Podocalypse

Well it seems we're all still here -or lots of us still are anyway.  Those who said the mayans prophesied our doom and gloom shouldn't however feel disheartened, despite the doomsday counter failing to eke its way past zero on this instance, the 188th doomsday date predicts the return of jesus  somewhere between 2018-2028.  Should the 188th not pan out the 189th will be taking place somewhere between 2020-2037 and on a friendly street near you.

In the meantime, and back to 2012, wouldn't it be wonderful if on December 31st in whichever time zone hits midnight, everyone (or as many as felt keen) danced gangnam style in a show of peace harmony and happiness.  Now that would be something to take into the new year on a brazier of hope.

p.s: Yes it is me talking... No, i haven't been ganked by a pod person!

p.p.s: In case i don't manage to splurge another few tappings out before the end of this year, wishing everyone a wonderful season festivities and superb 2013.

Not another friday

If you listen too much to the news, or anything else that passes for entertainment, you'll have realised parallelism is nearly complete.  If that made no sense at all, it's just another moment of taking the higher plane, keeping minds from wandering down dark alleys.  And the problem with dark alleys?  They're just too damned dark.

So as yet another friday whizzes by -which come around faster than conservatives having another daft idea- this weeks wee track, which had my feet tapping happily (cough, splutter choke) along, is fly away by dreamz, on the ever dependable jamendo.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

For the battle

2012

Don't want your president

Could be a track played in many parts of the world where leaders are more tin-pot that presidential, and more interested in lining their cushy behinds than the futures of their citizens.  

But the following is batman off  by kämmerer from the album rooftop considerations. Another friday nod to a coming weekend of carefree simple nothingness. many of us have forgotten to include in our lives.  

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Ding dong, merrily oh high, is it that time of year already.

Dammit yes it is, and shops have apparently decided that those with the memory of a fruit-bat might well forget that christmas could well be happening this year, and started to advertise from september. 

It is with utter displeasure that with days flying swiftly by until the festive season of "you call this a present! I hate you," departs, and the increase in a&e admissions fall back to normal levels; the following should be on everyone shopping list.

"Crack Alley brings you the latest in it's happy handbag retno electronic dentist gansta-rap classic-house mixp3 mash-up's.  Taking you screaming back to the 80's and flushing you out of the teenies -in a rapidly retreating ambulance- guaranteed by track 3, or your money-back!

Cost? Get this once in a lifetime offer.  Only £2,499 bn payable in six easy instalments.  And once we receive your first instalment you'll receive, as if by magic and return post, your first two discs of 100,000 discs containing over 500 ZB of ultra precision and honed aural delights. 

Don't have a crapray? Don't worry, just buy the discs anyway and wonder what  you're missing; until that is, you've hacked enough accounts to afford that ultra gorgeous 6D time-wave sound sytsem that will make your ears bleed now, but more importantly make them bleed from before you were born.

Crapray music system.  You'll never see another offer in the same way ever again."

A moisture of... happiness?

After finishing eating another piece of toughened leather, this time over the usa elections, i was at least satisfyingly mesmerised by the middle east appearing to be on track for imminenet conflagration; combining stupidity, asininity and any other inity that crops appropriately crops along.  Imagine if wwi or wwii were still simmering along in one form or another, depressing decade after mind-smacking decade.  Believe the term, get a grip might be appropriate, along with compromi- hold on just need to bang on the ceiling, damned neighbours!

However a track on jamendo caught my ear as i was looking for, inspiration...
dj goblin's creature mythique mix was circulating round my repeat button for at least an hour.  Oh the price of an addict.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Be good to get back to the miserable country.

Sometimes, you just need to... share

Sometimes, you just need to wonder at the direction, with eyes wide-open, and share.

Something useful?

"Hm, write something useful," a friend suggested the other day, "that people can dig their teeth into."

"Useful?  Isn't that diametrically opposed to reflective pedantry? And surely the odd sarcastic observations must have a mote of usefulness about them?" I rejoined.

"Only so far, and you haven't quite hit the knack of enlisting your audience without alienating them first; or having them fall asleep mid-sentence.  You have a tendency to wander in your, er, prose."

Well at least the pause was considerate.

"Useful..." I started.  Feeling the strain build up in the nether regions of hardly used cells I soon turned, eager to splurge.  "How about writing something on building your own portable pen-sized cutting laser?  Or, a thousand and one ways to boil your neighbours?  Bear traps for neighbours from hell and their screaming kids?  The besieged hermits diy handbook of tried and tested projectile missile construction?"  My pathetic gleeful smile said it all, as I slowly found myself ecstatically warming to the many-faceted possibilities that such an expansive topic would offer, especially in the way of hours and hours of happy rewinds.  My friend slowly shook her head in disappointment before continuing to munch on a honey-dipped cinnamon-sprinkled lovingly chopped (personally by the head chef) celery stalk.  

I wanted to tell her where i'd seen the staff's rabbits doing their organics; but somehow at that moment, it just didn't feel like the right thing to do.

Count the seconds before...

Yet another record breaking weather event (sandy), and ultra-fundamentalist regurgitation on that event (i.e. a certain john mcternan - who i'm sure when out of his fundamentalist snake-breathing persona, is a wonderful caring human being, and physical helper to the poor and dispossessed), please take a peek at rapturing ennui (previous post) somewhere around the middle and starting with:

"Which makes the pic ‘n mix nature of the current crop of theocratic firebrands just that little bit perverse..."

However, my thoughts and solace to those who have lost their lives and to their families and loved ones, from this disaster.  And as for those nasty, twisted, venomous snakes?  Why is there never a good mongoose around, just when you could really do with one!?

Rapturing ennui

I was suffering from bouts of repetitive strain ennui, as rounds of happy chatter collided with layers of guff, utter drivel, and a misplaced tourniquet which seriously interfered with my normal mode of ill-concealed yet charitable peevishness.

It’s been a while.

After spending the last few weeks (following the end of the olympics & paralympics) chomping down on one of my more tastier shoes -with the aid of a nice freshly-crushed black peppercorn sauce and a pair of sturdy utensils- i finally emerged from my self-imposed bubble of exile dazed by the absence of any flurry of news (led by a phalanx of chin-waggers) attacking transport for london’s massive and all too predictable cock-up.  Startled, as the expected descent into barbarous levels of road-rage -by hordes of maddened ring-sick drivers- failed to materialise, and aghast that city-wide chaos -not seen since the great fire of london (or if we’re really pushing the boat of tenuous links out and over the waterfall) not seen since london’s burning 2011 -had been miraculously and even more amazingly, averted.  I was shocked, deeply!

By itself, the above would have been more than enough to see me physically retching, as though I was a natural semi-comatose drunk with a proclivity towards sea-sickness, and trying to make a living (of sorts) onboard the marie celeste -each day wishing it would all simply end.  But there was more.  I found, and i’m not (well, only partially) ashamed to admit it, that I actually enjoyed bits of the olympics!  It really doesn’t matter that my enjoyment of the celebrations manifested itself during the opening and closing ceremonies, the fact remains that i still enjoyed them, and all those who watched will never quite forget the sight of three letters effervescently emblazoned on retinas across the globe (before the current crop holding the mace have finished handing it over to their pals) for many a year.

My “tosh” calibration system, on the other hand, was so revolted by such foul a deed of treachery, it fell into a brief bout of dysfunctional catatonic insensibility, before retaliating with a one-two sucker staccato-punch followed by a barrage of mis-firing signals -causing the impairment of my convolution of broca.  Either that, or i really should pay serious attention to the transient ischaemic attacks glacially working their way through the various sections of my splodgy matter.

That period of happiness reached an abrupt (albeit brief) end, by the never-failing charms of the nfh: whose activities and presence generally ensures neither peace nor calm.  Except even they were less bangingly slamming and stampingly annoying!  The noisy courtyard was like a graveyard, due in part to this years watery deluge, which also ensured the communal playground/park/beach (aka supposedly garden oasis) was lusciously green, burgeoning and for the time of year generally a joy to observe; a situation that lasted most of the summer and kept the “we’re-by-the-sea, we don’t see any neighbours?” brigade, more absent than usual.  Buses, it has to be said, were 50/50 but not quite as annoying, despite being ever polluting and taking delight in 80+ decibel engine revving at five-thirty in the morning -due to the weather not being cold enough.

At least the stuff which helps keep my tiller of misfortune happily on-course and my blood pressure ragingly coursing, was eagerly regenerating dendrites by the bucket load, under the strain of continuously working out exactly how many sams or directed energy weapons (aka lasers), moats or 200 feet robots (with a bit more work) would be required to instill a blanket of dessicated fig-leaf peace, forecfully onto the surrounding area.  All however was not lost, as chaos was partially salvaged by the noisy motorcyclists and boy racers, who mistakenly believe they’re part of a formula 1 racing team, or hunkering over a deranged belief they’re soon ready to participate in the rerun of the glory days of donnington -which is the same as me thinking i’ll ever amount to bottom feeder of a hack!  Despite all of that, it just wasn’t enough.

In an attempt to regain those lost clouds of sodden doom and foreboding, I had to cast my eyes further abreast, and away from the stadiums of sport and enjoyment; where in mere moments there was so much information coursing past my eyeballs comprising: pure insanity, greed, stupidity and all-out bad egginess, i was happily chugging my sides whilst feeling streams of hot tears cascading down my burning cheeks.

My first port of call found me listening to coverage of the preparations for the november elections in the usa.  Early voting had already started in this upcoming presidential one-to-one ding-dong; and in round one, to everyone’s surprise, romney won by a landslide; but this piece has taken so long to pop up, the second ding-dong’s already taken place, where the majority reasoning has presidential hopeful romney, losing the second round by a sliver -in an event more in keeping with the 'ya boo sucks to you' ding-dong of some uk parliamentary debates.  Some might say he won by the utterances of partial truths, others would say they were mendacious outright lies.  But hey, who cares!  By time the voting electorate get around to properly focusing on the fact we’re having the hood winked over us, some other calamity will have come along to blow our focus of consciousness off-stream and onto matters far more pleasurable - krispy kremes brings out a brand new doughnut - first fifty million, free!

But with less than three weeks to go, despite most of the world really not caring about the race or which lobbyist-centered mascot controls the house, this could follow the last presidential turning point in history and be another turning point of history (yes i know, history’s full of points and turns) but with the senate currently controlled by the republicans, those outside of the usa’s shores (veering left of vlad the impaler) have watched and been aghast at how a group of people would so cavalierly allow so many others to remain trodden in the abyss of abject poverty, without a smidgen of a mote of compassion - home run for big business lobbyists -you've earned your bonus.  In the actual states, and especially those with majority republican control, there’s been a hearty circling of the wagons and the donning of metaphorical beards, making sure the sack-cloths and ashes have been sufficiently rubbed and doused before been thrown over workers rights and set on fire: you know, those pesky little regulations which are there to make sure the vast majority of workers can at least earn some sort of wage, and they aren’t flogged ‘till they drop, or even (heavens forbid) that they receive a soupcon of a living wage, or their ability to strike should working conditions be so onerous and potentially dangerous as their employer's such a sociopath they need to take some kind of action are being serially removed, stamped on and scorched, leaving the faint whiff of cinders fluttering away in a gale of nothingness.  And cinders in a prairie, gasping for rain, just doesn’t end up pretty.

Yes the past couple of years should have being a frightening wake up call to those who wish to see humanity amongst the stars (i know we’re already whizzing amongst stars, talking more about off-planet colonies carefully husbanding newly terraformed worlds) as to the scale of the pendulums swing-back currently taking place in many states of the usa, which is being eagerly watched for handy pointers by others of a similar disposition around many parts of the globe.

Of course those inhabiting the right of centre are simply giving voice to a highly vocal portion of their electorate who'd be happy building a wall between them and mexico, but they’d be even happier deporting anyone walking around with a tan darker than 2 days.  And if they’re really lucky, they’d get to stand on the side of the quay, giving the newly departed a cheery wave-off proffering a thimbleful-full of glee.

There are glimmers that those (the none wackadoo, barmy, fluttering around their own treetops wing) who don’t share the ultra-rights point of views are waking up to the potential of having a brand of theocracy installed via the backdoor into the white-house.  Think a paler version of iranian theocracy, but unlike iran they’d have thousands of wmds at their disposal and who knows, a nuke or two might all of a sudden meet with a horribly shocking accident heralding a need for marshall law with jobs jobs jobs as long as you sign your vagina to the state.

Naturally that leads me to the role of religion, and with so many venomous snakes in that particular briar patch, i’m not sure about you, but it does give me pause to wonder whether they’re looking into a mirror when they proclaim that vast swathes of the globe are spawns of satan’s seed, that will burn in hell on judgement day where they i.e., you, obviously belong!  Or they’ve simply had their very own overwhelming bouts of ischemic attacks and simply failed to obtain a proper diagnosis.

Ahem.

Hopefully there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of other similar-minded souls around the world, who have a curious inability to view this ever-watching overlord and ever-at the ready but evil adversary, as anything other than the hopes fears and needs of a growing species, and subjected put-upon peoples; hapless and helpless before the swings and arrows of outrageous fortune, aiming to make sense of a spinning world of mud, making coincidences more meaningful than the stray wobbles of whizzing stuff, gathering with other stuff to create something, which is just so much stuff, that they more than likely, probably are.  If, however, people feel the need to follow in the footsteps of some of the beings who apparently occupy the better part of humanity’s spectrum then i hope those people are wandering around in cheap clothing, sleeping with prostitutes and wiping their feet, and giving waifs, strays and members of the said oldest profession the odd bit of food they’ve taken from their very own prepared plates.  And if they want to publicly profess their beliefs in, lets say the water-walker, then they should happily allow others who also wish to publicly profess such attachments allow them to stick a spear (or three) into them, just as a basic start.

Somehow i doubt we’d see the water-walker having the pick of 12 cars (worth millions) to drive around in, nor foxed to chose which mansion to luxuriously cavort around in, nor would we probably see him sporting the shiniest dapperest suits with this weeks favourite bit of fluffing-totty in tow, lofting it huge in a mighty cathedral that says more about how much money you’ve creamed than about good works or deeds.  No, i don’t think we would see that at all; but then if he did carry on in todays world as he did then, he’d soon be locked up for his own good, certified, and drugged to the eyeballs.  “All that crazy nonsense of turning water to wine.  Pfft.  And don’t forget to throw away the key!”

Which makes the pic ‘n mix nature of the current crop of theocratic firebrands just that little bit perverse, as over the past few decades it appears something’s been lost in translation and they’ve forgotten whole swathes of sins or conveniently re-weighted them, so now if you listen to most of the firebrands, the things that will bring about the end of everything, is either abortion or the gays; leading us all to our doom but don’t forget, keep on giving.

Fundamentalists of the christian world (either ignorant or utterly uncaring of their own pure brand of religious sociopathy) are once more jumping on their twin hobby horses of homophobia and abortion.  Blaming the former for every natural disaster going, and denigrating or killing anyone else who disagrees with them on the latter.


Of course the previous paragraphs could be considered naught but a dreadful stereotype, but despite the increase in information, data, and means of accessing, we collectively appear to throw our hands in the air and say “it’s all too much”, allowing ourselves to be herded by whichever explosive flare is set off just in-front of our eyeballs.

If we suspend our disbelief (pretend you’re watching cameron’s avatar in a fully immersive holographic cinema) and you consider that the omnipresent entity made everything you see or haven’t seen (by the way, have you seen the wonderful spectacular images coming from the telescopes in space?), why would a being who created all of that, then devote the next x amount of years pulling his/her/its hair out and getting steamingly broiled, because some hut/stone/bronze/nuclear-age ignorants are incapable of obeying orders or doing the right thing?  I suppose in size terms (although it’s difficult to measure the universe we do know let alone the bits of the universe we haven’t yet observed) it might be akin to a star the size of the observable universe knowing and caring about the plight of a grain of sand stuck somewhere in your nether regions after a particularly vigorous swim.

But someone please remind me why one religion is any more valid than another?  Why is islam more valid than christianity, or judaism, or buddhism, or hinduism, or zeusism, aphroditism, or the heady bank of mammonesque greed - which appears to have gained in popularity with the increasing value of nothing?  In the scheme of things, or the age of the planet, we homosapiens have the life span of fruit-flies and with historic loops ever repeating, memories just as long.  

A few hundred years ago, the inquisition brought a chill to the european lands, unless you happened to be on the side doing the decrying and popping a burning faggot onto dry kindling.   Other such niceties, such as disembowelling, dunking, and flaying alive were the prescribed order of the day, to help you recant the error of your ways and help you understand what it was you needed to understand -for the benefit you understand of your immortal soul and society.  Today, that role seems to be played by the fundamentalists of the islamic world: be-headings, bombings, chopping off of a hand here and killing anyone they can get their hands if you don’t live in a way and manner that they deem strict enough or fit; and, as fundamentalists in america use the law (through the dereliction of so many non-voters) to bring women’s rights over their own bodies screaming towards a point extremists elsewhere would nod approvingly at, we can truly see just how detached those men (as it seems the overwhelming majority -from footage anyway- parroting such views are indeed men) in realising just how increasingly insignificant their ways are for the progress of the species.  

If at any stage you believed in shreds of human good and decency, then assuage those silly notions by pouring a cauldron of burning bubbling pitch all over them; and don’t for one minute doubt, that if a group of truly crazed fundamentalists (of whatever creed or hue) managed to procure fissile material, they wouldn’t use it the instant they fully knew how (give or take a month or two), whilst smiling sunbeams from vidscreens as the world goes up in flames, a blue marble transfigured into a radioactive glassy hell hole, all the while singing “we’ve achieved the rapture!”

Taken out of it

One of the reasons i love the internet is simply down to being able to spend 24 hours submerged in quagmires of doom, gloom, and utter despondency.

Periodically my happy mood is broken by watching, reading or even listening to something which places a smile on my face.  Needless to say i then need to rush to the bathroom and scrub, vigorously.

This particular track by david durante on reverbnation, where is the fun has placed such an offending smile on my phizog.

A break in the interregnum

Oh it's been a while, swivelling and inhaling can really have that effect on you.

Perhaps what the world really needs are the barking religious christian fundamentalists and the mad deranged muslim fundamentalists, and th- actually, just all the mad fundy's everywhere, to get together on a large island and duke it out. Last man standing style.

Of course, in reality that wouldn't work. Any winner having dominance for 20 or so years would require them to agree to give up their position and begin the race all over again.  As history (for the most part) disgorges, once mad fundies obtain pre-eminence the truly mad amongst them will gain dominance and do their uttermost to squash any divergence or dissent, whilst they themselves do whatever they wish in the quiet and privacy of their own locked room.  Naturally, if such a religious tussle did occur, leaving one man standing, the world might well be a far less hellish place for the many billions caught in their webs of spun nonsense.

Now before someone gets all bent out shape, if you carefully re-read -just in-case you initially failed to notice- there's a bit in the 2nd bit which goes "... all the mad fundy's everywhere...", if you thought I had forgotten to include secular fundamentalists too.

Now, if you'll excuse me.  It's time for me to continue fulminating... the olympics... local bus pollution... nfh... climate... quantum cyrptography... feral children (no, really)... the wonderful onrushing winter (for those of us in the northern hemisphere)... mitt romney president and the mayan end of the world prophecy?!

Tfl's five-ringed circus

I stupidly decided to venture onto tfls’ website, just to see what environmental nonsense they were cawing, wholeheartedly, to the press this week.  Simply to show just how environmentally gorgeous they are.  Flapping energetic fluorescing green-striped credentials, to an ever eager lapping media flock!  Such are tfl’s efforts to appear convincingly kosher, seeds are beginning to sprout from atop their compost-able collective heads.

The following is from tfl’s website,

“Energy and climate change
Red Hybrid Bus. We are helping to deliver the Mayor's commitment to a 60 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions by 2025 (from 1990 levels) by promoting sustainable travel, running vehicles more efficiently and using greener vehicles and fuels.
We are adapting our services to the impacts of a changing climate with flood management plans, the tunnel cooling programme and changing bus specifications.”
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/8817.aspx

My first thought was: no, it won’t sustainably promote anything.  As any benefit you think these wonderful aimed reductions are going to have, will be countered by the a*#@*#?! (bus drivers) who’ll not only keep their bloody engines running come: summer, autumn, winter or spring; but, who'll increasingly rev them within an inch of them exploding; as you, old london transport ignominiously re-branded to transport for london (buses division), are a **?#’** managerial shower of *****, that if you fell into a brewery wouldn’t know how to have a piss-up, let alone which part of your anatomy to start from!  The remainder of my thoughts peeled off into incoherence, as they gathered up speed and zoomed off over a helpful metaphorical edge.

With less than 24 hours to go before the five-ringed circus of mayhem - or if you’d prefer to think of it in nicer cutesier terms - there’s less than 24 hours to go before all hell breaks lose and the carefully planned sponsored games, the ancient greeks wouldn’t be proud to call theirs (all the while refusing to have coke and heart-ack fries stuffed down their maws) and the opening ceremony officially dazzles the world.  I briefly wondered how the wonderful olympic spirit and medal wishing zeal, were making people - who aren’t being forced to work for nothing - feel?  

South london press conducted a poll a couple of weeks ago.  Of the respondents 59.8% were all enthusiastic for the olympics, clapping their hands in unalloyed glee; a preference probably abetted by the weight of direct and indirect marketing, stubbornly bombarding them the moment they popped their tv-sets out of standby, switched on their radios, or every time they glance at their 2012 weedel and maddening coke pouring watch.

Although there is no actual tally of the number of people who participated in the poll, nor any checks on where they lived, nor were there any measures preventing respondents from voting more than once (suffice to say it couldn’t exactly be classified as a rigorous scientific poll) it did indicate (whatever the voting pool and intentions) that just over 40% are a bunch of ungrateful miserable no-fun tossers, who would rather gnaw their own leg off (just below the knee) than have anything whatsoever to do with it.  If it takes you longer than half a second to realise which category i fall into, then this is obviously your first pitch into this portion of tripe.  So go back to the very beginning, until you’re begging to have your eyes gouged out with a bit of candy floss and a twig.  Or failing that, begging to have your ears filled with hot dripping wax lit-end first, simply to retire your need to hear or see anything ever again.

So what does this have to do with buses? 

Well, with road closures and the a’hats following the other greedy b’tards following the lead of the brown envelope stuffers, wanting to strike for more money because it’s such a special time, there will obviously be more of the big red things running around the less expensive parts of this ‘ere gold (is saying gold still allowed) coated part of town.  With changed schedules, routes, blocked lanes - where even public transport’s not allowed - the scale of toxic pollution (albeit not as bad as beijing) will increase  by a good old fashioned notch or two.  Oh for an egg to record the levels and have it displayed for perpetuity.

This part of the capital regularly breaches eu limits with pollution levels three times higher than accepted levels.  Although the past three months precipitation (whilst attempting to sink the city and allow some architect to conjure up contemporary hills or mounds as a secondary form of data backup) managed to effectively reduce the stink and particulates over 500 bus terminations per day happily emit.  At any particular juncture, nine plus of these dratted vehicles are sitting there up to 20 minutes at a time; either with drivers keeping engines ticking over or revving them “fit to burst” as one disgruntled neighbour put it.  Pointing an increasingly shaky, pollution-aided alzheimeric hand, in the direction of the biggest polluter this particular road is unnecessarily encumbered with, pumping out their toxic swill.

Perhaps i’m been somewhat harsh on the hard working drivers, who are after all providing a public service.  They’d be providing a far better public service if they also stopped unnecessarily polluting the air, but that would be the same as asking them to stop for passengers when they’re 2 minutes over their shift at 23:30 hrs.  Some might conclude i’m being even harder on tfl.  No, sorry, not in the slightest.  Considering the organisation has been at this transport game (in one guise or another) for a good few years, with a plethora of statistics that would make a burgeoning statistician weep - if they had tear-ducts - you’d have thought they’d have garnered a few basics about peoples travel.  Take for instance the travel planner, a wonderful implementation of getting around from "a" to "b",  unfortunately if you want to go from b to a instead of pressing a button swapping the details and it automatically working for you, have to copy and paste or retype the entries and go through the rigmarole all over again.  Tfl, take a look at how google implements it, simple and basic and it doesn’t time out after 2 seconds.  Of course, if there’s an option somewhere i’ve overlooked i’ll happily eat my other uneaten shoe.

I really shouldn't look at tfl's website whilst consuming anything liquid.  One of these days I really will choke to death.  But in the spirit of fair competition, for one month we should all eat the sponsoring companies (ideally only food and drink) competitors fare, just to show them and the five-ringed circus that monopolistic behaviour isn't really sportsmanlike at all.

In the meantime, i just need to find my olympic: mug, bags of popcorn, coasters, umbrella, and comfortable space-throw, to enjoy all that hard-earned sweat!

Potty guido bombers?

As the date of the 2012 olympics and paralympics draws ever near (27 july – 12 august and 29 august – 9 september respectively, for those who still don't know), the dates also draw near to the 5th of november,  when guy fawkes (that evil arch-maniacal terrorist bent on utter world domination and rule of the entire universe – by today's standards) planted, along with his fellow co-conspirators, barrels of gunpowder with the intent of blowing the mother of all parliaments to the wind, and not the sort of wind created by said members having way too much to eat at an all-expenses paid pre-brunch; although in 1605 that probably equated to a scullery maid or boy being shouted at whilst scurrying from the kitchen with a pig (on all fours) still squealing from the fees office or, under its previous incarnation the high office of the lord chamberlain; oh how things have changed, at least now they'd be be on minimum wage or, if an intern, a third of the minimum wage and a hearty clip around the ear.

The gunpowder plot was a dry story we were regaled with during the more boring but required elements of history the lecturer felt he had to pedal over; but, at the time all those many years ago, events were fresh, remembered, and seemingly remembered with gratitude over the following few decades by: the serfs and lords grateful that the horrid fawkes, and his catholic co-conspirator heathens, had so majestically and so publicly failed (obviously by the will of he who shan't be named), which is a bit different to the air of celebration the vast majority of us (here in the uk) now enjoy every bonfire night.  A time which wouldn't be quite the same without gut-retching hotdogs, eye gouging sparklers and the odd rocket or two mistakenly fired into a supermarket which is then relieved of its goods on the premise: "we were only trying to stop them catching fire guv, really!"

If over the past 10 years old guido had being around and tried the very same thing the headlines in the red-tops would have screamed "We beat you fawksey, you bonkers sex starved roman loving maniac!"; which would, no doubt, be the fastest selling editions of the papers since the last time something tragic occurred to grip the collective myopic eye of we morally outraged middle se- citizens.

Perhaps in a few hundred years there'll be parts of the moon devoted to a stellar day of celebration, with antique nuclear bombs been set off and the whole shebang broadcast to an eager colonised solar system – in memory of that day when they finally managed to get one off, or for the two which were dropped on japan, by the states!

There's something else, others and myself (separately you understand) find odd, namely that in the current clime with increasing scrutiny been placed on security, where hardly a day goes by without some plot or the other somewhere been discovered, and trumpeted as the reasons why the trillions being spent for our safety are a necessary evil, you would have thought the arch criminal explosive plotting over-minds would have given a little bit more thought to the 'ins' and 'outs' of communicating with each other and their mindless minions, and abandoned the tried but slightly riskier approach of two plastic cups and a sturdy length of string. At the very least you'd expect quadruple state homomorphic encryption (i really have no idea either) with a minimum of 2048 bits per level, as the basic bargain basement entry point for any aspiring (or is that potential), all-fired up hormonally imbalanced chemically insane brainwashed fundamentalist nitwit (of whichever denomination), happy to meet whomever on the other side, after their whoopee for reproductive matter has been effectively removed from the gene-pool.

But as the bbc piece states, "the arrests relate to a possible plot involving islamist extremists, with potential uk targets." So not an actual plot but a hypothetical we're writing an imaginary possible plot which might come in handy at some stage in the future. Could this perhaps be a plot similar to paul chambers at doncaster's robin hood airport one winters day? Where, hoping to eventually meet his better-twittered half he tweeted:

"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jun/27/twitter-joke-trial-timeline

Because as most of us know when it comes to anything either side of 16.2 degrees and a teaspoon of rain, our transport systems are utterly flummoxed, whilst we proles hang around our anger and annoyance exploding with all the vehemence of an aggravated tut.

Excellent, they've caught them.  So what was it then, what was the bit of proof that did for yet another bunch of hapless terrorists? Did they send an email, or a text or a tweet, were they shadowed by undercover operatives here and overseas, or did they have blueprints stuffed down their pants for the shard or the angel of the north in gateshead?  Blueprints, i suppose, could be one reason for the tasering of a 24 year old man whom the police helpfully pointed out afterwards, "did not require hospital treatment."  Wait a minute.  You've just tasered someone in the belief they might be about to level something prized or riddle holes into soft cushiony flesh, and you wipe your brow in abject relief that they didn't require hospital treatment? Very odd sentiments, are you sure he wasn't one of your's you realised you'd tasered by mistake?  As surely you'd be far more interested in informing a glued to their security blanket public which shopping mall or tourist hell hole you stopped ending up looking like a slice of emmentaler proudly fountaining the red stuff as a may day parade in the old soviet union!

I look forward to hearing or reading exactly what transpired, and hope the best details won't be shuffled off centre-right in a flurry of furious recriminations under the carpet of national security for an interminable number of decades.  For all we know, one of the alleged might have inadvertently let his slightly blind bull-mastiff out one windswept cold and grey spring morning, where it promptly  proceeded to take a bite out of the head of mi5's paymaster-general's short-haired apple-sized chihuahua, mistakenly thinking it was a meals-on-perambulating mouth sized snack.

Hold on though, the piece (again from the beeb) goes on to say: "arrests are not linked to the olympics or paralympics, police said."  Whoa, hold your horses there speedy!  The whole world's attention (or a lot of it) will be swivelled on to the uk for over a month, and as people around the globe are getting ready to enjoy the events their sporting representatives will be competing for, possible potential hypothetical terrorists here are aiming for a major target like, what, the bull and duck pub down a flooded grassy lane in the middle of the back of somewhere beyond?

Well if they are, that will at least provide those of us with our heads underneath a rock wishing the whole thing would go away, something other to ponder over.  As all the rest will be cheering from the rafters oblivious but happy they'll have something else to complain about when the medal tally totals 2; instead of their crap wages, overpaid footballers, another banking scandal, mp's fiddling again, or the love-life of some other celebrity's partners spouse pet goldfish doing it with the castle.

Bonkers, barmy and laughably ridiculous... and it apparently doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with boris!

Netflikered

I was shocked, as i found myself within a hairs-breadth whisker of succumbing to the siren call of a netflix letter drop.

The list was momentarily compelling:

• a month’s free trial,
• option to cancel at the end,
• for an all i could stomach sci-fi buffet!

Thanks to the increasing dearth of decent sci-fi shows on cable, terrestial or online, how could I resist!  But before filling out the online form and sitting down to watch nothing but the best that sci-fi tv/film land had to offer, i decided the best course (or the most sensible) would be to take a peek, to have a taste of the piping hot morsels waiting for the starting pistol before launching themselves through the intercontinental interwebs at 7 megabits per second on a 24 hour basis, before being gobbled up by my unlimited (within reason) quota, so confirming the exact tide of bounteous fare netflix were poised to unleash.

My first look at the what purported to be sci-fi under the 'browse selection' tab left me somewhat open-mouthed.  Here’s a quick screenshot (showing the precise example - so a valid use of!)

as at friday 6 june 2012 at 08:15 hrs

The very first cover image was an eye opener, conan the barbarian?  When was conan part of the sci-fi (unless definitions have being put to a vote in some dim & dark distant corner of the galaxy and my invitation's been delayed by gravitational lensing, and sci-fi is still short for science fiction) genre? But then it continued, with ella enchanted, stuart little 2, to be slightly relieved by transformers (the first one); but, hocus pocus? Come on now!  But no, it carried on plummeting the pseudo depths with pirates of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl, narnia (for f'ing sake, narnia - take a peek at the imdb site to see which categories most of the aforementioned are in!) and then finally the mist - which i haven't seen but i'm taking the imdb genre classifications as being somewhat more reliable than netflix's.  

If you’re a sci-fi aficionado then this is nothing less than the bargain basement everything else has being taken by the hordes bin, and you’ve arrived just too damned late, jerk!

There wan't a stargate nor star wars, nor anything else remotely starry offered up, except for the background on the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy cover. If this is the best that netflix can entice in their sci-fi category, then my humble moth-filled clutch purse, will remain forever closed.

I know, in the week the higgs was possibly sighted, i'm wittering on about constituent offerings of the uk netflix site, but come on people, if the little things are so radically wrong, what hope is there for anything else slightly more important like: accurate billing, or decent delivery without it freezing or stuttering a tenth of the way through? Hocus pocus in sci-fi indeed, a pox on them!

Bus strike and the god particle

How indeed can the two be remotely related, not much but hey ho...  on the same day the probability of the god particles existence is definitively annouced, tfl send out an email announcing 3 days of potential strikes by bus drivers, starting on the 5th.

3 days!

The same 3 days the father of the genocidal benign had his son in a tomb (if memory from my indoctrination days serves me correct), or 3 crooks hung on crosses, or 3 heads of the apocalypse (or is that...), the 3 stooges, musketeers, rivers of babylon and so on.

The serendipitous nature of this is staggering, it might mean, if there's no noticeable increase in car traffic, that at various times during the day (well actually the night-time when the benighted individuals are unable to find the off switch) the air in this locale will be devoid of the ever-present tell-tale smell of foul bus emissions, which like some miasmic offshoot descending from the depths of the above to the under-bits of hades himself (a boson or two if you will), seemingly forever clings to the nasal passages polluting each breadth you take.

But why leave it at 3 days!  Why don't they strike for 365 days, then perhaps we can have a load of new drivers who know how to switch off their engines, instead of thumbing their continual disregard towards residents in areas where stands have being deposited against residents wishes, and hopefully then london, and every other city suffering the same problem, might be able to breath that little bit easier.

Oh yes, what the b*!!*cks does head of consultation delivery actually mean?

19:02hrs found out tomorrows (today's) strike's being suspended!  Bah!

Details of the (now off) bus strike, and for those who haven't yet heard, details of cerns almost more likely than how-long's-a-piece-of-string, higgs discovery.

Where indeed is the revolution!

Sometimes, browsing through the treacherous waters of the interwebs, you come across comments that you're fully in agreement with....

"There's nothing the British like better than pissing on their peers. The media play up to it, and politicians give them a whole load of ammunition. Forget corrupt politicians filling their pockets (and still doing so); forget corrupt police; forget corrupt media - the ones spreading the government message and urging them to go further; forget corrupt bankers fucking up the country; forget corrupt businessmen screwing the poor at home and abroad and screwing the taxpayer by shoving their tax into Monaco, the Caymans, and Jersey; what people like to do is grumble that someone next door is on "HUGE" benefits of a few quid a week, having the nerve to have their rent paid by the state, and "would you believe it?" they still have money for two pints of beer a week!

Fucking wake up Britain!"

TheGreatRonRafferty, 3 July 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/16949847

Batting for summers end

Typical, just when events outside these 18 walls start to pucker-up the ladder of interesting i'm hit with a case of the doldrums, a smudge of ennui and lack of focus.  It's not that i've observed a decrease in my rabbit-like browsing habits, simply that everything i'm browsing holds the interest of a stultifying mosquito resting on a patch of amber which is steadfastly hindering any breach through its barrier of excitement, regardless of the mosi's wish to be entombed.

The tragic thing is it's all downhill now, until mid-autumn arrives, when my sad (summer afflicted disorder) syndrome will be fixed by plummeting temperatures and dank grey days - climate change permitting.  Now if i'd planned properly (or even at all) i'd be spending these precious months either increasing my elevation or hot footing towards the 65th parallel (north or south) instead of shaking a vague finger towards some disinterested non-existent entity.

Sadly it's not as if i can rest in my wallowing for more than a few moments, the noise of the area (including  the lovely herd upstairs) consistently puts paid to that; otherwise who knows, maybe my rip van winkle impersonation might have consumed me in leaps and bounds by now, well maybe not leaps nor even bounds - that would be far too troublesome - but the allure of incipient hypersomnia increasingly takes on the air of a comfortable pair of well-loved slippers, in place of those long lost halcyon days of refreshing recuperative rejuvenative rest.  On the other hand i suppose this phase, alongside the other phase, could be nothing more serious than unresolved dyspeptic flatulence.

Right, time to keep these fingers clicking... sudan... russia... another oil blow-out... economy up... economy down... usa republicans aiming for the title: "barmiest ever"... with olive oil pouring from its gills greece should be slipping through the economic noose like a snake being squeezed through a very tight hole; painful, but ever possible.

Earth day

Puff, pant...  Happy earth day - not too late am i? ...  

Wait a minute, "our planet, our home is being neglected..."  

Neglected?  

I don't think neglected is quite the word for it.  Pillaged, poisoned, ravaged, chopped to bits and ground to dust for our disposable use, would probably be more appropriate.  But who am i to talk, puffing away on inhalation stress carcinogens as i do.

Only hope my six hearty and continually growing horse-chestnut saplings will at least be a helpful contribution to the cause.

http://www.earthday.org/ 

 

 

A momentary yawn

We still here?

My, it has been a while.  

Crap.

Oh well, might as well take a quick run through of the things i've missed...: 

Budgets...

Russian electoral fraud, american republican copycat electoral fraud - if it's good enough for the commies, it's good enough for us! must have been the thinking at the time...  

Triple standards, "oh, i didn't know the rich try to pay no tax?  When did that happen? Am i really the chancellor?"... 

Sudan (north and south) descending into a sadly predicted quagmire... 

Syria ready to implode - still?... 

Chinese coups, or is that skulduggery?... 

Being able to see let alone count less than a dozen stars during a clear city night... 

Food prices up, energy prices up, clothes costs up (in the uk at any rate, wages? What wages!...  

'This manifesto, i wave before you, is nothing more than toilet paper; and, in the tradition of good old fashioned toilet paper, it will be flushed the day we get into office,' a clip from a leaked post-production party political broadcast to be aired at the next election, in the 5th parallel universe... 

A raspberry pi.  Finally, the raspberry pi...  

Births... 

Deaths...  and the ever growing clamour for a pre-emptive strike against iran; to ensure they don't build a nuclear weapon they may have already built but are obviously hiding, leaving no other alternative but an assassination, a bombing of innocent civilians by their lackeys.  This is pinned by a nail-gun to the beating chest of the iranian president due to the unforeseen and unfortunate accident where one of the careless perpetrators' of horror, forgets to dispose of the videos linking them to the acts, and their passports with almost daily flights to and fro iran are serendipitously found in a pristine unburned patch of clothing amongst a mound circled by a set of muddy footprints.  A tube of iranian toothpaste is also found floating down a stream, and bits of a students' thesis postulating how far advanced iran's invisible, behind the scenes, really top secret war-machine really is, is included in top, uber top, government briefings.  Wasn't this ground-hog nonsense flayed to dust during the last decade?  Of course, before we even begin to have our collective "noes" twisted into "yeas" we should know exactly which group(s) or corporate entities will be made richer, far richer, because of it.

Ah, i can hear the clamour for a 'what does it all mean' explanation gathering in the ether.  In this particular instance, it's time for another nap...

Secret of the american economic success story

according to the track record of m.r.

In five easy steps ...

1. Saddle the company you've swooped on with huge loans,
2. Reduce workers remuneration & benefits,
3. Raise prices and screw r&d - so no one wants to buy your products,
4. Sack the workers,
5. Bankrupt the company and run away with the money - all legally of course.

... now upscale to a whole country...

Days of sun

It's three degrees celsius, clouds are dissipating and i'm feeling rather unwell.  I know i'm feeling unwell, as there's a strange nimbus of happiness coursing through me. 

Luckily that usually presages the descent of some horrible calamity, so i'll wait a few hours, to see what it is - the apocalypse would be nice but can't have everything - if it's more happiness, i'll be even more upset.

Now, where's that 110 spf sun cream...

Changes

This is the 502nd rambling post of sorts, and i must admit to being surprised at popping stuff past single figures, let alone 500 of them.  Okay, if i remove all those posts that are just of pictures, videos, or one-liners, or some other criteria that might make a post somewhat paratactically meaningful - somewhere along the lines of "i will read this; god i wish i couldn't read, i believe my head might implode!" then i'm still in double figures - low double figures.  Nevertheless it's gone past the two hand stage, i haven't being sued, and there's still so much nonsense within and without that needs a good pricking.  I breath a somewhat hearty refrain of relief.

Unfortunately i made the rash decision a few months ago of looking through previous entries (ones earlier than 2011), to find to my horror that changing the  layout had skewed, and made painfully unreadable, some of the earlier posts of indeterminate length.

So all new non--suffering readers stumbling across this little corner of the interwebbingtubes, you've been saved a horrid experience.  I know i should go back and nicely re-align everything - whilst being relatively semi-cross at google - but i haven't yet reached the stage where i want to sit down and re-check hundreds of posts, over say, hunting for the ladybird i saw scuttling around on a window frame last week, or the caterpillar i saw clambering up a plug two days ago - despite it still being winter.

But as i get ready to hit another period of semi-hermitisation (after such a shoddy winter here), perhaps my mood will cheerfully rise; as in less than 10 months time and the end/change/something possibly happening event creeping up, or not, on to the world, i'll no longer need to fret about filling another 500.  

David cameron professes to  give scotlanders more power if they reject going independent.  

When did the david become the all-powerful-all-seeing-all-everything?  I say that as i presume (without devoting anything more than a quarter of my functional cell to the task) that if scotland do go their merry independent way, so not having to put up with the nonsense emanating from whitehall, their ability to have as much power as they can happily gorge on, regardless of what the silly southern sasanacs might say, will be more or less dependent on them.

It's like telling a child (this is an analogy so no comments), that if they don't vote to have the entire shop given to them, they might just (if we feel like it) give them one or two of the sweets.  But only if they keep the status quo.

Perhaps there's something really important i've missed whilst only skimming the headlines.

Periodic trumpet puritanicalness

This was going to be a long worded post of griping, whining and all things curmudgeonly pedantic. 

However serendipity decided otherwise, as the interwebbedtube thingy squirted stuff through the connection whilst watching a documentary on beebs iplayer about the dearth of out gay players in the uks football leagues.  One of the songs used in that documentary caught me in an unguarded moment, and caused a slight melt to occur in my icy carapace.

Rizzle kicks - down with the trumpets...

Watering other people gardens

I was minding my own business - which i do on a regular basis - when i heard what sounded like, well actually it was, high screeches, laughter and hysterical screeches from outside.  The entertainment venue was having another do and people were either queuing or walking towards the entrance.

After five minutes of this continual screeching i decided to investigate.  On the one side there was nothing but the passing of cars and people walking down, but i could still hear the hysterics, so popped into the other room and opened the curtain.

I'm not sure who was surprised, the one girl who was taking a picture of another girl who was posing, or after a quick shout from the blond-haired girl taking the picture on her mobile, their other female friend who scurried from the gap still pulling up her skirt - no doubt relieving herself underneath windows before entering the venue.

Before you say i'm being preposterous, let me re-assure you, i really wish i was.  There is no security from the venue checking, and i don't often feel in the mood to sit or stand by the window to take make note.  But this wasn't the first time.  On another occasion a whole group (five if memory serves me correctly) had popped over the wall and only done a runner when i tapped by the window with camera in hand, or another time in broad daylight when two guys peed by the neighbours window. 

Of course my thoughts turn to electrified panels, or fences.  I'm sure they would neither like nor enjoy someone peeing by their windows on a regular or any basis. Can't even hibernate in peace.

I have the power

I'm not sure quite how i came across hard creations - i have the power clip on youtube.  But it's a curious combination, the daleks & the beloved leader - yes ms margaret thatcher, to the beat of... i'm not really sure.  Listen at least twice to let it wash over you.

With lines like: "You turn if you want to, the lady's not for turning... I move by psycho-kinetic power... there is no-such thing as society.."  Why wouldn't you want to listen to all those memorable words all over again - even if it was from a few years ago.  

And for those who weren't able to participate the first time round, just wait until the current crop finish!

Well it was monday, and a very happy chinese new year.

Gripping noise

I was gripped, focused like a slightly wavering laser on lisa jardines point of view: volume control, the other day broadcast on bbc radio 4.

Gripped!

As she spell-blindingly weaved the horror (my interpretation) people are subjected to in growing urban islands by the incessant ever-increasing noise, which is taking place on a daily basis.  Wonder what she'd make of this particular noise hole and tfls & lambeth councils recalcitrance (from empirical evidence) in reducing it?

Gripped!

Until the end.  When she basically said things will only get worse, so we'll all "have to develop our own personal self protective strategies for dealing with it.  Like improving our powers of concentration!"

Concentration?

I quickly filed through my back catalogue of half-penned, on the wobbly drawing-board need more angst before they'll ever see the light of day finishing ideas pile, and alighted on the personal emp portable generated user field - otherwise known as pepguf ^TM - simply gathering dust, whilst managing to glare back at me seethingly.

Yes, that would bring a brief respite of quiet noise crashing down on the area.  Might even create one more day (however briefly) in the year, when silence, or a suitable simulacrum thereof, can once again reign supreme.

Left, right...

I heard the following from the glorious "talk geek to me" podcast, and then read the original on "the angry blog":

"Lately the argument between the Left and the Right has gotten way out of control.  They are all trying to out do each other for being more religious, more in touch with unemployment and more in touch with the poor."

The Angry Blog 

Thank you oh angry blog.  Pop in your own country and see how relevant it is to you.

The lovely people - III

Someone queried the other day, "how are the lovely people?"

"A little less dreadful, but it was christmas and they spent it away," I said.  Then i realised i'd actually perked up over the period - in hindsight.  The only oddity, perhaps even a downside, was the increasing amount of pollution seemingly hanging in the air, or over the air here, during the past couple of weeks.  Either that or my body's starting to produce it's own over-powering brand of incense!

As the gaseous porosity of the structure continues to make itself known, with flows rolling from one part of the block to another, so the smells of burnt toast, eggs, farts, and roast dinners follows the paths of ease accessing willing, or otherwise, nostrils through the papier-mâché construction.

I believe one reason why there appears to be an increase in pollution levels, can be aimed squarely towards the main gate of the courtyard undergoing its transformation.  It was, apparently, "too heavy."  The fact people used to push it open with cars or vans appears to have been moot; so its frame - a former shadow of itself if you will - now swings pitifully open or closed, nary a bang let alone shudder, announcing its presence.
 
The top bit of the ex-solid-gate, looks sullenly out as the naked bottom bit allows anything smaller than a rugby ball to sail straight through completely unhindered, and as the other end of the estate is ringed by structures, any odd molecule heavy enough and not too disturbed by breeze has the ability to slowly gather.  As the amount of breeze over the past week has been less  than minimal, so the noticeable increase in pollution levels, for those duffers inhabiting the first level or two.

But at least i still have the option to do things and move my carcase.  RIP for those poor souls caught in the costa concordia event.  I wonder when the expression, "you damned schett you, get back to your post!" will become the berating phrase of choice?

Fiscality

Looking through the wise words and expert opinions regarding all things financial, i'm oft reminded of a driver going in reverse at high speed along a mountainous road, with one eye firmly on the precipice.