is one of the things that you know in advance that you want, what the toss is wrong with you Mrs Greggs? If this is training you must fight it! I will try to give you the strength - you must join me on a sacred quest.
Or you could just look slightly confused, wonder what on earth they asked that for and say ‘no thank you’.
You can guess which one I did…
Domestics?
It was International Women’s Day earlier this week – I wonder if they have a Domestic Women’s Day where we all get made a nice cup of tea? ‘spect not…
Monday, February 15, 2010
Your store
Both Currys and PC World tell me today (with big signs in the shop) that they're working to 'make your store even better'. I didn't realise I had a 'store' (the modern shit word for shop) at all until today, let alone two. Then when I decide to go in and take some of the stuff home for safe keeping while the building work is going on they get all arsey about it and threaten me with criminal proceedings.
Some people!
Some people!
The signs of a cold and damp home
And today at work the ‘Hot News’ newsletter arrives courtesy of npower 'Health Through Warmth' – the December edition (with this being 15th February...) It includes a page entitled ‘Do you know the signs of a cold damp home?’
It then tells you how to spot a cold damp home...
Point 1 is ‘The room feels cold’
Point 5 is ‘the house smells damp and musty’
Point 2 is ‘there are no visible sources of heat – e.g. radiators or heaters’ and point 6 is ‘someone is wearing lots of layers, maybe gloves and a scarf indoors’
So there you go – if you go into a house that feels cold and smells damp and a little old lady is wearing scarves and gloves inside – they may be living in a cold damp house. It took a 2 and a half month late glossy brochure to tell me but now I know.
It’s good to have a little technical knowledge
It then tells you how to spot a cold damp home...
Point 1 is ‘The room feels cold’
Point 5 is ‘the house smells damp and musty’
Point 2 is ‘there are no visible sources of heat – e.g. radiators or heaters’ and point 6 is ‘someone is wearing lots of layers, maybe gloves and a scarf indoors’
So there you go – if you go into a house that feels cold and smells damp and a little old lady is wearing scarves and gloves inside – they may be living in a cold damp house. It took a 2 and a half month late glossy brochure to tell me but now I know.
It’s good to have a little technical knowledge
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Money saving Valentine's
I just saved £3.99 on a box of chocolates! Them chocolate sea-shells. I was in Tesco's (normally I send a runner obviously but today I thought hang the autograph hunters, I'll go mesen).
I picked up the box vaguely aware of a nice reddish coloured pattern on the front. I was about to put it in the trolley when I realised that it had a red heart on the front - Pigging Valentine's day special box! I froze...then I put it back and moved swiftly on - £3.99 saved!
My one regret is that I'm unlikely to be around in town tomorrow to laugh at the poor saps who 'do' valentine's day miserably shaming themselves with shit bunches of flowers, over-priced crowded meals and the rest.
No one actually believes that I (and 'we' as it happens) don't do Valentine's day - people seem to think you're joking - either that or it's a bit like announcing that you collect photos of 8 year old boys.
People who you thought were OK turn out to be stupid and mad after all.
Happy Valentine's - IDIOTS!
I picked up the box vaguely aware of a nice reddish coloured pattern on the front. I was about to put it in the trolley when I realised that it had a red heart on the front - Pigging Valentine's day special box! I froze...then I put it back and moved swiftly on - £3.99 saved!
My one regret is that I'm unlikely to be around in town tomorrow to laugh at the poor saps who 'do' valentine's day miserably shaming themselves with shit bunches of flowers, over-priced crowded meals and the rest.
No one actually believes that I (and 'we' as it happens) don't do Valentine's day - people seem to think you're joking - either that or it's a bit like announcing that you collect photos of 8 year old boys.
People who you thought were OK turn out to be stupid and mad after all.
Happy Valentine's - IDIOTS!
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Go Max!
I definitely heard (OK, I'm fairly sure I heard) Sir Max Moseley on the Today programme on Radio 4 today use the phrase 'that was a private matter between me and the 5 young ladies involved...'
Fantastic! How many people get to use a phrase like that? He may be the son of a nasty Fascist but he's definitely my kind of guy!
Fantastic! How many people get to use a phrase like that? He may be the son of a nasty Fascist but he's definitely my kind of guy!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Go Quo!
Got a letter today - a reminder about a 'voluntary contribution' (I'll tell you about the Lord Mayor's Fund in Leeds at some point...). £2.50 needed - why? BECAUSE STATUS QUO'S DRUMMER IS DOING A DRUM WORKSHOP AT MY DAUGHTER'S SCHOOL!!!
It would seem that the junior school kids are gunna learn how to drum like you do when you're in THE QUO!!! Staus Quo!
You may not think this is cool and the world has gorn mad. I think it's cool! THE STATUS QUO!!!
It would seem that the junior school kids are gunna learn how to drum like you do when you're in THE QUO!!! Staus Quo!
You may not think this is cool and the world has gorn mad. I think it's cool! THE STATUS QUO!!!
Perverts!
These cyber types - crazy! They're either telling me off or grooming me for sex - sometimes at the same time.
I've been posing as a 57 year old man 'on the net' using a pseudonym and chatting with my mates about gout and halitosis in chat rooms and putting photos of myself on Facebook and the like.
All these under age girls keep trying to cop off with me - perverts. String 'em up, that's what I say
I've been posing as a 57 year old man 'on the net' using a pseudonym and chatting with my mates about gout and halitosis in chat rooms and putting photos of myself on Facebook and the like.
All these under age girls keep trying to cop off with me - perverts. String 'em up, that's what I say
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Now there's posh
Ainsley Harriot the chef bod has his fizzog on a range of - cupasoups.
Sometimes one has to remind oneself that one could not make it up.
Cupasoup. By a celebriddy chef. Yeah, I know. Don't bother telling me it'll have knob all to do with him apart from the picture.
Cupasoup. Chef related. Cupasoup...
Sometimes one has to remind oneself that one could not make it up.
Cupasoup. By a celebriddy chef. Yeah, I know. Don't bother telling me it'll have knob all to do with him apart from the picture.
Cupasoup. Chef related. Cupasoup...
Mistrakes like yer grammar used to make
My grammar has been corrected. I said 'no less than' rather than 'no fewer than'. A big harrumph from me - I'd call the corrector a pedant but they'd probably have their windows put through. I'm not that great at grammar I admit - but on the grounds of popular usage changing the language I nearly decided to argue the point. I decided not to...
Thirty four squid ink
My friends at Epson have been in touch again - they sent me an email saying 'John, are you running low on ink?'
It goes on - 'Ha, we know you fucking are because we give you fuck all when you buy the printer - but if you want more it'll cost you £34.30! No, we mean it! Not only do we mean it but we're going to call it a special offer and pretend that other people's ink is dangerous and rubbish - so screw you! You bought one of our printers and now we're going to bleed you dry! We own you and you owe us a living! What are you gonna do to us? - We're Epson and we don't care if you hate us!'
Actually, they didn't say all that. They did want £34.30 for a set of inks though. I'd rather never print anything ever again and melt their printer over a brazier than pay that though. Come on people, let's start stringing them up. Special offer - for £34.30 I'll do a bunch of 'em.
And don't forget to keep the hate flow aimed at Firstbus - they'll be putting up fares by an inflation busting amount again in the spring like they do, you mark my words
It goes on - 'Ha, we know you fucking are because we give you fuck all when you buy the printer - but if you want more it'll cost you £34.30! No, we mean it! Not only do we mean it but we're going to call it a special offer and pretend that other people's ink is dangerous and rubbish - so screw you! You bought one of our printers and now we're going to bleed you dry! We own you and you owe us a living! What are you gonna do to us? - We're Epson and we don't care if you hate us!'
Actually, they didn't say all that. They did want £34.30 for a set of inks though. I'd rather never print anything ever again and melt their printer over a brazier than pay that though. Come on people, let's start stringing them up. Special offer - for £34.30 I'll do a bunch of 'em.
And don't forget to keep the hate flow aimed at Firstbus - they'll be putting up fares by an inflation busting amount again in the spring like they do, you mark my words
It's capitalist profiteering gorn mad!
If you buy a car it costs maybe about £7,000. That nails my demographic...Anyway, the petrol so you can use it for about a month costs about £40. So the stuff that runs it costs about 0.57% of the purchase price.
An Epson Stylus printer (for example) costs £59.98 (down by a penny from the advert they sent last week). A set of inks so you can use it for about a month costs £33.57The stuff that runs it therefore costs about 56% of the purchase price.
So, yes, a set of printer inks costs well over half the cost of buying a new printer. It’s capitalist profiteering gone mad!
Everyone knows that it's rip off but no one dies. I suppose I've gone on about this before. Drag them out of their offices and beat them to a pulp!
An Epson Stylus printer (for example) costs £59.98 (down by a penny from the advert they sent last week). A set of inks so you can use it for about a month costs £33.57The stuff that runs it therefore costs about 56% of the purchase price.
So, yes, a set of printer inks costs well over half the cost of buying a new printer. It’s capitalist profiteering gone mad!
Everyone knows that it's rip off but no one dies. I suppose I've gone on about this before. Drag them out of their offices and beat them to a pulp!
Why, Mr Tesco, you are surely spoiling us...
Call me a useless consumer but I had a Tesco’s ready meal the other day. It contained an item or items they call ‘bacon lardons’.
Well, I’ve been looking at stuff on the internet. I’ve got a big fat steaming bacon lardon now. I’m going to stalk Mr Tesco and I’m going to stick it right in his profit bloated face!
Well, I’ve been looking at stuff on the internet. I’ve got a big fat steaming bacon lardon now. I’m going to stalk Mr Tesco and I’m going to stick it right in his profit bloated face!
Stay in your homes!
It’s odd to think that perhaps we did quite well with salt on the roads – until recently of course. Since the Council have bailed out and left us to our fate the roads are really really icy! Main roads are clear but you can’t get to ‘em. And don’t start me on the paths. But like I say, it does look like whatever it was they did before was better than I thought!
Funny how these once in a generation freak weather things happen every year though. It wasn’t long ago that I travelled to Warrington on the train and everything was cancelled because it was too hot and the rails were buckling. And then there’s that one off from last Feb. I think the list goes on.
The buses pretty much stopped for hours this week in Leeds too. I wonder how much I get back on me annual pass?
And the price of Council swimming went up by a double figure amount from 1st Jan. The cost of making the toilets stink must've gone up. And why can't I find a postbox anymore? Whine, whinge, moan. Off to hell in a handcart etc.
Funny how these once in a generation freak weather things happen every year though. It wasn’t long ago that I travelled to Warrington on the train and everything was cancelled because it was too hot and the rails were buckling. And then there’s that one off from last Feb. I think the list goes on.
The buses pretty much stopped for hours this week in Leeds too. I wonder how much I get back on me annual pass?
And the price of Council swimming went up by a double figure amount from 1st Jan. The cost of making the toilets stink must've gone up. And why can't I find a postbox anymore? Whine, whinge, moan. Off to hell in a handcart etc.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Sage and onion and 'erb
Soemtimes a pun coms along that it would be difficult to make up. Just before Christmas for example, a colleague of mine was apparently asking all visitors if they'd like 'some Baileys'. Sounds natural enough in the run-up to Christmas you might think (though I didn't run up to it - or jump when I got there...) - but we are a healthy living organisation and part of the brief is encouraging people not to drink too much...
Turns out that in fact the invitation was to 'some bay leaves' - and there in his office was a basket of fresh bay leaves.
Turns out that in fact the invitation was to 'some bay leaves' - and there in his office was a basket of fresh bay leaves.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Celebrity time
The modern definition of 'celebrity' I find most accurate is simply 'someone who you haven't heard of'.
Imagine my disappointment therefore to discover on reading about the new series of Celebrity Big Brother that I'd heard of no less than 2 of the contestants. Vinnie Jones - who was a thug footballer and went on to be in a film and Stephanie Beacham who was in a US soap and no doubt did 'some other stuff'. The rest are all made up.
This shouldn't bother me of course it's just TVs way of getting people to do something more interesting, but a small part of me wants 'celebrities' to be people 'celebrated' for something. Must be getting old.
Imagine my disappointment therefore to discover on reading about the new series of Celebrity Big Brother that I'd heard of no less than 2 of the contestants. Vinnie Jones - who was a thug footballer and went on to be in a film and Stephanie Beacham who was in a US soap and no doubt did 'some other stuff'. The rest are all made up.
This shouldn't bother me of course it's just TVs way of getting people to do something more interesting, but a small part of me wants 'celebrities' to be people 'celebrated' for something. Must be getting old.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
I hope Sir Alex is OK
I do hope Sir Alex is alright - I hope he didn't stumble or anything on his way to tell ITV how his team had been outclassed (and dumped out of the FA cup) by a team from the third division. I presume he would have made every effort to give credit to the Leeds lads - and he'd probably have wanted to compare the prices of the 2 teams I guess.
I'll wait for the news to see how he is - must've been something serious though to keep him away from the cameras...
I'll wait for the news to see how he is - must've been something serious though to keep him away from the cameras...
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Me and Dave
I read a report recently about the ‘Integrated Processes Development Day’ which involved ‘the third sector’ (my speech marks for those who don’t talk like this) in the development of the ‘Children Leeds Workforce Development Strategy’. One of the follow-ups is to see what training people require ‘to enable engagement in workforce strategy development’. The evaluation will ‘contribute to the development of the Children Leeds Workforce Strategy and in particular evidence the position the sector is in with reference to the development of the Children Leeds Strategy and will be presented to the Directorate of Children’s Services and also to the Children’s Workforce Development Council’. Meanwhile the Council hasn’t got enough money to pay the binmen...
I wonder now if I’m a Tory because when I hear David Cameron going on about getting rid of useless quangos I say ‘right on Dave’ or perhaps I’m some sort of Maoist for wishing everyone involved in the ‘Integrated Processes Development Day’ had been forced at gunpoint to empty the bins when the bin workers were on strike.
Nearly all the conferences and meetings and stuff about strategies and partnerships that I have anything to do with all seem to be based on the concept that people are useless at their jobs and if they only signed up to ‘partnership working’ and whatever else the clever people who meet each other think is a good idea they would work much more efficiently. The trouble is that so many people are at meetings they can’t get any work done. There should be NO jobs in the world in my view that only involve meetings. People should either DO STUFF or BE PAID TO STAY AT HOME DOING WHAT THE HELL THEY LIKE!
It seems to me that if people ‘out there’ found out what their money was being spent on there’d be riots.
I wonder now if I’m a Tory because when I hear David Cameron going on about getting rid of useless quangos I say ‘right on Dave’ or perhaps I’m some sort of Maoist for wishing everyone involved in the ‘Integrated Processes Development Day’ had been forced at gunpoint to empty the bins when the bin workers were on strike.
Nearly all the conferences and meetings and stuff about strategies and partnerships that I have anything to do with all seem to be based on the concept that people are useless at their jobs and if they only signed up to ‘partnership working’ and whatever else the clever people who meet each other think is a good idea they would work much more efficiently. The trouble is that so many people are at meetings they can’t get any work done. There should be NO jobs in the world in my view that only involve meetings. People should either DO STUFF or BE PAID TO STAY AT HOME DOING WHAT THE HELL THEY LIKE!
It seems to me that if people ‘out there’ found out what their money was being spent on there’d be riots.
The 'Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance'
Sometimes the best way to express dismay, concern and perhaps a soupcon of scepticism is to simply state the name of something. For example, the 'Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance'. I assure you that this is not made up. It exists. And they were having a workshop! ‘Surely not’ you cry. Oh yes they were; the lathes went in yesterday and they produced 300 widgets last week. No, they didn’t. They had a ‘workshop’ for ‘Active citizens, people on learning programmes, Local Authority staff, learning providers’ and apparently ‘Take Part pathfinder projects’.
I present their draft programme below. I’m not picking on them but it is so typical of the sort of thing I occasionally go to where people collude in pretending they’re learning or doing some good for somebody. This is verbatim:
“Draft Programme
Brief Input from
• Learners stories
• The Radical Hillbillies – inspiring video from America
Story Tables
• Showcasing what has worked (and what hasn’t) from around the region using an accessible storytelling style – the chance to hear and discuss several ‘stories’
Inter-active Noticeboard
• The chance to ‘post’ your ideas and comments throughout the day via computers in the room linked to a big screen noticeboard – a rolling discussion forum open to all
Lunchtime Market place for stalls
• Bring and share information about your project
Put your Project on the Map – literally!
• A large map of the region will be on the wall – bring details of your project to pin on to the map
Contribute to RACLA development
• A fun exercise to collect your views about the Alliance – what you want and what you can contribute. Open session to agree outline programme and priorities for the next 6 months”
There you go, ‘the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance as Harry Hill might say. They are a caution!
I present their draft programme below. I’m not picking on them but it is so typical of the sort of thing I occasionally go to where people collude in pretending they’re learning or doing some good for somebody. This is verbatim:
“Draft Programme
Brief Input from
• Learners stories
• The Radical Hillbillies – inspiring video from America
Story Tables
• Showcasing what has worked (and what hasn’t) from around the region using an accessible storytelling style – the chance to hear and discuss several ‘stories’
Inter-active Noticeboard
• The chance to ‘post’ your ideas and comments throughout the day via computers in the room linked to a big screen noticeboard – a rolling discussion forum open to all
Lunchtime Market place for stalls
• Bring and share information about your project
Put your Project on the Map – literally!
• A large map of the region will be on the wall – bring details of your project to pin on to the map
Contribute to RACLA development
• A fun exercise to collect your views about the Alliance – what you want and what you can contribute. Open session to agree outline programme and priorities for the next 6 months”
There you go, ‘the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance as Harry Hill might say. They are a caution!
The Digital Activist Inclusion Network (DAIN) is "an exciting innovative transnational project which aims to develop, test and deliver approaches to challenge the digital divide, ultimately helping to widen participation in employment and learning."
Just so you know.
There was a conference to "explore practical approaches to challenging digital exclusion"
Just so as you know. The world is full of this stuff...
Just so you know.
There was a conference to "explore practical approaches to challenging digital exclusion"
Just so as you know. The world is full of this stuff...
Degrees of madness
How does this all work then? I want my mileage in miles per gallon though I only know how much petrol costs per litre. I want my low temperatures in Celsius so I can say it’s ‘4 below zero’ or whatever but I want my high temperatures in Fahrenheit so I can say ‘it’s 85 degrees’. I want my big distances in miles but small ones are fine in centimetres. I would never of course consider measuring anyone’s penis – but if I did it would absolutely have to be in inches. Am I normal?
Wages
Here’s a simple question. Why is it that if you do something helpful for society like emptying the bins or wiping old people’s bottoms you get paid about £13,000 a year? If you sit in ‘strategy’ meetings deciding whether to put ‘resources’ into things you get about £30,000 a year. If you gamble with other people’s money, lose and then fleece the people who earn £13,000 a year when it all goes wrong you earn £100,000+ The less actual use people’s job is the more they seem to earn.
‘Ah yes, but what about doctors?’ I hear the annoying twat at the back ask. ‘They have to train for 7 years’ they go on. Here’s where you get into the argument about people being suited to things and where people somehow think you’re saying that everyone should be paid exactly the same whatever they do. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m suggesting that it would be good if pay related to how hard people worked and how useful what they do is – EVEN A TINY BIT! So there!
‘Ah yes, but what about doctors?’ I hear the annoying twat at the back ask. ‘They have to train for 7 years’ they go on. Here’s where you get into the argument about people being suited to things and where people somehow think you’re saying that everyone should be paid exactly the same whatever they do. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m suggesting that it would be good if pay related to how hard people worked and how useful what they do is – EVEN A TINY BIT! So there!
Eggs for Christmas
If you have a fantastically good memory you may recall me relating my scrambling egg hunting last Easter when I thought I might buy a couple of Easter eggs on the day before Easter (what a crazy guy eh!?) I found of course that capitalism had already moved on to the next consumer fest and it wasn’t allowed. Well, it’s happened again! Last time I was simply able to say ‘screw you Mr Tesco / Wilkinson / Sainsbury etc’ and decided to buy something a little more value for money. This time I was on a particular mission for a nine year old – for an Advent Calendar...
I thought I’d buy one on the 1st December and take it home in time for ‘window one’ to be opened that day. They’d been on the shelves in impossible quantities a couple of weeks before. I won’t go on but it was the same story – tour of supermarkets over 2 days (along with dozens of other people who seemed to be scouring the relevant section, looking disappointed and moving on), asking in supermarkets, staff shaking their heads in disbelief, disapproval and in some cases sympathy, with the words ‘you could try Wilkos’ issuing from the least judgemental. I would look round with my best screwed up teary toddler face and say ‘I’ve already tried there’ attempting to sound cheerful and hoping to find the strength to add a bright ‘but thanks anyway’.
Actually of course, I’d tried 3 branches of Wilkos first. Incidentally I still find it weird that if you added a separate record counter with surly teenager you could turn any Wilkos into an old school Woolies at the drop of a record counter featuring a surly teenager selling only the top 30. How anything actually got into the top 30 was a mystery too far for Woolies. Mm, ‘uses blog to slag off branches of Woollies from 30 years ago – discuss’
Anyway, I would now like to slide from vaguely pathetic to smug bastard – because here are your reactions (and my reactions to your answers!)
If you think ‘If you’re going to do something that stupid you get what you deserve’ you are clearly helplessly under the thumb of Mr Tesco and his billionaire mates and you think that you are there to service the shopping system.
If you think ‘Well there were loads of them where I was – and they were selling them off cheap’ not only are you smug and annoying but you’re JUST PLAIN WRONG!!! You got the dates wrong you idiot – you’re thinking of mid November so fuck off and die!
If you think ‘Everyone knows it’s like that, that’s capitalism, you shouldn’t be surprised’ then you’re one of those lefties whose leftie-dom consists of passing judgement in a self-satisfied ‘I told you so’ kind of way while doing precisely nothing to change anything. I bet you’re a college lecturer or something and earn £30 grand a year (which incidentally, in my world counts as a lot!)
Just to impart a nice circular logic, guess what’s now on sale in Tescos (on 31st December) That’s right – Easter eggs. Get ‘em while it’s still the wrong year!
I thought I’d buy one on the 1st December and take it home in time for ‘window one’ to be opened that day. They’d been on the shelves in impossible quantities a couple of weeks before. I won’t go on but it was the same story – tour of supermarkets over 2 days (along with dozens of other people who seemed to be scouring the relevant section, looking disappointed and moving on), asking in supermarkets, staff shaking their heads in disbelief, disapproval and in some cases sympathy, with the words ‘you could try Wilkos’ issuing from the least judgemental. I would look round with my best screwed up teary toddler face and say ‘I’ve already tried there’ attempting to sound cheerful and hoping to find the strength to add a bright ‘but thanks anyway’.
Actually of course, I’d tried 3 branches of Wilkos first. Incidentally I still find it weird that if you added a separate record counter with surly teenager you could turn any Wilkos into an old school Woolies at the drop of a record counter featuring a surly teenager selling only the top 30. How anything actually got into the top 30 was a mystery too far for Woolies. Mm, ‘uses blog to slag off branches of Woollies from 30 years ago – discuss’
Anyway, I would now like to slide from vaguely pathetic to smug bastard – because here are your reactions (and my reactions to your answers!)
If you think ‘If you’re going to do something that stupid you get what you deserve’ you are clearly helplessly under the thumb of Mr Tesco and his billionaire mates and you think that you are there to service the shopping system.
If you think ‘Well there were loads of them where I was – and they were selling them off cheap’ not only are you smug and annoying but you’re JUST PLAIN WRONG!!! You got the dates wrong you idiot – you’re thinking of mid November so fuck off and die!
If you think ‘Everyone knows it’s like that, that’s capitalism, you shouldn’t be surprised’ then you’re one of those lefties whose leftie-dom consists of passing judgement in a self-satisfied ‘I told you so’ kind of way while doing precisely nothing to change anything. I bet you’re a college lecturer or something and earn £30 grand a year (which incidentally, in my world counts as a lot!)
Just to impart a nice circular logic, guess what’s now on sale in Tescos (on 31st December) That’s right – Easter eggs. Get ‘em while it’s still the wrong year!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Selling half an idea
Anyone ever been on a training course? Did you (or your organisation) pay for it?
Here’s how it works. Somebody had an ‘insight’ or some other ‘good idea’ and realised that they could radically improve upon what everyone was doing before. Funnily enough this idea needed some jargon, acronyms and a book (for sale) to explain it. And some training courses.
You turn up to find the categories they use never quite work, the acronyms are just a leedle bit strained and the human behaviour explained is just a little bit too organised and simplified to be real. However, the descriptions ring true to the extent of raising a half smile of recognition as you sit there wondering who you fancy and what sort of biscuits they might have at break time. ‘Hey, people really are like this a bit aren’t they, when you think about it’ you think to yourself. ‘This guy really seems to have stumbled on something’.
Fact is he hasn’t. It’s a very slightly different way of looking at the ways that people behave. The sort of idea any of us might have over a pint. The difference is that this idea has been expanded into a book and sold. The sort of people who organise these sorts of things get really ‘excited’ and ‘passionate’ about the idea (and as everyone knows, only sex and music are worth the effort of excitement and passion). And before you know it you’re talking utter bollocks trying to put people into boxes and talking about the ‘kind’ of people they are and how to predict their behaviour or manage them. It’s like star signs really – and if you believe in them at all leave now.
You collect the notes, a copy of the PowerPoint show and nick a small packet of fruit shrewsburys on the way out after lying on the feedback form out of politeness to the hosts who were sort of OK, in the end. You put the notes in a drawer and put them in the bin when you leave that job. The information in your head disappeared before you’d got the bus home on the day. £300 a head or something. But it wasn’t the management theory from the 60’s. It was an update.
I'm going to write “The 7 life Changing Habits of Massive Wankers”. And "Discovering the Key to the Inner Self (of the Bloody Drone Office Worker)”.
Mind you, you got a day out of work. This course also adds to the Gross Domestic Product you know. And you could've at least spoken to the woman with the legs.
Here’s how it works. Somebody had an ‘insight’ or some other ‘good idea’ and realised that they could radically improve upon what everyone was doing before. Funnily enough this idea needed some jargon, acronyms and a book (for sale) to explain it. And some training courses.
You turn up to find the categories they use never quite work, the acronyms are just a leedle bit strained and the human behaviour explained is just a little bit too organised and simplified to be real. However, the descriptions ring true to the extent of raising a half smile of recognition as you sit there wondering who you fancy and what sort of biscuits they might have at break time. ‘Hey, people really are like this a bit aren’t they, when you think about it’ you think to yourself. ‘This guy really seems to have stumbled on something’.
Fact is he hasn’t. It’s a very slightly different way of looking at the ways that people behave. The sort of idea any of us might have over a pint. The difference is that this idea has been expanded into a book and sold. The sort of people who organise these sorts of things get really ‘excited’ and ‘passionate’ about the idea (and as everyone knows, only sex and music are worth the effort of excitement and passion). And before you know it you’re talking utter bollocks trying to put people into boxes and talking about the ‘kind’ of people they are and how to predict their behaviour or manage them. It’s like star signs really – and if you believe in them at all leave now.
You collect the notes, a copy of the PowerPoint show and nick a small packet of fruit shrewsburys on the way out after lying on the feedback form out of politeness to the hosts who were sort of OK, in the end. You put the notes in a drawer and put them in the bin when you leave that job. The information in your head disappeared before you’d got the bus home on the day. £300 a head or something. But it wasn’t the management theory from the 60’s. It was an update.
I'm going to write “The 7 life Changing Habits of Massive Wankers”. And "Discovering the Key to the Inner Self (of the Bloody Drone Office Worker)”.
Mind you, you got a day out of work. This course also adds to the Gross Domestic Product you know. And you could've at least spoken to the woman with the legs.
Breaded Icelandic Cod Fillets
Say it again! That’s right! Breaded. Icelandic. Cod. Fillets!
Ingredients: Cod (55%)! That’s right 55%.
If you or I took some cod and covered it in breadcrumbs (even supposing we were prepared to countenance use of the verb ‘to bread’) how many percent do you reckon you could get to? 2%? 5%? 10% even, at a push if you really piled 'em on?
The cod is of course ‘formed’. I suppose this means they get crappy bits and stick them together with gloop before covering them with orange dyed gloop. Funnily enough, when the ‘forming’ procedure is complete, the ‘cod’ comes out in the shape of erm, a cod fillet. ‘Fillet’ will of course have some legal definition negotiated by the food manufacturers. It will no doubt mean that the bones have been taken out and this will no doubt be technically correct. Anyone who sees the shape and assumes that the product is a piece of cod with some breadcrumbs on it is just asking for it really aren’t they? I mean, no-one is that that stupid...like duh?
In the real world, put these ‘breaded Icelandic cod fillets’ in front of 100 people and how many people will think that it’s a piece of cod in breadcrumbs? The stupid 98% I reckon. And the other 2 of us are the kind of people with the inclination to read labels and complain. To a blog...
Why is there not a rebellion? And I don’t mean buying a whole a cod from Tescos for £38.50 or whatever. Not that kind of rebellion. I mean the boycott everything, storm the factory gates and start stringing people up kind of rebellion. Or I could write a letter. The reply would burble on about quality control and excellence and, yeah, waddever. Even I draw the line somewhere. At about 55%.
Ingredients: Cod (55%)! That’s right 55%.
If you or I took some cod and covered it in breadcrumbs (even supposing we were prepared to countenance use of the verb ‘to bread’) how many percent do you reckon you could get to? 2%? 5%? 10% even, at a push if you really piled 'em on?
The cod is of course ‘formed’. I suppose this means they get crappy bits and stick them together with gloop before covering them with orange dyed gloop. Funnily enough, when the ‘forming’ procedure is complete, the ‘cod’ comes out in the shape of erm, a cod fillet. ‘Fillet’ will of course have some legal definition negotiated by the food manufacturers. It will no doubt mean that the bones have been taken out and this will no doubt be technically correct. Anyone who sees the shape and assumes that the product is a piece of cod with some breadcrumbs on it is just asking for it really aren’t they? I mean, no-one is that that stupid...like duh?
In the real world, put these ‘breaded Icelandic cod fillets’ in front of 100 people and how many people will think that it’s a piece of cod in breadcrumbs? The stupid 98% I reckon. And the other 2 of us are the kind of people with the inclination to read labels and complain. To a blog...
Why is there not a rebellion? And I don’t mean buying a whole a cod from Tescos for £38.50 or whatever. Not that kind of rebellion. I mean the boycott everything, storm the factory gates and start stringing people up kind of rebellion. Or I could write a letter. The reply would burble on about quality control and excellence and, yeah, waddever. Even I draw the line somewhere. At about 55%.
Ink again then ink for a third time
I hate printer ink manufacturers as much as I hate Firstbus. Basically they rip you off and there’s nothing you can do about it. We got a new computer and printer recently. We said we wanted a printer that was cheap on ink as the manufacturers are such rip-off bastards. The man in the shop (a proper computer shop) went on for a bit about how cheap this one was to run. So 2 weeks and half a dozen pages of printing later it’s running out of ink. Well, course it is, I should've known.
Luckily, Epson are on the case, sending emails offering us the opportunity to buy more. £9.79 a pop. That’s not for the full set of course, that’s for one. A tenner for a black ejaculation’s worth of ink. It’d have to be Michael Jackson spunk for me to pay that much (I wonder if his spunk was black? - ask one of the mothers of his dangly children I suppose - ha ha!) But hey, it’s only £33.57 for the full set – a tossing bargain.
Ironically they will have got my email address when I ‘registered the product’. I ‘registered the product’ because it mentioned asking for people’s opinions. I was going to tell them what I thought of their ink prices!
Hoist by my own consumerist, objecting, naively buying into the game bleedin’ petard. You can’t win.
Luckily, Epson are on the case, sending emails offering us the opportunity to buy more. £9.79 a pop. That’s not for the full set of course, that’s for one. A tenner for a black ejaculation’s worth of ink. It’d have to be Michael Jackson spunk for me to pay that much (I wonder if his spunk was black? - ask one of the mothers of his dangly children I suppose - ha ha!) But hey, it’s only £33.57 for the full set – a tossing bargain.
Ironically they will have got my email address when I ‘registered the product’. I ‘registered the product’ because it mentioned asking for people’s opinions. I was going to tell them what I thought of their ink prices!
Hoist by my own consumerist, objecting, naively buying into the game bleedin’ petard. You can’t win.
Mmm, lovely green oven
We need a new oven. Boring, not very rock and roll but the old one is shagged out. We really do need a new oven. The door won’t close for a start and I can’t fix it.
But how ‘green’ can we be when we buy a new one? Excitingly, all the relevant ovens in the Homebase catalogue have a green rating of 'A' or 'B'. Brilliant, we can choose any one of ‘em and it’ll be at the top or next to the top of the green-ness tree! We can do our bit by buying more stuff. They’ve even got a nice logo and name ‘Ecohome products that don’t cost the earth’. ‘Don’t cost the earth!’ Wow, these marketing people are clever eh?
Well that’s nice. Clearly 'A' will be the most greenest oven ever. It’ll be a Greenpeace tree-loving oxygen- breathing friend of the earth - the ‘more you buy the longer the earth will survive’ oven. Course it will.
The truth of course is a little different. It turns out that rating ‘B’ is the second worst on the green rating shitometer. This is of course because the range goes not from 'A' to 'E' say. Oh no, that’s just what you unsophisticated uneducated types might expect. It actually goes from ‘A++’ through ‘A+’ and A and stops at C. So, even by the people who want to sell you stuff’s standards 'A' is middling at best and 'B' is a bit shit.
Maybe these ovens need building up due to low self-esteem? Either that or it’s a con. Just give everything a rating that sounds good or at least OK and carry on buying the planet to a crisp. A fan assisted one. In a handcart. A handcart made in natural woven flax in Indonesia by flooded out orphans. Just keep buying and we can all die quickly.
But how ‘green’ can we be when we buy a new one? Excitingly, all the relevant ovens in the Homebase catalogue have a green rating of 'A' or 'B'. Brilliant, we can choose any one of ‘em and it’ll be at the top or next to the top of the green-ness tree! We can do our bit by buying more stuff. They’ve even got a nice logo and name ‘Ecohome products that don’t cost the earth’. ‘Don’t cost the earth!’ Wow, these marketing people are clever eh?
Well that’s nice. Clearly 'A' will be the most greenest oven ever. It’ll be a Greenpeace tree-loving oxygen- breathing friend of the earth - the ‘more you buy the longer the earth will survive’ oven. Course it will.
The truth of course is a little different. It turns out that rating ‘B’ is the second worst on the green rating shitometer. This is of course because the range goes not from 'A' to 'E' say. Oh no, that’s just what you unsophisticated uneducated types might expect. It actually goes from ‘A++’ through ‘A+’ and A and stops at C. So, even by the people who want to sell you stuff’s standards 'A' is middling at best and 'B' is a bit shit.
Maybe these ovens need building up due to low self-esteem? Either that or it’s a con. Just give everything a rating that sounds good or at least OK and carry on buying the planet to a crisp. A fan assisted one. In a handcart. A handcart made in natural woven flax in Indonesia by flooded out orphans. Just keep buying and we can all die quickly.
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