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!
Monday, August 16, 2010
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...
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