Up with the barricades

A gay couple caressing on a music video that'll be viewable by anybody?  Up with the barricades.  The revolting scene is in the boyzone's 'better' video, these particular clinchers can be viewed here and occur at the following times in the aforementioned linked clip:

1. 57 seconds
2. 1 min. 43 secs.,
3. 2 mins. 32 secs.,
4. 2 mins. 48 secs.,
5. 3 mins. 20 sexs.

Far better to bring back the cat-o-nine tails followed by a damned good birching.

Now, onto other parts.  The upstanding stalwarts of doctrine, almighty peace and love in afghanistan are at it again.  Keeping up the good fight by instilling fear into the heathen orientated backsliders by descending on the really good idea of squirting acid into female children's faces.  Children of parents who have dared send their offspring  to schools (single sexed mind) and who dare to remotely dream of them obtaining an education which might improve their, and eventually the country's, situation.  The cheek of it.  Far better those little ones watch their mothers in the kitchen and spend the time getting used to walking six feet behind, doing their duties five times a day and getting ready for the paradise hereafter where they can get down to the proper business of servicing the men folk, as proper virgins should.

Giving people an education indeed!  Next they'll want a shower once a week and use deodorant whilst harping on wanting you to decide whether they should buy frozen twizzlers from a cabinet or a punnet of strawberries and cream.

Do we really want people to think for themselves, and worse yet, have any say in what goes on. Absolute nonsense!

At least the russian premier has the right ideas, bring back fear, loathing and suspicion.  No need to step forward and grasp onto a new hope, after all hope's only there to be used for target practice.  More tanks, more planes, more military, divide the world into even more blocks, you know it'll be more profitable in the long run.

And it's so good seeing the religious heads finally getting it together.  This internet and free flow of information's been a total bind.  If they can only push the really progressive stuff - purges, flailing's, inquisitions, jihads - into the background for a while, they'd be able to divide up the infidels; with those who protest to much been put to the sword, or burnt alive if accused of been a witch or warlock (good to see a few parts of africa and asia still have the right idea), and their belongings gathered up for the benefit of the remainder, or given to the person in charge of moral righteousness.  Once the world's been nicely divided up, we can get down to the real nitty gritty of seeing which deity's top dog, by going at each other hammer and tongs!

In a universe, far far away...  Silly me, i forget we already are.

EU on the brink

Yes!  The eu is on the brink of showing it might not be a totally useless dinosaur of an institution, by rescinding the rules the shape of our favourite fruits and veg can be sold.

What this should eventually mean is that millions of tonnes of food will become available for the average eu consumer to purchase fruit and veg - which used to bring millions of the uks population to the brink of tears whilst watching esther rantzens that's life, back into the aisles and stalls of our everyday overpriced supermarkets. 

That is, naturally, if some of the more stubborn farmer orientated countries (i.e. france), are unable to put a late minute spanner in the spokes.

Although the relaxing of the rules will only apply to 26 everyday food items, it will be 26 types which should shave a few more pennies/cents off household  expenditure; should  sellers pass the savings on.

But one side development.  This would seem to reduce the size of the plank been used by those clamouring for the withdrawal of the uk from the eu. 

Oh happy day.

Prop 8

Financial daubing

It's good, once more, to turn a page watch the tv or  listen to the news, without hysterical arm waving alarms about an impending financial meltdown; which could have brought the global economy crashing down, to the dawning days of wattle and daub and people using tallow candles for lighting.

At times, it somewhat felt that as ordinary citizens, we'd been mugged by the banks.  Then arrested and brought before a judge, who'd ordered us to pay the said mugger for the stress and heartache the poor mugger had been put through. 

Then having a supplementary sentence added on top, as the mugger had failed to lift as much from our persons as they had initially hoped.

But perhaps it's that skewed, cynical side of me that's been inhaling to much passing diesel fumes.

Balance of fairness

For equilibrium, fairness and balance, and nothing to do with wondering where the lines on humour or poking fun are drawn.  It's becoming more enjoyable travelling on a perambulating conveyance, as people say the funniest things when they're in a small group and nattering back and forth.

"...if obama's an even tan, does berlusconi have a little wop?"

Sadly the response slightly put a spoiler on it all,

"berli-who?"

The 44th president - Barack Obama

It's wonderful staying up until the late hours of the morning, watching an historic moment occur in the most powerful democracy on the globe.

The last time something this memorable happened was the sad day of 9/11, when i initially thought it was a trailer for a new movie. 

It seems the species is capable of climbing out of narrow confines, of causing a surprise. Perhaps there is hope.

A somewhat generous (would have gone up a notch if he'd turned on those who'd actually booed) and good, if rather late return of form concession speech by john mccain.  Whose shock and disappointment was palpable.  Maybe he will play a part, of newly refreshed optimism, that people of vision can grasp the thorny prize of breaching party line constraints. 

What can be said about sarah palin! Someone who is even further to the right than uk conservatives, would always be problematic when the majority of voters wanted something different to the previous years.

Oh yes, there's these little things to consider doing for the future.

1. 1st manned mission to mars.
2. 50% carbon emission reductions for the globe.
3. Cleaner oceans.
4. Getting rid of the trillions of dollars poisoned chalice left by your predecessor.
5. Sending pairs of rose-tinted glasses to those republicans who'll never like you, just because of who you are.

Congratulations to president elect obama, and may his tenure be a successful and memorable one.

Some of the better voting attempts

Well here's one of five encouraging images of the usa 2008 elections so far.

Five moving things

Well with unenviable task of moving house soon to be undertaken by so many people, here's a few things that need to be checked before allowing someone new into your home.

1. If they don't have butlers or cleaning staff, when they pop over for a chat and you appear over taxed, ask them to quickly wash a couple of dishes and maybe a pot or two.  If you (or your staff) have to clean anything again then don't let them anywhere near your pristine and clean belongings and certainly nowhere near the hearth.
2. Do they know how to use hot water and what it's good for?
3. Make sure you get a four year deposit, just in case they do a runner or they make a habit of inviting over unsavoury characters who you'd not wish to meet in a bright alley, let alone a dark one; and end up having parties every other week ransacking the place.
4. Test they don't enjoy playing with buttons by giving them a tv remote.
5. If their ideal of a gourmet meal is stuffing their face with hamburgers, then once again it's a no-no.

And that's the five point plan to ensuring you have someone reliable and house proud moving into your lovely abode.

Let rip the slavering dogs of presidential war

And no, the heading is not a swiping reference to any of the candidates over the pond.  It is just briefly touching upon the negativity and bile, which although not reported in many of the national pages are, with a bit of digging merrily bubbling away within some parts of the american zeitgeist.  Somewhat reminiscent of the victorians yes we know it's shit but do we have to talk about it, attitude.

Reading, watching, listening to the election of the next us president; events that have many (still waiting for the statistics on that one), people around the globe intently firing off their salvos on viewed proceedings.  From the downright misanthropic racist to the non-apologist humanitarian.

So i'm now setting the clock and counting down.  Because regardless of what transpires this will be (to borrow a phrase) a once in a generation, memorable presidential election.

A wastebin for ofgem

So what's the ofgem regulators tough talking, no nonsense approach, to the greedy energy companies?

Give them until the 1st December to come up with something, then refer them to another talking shop after a suitable period of time.  If they don't come up with something that “sorts this out”, the regulator will penalise them, “we can fine them.”

Whoop, springs to mind.

Good he can shop around though.  What about those who can't shop around, who are penalised because they are in arrears or have a pre-payment meter so are unable (due to them been held in a vice-like grip by their suppliers) to switch. 

So when the lights go out in 2015 as we run out of capacity, the many aging plants give up the ghost, and we can't afford to import, at least there'll be a swathe of the current crop of parliamentarians around, on whom blame can firmly, very firmly be attached.

In the meantime i think this firmly sums up most peoples thoughts on the subject.

Tinpot dictatorship

"Coffman was sued by Common Cause of Colorado and two other groups who claimed the state violated the National Voter Registration Act by illegally purging some 20,000 voters from its registration list within 90 days of the general election.  The plaintiffs wanted a preliminary injunction that would reinstate the purged voters and prevent the state from purging anyone else before the election."

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/colorado-judge.html

If you'd read the above anywhere else in the world, you'd have presumed it was describing a corrupt despot trying to rig an election in his favour.

But nope, this is from that bastion of democracy the good ol' usofa, and from the republican (no less) edge of the divide. 

Seems they're starting early with the rigging this year! 

Let's hope that in the end, the electronics, chads, floaters, wafters and (worst case scenario) supreme court judges are able to get it right.

A brouha in a tea-cup

The Ross and Brand nuclear fall-out continues unabated despite rolling heads, resignations and apologies of so many involved in this world shaking scandal. 

Perhaps people have forgotten the corporation (bbc) has to pander to the whims and whimsy's of all it's license fee payers and not just one particular segment.  When said corporation only had two tv channels and smattering of radio stations, with not much in the way of competition; then a one size fits all boot, was all we had to endure and look forward to, and let's hope we don't have to go back to that particular restricted diet again.

I'm a radio 4 listener by nature and enjoy all of it's output, as the majority of it fits in with my outlook, interests and views.  To many others it's a station to be avoided until they reach the slippers, cardi and bi-focal glasses stage.  If the bbc was providing everything everyone needed then bskyb wouldn't be topping over 9m subscribers.

But in today's world, with so many competing carriers out there, they have to tailor their output across various stations and channels to the particular segment of that market which tunes in. 

Surely the worst that can be described about the pairs outburst, is that it's nothing more than a soupcon of bad taste, deserving nothing more than a hearty rapping across knuckles, financial sanction and apology.  All of which have been provided - however late.

Let's not forget that after the program aired, only two listeners of the show complained, and nothing more happened until a week later when the daily mail (not a known fan of anything national, except perhaps the grand national) ran with the story.  Then we have the prime minister of the country dragged out of a meeting to comment, the opposition parties getting embroiled and over thirty thousand people up in arms at this affront to dignity and taste.  The mighty thud of a bandwagon pile-up, must have been heard halfway across the world.

How many of those thousands who wrote in to complain fully listened to the program and not just the repeated 20 second sound bite, or are ardent listeners of the program?  I doubt if its a hundredth of that number. 

As they've suddenly become busy bodies of the first order, I hope those very same people have written into the fsa and the government, to complain about those financiers costing the economy billions of pounds.  Or that those very same people have written in complaining about the millions of people around the world dying due to the lack of something as basic as a tetanus injection, dying for the lack of a few tumblers of clean drinking water.  Or the many thousands of homeless in this country, who remain so whilst properties remain unoccupied, the list could go on.

It's all well and good complaining about the lack of standards and morals been paraded before our eyes and ears, and blaming all of society's ills on it.  Sadly, the reality of falling levels of rudeness occurred long before it happened on tv, the paper press can hang their heads in shame here to.  Monkey see and monkey do, whilst films hand a mirror to society, society hoiks a mirror back.

But unless we want to live in a world where the only things watch-able, readable, or experienced are those which are allowed by the holding reigns of power.  then we have to accept some things outside of the norms we might agree with. 

A bit like the offended granddaughter taking her side of the kiss and tell story to the sun newspaper!

It's good and sensible having a moral compass, perhaps it would be beneficial if our compasses were capable of pointing in any direction where injustices occur and not just in a select direction or two.  But then we'd probably be an entirely different species.  There are more things happening in the world that people need to be concerned, heated, enraged about than the misguided mutterings of a couple of aging adolescents!

However, unlike some out there, i don't believe this particular tea storm presages the death of civilisation...

Although seeing a bus emblazoned with an advert for a new film called zach and miri make a porno, i do begin to wonder.

Slay bells an' all

Ah yes, it's soon that time of year, when goodwill and happiness pervade every pore and people throw up due to excess.

But reading a couple of polls showing a general growth in people's need to deny others their freedom, decided on a quick poll. In keeping with the general bare boned sentiments of utter dislike and nastiness which is seemingly - despite the wealth of knowledge and interactions that abounds, ingrained within so many of our cores.

So the new poll which is anonymous, non-tracked and ends at 11.59pm on the 24th december, is purely a momentary plummet into the sinewy shadows of madness, apparently.

Barclays two fingers to the uk

Could it get any riper. One of the uk's biggest banks has decided it would far better ensure that its overpaid directors continue to get the biggest bonuses they can get away with, without a french style revolution by shareholders and remnants of the corporate battlefield.

On one hand they are more than happy to continue gouging and charging exorbitant rates for overdrafts, authorised or otherwise, and go cap in hand to overseas sovereign funds than allow any sort of control, however temporary placed upon them by the government and the taxpayers.

In light of this barclays, once more, shows what it really thinks about the uk and where it feels its best interest lays. Perhaps in the current climate those people who still have any slight twinges of consciousness left, should rise up and show this corporate coward what they think about its actions, and swap to another bank. Somewhere like the co-operative bank which is also one of the few excellent ethical banks out there.

[update 31st October 2008, 19:13]

Knew this was missing something. Now where's that bit of imagery...

End of year thoughts, part I

This might be a bit premature, with just over two months to go before the end of the western worlds end of year celebrations.  But with this year been such a roller coaster tsunami of epic proportions; I might as well start early, as by the end of the year there'll be so much to go through, all of this will be past its smell by date and to coin an overheard term well footed in its grave.

So here's a pre-emptive look-back boot at 2008 and early glimpse of 2009, in easy digestible bite sized instalments.

1. Greed good universal altruism bad, according to a newly unearthed bankers bible found in the wreckage of a discarded filling cabinet atop the newly discovered office waste mountain.
2. Our god is god.  There is no other god, and we'll kill any [put expletive group name of non-believers here] who say otherwise.
3. New breakthrough in human cetacean communication means humanity, for the first time, is able to communicate on a like by like basis with dolphins.
4. The HIV virus could have been around for 100 years.
5. Pro-lifers call for the branding and salting of abortionists.  Always forgetting that nature/god is the biggest killer of the unborn via miscarriages, diseases etc., although if they miscarried that's obviously the work of [put name of any evil entity here])
6. Gays are an abomination and blight on the planet.  UN supremo tells the world, 'the way the global population and resources are going we probably need more of them not less of them!'.
7. South Africa lost a president and loony health minister.  Sadly, the replacement president is hours away from splitting the party and plunging the country into chaos.
8. And continuing on in that part of the world.  Huggable mugabe looked as if he was back to his old tricks, but an unforeseen end of year heart-attack finishes him off, leaving his party in disarray, demoralised and without a heart.
9. Surfers in californa say they'll strike if dolphins are given entry to the next mavericks annual surfing competition, citing unfair competition.
10. The northern hemisphere's gripped in another calamity, as temperatures plummet, and already scandalous energy prices really go through the roof - pensioners take the streets but have to picked out of meter sized snow drifts by the newly formed homefront brigade.
11. Bright lights of unknown origin in the night skies cause rioting in many parts of the world.  Religionists say it's the end of days and a sign of the apocalypse.  Secularists say, it's obviously little green/red/blue men and they're here to welcome us into galactic civilisation.  Cats look up, then get back to the important task of licking their bottoms.
12. Just in.  Taleban have retaken most of afghanistan, give inhabitants of Kabul seven days to surrender; puts newly elected us president to the test.
13. UK government has a day of mourning for the millions of dead pensioners.  Commissions a £15m commemorative statue for whitehall.
14. Inline with the continuing brown legacy of hiving off good bits of the economy to the highest bidder, it's confirmed that great britain shall from 2020 be re-branded little china (gb division).
15. In relation to the previous entry, it's also been announced that everywhere inbetween offa's dyke and the irish sea, or wi's dip, will be called new-kong-a-leeky; whilst everything north of hadrians wall [or the little wall of china] will be designated, a parking lot.  Haggisnest soup is the new spicy delicacy in upmarket chinese restaurants.

Who knows, with all that's happened so far they would all fit in perfectly.

Energy utilities

Perhaps when it comes down to it, it is me and I have missed all the news in relation to oil, energy, gas and electricity. Maybe my half asleep id has missed the huge onrush of ceo's from energy companies parading themselves before the nations press, spouting their concern for the hard-pressed consumer by cutting gas prices by 35-50% and electricity prices by 19-24% . And with immediate effect. I must have overlooked their concerned visages earnestly peering whilst their mouths trot through the latest prepared speech, that it's about either helping or investing; forgetting there are many out there living on a day by day basis, who find themselves having to choose between lighting, heating, or eating.

You can just imagine their voices crescendoing on, “with oil now more than half it's $146 value a year ago peak,” yes it even touched $68.57 for US light crude before closing slightly up. “We feel the time is right that our consumers are given a break and we're glad to announce a 5% cut in gas and 2% cut in electricity prices,” and just as people decide on how to react to such a statement, it's finished by, “which will take place on January 5th 2009.”

Has anyone heard or seen anything like that? Or is the deafening rush of silence, from the absent, off the field utility companies, the only answer needed?

We would like to believe that a brand new bunch of fat cat ceo's will be walking that gold plank of parting, but I somehow feel the public mob mentality for such a public drubbing has, with simmering largesse, snuffed itself out.

What we do have however, is ed miliband announcing that the government will increase their carbon reductions targets from 50% to 80% by 2050 - 42 years time.

If a day's a long time in politics, then 42 years must equate to the universal equivalent of four big bangs. A very long period of time where even the ideology of those holding the power stick will probably have been radically changed by unforeseen events and circumstances.

If they attempt to reach targets by slow-creep taxation, it will be those on the bottom and in the middle who will take the greatest hit – especially since two big polluting sectors (aviation and maritime), look like been strangely absent from the proceedings.

Alternatively the government could consider bringing in effective legislation ensuring that new builds or repairs to existing builds that require planning applications, incorporate some element of renewable's or energy efficiency within there design. Imagine, a whole new manufacturing sector could be opened up, then sold off before the next popping bubble. Not only for the manufacturing of wafer thin etaic cells, but new inspectors – just like the tax collectors of old – will incorporate the curbing of excessive emissions, clamping down with powers to immediately close a business down, to giving certificates to those households and businesses who effectively meet the required standards.

So government might bring its full weight down to bear on the energy companies, under the possibility of talks about legislation “if they don't play ball!” What the bloody heck does that mean? They need to remove their noses from the utilities brown stuff and work to ensure that those unfortunates stuck on prepayment meters don't pay an extra £200 above normal rates. When you consider that prepayment users are actually crediting companies for their usage as opposed to those on monthly or quarterly plans who pay in arrears, then no wonder they find the pp'ers a useful set of cows to milk and not to do anything to truly upset the cart.

A while ago marie-antoinette was made infamous for saying “let them eat cake!” This current government will be famous for so many things, but one of the worst will be their seeming attitude of, more money for heating? Don't they know its global warming out there?

The unfolding saga will probably come to nought but a grubby watery end.  As in 38 years time panic will be the order of the day, with the government attempting to ram-raid the law into enactment – to reach the target, or quietly bury it under the table.  Let's just hope that in 42 years time that table isn't floating off, somewhere down the thames!

An expensive flat rental in london?

Not sure whether this qualifies as been up there in the most expensive rental flat bracket, for its type, in london. 

But a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom flat for £19,950 per week with a £4,950 deposit, probably doesn't rank it amongst the cheapest.

 

Religiousosity

It's amazing what insights young teens can come out with...

"So what do extreme christians, muslims and jews, have in common with a rattlesnake?

They spout the same type of venom."

Large hadron collider and the earth's still here

Its now 10:30hrs and the world hasn't come to a crashing end. 

So much for the initial naysayers wanting to stop the project, on the premise earth would have been devoured by a manufactured blackhole.  But saying that, the beams haven't yet been smashed together.  A feat which may happen later today or tomorrow - as long as everything goes according to plan.  So let's keep our fingers crossed and look forward to new and exciting insights.

And the bbc radio 4 big bang website is doing excellent coverage. 

A walk after the night before