Friday, December 29, 2006

Exquisite Taste

There was a programme on the telly the other night about the Beatles ‘Love’ thing. I hadn’t realised that it was (quite liderally) a tossing circus.

They decided to represent John Lennon's mother being run over and killed (this is the CIRCUS remember).

They did this in spectacular circus fashion by hitting a woman in red with a car and catapulting her into the roof on a trapeze - while pieces of car flew about.

I hope my death will be performed in the CIRCUS someday and in the same exquisite taste.

Shopping

Entirely predictable from me I know, but why is is that people do nothing but shopping in the run up to Christmas (as if there was anything to run up to by the way) and spend all their money - and then complain about it? Then after Christmas - they go SHOPPING!

Go to a shop when you need something you can't do without, buy the thing you can't do without and GO HOME!!

Shopping is shite, don't do it - it really is shite. All the shite people go shopping for shite in shite shiteing centres full of shite that people think they might want -but its all shite.

SHOPPING IS SHITE - DON'T DO IT!!!!

Eco Balls 2

Luckily, the leaflet just arrived from Powergen to explain how green they are – they’re ‘generating (great pun guys, I nearly split my sides) a sustainable future’. They produce mounds of this kind of junk mail. The philosophy seems to be that talking about stuff is the same as making it happen, which is of course how the modern world works (or fails to).

This is them on marine power:

“In 2005 we established a marine team to investigate how wave and tidal technology can help reduce carbon emissions and create a sustainable power supply for the future”

So, exactly what percentage of power does that mean you produce from waves then? – 0% by any chance? Still, never mind though eh, you’ve had a meeting.

Lovely glossy paper too, no expense spared. Bastards

Eco Balls 1

As Neil Young once said ‘A man needs a maid’ – helpfully adding ‘just someone to keep my house clean, fix my meals and go away’. Unfortunately, my maid makes me do the washing once in a while (and not Neil's best ever lyric we may agree).

With this in mind I bought some ‘Eco balls’ which wash your clothes without any powder (find out for yourself how they work). They're very clever and you should buy some. So there.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Death, Hell and Holidays

One way of looking at death is to see it simply as a reduction in thinking and feeling to the point where you’re not conscious of anything.

So, it’s really just like Christmas then.

Hell, on the other hand, is where you're constantly reminded of just how awful your situation is.

So, hell is just like Christmas too – but in Cleethorpes.
- note to the North East Lincs tourist people – you can use that one if you like.


Now, back in the mists of Blog I may have mentioned this before, but not only are death and Hell very similar, holidays these days are all the same. Anyone who ever had relatives with a desire to ‘go away for the weekend’ and a Hoseasons brochure will already know this, but if you decide that you want to do ‘something a bit different’ it’s actually not possible.

So, you decide to stay in ‘a log cabin’. What you get is a static caravan with the wheels taken off and the outside walls covered in plastic panels moulded with fake wood grain in 'half log’ shapes.

‘A tepee’ is the same static caravan with the wheels taken off, only with a plastic triangle erected over it (and forget any idea of it being round, or even square inside. It’s static caravan shaped.

A ‘castle’ meanwhile is a standard industrial unit with some plastic castle bits stuck on the front. A castle with a sloping steel roof and girders everywhere.

They’re all just off a major road, next to a golf course. You can always hear the traffic and there's nowhere to walk to.

These are real examples by the way. The ‘castle’ was called ‘Sherwood Castle Holiday Forest’ no less. You might think it’d be Sherwood Forest Holiday Castle but you’d be wrong. Not even Forest Castle Holiday Sherwood or Sharwood's Mild Castle Holiday in a jar.

As Damien Allbran and his mates once said - modern life is rubbish.

Monday, December 25, 2006

My Other Exciting Present

In my list of fab presents I forgot to mention that I'd been bought some blank video tapes. So, here goes....

I got some blank video tapes.

It's great being a top recording artiste.

Here's to the death of organised religion (and a slap for the disorganised ones)

Ho Ho Ho once more.

Ho Ho Ho

Much as it pains me to leave the 4-day party which is my rock and roll / acoustic Christmas (must do a Christmas album incidentally, chunky jumper et al), I thought it my duty to report in from the cutting edge of acoustic singer-songwriterdom to you little people who buy my records making my life so decadent and luxurious. You’re probably wondering what a top star such as myself gets bought for Christmas eh?

Well, here’s a short list of my favourite presents:

10 M&S white cotton hankies
1 drawstring laundry bad
1 purple party joke wig
1 turkey basting brush
2 pairs Matalan socks
1 Matalan sweatshirt
1 Matalan jumper (wool cycle, dry flat, re-shape while damp)

and a fucking partridge in a pear tree eh?

Ho Ho Ho!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

WSM Gig

It'll probably kill the Whole Sky Monitor boys but we have decided to to 'a gig'. We do this about once a year if we can be arsed (please note, we might do more if someone paid us). It's at the New Roscoe at the junction of Roseville Road and Regent Street in Leeds on Wednesday 7th February. I'll look terrifically cool and forget some song words. No-one will notice, but some of our new songs are 'awesome'.

Christmas Weak

They were advertising a ‘race night’ at our local pub. I couldn’t decide whether to black up or go as a rabbi. In the event, the sight of a black rabbi betting on horses (which is what ‘race night' turned out to mean) upset some of the locals and I had to escape into Tescos.

A notice at Tescos tells me that a mobile phone is ‘the ideal way to keep in touch at Christmas’. I bought one and moved to a hotel for a week for an ‘ideal’ Christmas.

Well Done Mr Clayton

Well done to the James Clayton School of motoring for blatantly barrelling through the red traffic lights at the junction of Roundhay Road with Easterly Road on Thursday morning. Either they let the learner drivers out on their own or the person teaching you to drive drives like a twat.

So, for the benefit of Mr Clayton the driving instructor:
Red means ‘stop’ (that’s when the car isn’t moving any more).
Funnily enough, amber also means stop (that’s that kind of orangey colour on that metal stick next to the road Mr Clayton).

Another driving instructor (forgot to write down the name, damn) let their pupil turn without signalling while I stood there wondering when the law changed.

Now this one needs a bit more explanation….It’s where the road goes almost straight on from one section of Roundhay Road to the next one. It’s a left turn off the A58 and signalling, if I remember rightly is for when you’re turning or changing lanes or changing direction. And guess what – that junction is all three! Oh yes, there’s also the thing about letting other road users know what you’re doing. THE PEDESTRIANS WAITING AT THE CROSSING WHO AREN’T FUCKING PYCHIC NEED TO KNOW WHICH WAY YOU’RE FUCKING GOING YOU MORON!!!

Sunday, December 10, 2006

More Triffic Traffic

On Roundhay Road there’s a sign at the pedestrian crossing saying ‘Beware of left turning motorists violating the traffic lights’ - There are some seriously bad drivers around here but they usually just ignore the lights – violating is going a bit far eh boys? Cars (of course) just ignore all the traffic signs and mini-cab drivers are obviously exempt from traffic laws even when not in the Harehills / Chapeltown area anyway, but I've never seen one of them actually shinning up the lights to shag them - they just do it metaphorically. Perhaps the sign should say 'beware of metaphors attempting to kill you'?

I also have to report a failure on the part of the Militant Pedestrians. Last time I took a boot-swing at a car I went and missed. No satisfying thunk, just a swinging leg and another maniac on his way to run another light with no consequence - Damn. It was the third one through the green man too. I told the man next to me that I physically attacked cars steaming through the pedestrian crossing and he looked at me like I might be going a bit far. Sort of person who thought that concentration camps were fine but gas chambers were a bit much I suspect. Steaming through red lights and across pedestrian crossings is a completely justifiable attack reason in my book and I'm going to continue to do it.

More on the gate

The fantastic Jurassic Park gate at the WSM rehearsal room?

Well, when it’s a bit blustery it doesn't work - because the phone line to the operations centre breaks up and you can't get through. So, you stand at the gate in bad weather and you can't get the gate open because a man presses a button in some control room somewhere only when you've been able to get through to him by phone - and it doesn't work! - and the gate doesn't work either! People park their cars outside and just climb over it under the security camera.
Oh, and there's a blank space where the phone number of the company should be written so you can phone form your mobile or somewhere - only its blank.

I should point out that it's the same sort of people who will be designing New Labour's nuclear power plants (for peaceful purposes only of course, completely different to the Iranians) and weapons of mass destruction. Again this is a completely different situation to that in Iraq - they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction.

Let me know if we're getting invaded or doing the invading. I guess it depends who's sponsoring terrorism - that's New Yorkers giving money to the IRA isn't it? Was '9/11' (the 9th November) done by the coalition of the willing?

Fag man

Today I saw a man throw his empty fag packet down in the street about 3 feet from a litter bin....I hope I never have to ask to use his bathroom.

No way, bonobo!

ITV really do have a new programme (or ‘show’) where viewers phone in to help save their favourite endangered species.

I say screw the pandas, vote for the polar bears. Or was it screw the blue whale, vote rattlesnake? Insect you've never heard of anyone? - nah, it's being turned into CO2 mate.

Maybe the NHS could move to this system - vote people out of hospital and such.

What will I have left to say when the whole world moves beyond parody? - Coming very soon it would appear.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Too Much Technology

There used to be a big gate at the WSM rehearsal complex (we hire an industrial estate so we have different buildings for our distribution, design, manufacture and marketing arms - though we actually disagree with marketing arms. They seem to sell themselves apparently, it’s a way governments have of killing children from other people's countries)....

Anyway, it was a bit difficult to open sometimes and a bit of a pain if you left late and the padlock was on. However, if you had the key it was actually possible to open the gate. It kind of works - use key, open gate, get in, use key, close gate...you know the way a normal person would work this kind of system rather than a brainless moron.

But now Brainless Moron Security have taken over and we rehearse in Jurassic Park. This comes complete with a huge great gate on rollers - covered in sensors and flashing lights and control boxes, presumably designed to keep the velociraptors in. Unfortunately, there are only the people who pay rent to use the place to keep in.

So now, instead of just opening the gate you have to press a button on a box and ask to go to the toilet (sorry, ask to be let out). The button calls some bloke up in an office belonging to the security company somewhere. You have to ask him to open the gate and let you out. So what if he’s not there? Because someone isn’t around in Dewsbury or wherever they are I can’t get the gate open. And…with it being covered in sensors and lights and boxes as a normal person might guess - IT DOESN’T FUCKING WORK. The man ignores the phone, then he says he has to check something, then he pushes a button to open the gate (though he doesn’t tell me he’s done this of course, he’s a man of few words) and the GATE DOESN’T FUCKING OPEN. He then says he thinks there's a problem and he might have to send someone over. I'm standing next to the gate I used to be able to open with a key and now it won't fucking open and you think you might have to send someone over???? Excuse me, but are we waiting for the satellite to go over or something?

Pardon me for stating what you would think was obvious but why not let me, the bloke standing at the gate actually open the sodding thing? What if there's a fire or a powercut or no-one in the office or any other technical glitch or human error? Does this make me a Luddite or just NOT A FUCKING MORON!!! How could anyone have thought this system was a good idea? Whatever happened to a) the bullshit detector or b) the reality check. What do I do when I want in on a bank holiday or something?

….and I want a starting handle for the car and I don’t want it controlled by microchips. I want it to be repairable by a man who drives a tractor in Rumania. I want to take stuff to be repaired rather than having to buy a new one and I don’t want to leaf through a New Labour PFI brochure to ‘choose’ the best hospital to stop the bleeding after I’ve started climbing the gate to the T-Rex pen to find it moving underneath me.

I find it so tiring to fight useless twattery that I think it would be easier to buy Semtex and just blow the fucking gate to pieces. People would call it an over reaction but I'm not going to take it anymore - so plastic explosive it is.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Supermarkets #3

Kwiksave (Roundhay Road, Leeds) remain the only supermarket where in one visit I’ve been completely ignored by three staff having a conversation across the tills. If they're quiet you also have to go to the 'wineshop' to pay. No clues of course, you have to ask the magazine reader at the till for directions, which they give you with a look that makes it clear they think you're a moron. At the wineshop they're borderline racist and throw the bag at you and push your stuff out of the way, giving you no chance to put it in the bag. Mind you, in Beeston I heard the checkout woman call herself a ‘silly cunt’ for dropping some coins on the floor. Kwiksaves always had empty shelves when I went in them years ago - and they still do!

Still, they keep their milk nice and warm at least.

Supermarkets #2

When I go to pay at the supermarket checkout (hey, I'm talking to YOU Somerfield), do not make the cashier shout ‘do you like muffins?’ at me out of the blue. If you do I’m likely to say ‘yes, I’m a typewriter’ or maybe – ‘shut your mouth!’ – ‘and anyway, these are buns, I’m ENGLISH you twonk’. I might even comment that had I wanted the buns that were on offer in the big display near the door I’d have bought some and brought them to the till. Why not stand something on the counter that you have hidden away that I might not have seen. Don't try to sell me stuff or I'm not coming back.

Supermarkets #1

In Gipton LIDL they have a system of scanning items at the checkout and throwing them at you – almost literally. There’s a section of counter a foot square and they push everything off the edge – you’re expected to have your trolley there ready to catch stuff. They might as well say ‘get the fuck out of our shop, you twat’. They tell you off if you have your trolley in the wrong place. They’ve done it for years and the management do the same thing. No please or thank yous either. You’d think that at least some pretence of not treating customers like dogs with diarrhoea would even have reached Gipton by now – no chance.

Questions, Questions...

A straw focus group poll sample of whoever it was I asked were asked to rank the following in order of rudeness / hot sex action:

1. How’s your father
2. Slap and tickle
3. Rumpy pumpy

The answer to this is of course quite clear. Slap and tickle is of course less serious than how’s your father (which is quite broad I feel but probably means sexual intercourse). In turn rumpy pumpy surely must mean sexual intercourse.

I’m also interested to know the answer to the following questions:

Why a ‘piece of crackling’ but a ‘bit’ of fluff?
How fancy is a fancy man?
When did the nymphomaniac disappear (my guess is with having ones tonsils out and lumbago - but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

What is the percentage decline in the wolf whistle since 1950?

Why did ‘shooting brake’ lose out over ‘estate car’?

There are a million questions where that one came from. I'm afraid I shall die without ever finding the answers to any of them.

Working, Being King of the World and New Labour

It struck me today that between the beginning of 2000 and the middle of 2006 I worked full-time! What was I thinking? Full-time? Well, that’s just not right now is it? When I’m King of the World working full-time will be banned and anyone wishing to do so will be locked away indefinitely as having a gross personality disorder.

Luckily, the mechanism for doing this is being put in place today by New Labour (along with all the other ones I’ll need to maintain my iron grip – hey hey!). Locking people up in case they might do something bad is a good one isn’t it? How about locking up some politicians in case they do bad things eh? – perish the thought! No-one seems to realise that political prisoners were never locked up in the Soviet Union as ‘political prisoners’, they were usually locked up for their own protection and the protection of society. Clearly not wanting to belong to the Party demonstrated they were mentally ill and therefore dangerous. But, hey the Home Secretary is elected here so its all OK – mind you, so was Hitler – but at least one or two people noticed him making things oppressive. How long before they start carting off people suspected of ‘bad things’ to be tortured or put away – whoops, they do that already - only by CIA plane instead of cattle trucks. Still, it’s Britain, it’s New Labour and nobody cares. That makes it OK you know.

Never mind, it’s unlikely to be you…unfortunately for you however, when I’m king of the world it WILL be you! Don’t say you weren’t warned WORMS! HA HA HA – I will be Home Secretary so its an ASBO control and behaviour order and detention without trail – oh yes, and I’ll decide your ‘tariff’ depending on what the Sun says – send in the army!

Nurse, fetch the screens!