Three-nil?…

Yes, the third night of “nightmare at may mass” is nearly over – queue gushing fountains of blood, screams, creaking undergrowth and a spooky tumbleweed bounding down the street.

So let’s take a spin of the new “wheel of misfortune” to see exactly where our focus lands, before delving into the entrails of the nights dystrophic twilight episode…

… never know, it as after all 22:39hrs and might be proved wrong; but the increasing frequency and loudness of the thud, thud, thuds look likely to disprove that.

E-what?

Knew i forgot something – there’s an election on.

Well, more a continuation of the same that’s been happening for a few centuries, because regardless of who gets into power the civil servants will be the ones providing the information, the ones providing the collated data gathered from the interested industry pushers who will be munching ears over lunch, or dinner, or at the launch of a new initiative. 

Regardless of who gets in, barring some calamity that always looks as if its about to break and plunge us into headless chicken mode, we’ll continue living in an increasingly shrinking global village, regardless of whether we trade more with ‘a’ or ‘b’, we’ll still be trading with a block that has less concern about their citizen employees, or a bit more concern about their employee citizens; we’ll continue to travel (volcanoes' willing), travellers will arrive (volcanoes' willing), so what exactly will group ‘x’ do apart from tinker around the edges in an attempt to keep as many of us psychotic idiopaths occupied for as long as feasibly possible?

So with good political candor, let’s answer a different question.  What they probably won’t do (delete as appropriate) is:

• Really pip the poor – there’s not enough prison places to put all the rioters who’ll be up in arms, going french,
• Excessively pip the rich - and they’ll just snub a took and go elsewhere offering slightly less than zero tax,
• Pip the middle who’ll boot them out as quickly as they can and not talk to their off-spring whilst waiting in the halls during a break from form c’s theatre evening with parents steaming to to see the master.

So whoever gets in, some group(s) going to get it and be mightily miffed.  In light of that, perhaps it’s time to do something for the planet; for instance have a no car driving week so it can breathe more easily, or not have another species go extinct for ten years for the sake of a pair of shoes or a drawer full of shirts, where light pollution in cities’ reduced to a level you can look up and see more than a dozen stars.  Where we don’t need to buy the latest and greatest “oh it’s so shiny” every six months just out of sheer slavish bored licking, of the hand of ad-dom.

Oh, that and cameron looking like bambi startled in oncoming headlights, brown really reminding everyone of bagpuss with each passing day, and clegg just has too much of that blair tinted colgateness – and look where that ended us; means it is indeed time for a parashift.

Ah there it is.  My wonderful, friendly, green, recyclable solar-powered veg-garden in a window-box, pen.

Two noisy, one more to go!

Yes, this is part two of the three nightmares of may.

Just when, up until 23:32hrs, it was looking so promising; sadly, it just wasn’t to be.  How can I describe it? It would be akin to heathrow throwing open a third & fourth runway, both opened especially for the night time with the loudest planes they could find, with all holding patterns full, all landing slots taken and a stream of buses reaching back to the centre of london, with engines revving fit to bust all the away.

So the club could (for a while at least) keep the noise within levels that didn’t have residents tearing their hair out in frustration, the question is why they don’t do so normally, and then why the council isn’t more proactive in finding out why people are so ticked.

Up until 23.32hrs it was tolerable, then it slowly increased to at 00:30hrs now have the pulsating thud, thud, thud, thudding away, like your own private tuning rave in your front cortex, where, strangely, each thudding tune emanating from those speakers is easily recognisable – something which is part of the environmental subjective “is it loud enough, do we really have to do something?” strategy; so either someone’s left and been seen driving away or it’s been saved specifically for after midnight and beyond, and someone has looked at their watch and gone “oops, time to whack it up”.

No, the whole thing really is a nonsense, they obviously have no consideration towards their neighbours; and just in case there’s a bit of doubt - they really don’t care, they (and this is from the evidence of sitting here and experiencing the noise, the vibrations) shows that really, when all is said and done, they have none, nada, zilch, zero consideration unless it’s the front facing face that’s twice facing backwards.

Screechy! Here screechy screechy.

One has to admire london buses when it comes to bus & station signage and display methodologies, they're a world-beater.

"...signs supplied are to satisfy all relevant European and British Standards and specify precisely the methods of quality control applied in all aspects of the production process...

...the surface finish of the material shall not be punctured by visible fixings, unless no alternative exists, and the panels are to be checked for warping and twist...

...that all product design is a successful blend of economics, aesthetics and functionality with the aim to meet the needs of both customer and operational staff..."

Everything's within a nano-whisker of dimensional perfection, then we have the drivers.

When the temperature hits -5c I can understand the need for engines to be kept ticking; and in the summer, when the temperature hits 40c, for the air-conditioning (although the times in summer when the heating’s on, yet in winter strangely not working’s always a worrying mystery) to be on for them to keep cool. I do understand; and not for a solitary moment am i envisioning sulphurous flames crisping their short & curlies as they’re been devoured from the inside out, over and over and over again, by a basket full of over voracious maggots. No, not thinking anything of the sort…

What I don't understand (apart for the bloody-mindedness part) is why they sit at the stand/terminal with their engines on (despite immaculate signage saying "switch off your engines whilst stationary at the stand", not for 5, or 15 or 30 seconds. But 3, 5, 10, even 20 minutes belching out pollution, and radiating mind jarring low frequency emissions; that is, when they’re not screeching the brakes or tooting horns 16 times per go.

What's that you say?

A dog with a bit between its teeth?

How dare you call bus-drivers dogs, I won't be having any of it. They're earning a living like everyone else, and some of my best friends are bus drivers… but perhaps they're right too, and some do need more training.

Yea

Happy May day!

Picky about noise?

As international noise awareness week ends with the screeching start of a three night 3am ending “rave”, does having to wear ear plugs and headphones behind firmly closed double-glazed windows & doors, and still experiencing the thud, thud, thud reverberating through the cranium - classify the noise and frequencies as being too loud and a nuisance?

Or am i just one of those too sensitive and picky souls, and am actually tossing and turning at this very moment; dreaming that i’m living in a twilight borough, where a church can get hauled to court for playing drums too loudly during the day and is viewed as a greater assault  on the strictures of noise pollution than a club playing deep bass thudding tones that keeps its residential neighbours involuntarily bouncing into the early hours of the day?

What’s that? It’s not a dream?  Oh right, its the never-ending nightmare.

Effing beeps

Stuck in a hole, 
with holes on dryers, 
being eaten alive by moulding damp flies;
with the whistle of engines,
twisting blown cochlea's,
a few notches down,
from a killing spree line.

"But, ne'r mind,"
says the streak of red viscous rust, 
so closely matched,
to gaping wide throats - 
that bubble in bile - 
as the whistle of engines,
and holes on dryers,
convert havens
into tranquil beeps...

Noise Day

International Noise Day is here, and the peace lasted… 2 seconds or was that 1.956 seconds; will have to check, just to make sure.

In the meantime here’s a wee graphic thingy, a pdf clickable one is somewhere…

Int. Noise. Week

Yea.

Happy international noise awareness, abatement wee- hold on, let me just tuck these ear-plugs in a bit closer; cut out the din from the buses and racers.

Yes indeed. Happy noise week, and in keeping with the theme, what better way of placing my brass-tacks and taking part than by providing my own little collaborative snapshot of various past and present goings on affecting this little patch of diesel stained, vibrational flattened, noise challenged greenery.

Which will be up and proud and celebrating for the day itself, once its looking more presentable, than it does now.

Archie Bronson Outfit

After a brief wee sojourn into other places, I had the greatest pleasure in meeting a member of the aforementioned band – not only that but also listening (for the first time) to a copy of their latest album coconut.

What can I say apart from it’s exceptionally brilliant. 

Haven’t yet watched the dvd that came with it, but from the cd my favourite track is, without any doubt or bluster, sharks tooth – so much a favourite it took me two weeks before I stopped catching myself absently humming that addictively catchy tune, closely (nano-sliced atom closely) followed by strawberries.

So for those who have never heard them, head off over to their website and enjoy a return to the days of thoughtful, inspiring music. 

Well worth it.

Mirrored muse

“I want you dead, because you are not me.

I want you dead, because you are an atheist/christian/buddhist/hindi/jewish/muslim/agnostic piece of trash.

I want you dead because you are a communist/fascist/crypto-socialist-anarchist-capitalist.

I want you dead because you are asian/black/white/oriental/native/non-native.

I want you dead because you don't agree with me.

I want you dead because you drink tea, which is two degrees celsius too warm, and your coffee's aroma reminds me of bees.

I want you dead because you eat meat.

I want you dead because you don't eat meat.

I want you dead because you are killing your unborn child, that was forced on you without your consent.

I want you dead because you forced me to bring this child into the world.

I want you dead for only giving me boys/girls/disabled/non-disabled children.

I want you dead because the voices in my head tell me to.

I you dead because I have been ordered to kill you.

I want you dead because you are of a different...

tribe,

country,

species,

sex.

I want you dead because that will make me rich.

I want you dead, so my descendants can dance over your grave.

I want you dead, because you are me.”

Crime

“Worried about crime?

Worried about walking and viewing the causes of crime?

In fear of your life or just people that you’ll meet,

confronting the hooks and lies?

Swapping spies.

Never fear, it’s a toasty, wet, spicy slice,

of juicy full-fat life.

St. George has slain the dragon of crime.”

Chestnuts — the return.

Strangely, i was surprised by the seedlings which last year looked as if they were peering over deaths door (from the seemingly unstoppable march of the numerous diseases to afflict the species), that have now (hopefully due to the 30 year record cold-snap) sprung back into vigorous, robust and excitable (if stressed) life; whilst still occupying the same sized terracotta pot as last year.

If anything, it's probably going to be the lack of space which finishes most of them off, as they're already taller than the depth of the pot, plus the other plant that took up residence (courtesy of the higher floors) is a heavy water addict, meaning that something will eventually have to give.  I just hope it’s the pot.

In the meantime here's a pic of the the semi-happy octo-sharers…

… and a link to how they looked last year (notice the distance of the camera from the lens)

It was a lovely cloud free day

If only europe had weighed in and helped iceland during its crisis the volcano wouldn't have spluttered into a rage and winds would have blown the nasty stuff westwards depositing it into the well deserved laps of wall street, if only.

Luckily it never, and instead the skies above london have enjoyed many cloud-free, contrail-free, nice and warm spring days.

Many of those held nothing but a crisp clear blueness, slightly dappled with a sprinkling hint of lolling haziness.

Oh its good to be back.

Well (and did you expect anything else) it would have been, had the buses had their filters clogged with crap and been unable to run; the boy-racers (all three of them) ended up in a ditch somewhere - instead of destroying what would otherwise have been a historic few days of peace and quite (naturally except for christmas day) in any year that I can remember since i was popped into the world.  Or is that just since i moved to the capital?

Oh well, back to the pictures.

Picture ‘a’ - with trails, picture ‘b’ without trails or even clouds.

Picture ‘a’ (at least six con trails)

Picture ‘b’; clear blue yonder

Amazing the difference a few days of clear con-free air can make.

But I suppose it will soon sadly come to an end.  Which is probably no bad thing (especially for those travelling); as if it continued it wouldn’t be too long before the bread fights, food fights, wiping one's bottom on the nearest trashy newspaper commenced, the spectre of rationing haunting the land - well haunting the poor at any rate. 

Hm, i wonder what a bit of rationing would do for my petite, slim-line, cargo-sized waist?

The vote is yes.

"It is amazing and laughable how effective the brainwashing of the vast majority of the planets bi-pedal sapient population has become; in fact, stupidly amazing.

Just give them another few years. The pendulum will have reached its moment of piquant apogee, before starting its rapid retreat to the other side and taking their civilisation with it..."

Ides

Andromeda

Source images from NASA

Puss & Boots

You are about to blow up a plane.

To kill hundreds of people in the air and possibly on the ground.

It doesn't matter whether you do it in the plain light of day, or tucked away out of sight; the end result will be the same.

But, then we have the two attempted plane bombers - who we shall call: puss & boots, if the intention was to bring the planes down, then why after flying for so long, why at the last moment do they miraculously lose their focus and turn from being martyrs of adoring waiting virgins, into a terrorist version of frank spencer?

Surely if the aim was to down a plane, wouldn't you inject your pants whilst sitting on the loo in the loo, at least you'd have minutes of peace to make numerous attempts without having those very same people you're attempting to murder trying to pummel your ineptitude into an orbit all of its own?

Remember, this is from the very people who planned the destruction of numerous iconic buildings whilst they cosseted it up thousands of miles away, in the dusty bleak wasteland of the mountainous east; managing to hijack planes and thwart the best that trillions in defence spending could offer on 9/11.

Is it me, or does each time this particular shoal manages to bob its way to the surface, it has a disturbing tendency of smelling like a trawler full of nasty old pollock?

Yipper-yapper

Despite all the yapper about an election year, it doesn't feel like an election year, in fact it feels more like an old grizzly lumbering its way to a scratching post and getting ready to aim a rump at the front row, just in time for the prime-time circus.

With less than four(?) months to go before a swarm of "x's" change the stripe of the same jacket, and despite the continual ya-bo-sucks-to-you politics in parliament, it feels as laden with energy as a fallen yorkshire pudding feeding a family of 20. 

I could, however, be mistaken and simply missed the pulsating venom of change coursing its way through the populace with each passing day; a case of casting out the old, by replacing with the same-old.

Notes in time

Total insanity has been achieved... tom tancredo... depressive webs... vitamins... money grows on trees and you are the tree... upgraded speeds... ah screw this, i'm off to bed.

Bubble prick, bubble prick

Scour... scour... scour...

Ah, how nice the austrialian internationaliased  porn watcher's managed to keep a hold of his job, after his fiporn escapade — no doubt in contravention of his employers (macquarie's group) terms & conditions of employment; you betcha if he was watching anything else 'appropriate' he'd  have been out on their ear, hounded and vilified for life, which shows that if you want to watch "appropriate" porn at work — move to australia!

Scour... scour... scour... 

South Wales Police said it had been called in to investigate a 61-year-old man from the Vale of Glamorgan on suspicion of possessing indecent porn.

Indecent, not appropriate and it hasn’t been splashed all across the globe, good to see no  avenue, branch or sprigs being left unturned in the collection of this damning evidence.

Scour... scour... scour

In new delhi the chief justice of india k g balakrishnan suggested on sunday that the government should impose a ban on websites that exclusively display pornography and hate speech. 

I'm only moderately surprised the term terrorism didn't pop it's wee head onto that list. 

So three different takes on the issue of porn dependent on where you are, who you are and how popular you are in the moment.

I would scour myself, but need to find a port.

Coldest, warmest, time for a stringy thermal?

Well the past few years have seen some of the warmest years since non-fudged records began: more floods, more mud slides, more heat-waves and associated fires, and even winterest winters; this year's already providing the worst snow fall on record to affect parts of the states, europe, the coldest in the uk (well at least for a while), each week seems to set another record before being surpassed by another-... ohh  circustainment's here...

"And what is going on with mps and their expenses?"

Damn, wrong channel....

"Yes studio it's a blood bath, the mobs beating the crap out of the chinchilla because it's deigned to snap a sneeze, whilst the great big st. bernard/rottweiler/gorilla combo — that's already bitten off a couple of arms and heads — is actually being given a box of treats by a flurry of trembling hands poking out from bloodied bitten, holed and shredded vests.  Amazing!"

Around the world in 80 sleeps

In 80 days time it will be international noise awareness day, for all of you who will weep on this day, i'll be there spiritually weeping alongside you; but, in the meantime i shall be sending out appropriate and timely emails to those entities that have shown as much regard for their neighbours as a dealer selling ingredients fit for inclusion in a victoria sponge claiming it would give you the best high since sliced bread.

The 28th April 2010 is the date, and this is it's 15th year.

I wonder how many cumulative years are spent by people who’s every waking moment is spent just battling against the rush of even more gadgets that you just want to smash, or break or shove wear the sun don't shine — sometimes when thoughts flicker across the idea of how devastating a major planet-wide calamity would be, it's quickly followed by thinking how peaceful it would be on a dead airless extinct planet, yep pretty peaceful. Selfish? Oh yes - remember this falls under that environment thing i mentioned a while back.

So if you're suffering noise of any kind that's a constant irritation: record, log, tabulate, contact your environmental department, get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones (a pair are on their way so i will test them out and see), which might be the thing that briefly helps you retain a scintilla of sanity, leaving you to querulously observe the approaching white van coming to take you away, before you start gibbering incoherently about stabbing speakers with a jug of ionised water.

As much as i doubt the council, the club and the centre for conveyancing (sorry but tfl just doesn't have the c*&?# in it), doing anything other than retort with the usual platitudinous response upon receipt of their emails, always but always give them a chance; if they do and things change, i'll eat my headphones*

Stick it in the diaries, 28th April 2010 — international noise awareness day, otherwise known as turn that bloody racket down day!

* sugar spun headphones contain 80% sugar and constitute 20% of your simple carbohydrate rda.

Soft and smelly chocy drops

So, it's the end of an era at Cadburys as the soon to be ex-chief (mr stitzer) will be leaving apparently with a potential package worth about £20m - no need to worry about contacting the jobcentre then, but it might be worthwhile as in a few years he'll be eligible for the winter fuel allowance and with fuel costs set to increase by 20% over the next decade, it might just be worth that call to prevent a horrid dent in his savings – well at least for an hour.

Once Kraft gets through with the takeover, and the job cuts (terry who?) start whether this or next year, i doubt the ex-employees will be given a severance package anywhere near as beneficial, which would probably be a good thing as anything over £6,000 and they'd have to fend for themselves as far as the government’s concerned.  But when 5,947 of them are worth the ceo’s leaving handshake, of course the government will have to take a very dim view of why they've made themselves deliberately unemployed by not working harder in the first place.

So remember the next time you don't receive a pay rise, or the pay rise is so small that it just covers the price of a second class stamp, that you are doing your bit by saving your company from rack and ruin, and ensuring that those who deserve it, get it.

New horizons

Hm, from every major disaster there's a silvery lining - or so that particular rubbish saying goes; as believing in the best, from the worst tragedy, is always our way of dealing with things when reality deigns to not play ball.

So nasa might have missed out on the extra cash they wanted for a manned base on the moon or a manned mission to mars; which is sad considering that it would have cost less than 10% of banks mega-bonus annual billion give-aways to bankers whose usefulness to the vast majority on the planet is a smidgen above zero - absolute zero.

But, i don't recall hearing anyone say anything about not building a base on an asteroid whether manned or automated, and i'm not talking those little small football sized asteroids, but asteroids a good few kilometres in size - something like ceres at 466km, they'd provide a vastly greater challenge than building on a planet or a moon - and just imagine the huge net of sensors with their only power requirement being to sense and transmit, as propulsion would be provided by the asteroids own motion as it zips its way through, round or out of the solar system, in the end even the greedy industrial corporations would scramble to get on board; the entire process for the fly-bys could be fully automated, eventually the  asteroids could be moved with small and regular gentle nudges to change their trajectories and speeds, until - over time -  the process could position them into a nice high orbit and make them available for mining, which would do away with having to destroy our environment, which would allow building to occur in space cheaper and even  (in time) maybe alleviate the need for countries to invade other countries for their resources whilst trotting out the usual specious excuse of "we're here to help the people" as there would be more than enough floating around for the most greediest of greediest power mad gits out there to be bathing in it until they breath their last.

Ah, keep on forgetting that for 100% greedy or power mad in the world, enough is never ever enough.

And at least the hawks in governments could put their loony star-wars-lets-rain-death-from-the-skies equipment to some useful use to point and take out stray asteroids, which may or may not suffer technical trajectory malfunctions ending up hurtling towards some major megacityburb.

Or we could just wait for a major disaster (a when not if) to come about, with those watching in their floating hotels been on the last technologically capable outpost, the last  survivors with only a couple of months supplies, until they too perished.

Choices choices…

"Eating decent food instead of junk crap is a lifestyle choice; deciding whether you'll be wearing levis, wranglers, dickies or slumps is another lifestyle choice, deciding whether you’ll hang with bums or swing with the stiffs is another lifestyle choice, wanting to believe that rock you stubbed your toe on whilst surfing is god - is a lifestyle choice..."

"Nothing to see here, be a good citizen and move along."

Disparate ties

"Terrorists must be communicating acts of vileness against us by using the net!"

"It's the pedos under every kiddies bed communicating and practising their vileness using the net!"

"It's the godless, if only they would turned to god and be saved, if not we'll have to kill them to save them!"

"It's the criminals making our online lives a vile misery by using the net when all we want to do is spend, spend, spend - save us!"

So goes the neutering cry, as another avenue of anodyne blandness is restored.

Language

Sometimes when waking in the morning and uttering words in regard to breakfast (lunch), english comes across not as a first language but a second, no scratch that, third, fourth… two hundred and fifty sixth language, and all without the aid of anything remotely exotically toxic; perhaps it’s just anything longer than a twitterance.

Buses and TfL

After picking up the phone and verbally complaining - in measured tones (apart from a slight hysterical rant towards the end - which i'm putting down to the frequency of my virtual phone/fax software assistant oscillating in synchronisation with the guest & hosted os's) to tfls customer services (buses division) about the constant idling (no not drivers asleep at the whee- although saying that should really post some of those pictures) of bus engines been constantly left on idling (ticking over) let alone the revving of them, sometimes you could almost be forgiven for thinking you were at a formula one starting grid, on top of the increasing frequency of brake squeals and horn use; and sorry but no, using a horn 16 times outside of rush hour with no traffic holding you up in a residential area is not acceptable.

Sadly it would seem that yesterdays boy/girl racers have turned into todays bus drivers - even the aged ones.

So i was impressed with the attention given by customer services at tfl despite having to numerously repeat the bus numbers every other sentence so they could work out which companies to send the complaints to, indeed I was so impressed that 11 minutes later i detected a slight thawing in my attitude. So much so, my original mad bashings titled 'lies, lies, and tfl customer services' that i was going to put online (which for those who have somewhat followed the odd post can just imagine with that headline what the body of burblings contained) has been temporarily put to one side, not deleted, just placed on hold to allow sufficient time for those extra chances (as though five years isn't long enough) to see how well things could improve over the next couple of weeks - although the ongoing chugging (and screech of heavy brakes at four minutes to midnight) seems to indicate which side of the hill this particular saga's continuing to slide down on.

Because you just know that if the sound was on the other foot, which would be the equivalent of burning down the bus garage, finding every relation of every bus-y driver who refuses to switch off their engines and doing a dexter - whilst the driver is watching, then doing away with the driver too, then ferkling out every official supervisor who has received and read complaints from residents (anywhere) in relation to noise issues yet singularly done nothing about it, to subject them to 24/7/365/4 years worth of 200db taped noise (and yes I know eardrums burst at 120db - remember this trail of mayhem murder and mischief is bit of fiction simply added for indicative effect - and to slowly work ones way up the "chain of command" to the directors, place them into cannons and launch them (feet first) from one side of the channel to the other (and yes I know the success rate of cannoning a person from the english shores to the french has been zero - they simply needed to add more bloody powder) however many times it takes until they get the message: that this is how ignored environmental events can impact on those in the nearby surrounds... i'd be tasered every millimetre of the way to a prison cell and deemed a severe menace (well bar any knicker scorcher flying over that is), until the end of my days.

Loud? When is loud too loud? Maybe i'm just becoming more sensitive as the years tick on by, which would be bloody sad as i was quite looking forward to incipient drooling senility, and the only time i would need to inanely socialise is when been digested and shit out by earthworms - but despite full-ear fitting ear-plugs, over which is a full-ear covering set of headphones i can still hear the squeals of brakes or bus horns, and all through double glazed windows - believe me it's loud; and i am not the only person complaining about it.

To think only a few years ago I was fondly thinking of bricking up all the windows...

Oh my, maybe it really is time to move to the country - middle of antartica about 200m below the surface, or maybe i should install secondary glazing (it already has double before some smarky tit interjects)-, no tertiary glazing and turn one room into a panic/silent/two-fingers to the noise, room with air-purification, lots of plants, foam backed walls to absorb sound, slightly lower the ceiling with padded foam on the other side, suspended floor with noise cancelling inch rubber thick matting and wooden panels... it might just make at least one room semi-nice to live in once more, even if it no longer has the space to swing a dead newborn rat.

Update 30/01/10 15:44 slightly amended to improve readability.

E-perts

A source from experts said that the moon will disappear from Earths orbit, in a few years; but a few years before that fateful time the earths oceans will boil, mars will be our new home and jupiter will be turned into the solar systems biggest diamond.

Another source said all of that was a pile of rubbish and shouldn't be taken with anything but a crate of prozac to calm the first source down.

A third source said they were both barmy and that if you sailed off into the sunset your boat would fall off the end of the world.

Another source said that everyone within a 50 mile area was providing terrorists with material that could possibly be of material benefit to said terrorists: so all sales of toilet paper, oyster cards, birthday cards, newspapers should be banned, corner shops, supermarkets, knicker shops should be cordoned off with everyone required to show their passports and id cards before reaching checkouts.

And as the wheel of the sensible bus hurtles after the bus over the edge and into the canyon below, just before exploding on impact the last thing to flash before your mind...

... our water's taxed - and poisoned, our foods taxed and value added along the line, our travel's taxed down to our shoes and scummy trainers (yet try to go down the street bare-feet and in the nude and you'll be arrested for shocking the public), so even if you grow your own: the land's taxed, the delivery of goods to you or from you is taxed, not to mention the water's taxed with tax on top which only leaves the air; the only thing they haven't yet manage to singularly tax - unless you're flying through it - will, once they finally get their way, be taxed as an environmentally sound thing to do and surprisingly, and naturally wont be spun as simply a tax just t-…

Unshaved sheep

"So how do you get to sleep?"

"Well I put my head down and within seconds I'm counting sheep."

"And what about you madam?"

"I have a cup of cocoa, put my head down and before I realise it, i'm dreaming of knitting odd socks."

"Wonderful.  Excuse me Sir, how do you get to sleep?"

"Well, first of all i put in my ear plugs, then i cover them with dense cotton wool, then a thick towel, then i put on headphones and turn the volume up so i can just about hear it."

"Isn't that a bit extreme?"

"Not as extreme as what i'm doing to those bloody sheep!"

Quaking fallouts

Limbaugh reminds me of a sick puppy, one that scrambles around shitting itself at every opportunity because it just can't help it.

So he criticises obama for taking three days to give the nation his spleen over the attempted bombing of the airline over detroit - in which no one died, no plane was brought down, even "pants on fire" survived. But a country, not exactly a million miles away, suffers the most devastating natural disaster in over 200 years with many thousands (even hundreds of thousands) dead and he's critical that obama responds within 24hrs.

Perhaps mr p should have waited two weeks before responding, but no doubt that would have brought on the clamouring charge of indifference.

A sick, mad puppy.

And as for robertson… sick, mad, bad, nasty, viscous, hateful…

But those are just my idle thoughts, i could be wrong.

Linuxmania?

It's been an interesting time, after data breach, hdd loss and the like, i reverted to an os i've been wittering on about for a few years with a bit of hesitation, what with using a slower processor, a drive that under windows crashed with more regularity than a alcoholic trying to avoid that "final one for the road" has, with linux, done nothing of the sort; which is happily chugging along on a system xp choked over, but is allowing me to trudge on until the time arrives when some of the crap i'm working on finally succeeds in trimming the time i spend in front of a screen down to a manageable couple of hours – leaving the rest of the time to watch either a sunrise or a sunset whilst sipping a cooling refreshing breeze and contemplating my navels.

As a quick and easy back-up measure linux has more than proved itself. Quicker to set up and run, stable, hasn't crashed or seized up once since installing and that after putting on ubuntu 8.04 with a livecd, upgrading to 8.10 by streaming over the net, upgrading to 9.04 by another stream (and vowed never to do it again), then in moment of delirium and pitching all concern to the wind, i finished off by using the 9.10 alternative cd which upgraded the 9.04 in no time at all; an unexpected useful fall-back in an emergency, despite having to spend even more time in front of the bloody screen learning things anew.

The one thing this chapter has ensured is that after many abortive attempts linux is now my os of choice; and i am pleasantly pleased.

Hm. Bash? Man? Grep? Bash a mans grep, what the?...

Boodlynewyear

Well the old memorable decade and especially rubbish (starting to get the impression of a theme here) year are nearly neatly inturned, so with the usual nonsensical tradition of wishing in a better new year, my new years wish in best competition answering mode is "for an end to the mentality of ...

them against us, shaft or be shafted, law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, cops and robbers, beauty and the beast, good cop bad cop, good evil, god devil, angel demon, for us or against us, shitty options, shifty options, options that don't land us in the shit."

that always seem to hold us back.

Now, i just need to minutely examine my breath for an increase in superlatives.

Wishing everyone a wonderful, happy and more peaceful 2010.

The one day...

No buses polluting the air with revs, vibrations or fumes, no queues for thudding ear-splitting events "tossing the casket" with split pressure bangs, no relations nor relatives nor dogs slippering the streets, no cooking nor been cooked for bent double in the eve, no music, no crackers, in fact nothing pulled at all, no rubbish tv, no presents to open and say "thank you," before taking them back, no watching presents being opened and seeing them thinking of taking them back, no hordes of boy/girl racers outdoors, christmas in its own strange way is the most perfect day of all.

For a hermit.

Spiriting future

Day rotates thru night and the quiet, sulkily departs,

but, before the frost begins,

a screech rents the air.

"Punta. You tart," splits the silent night in twain.

When did I start dreaming in Spanish?

"Punta"

And i'm aroused...

To find the windows slight crack's filtering sounds,

no longer braced by fully formed foam.

A girl/wife/missus in flagrante with a brother/father/son's been found?

Then, as the fallen plug's popped, the last few hours skid,

into a filed abyss late 20 10,

riding blossoming morning sun.

Spiriting pasts

As 'mentalists in uganda pick up the cudgels and banners of hate, for the sake of "what is right", the ghost of amin past spins, if only half approvingly, in the knowledge a destructive legacy's still on the path.

Merrymass messages

In today's world you can't change your mind - changing your mind shows indecisiveness, caving in, being supine, falling under a guise, being a ditherer, neither martha nor arthur, in the air, air-head, wishful thinker; whilst going from birth to death in randomly different ways (even though on that final day our bodies slowly decay into worm food or take the quick flash-burn into energised atoms) is akin to a cardinal sin (to borrow from the floweriness of the rosary convention) unless, of course, you have the ability to snook-a-took at the mores, conventions and chains that tie you into our modern-cohesive-social-inequality prisons which dictate that you're doing okay, or will be okay, just as long as you put these blinkers on and don't deviate to far against the norms; sure make billions but don't obviously rip too many people off, or if you do (and get caught) don't look too smug; yes in the name of profit screw those far poorer just to cream that extra one tenth of a hundredth of a thousandth of a percent to show your competitor (or fellow presidents) who rules the roost, after all its only lip-service cutting the ribbon then adding an extra swiss zero: before flowing on to say things will get better as communities the world over cling to unending years of indentured hopefulness.

Oh, nearly forgot.

Merry cmas one and all.

Ho

Taxing happiness

It's amazing how people are quick to accept the worst (when it concurs) with what they expect, yet you can talk till your blue in the face and they just won't believe - but tell them what it is they wish to hear (true or false) and they'll hang onto those slivering scintillas like words of laws etched in stone.
So it was with the failed copenhagen climate summit - no really it was a momentous failure. We can already see the next bubble finding its feet, testing its bonds, flexing its teeth, as it will (in time) be another global behemoth added to the bills that we pay through sites which will have passed the veterinary test of anodyne inanity especially when they come to fully opening for your loyal injection or compulsory patriotic voluntary vote.
But things really go down hill after you pick the wrong contestant to win in the national v-factor, and you only evade communal-sanction by correctly placing your "x" next to the "correct" overlord in the nepac elections. Not to worry. Everything will be hunky everything will be dory; but above all, everyone will be happy!

I

II

Passion and drama

A while ago, many years in fact, an advert used to run on terrestrial uk networks, in the papers, on the tube from a company whose brand has gone the way of many an old-world dinosaur institution (either been taken over or had a name change), saying “we never make a drama out of a crisis!”

It would seem that in the todays world things no longer need to be at crisis levels, before baby, bathwater, entire bathroom's pitched into the event horizon of despair by a misheard word, a misunderstood phrase, or just an "i" that haplessly wanders out of place.

Now though, we're conditioned upon hearing the words "terrorist" or "pedo" or (for those across the pond) "socialist", for the terms "no smoke without fire" or "they wouldn't go after anyone with proof" or "didn't know him/her/them well, they kept themselves to themselves" and so on, into mistakenly believing the kitty litter we're fed as being the only truth, the total truth and so true that nothing else can ever be true that contradicts what we've been told; otherwi- beepbeepbeepbeep...

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

Stools of wrath

The uk government's recently (couple of days ago) been accused of treating religions like a problem?

• Pilgrim fathers
• Catholics vs. protestants
• Missionaries (destroying other people beliefs and ways of life)
• Jihads
• Crusades (for bits of parched land)
• Dunking stools
• Stonings
• Cutting off of hands
• Human sacrifices
• Inquisitions (of which the current pope b has more in common with the fourth innocent pope than with one leg of the trinity)

Maybe the government should tag the belief in religions as a form of delusional insanity, which like drugs (ecstacy, prozac, ritilin, cocaine) help to keep people happy and wide swathes of populations contentedly subdued until they need to be roused to a wrath for the next cause.

And yes the "secular" (global grouping) side has had its fair share of over-exuberant proponents, but they tend not to keep hostilities going millenia in, millenia out.

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

Blasting the cobwebs of history?

The saying goes; "those who forget history are bound to repeat it," and i know there's something at the edge of my consciousness that just refuses to go away or clarify!

Something various parties (judging by the amount of column/pixel inch coverage) due the rapidly approaching election seem to have forgotten - even when those inches refuse to add anything towards a good sound-bite. Whichever hue of government comes in there'll be a surprising development (whether home or abroad) that will mean a sharp decrease in our security and so our already harshly trammeled privacy, more regulation adding to the over burdened law books, more (but at least greener) taxes to ensure that the children's children children might have a hope of staring up at a clear cloudless blue sky without the fear of been burnt to death by the combination centuries concentration of pollution and more activity from our star.

But there'll be so many laws that the conservatives (barring a major upset in the prediction stakes) will have to repeal in relation to the few the labour government actually allowed that it will be the 3rd to 4th year sitting that we'll see how "fundist" the righters will be once they finally oust the young pretender in favour of someone more frightening than tebbers ever was in his prime!

Ah yes, the one thing history teaches us is that regardless if there's the poll-upset to unseat all poll-upsets and either the liberals or greens manage to get their hands on the mace, in the end we'll still be at the whim of global trade routes, traders and financial centres - otherwise known as jungles.

XXV

Blagging the hack

It would appear that the us is conducting two differing types of reactions to unauthorised intrusions from unauthorised personnel into sensitive areas of power.

On the one hand we have gary mckinnon with (all those years ago) his search for ufo's and those hiding them, who has been hounded by the american justice department for peeking (and hence showing up the lack of security) into the drawers of nasa the pentagon..., and on the second hand two people (tareq and michaele salahi) who fooled security to enter (what should have been) the most secure conscious dinner/party room on the planet, well perhaps apart from the one surrounding laden.

Maybe we'll see if the same or similar rules apply and with so many of the "great and good" gathered in one place providing such a security target, to show how dim a view such behaviour is viewed in, whether the pair will be dragged into the spotlight of incarceration until admitting their "obvious guilt" and showing up the general incompetencies surrounding the security involved with the protection of vips for the next decade or two will probably slip into the "whatever happened to" department.

Predictions

The ability to predict, like alchemy, is something of a holy grail which has been sought all throughout the recorded mists and depths of hoary time; after all he (or she) who could predict the future as well as changing crabby dirt into the most precious of gold, would control the reins of power and have an easy life - even if having to watch your back for the knife.

Sadly, the ability to predict the winner at the 15.10 race at kempton by taking a wild guess based on whether a horse has a particular letter in its names; but you have never seen a race, let alone any of the horses in the race is the same as predicting when/if/how/why you will fall in/over/out (whilst wondering what those effervescing electrons actually do whilst cascading down the pathway towards that ethereal social meme) of love and predicting (for a year) all of the world's lottery games lottery numbers correctly.

Now where did i put my 50 year predictions... oh bugger!

All thoughts

All thoughts, whether skipping around a meadow under a lightning-tornado-rain sodden ridden sky or the thoughts/image of blood spewing from someone's decapitated head by a passing helicopter as they practice acrobatics helter-skelter down a skiing slope; are all images and thoughts which are put down and filed away for potential future use, under the headings of you never know.

But many of them are simply that, idle thoughts and will eventually dissipate to the back of a filing system, or (if you've got a dreadful memory like mine) dissipate from mind and may at some far flung time in the future when only a smidgen of a sliver of the original thought will remain, and be forever lost as to its relevance. In many respects having that occur i believe is a very good thing, at other times it could be viewed as bad. Imagine remembering everything you've ever thought about whether for a fleeting second to that opus taking chunks of years at a time.  It would be the equivalent of never deleting anything (files, programs, data) from a hard drive whilst adding to it daily and expecting it to still work flawlessly and as speedily as the first day you brought it, 20 years later.

As I always say though, wouldn't it be a dreadfully boring world if we were all the same, did all the same things, thought exactly the same, and all wore the same - well that's today's thought; attack of the clones, eat your heart out.

Agreeing to disagree?

Has the art of discussion gone so far out the window that the ability of agreeing to disagree has swiftly flowed out with it?

It would appear so.

If you are constantly informed of another persons point of view, yet don't want to accept their point of view is true because it doesn't coincide with what you believe or want; it doesn't make their thoughts or views false. Just different to yours, and part of the agreeing to disagree process.

We can think of gorbachev and reagan, two past leaders who encompassed distinctly disagreeable extremes, yet managed to agree on many things whilst disagreeing on some fundamental ones.

I wonder if there would be far less hate and violence if more people, who didn't agree, acknowledged and were able to get on whilst still disagreeing?

Who knows, only time will tell.

Bullet-biting

Ah the hunt for the holy grail, of finding other planets we can go (well those wealthy enough and with a sense of frontierism) and colonise to — over time — turn into a dump similarly to the one we're currently forcing a bodged diy work over on.

Maybe, when are able of treating this planet with sufficient care and attention, and are capable of controlling our needs wants and desires, then perhaps (and only perhaps) we’ll be ready; as things stand now it would be a sad day for the universe if we ever made it to the stars without managing to restrict those needs. 

Eventually even a universe wouldn't be big enough.

Humbug

"Bah-humbug, i'm sorry we can't select you."

"But why?  I'm qualified, tick all the boxes, in fact i’m overqualified!  Married!  Three beautiful children!  I-i-i don't understand!"

"Well we've gone through the records and, it appears, that your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, called the chairman's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather an idiot, after he fell into a ditch whilst inspecting the village turnip patch!

‘ems

“Like dodgems, people bounce from one side of the track to the other, not really caring why, nor understanding why they continually become unstuck in bogged down topographical detritus.”

Popscinews

In the age of pico-second trades, sound-seconds and the like, it's interesting watching a president take his time in making a decision, get it wrong in any way and it's another couple of nails in his presidential coffin; whilst the media circus continues its exorcist — or is that exocet — foaming.

Could this mean that we have to expect a little bit more than the usual knee-jerk rebound we have become so used to over the past couple of decades?

That would be nice.

But no matter what happens, barring total annihilation, people will do what they feel they have to do when they have been successfully brainwashed into a fervent blood-boiling-revenge-driven-rage.

Red brick, yellow brick

People have some land, bricks, a shack to worry about, too much clutter and the additional responsibility of leases, mortgages, long, short and free to think about without having to concern themselves about rebellion. 

Protest yes, but rebel? 

The courts would take away all their trinkets and leave them with nothing but sand and chalk.

Cut them off at the pass!

So the government (lord mandelson) has decided to stamp on more of the damned ungrateful illegally downloading unwashed, by blatant siding with big corporates (pushing for a non-exec at news corps perhaps) and forcing through legislation which will (eventually) penalise 560 million uk citizens — i am using government & industry methods of calculations here so just bear with me — who are thinking bad thoughts, to recant and think good thoughts; if they refuse, they will have their connections to the greater-net removed and they themselves cast into the outer rings-of-darkness until re-education is certified complete.

Oh dear, and yes i know it sounds as if too many c-movies have imprinted themselves on my impressionables.

Hands up all those (those who remember cassettes as the pinnacle of consumer audio technology) who spent time at college or university and tried out that tape your mate had wittily compiled of the best bits from last weeks top of the pops replete with tiny tv speakers hiss as the music warbled through, or they lent you a tape which had those precious fragments ready to speed into your spectrum where you hoped the head alignments would more or less match?  How many, over the years, found themselves on the hugely expensive upgrade path and stuck with it, and now own your own company, buy a huge number of licenses, and each year are told by your accountant it’d be cheaper going down the open-source route?   All because you had that hands-on positive playful experimental experience, all those years ago.

If I were to take the shirt off your back, that's not stealing that's daylight muggery, and would probably leave me with a heart attack and sever ticking off by the law.  If I take your car without permission, that's stealing mixed with daylight robbery, if I get my hands on your hard earned cash as commission or bonus's whilst my action brings down a financial institution, that's just good luck on my part, bad luck on yours. 

But we need public education, because we the public are stupid and never know what's right or wrong unless we have our faces forced into it.  Sort of like t–no i’ll stop right there.  But people are getting screwed because as a population we’re happy getting screwed, because so many of us are screwing everything left, right and centre — good thing for bayonet caps; as that’s where 30 years of me, me, me and markets know best have brought us. 

So as the country with the oldest democratic (sic) parliament goes down the great wall route, let’s hope that it isn’t too long before programmers rise to the challenge and create software that will truly blow a raspberry along with a great big hole through it and keep us out of orwellian brothers clutches, at least for a few more years!

Now where did i put that nice post…

The bloomberg soft shoe shuffle

Michael bloomberg holds an impressive list, a large fortune, rapier insight into making money and is also very generous in his giving to charity.

Generous?  $207mn in giving.

Which works out at roughly a quarter of his annual interest of roughly $1.18bn, on his fortune of $17.5bn — in theory, since it seems I  know as much about his finances as I do about mine, thankfully very little.

But it wouldn’t surprise me he gets a good deal, after all he managed to get new york to change a two year maximum term mayoralty to three terms, a feat he shares with others who hunger after power in less savoury climes, so time will tell, if he not only wins, but how his extended reign benefits all new yorkers.

Green credentials, ha... haha... hahahahaha....

I was so underwhelmed by my previous post on tfl i had to pay the topic another visit, and throw in the local council at the same time.

Over the past couple of days i have been mulling over the transport for londons 2008 environment report".  A report which opened up to reveal a beautifully put together, laden with all the proper buzz words, 30 page report about how green they have been, are being and will be, covering a fully-proofed 365°future.  So green and aware, they even disabled the pdf printing ability, so if you wanted a copy you had to whizz off and order and then wait for it to be delivered by carbon friendly post, hm ok. 

Millions have and will continue to be spent on greener buses, of coming up with wonderful new environmentally friendly ways of scratching their heads, working out how to reduce the impact on the coughing and choking land.

One way, which may save a few hundred or thousand tonnes of toxic emissions daily, would be to have bus drivers turn off their engines when using terminus’s.  Amazing, simple, even easy (you would have thought) to implement — if drivers can remember a whole route then you would have thought that the probability of remembering a command (from the non-driving higher ups) to switch off an engine when at a stand might stick for more than two trips around the route map, in a pavlovian kind of way — something that would, within days, start to improve their monstrous footprint and contribute to a reduction in the city’s level of noise and air pollution — apparently the 13th leading cause of death.

As the tfl energy pledge went on to say: “the initiative encouraged staff to make one simple change to their working lives to help reduce the amount of energy tfl uses…” which is all well and good for head office staff, but it might have proved far more useful had it been applied across the entire frontline operation of their buses division.

And the council?

“Nothing to hear here. Noise, I hear no noise ta-da-de-da.  Just your imagination.”

Hm, still underwhelmed, might have to put an illustration up the next visitation.

Isodopes?

Well if mountain glaciers continue retreating, sea-levels rise and we're all punting everywhere, i do hope we get to use climate-deniers and energy company executives as ballast; and if they prove to be correct they can use those of us gullible enough, to fall for the line climate change, as benches.

Tsk, as if the climate would ever change to severely affect us.

The bad in everything?

Despite most posts pointing to the contrary, I don’t see horrible vileness around every corner or in every situation that flashes before my senses, there’s lots to be happy about, to smile at, to enjoy — despite the newly perched mongers: doom and gloom, even when i’m frothingly aiming at feralality & feralism, because we haven’t emerged (all of a sudden) out of misty depths, from a time that embodied everything that was wonderful and fantastic, a procession highlighted by aimless walks amongst avenues filled with soft-petaled roses, with nothing greater to tax than mind than whether to press — or not — on a grape; but, as any cursory glance through our history readily reveals, there has never been a period when utter peace and limpid harmony reigned over the globe, ever.

What was a cut-purse?  Nothing but a pickpocket with knife, whom we now label muggers that are now, sadly, just as happy confronting you whether you’re paying attention or not, in a general air of merry-making bloody-mindedness, ensuring you know that you’ve been done

A highwayman?  A man or men on horses who would hold up your carriage, shot your driver, rob your jewels, your mistress, and if your loot was heftier than a silver purse (or was that a sow) would use your carriage as the getaway vehicle and all with the use of pistols.  Today, we call them car-jackers, who’ll not only rob you of your car, but your shopping and if your unlucky enough to have baby onboard, then poor baby too.

You were also more likely to have your money fleeced in a local protection racket, a business deal, gambling, investing in tulips with scant recourse for any return except revenge on a field of valour in a duel that had already been tampered with, whilst sexual mores had the tendency of landing you with either a child or a pox.  People were likely to die if wounds became infected, of a childhood illness, women in childbirth, of a fever...

The explosion in population’s due, in no mean part, to the explosion of ‘biotics, better and varied foods, cleaner water all increasing the survival rates in many parts of the world of not only the young and the old but of everyone.

Don't forget it wasn't exactly hundreds of years ago that children were sent into mines or mills to work from the age of six.  The elderly would be shuffled off somewhere to die of malaria and those in-between caught in some continent waging war or off conquering lands by evicting the former tenants.  So despite things not been as "perfect" as we'd like, there’s only ever been a few, who have ever had life that easy, I suppose they would (by todays standards) be the multi-billionaires.  The multi-millionaires would be the scrooges and his peers, and those non-million anything would be the tiny tims, olivers, cooks and chimney sweeps coughing up their last bit of ragged bloodied sputum, before been slowly broiled after getting wedged and left forgotten, in some two-up during mid-swing.

TfL and eco-green

TfL's green credentials: ha... haha... hahahahaha....

More funds

We need more funds to stop us becoming obese, to stop us over-eating and killing ourselves; please stop and think of the children, and donate your hard-earned money, so we can help prop up local candy stores and stop anyone else from gorging themselves on all those bad calories; which you know — in the end — will be better for us, better for them, but more importantly better for you!

Yes, carbon tax trading. 

Soon to be followed by a whole new raft of the-really-decent-thing-to-do-climate-bonus levies.  Of course it’s really nothing but a nonsense.  Another money making scam that ensures the only real change to the status quo, is the one leaving you lighter in the purse. 

At this very moment, every house or community could have solar, wind, geo, biomass energy systems installed that would cut their dependence on fossil fuels and so their emissions.  Not only that, it could even furnish stakeholders with a small steady profitable stream of income, as they pump any excess back into trimmed down national energy grids.  The acreage is available, people want it, efficiencies would improve over time. One glaring thing which could be a reason the full thrust into this land of energy independence is chugging away slower than a eurostar during a french farmers strike, is politicians and industrials haven't quite finalised how they are going to make the people & communities, who produce their own power and energy, pay "that damned levy" to make up for the global billions they stand to lose; as peoples shackled dependence on external energy sources, production, transmission routes start to diminish over months and years. 

I suppose its something that would be viewed with the same level of sneering as an uprising demanding the removal of vat on everything, with a clause inserted, insisting that moody recreationals be made mandatory — just to help us feel that little bit better about the whole thing.

But i'm sure somewhere along the line, they'll find a way.  Especially if a company like royal dutch shell, that made $3.2 billion (net profit mind not gross), still finds the need to cut 5,000 jobs for "productivity" sake, what hope will there be for small energy producing stakeholders once the fossil-giants and poketpols swivel benighted sights on them?

Wonderful day

Such a wonderful day, i had to sit down after realising it was 16:15hrs and I hadn't complained, about anything!

Need a stiff drink— oh wait, i've stopped drinking...

Bloody binge drinking alcoholics ruining everything.  Throwing up in gutters, in bins on you.  If they can't handle their alcohol, they should go back to liquor drinking finishing school and start building up to teaspoon sized...

UK inflation — 35%

Ah yes the headline grabbing kicker, let met explain.

35% is how much the cost of a good nights sleep has increased by, if you’re dependent on a steady supply of earplugs to keep 22hr noise at bay.  So sadly nothing about hotel chains, or the H1 virus affecting the supply of geese or ducks, mortgages or rpi basket which contains most of the things lots of people don’t actually buy, but the simple local supply of earplugs. 

Yes that stalwart mainstay of many noise challenged whingers has increased in price by a whopping 35%, in one foul swoop, to an outrageous £2.29p.  Which means a years supply has increased from £87.88 to £118.64p.  Inflation busting indeed.

A years supply? 

Those living in noise blighted environs will know exactly what it is I’m muttering about.  The sort of place where no matter the time of morning, afternoon, evening, or night — strangely though excluding christmas day, the noise is sufficient to keep your nerves on permanent blood boiling saw meets freddy edge.  

So what should the headline kicker actually say?

Earplug inflation in a pharmacy somewhere in the uk’s sw2 postal area, is up by 35%.  As true and accurate as that is, it just doesn’t have the same bite.