Tuesday, 5 June 2007

Mock the afflicted, it's easier...

Time to top up my blog with more random spewings of vitriol. I've never really picked on barn door sized targets in my blogs, as I prefer a challenge. However, there's a lack of anything topical to write about really. I considered writing about the forthcoming public indoor smoking ban in England, pointing out the futility of splashing out a fiver every day to burn some dead leaves wrapped up in paper, although I've covered that last year.


I now find myself relying on that old comedy standby, the British National Party - an ever decreasing section of society that still believes "the blacks" are out to get their jobs.


Now, I know the vast majority of my readers are already against the BNP, and frankly, so is anyone with an IQ that runs into double figures or higher. I'm at risk of preaching to the choir here. The thing is though, the BNP itself loves to maintain that it has a non-racist attitude, that it's simply all about immigration issues, and "freedom of speech".


A few months ago, around Christmas time, a BNP supporter interrupted a conversation I was having with some friends at a taxi rank. He made it clear that he did not like my views, and made violent threats against me. Not just to me, but to the woman I was waiting there with too. So that's the respect they have for "freedom of speech".


Hang on, aren't I just tarring the entire British National Party with the same brush, based on the actions of a semi-literate knuckle-dragging can't-handle-his-drink tosser?


Well, the funny thing is that you can get an official view by visiting the BNP's official website. Look at their forums. You can only view and post on them if you're a member of the BNP. You have to give them money to even look at their views. Where else would "free speech" cost you money?


Luckily, they do have something resembling a letters page, representing the result of what could happen if scientists taught vermin to write.


"Islam is not a religion of peace. It's an advocate of murder and savagery. And a paranoid one at that." writes Pete McClintock from Manchester, who evidently skipped Sunday school when it came to learning some of the more unsavoury parts of the Holy Bible ("He who sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed" - Exodus 22:20).


Note the suggestion of paranoia in there. "I hope the organisers of this 'demonstration', and anyone who turns to take part, are arrested and charged with incitement", continued Mr McClintock, in a totally un-paranoid fashion, indeed.


Over to Arthur Hunt in Hull, who is a complete and utter hunt... "This small island will hold 40 million reasonably comfortably without undue strain on the environment, we passed that mark decades ago,at 60 million the tensions are beginning to show, more people will be unbearable."


S'funny, official statistics show that non-white people only make up just under 10% of the UK population, so we have 54 million whites. Mr Hunt here is being out of step with BNP policy if he wants to kick out 20m people. Obviously, they'd want all 6m non-Caucasians out, but then they're going to have to remove approximately 14,000,000 white British citizens in order to please the Crazy World Of Arthur Hunt. I wonder if BNP leader Nick Griffin is willing to adopt the slogan "We're The Party That Will Kick Out More Whites Than Non-Whites" for his next election failure campaign? I can't see it going down well with the sub-amoebic cretins who normally vote for the BNP. Perhaps Arthur's idea is one of voluntary self-induced euthanasia.


BNP supporter Brian Hargreaves doesn't give any indication of his location, so I'm leaving this open to you, the reader, to suggest where he may live. Crack den? Cardboard box? HM Glen Parva? The choices are yours. Mark your envelopes with the phrase Twat Finder General. Anyway, Brian has some strong views on the "left", as if it's one collective group with no differing opinions whatsoever. "They think it is immoral for the BNP to say that the indigenous British should have priority over foreign immigrants in their own country, which their parents and grandparents fought and died for."


Yeah, it's funny to see a bunch of xenophobic social-inadquates bring up the issue of that whole Second World War thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the United Kingdom defeating a load of despicable hate-filled racists. It makes me wonder why Nick Griffin chooses to daub the letters in the BNP logo with the Union flag, when Britain's greatest moment was actually playing a major key factor in the downfall of people who shared the BNP's views. As a 100% full British citizen, I'm wondering about setting up a class action lawsuit against Nick Griffin for misusing the term "British" and for daring to use the red, white and blue of my country's flag for his odious and ailing party.


The BNP have had very little success recently in elections. Last year, there were reports of bouncing cheques. I feel almost ashamed in taking the piss out of these sorry know-nothings, but then I think of the face of that BNP-supporting drunk muppet at the taxi rank who wanted to have a fight with me.


Always playing the victim, while wanting to victimise others, the BNP is the biggest hypocrite among the minor political parties of this country. They have a webpage where they attempt to counter "smears" from the "left-wing press". A lot of leaflets from anti-racist campaigners were distributed in the run up to the local elections, and the BNP's webpage begged for their supporters to print it out and to distribute it to friends and colleagues.


It's wild of them to assume that their voters actually have friends, but on the colleague front, how would you feel about a workmate handing you a printout where the first paragraphs are on why mixed-race marriages should be outlawed?


"Environmentalists are always keen to preserve unique animal species in the wild, so why shouldn't the same principle apply to people?" What a fantastic defence, eh? Taking that logic to its fullest extent, I feel pressured into starting a new career as a butcher, breaking into BNP HQ, finding all their members, humanely stunning them, and then serving them up as burgers and sausages for public consumption. Why shouldn't the same principle apply to people?


"The British National Party is not 'homophobic'" says their paragraph on homosexual attitudes. You can pretty much guess what happens next, can't you? First of all, we learn that the BNP recognises "homosexual relationships do not produce offspring". Blimey! These guys are on the ball, aren't they? Nothing gets past them.


"Homosexuality should not be promoted or encouraged" says the not-at-all-homophobic policy. The BNP is "opposed to the flaunting or celebrating of homosexuality which 'civil partnerships' represent". So, nothing remotely anti-gay there. If you're gay, well, you just have to learn to shut up while everyone else can talk about their relationships. Isn't that fair? Hmm...


"The definition of a racist is someone who hates people of other races. We do not hate anybody", they say, having just informed us of how gay people should not have the same rights as straight people, and how mixed race marriages should be discouraged.


After clarifying how anti-racist they really are, honest guv, you only need skip a few paragraphs to read a heading entitled "Why don't you let blacks and Asians into the BNP?" - which then leads into a rant that confirms they truly do not let blacks or Asians into the party. "The BNP isn't racist, but our purpose is to cater for the interests of the indigenous British population", continues the credibility-free argument, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of us indigenous Brits are actually quite happy to mix with people with darker skin colours. It's called tolerance, a word missing from all five pages of the BNP dictionary.


"Your leader is on record denying the Holocaust ever happened and claiming that Jews control the media – you are clearly an anti-Semitic party" is a rare glimpse of truth on the otherwise bovine-excrement filled page.


"Not at all. Dredging up quotes from 10, 15, 20 years ago is really pathetic and, in a sense, rather fascist." Hmm. I'll take that as a "yes" then. Speaking of which, in literally ten seconds, I've found some musings from Nick Griffin under the not-at-all-anti-semitic heading of "It's all a zionist scam", written in 2005.


My head is still reeling from the idea that quoting people from one or two decades ago is "rather fascist". I thought fascism was an authoritarian political ideology, but it's a different meaning in Griffinland. Then, further down, we have some definition of 'British' - "Britain was created as a nation, around 1,000 years ago". Ignoring that Mr Griffin has curiously rewritten his rule on dredging up the past, it's interesting to know that this rain-attracting lump of land stuck in north west Europe didn't exist before 1007AD.


Personally, I thought it was down to the last major ice age which took place around 10,000 years, causing this place to no longer be a peninsular on the Eurasian tectonic plate, resulting in a mix of Danes, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, French, Irish, Italians and others over the years to populate this wind-swept tea-drinking isle. Hang on, that's a bit too multi-cultural for the likes of the BNP to understand. No wonder the next bit complains that "there are parts of our towns and cities which have become visibly foreign".


"We want a traditional Britain" claims the manifesto. Great. They want your wife to be raped by Scandinavian pirates, to have our monarchy handed over to any hasty arrow-flinging Frenchman, and have Italian anti-Christians running London. On the latter point, the neo-Romans might throw out the Congestion Charge, so there are in fact some positives among this drivel. No idea if your Oyster card would work on a Londinium Council horse and cart though.


"The BNP is, in fact, the most democratic party in Britain", says the same page that informed us that black and Asian people are banned from joining.


Any concerns about voting for this party? "No senior member of the BNP has any serious criminal convictions". As assurances go, this is rather like saying "95% of the orange juice you're about to drink does not have any semen in it". Just like the party's track record in trying to attract the electorate, you'll find it hard to swallow.


BNP supporters may comment on this blog entry, but they must do so in very large green lettering, in a font that resembles the kind of scrawl from a five year old's Crayola spree. This is in keeping with their non-digital style of writing, you see.

Thursday, 14 September 2006

Gervais - The Board Game

You rightfully sneer at those humour-free people who worship tiresome comedy catchphrases such as "Am I bovvered?" and "I'm a laydee!". Move forward one space.

Wasn't that you reprising the David Brent dance at Live8? Move back two spaces.

You get another universally-mocked faded celebrity on your show and write abusive lines for them to say, which is getting just as tiresome as the bunch of cliched catchphrases you targetted earlier. Move back five spaces.

You find one of Bernard Manning's old joke books in a skip behind the Embassy Club in Manchester. Move forward six spaces but miss your next turn while you think of ways to use the jokes in your next show in an 'ironic' context.

Wednesday, 30 August 2006

Do Not Adjust Your Set, It's Dubya

US broadcaster CNN has apologised after an speech by George W Bush was accidentally broadcast over the top of an anchorwoman's chat with a colleague.

The conversation between Kyra Phillips and another woman would have been clearly heard, but the network accidently aired live footage of Mr Bush talking to New Orleans.

During the chat, President Bush feigned concern for non-white people, and ignored the issue of his administrations' failure on environmental control.

CNN apologised to viewers and Ms Phillips, citing "audio difficulties".

The programme was broadcasting about 90 seconds of the anchorwoman's conversation during what has been described as a bathroom or hair and make-up break, but viewers also heard Mr Bush's speech live from New Orleans.

The gaffe happened when an outside broadcast team thought it apt to air the views of the neanderthal cretin, spewing false platitudes in the very city he failed to protect. This action was akin to handing round a West Midlands Police Force Benevolent Fund tin at the release party for the Birmingham Six.

CNN issued a statement apologising for the error. "We apologise to our viewers for the president making the disruption."

Thursday, 1 June 2006

"Look, I put a pit bull terrier next to a baby and took a photo!"

MySpace is commonly abused by the hard-of-thinking for many ill-advised agendas. Like that crap folk singer who sings about the previously unknown concept of flower-donning punk rockers (surely the most lyrically incorrect hit since Alanis Morrisette's 'Ironic', and similarly annoying). Oh, and missing persons alerts, virus warnings, etc, which nobody ever seems to check to see if they're genuine. The potentials for a hoax are enormous.

If that weren't bad enough, there's the ever-increasing presence of "this MySpace user was killed a few days ago" messages, which sparked off from a genuine incident, although, to be honest, why not just leave the grieving to friends and families of the bereaved?

Today I have witnessed what is quite possibly the most retarded political petition ever.

Unknown to me, it appears that a mayor in California wants to pass a law that would require all pit-bull terrier dogs to be put down. Lovely stuff. I obviously don't live in California, and it'll never affect me, so I'd love to sign a petition in favour of ridding the world of these nuisance animals.

Unfortunately, the message came to me via a bulletin in which we were asked to pledge support AGAINST this new law. Which is never going to get my support, I'm a cat person. You don't get cats humping your leg, they don't chew the furniture, and they don't constantly bug you. Oh, and they know where to defecate. Canines always seem to be missing a few brain cells, social skills and a hygiene element.

Now, some schmuck has set up a website trying to gain sympathy for their luvvly cuddly ickle cootsy wootsy killer dogs' plight. The website - www.sorryagain.com - invites owners of dangerous dogs to send in photos of their pet, with the stipulation that there should be a caption mentioning the word "SORRY", as if the dog is apologising for the reputation it has.

The bulletin came to me with various images from the site, clearly made by people with the creative skills of a wet moth. I don't condone computer viruses normally, but if there was one to wipe out MS Paint on people's PCs, it'd get my support.

Tugging at the heart-strings, plenty of these photos showed treasured pets positioned conveniently next to the owners, and in some cases, small children and babies. Yes, great idea guys, get a potentially lethal animal and stick it next to a baby.

Still going for your hearts, the campaign site photos usually have the dog in a calm sedate pose, and gaining bonus points for being wide-eyed like a cutesy wutesy Japanese cartoon character. Aw! It's a sweet ickle pit bull! It means no-one any harm!

This is the kind of schmaltzy crud I'm on about...

I don't know about you, but anyone who places a deadly animal next to a baby is asking to be dressed in the next season's Strait-jacket Collection by Westwood.

Now, don't get me wrong. Not all pit-bull terriers are vicious cold-hearted killers. In fact, I work in an office with one that often wonders in, and it's really gentle, it's like a cat, only with very poor hygiene and an attention seeking complex.

Would I want to see them all destroyed? Not quite. I do have to question the sanity of whoever breeds or buys them, as, objectively, these are potentially killer animals - what is the point of owning one? I think it's small penis syndrome, like gun-owning nutters. You don't need it, but it makes you look hard! Yeah! Isn't that cool?

As I speak, the poor ickle doggy-woggy bulletin is winging round MySpace, being forwarded on by very naive folks. (I must say goodbye to the two people who have deleted me from their friends list due to objecting to babies being placed next to killer dogs, how nasty of me.)

The website continues to invite pit-bull-related pictures for display on their site.

Well, I do have a picture for their campaign and anybody who agrees with it. Just two seconds in Google, a hit of my PrtScrn button, and I have this...

Yep, just reinforcing the point that these dogs aren't that innocent at all. I do speak from experience - a schoolfriend was scarred for life across his body after his dog turned on him.

"Oh, but he must have been taunting him, pit-bulls do that when under attack" is a common excuse used by the defenders of dangerous dogs, which I've seen on web forums where the proposed California law is under fire. Well, in this case, no. What brought it on was hot weather. Just that, nothing else. Think about that if you're currently setting up your Kodak to get a nice piccy of Tyson sitting next to Junior.

Now, where does this madness end? What is the point in owning any breed of dangerous dog? They don't make you tough. They are tough, not the owner. Why not just get a normal dog? Far more photogenic, and the baby-savaging rates are quite low.

Better still, get a cat. Cats are the dogs bollocks, if you excuse the irony.

Hang on, I feel a change of heart. I'm thinking of starting a new crusade, with the aim to be even more absurd and moronic than sorryagain.com. Are you ready for this?

savemyhungrytiger.com

I'm gonna buy me a tiger, starve it for three days, and let it out in the streets for walkies. When the authorities turn up to destroy it, I'll be on the internet as quick as a flash, (because online petitions are highly respected and always work) uploading photos of my tiger sitting next to a two year old toddler.

Maybe I should take the photos seperately, and Photoshop them together later. He's starting to lick his lips...

Tuesday, 25 April 2006

Politician found to be incompetant shocker!

Isn't it amusing to hear a detestable loathsome cretin act all pious and criticise us all, only for them to have some disgusting secret which will eventually be made public. I have come across such people in my life, but while there's no national recognition for the shameful oafs I've embarrassed (and am about to embarrass soon), we'll have to settle for Charles Clarke.

Charles Clarke is a member of the Labour Party, which makes him a full-time professional tosser. In fact, he's a cabinet minister, so a very high-ranking tosser indeed. Come to think of it, he's the chappy pressing for ID cards to be made compulsory for us Brits, because of the "war on terrrrrrism" invented by George Walker Bush, president of the 'Land Of The Free' (where they execute the mentally ill, and homosexuality is still outlawed in four states).

Despite the fact that 9/11 occurred in an ID-card-filled country, and that Spain had ID cards well before the Madrid train bombing took place, Mr Clarke still thinks they are useful devices. Well, maybe they would be if it weren't for the fact that they'll be created with information from our existing databases, already filled with bogus entries, and are hardly like to deter any terrorist.

PC: "Excuse me, what are you doing with that rucksack?"

Terrorist: "You filthy pig-dog westerner, I am going to blow up a bomb in Trafalgar Square, killing loads of non-believers, their blood will fuel our cause, Allah be praised!"

PC: "Er, do you have an ID card on you?"

Terrorist: "Er, come to think of it, no."

PC: "Right, go home son."

Terrorist: "Okay. Sorry to have bothered you."

Fittingly, parts of our media have exposed the folly of ID cards, and also the rather disgusting bully-boy actions of the US administration over their "mission of peace" (er, an illegal military invasion) to two third-world countries (verdict: not a lot of peace going on there at the moment, must try harder, 'World Superpower').

Mr Clarke, being a world class tosser doesn't like this one bit. Here's what he said last week on the media: "As these descriptions and language are used, the truth just flies out of the window, as does any adherence to professional journalistic standards or any requirement to examine the facts and check them with rigour ... "

Well, well, I guess we must get on fact-checking and ensuring jobs are carried out with the utmost professionalism then.

With that out of the way, I'll end this entry with an update from BBC News.

The home secretary says he "regrets" that 1,023 foreign prisoners have been allowed to walk free when they were meant to be considered for deportation.

They include three murderers and nine rapists, Home Office figures show.

Charles Clarke said he could not say "hand on heart" that they would all be tracked down but said he did not think it was a "resigning matter".

Thursday, 9 March 2006

Stuck between soft rock and a hard choice

"It's just Spinal Tap isn't it? It's just a lark. I'm not sure they think so, though. I think they take it seriously. They made a little splash in the US but, man I don't get it at all."

This was a comment made against novelty joke rock band The Darkness. Whilst I'm all for mocking the pretensions of Justin Hawkins, there is one problem with the above quote. It's made by Jon Bon Jovi. A hairspray queen who has made a career out of singing the same song for two decades, and it's not even a good song.

I'm still baffled at the decision to degrade Spinal Tap too. As if Bon Jovi are above that! Face it, they're a boy band that happen to hold guitars, and make 'music' for housewives.

Tuesday, 7 March 2006

Foxtrot, Oscars

I continue spewing my thoughts onto the interweb with a vague attempt at being topical, because it sure beats dullard blogs that tell you "I had a cheese sandwich for lunch at work today".

UN estimates show how catastrophic the proportion of seriously uninteresting blogs are. 31ill be on the subject of having a bad day at work. 12ill inform you of the colour the author is painting their room. 9ill be a report of meeting a famous celebrity, but it'll turn out to be an apocryphal account from a friend of a friend who read it on Popbitch anyway.

Right, we've just had the Oscars, have we not, and a bunch of media luvvies are in a tis over some gay cowboy movie that triumphed at Sundance, failing to do well at the Oscars. This despite the fact that many years ago, South Park well and truly ripped the piss out of Sundance because every movie in it was about gay cowboys. Hey, Hollywood, get some original ideas.

And with that, here is another buckletload of my opinion, that relates to the film industry. The ten most important films of all time. Not necessarily the best, or technically outstanding. Just ones that are significant to me. And what matters to me, will matter to you. Because I say so.

10) DIGBY, THE BIGGEST DOG IN THE WORLD
Was this really on at the cinemas? A wacky Jim Dale 'romp' which sees the family pet, well, the title gives it away, doesn't it? Could be filling the gaps in any bank holiday schedule back in the days when ITV was a patchwork of wildly varying companies. Anglia would stick this on one week, and you would find it on the next, if you could pick up Central (or "ATV" as we say in the old money).

9) WATERSHIP DOWN
Children's cartoons are there to entertain us with falling anvils and acme bird seed, are they not? Well, this is a strange tale of some rabbits on a farm. For a children's feature, it took the genuinely eerie step of highlighting death. Depicted by mangy rabbit corpses. And a dark disembodied scarlet-eyed rabbit head 'ghost'. If that wasn't frightening enough, you had to contend with Simon and Garfunkel providing the sound track.

8) CARRY ON ABROAD
An introduction to holidaying stereotypes via this almost satirical look at the 70s boom in Spanish package holidays. Rather out of form for Carry On to have Charles Hawtry NOT playing the ambiguously gay character, and so it languishes at this lowly spot in the chart. Would have been further down still, if it were not for Peter Butterworth's comedy-foreigner character calling Stuart Farquar (Kenneth Williams) "Mr Farty-Arse".

7) BUGSY MALONE
I despise musicals. They're all crap. Except for three of them. This one decided to go with an all-child cast, set in the context of America's prohibition era of the 1920s. The really surreal twist is that all the gangsters use gunge and cream pies, which are fatal to anyone on the receiving end. A good job that universe didn't have Tiswas then, that'd be a live weekly massacre broadcast to the nation. Still, you have to admire the reasoning - you can't have real blood and gore mixed with children. Bonnie Langford was in this. Now that she's old enough, I'll get my gun.

6) GHOSTBUSTERS
"But you can't see that, it'll scare you", said my ill-informed mum in 1984, not realising that 1) this is a comedy and 2) any idea of ghosts 'succeeding' is obviously quashed by the film's title. About eight years later, I did get to see, as afternoon filler on the telly. I liked it. I bought the DVD. I even bought the DVD to the sequel. Oh dear.

5) GREASE
The only other musical in this list. "But Pete", I hear my audience of one reader cry, "you said you liked three musicals". Well, yes. The remaining one is the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that appears to be set-up to parody 50s horror b-movies. Thing is, that's a subject that has been parodied many many times since. By the time I actually got round to watching Rocky Horror, I couldn't see what the fuss was about. Hence it doesn't appear in this top tne. Richard O'Brien's good though, and Meatloaf gets killed, so those are two positive factors about the film. The crossdressing/lingerie idea is a bit fun, but I suspect it's the major thing that this film has a cult following - lots of repressed folk wanting to put on fishnets. That's wrong, because 1) fishnets are damned itchy and 2) I have been associating fishnets, and indeed, suspender belts, with speeded-up chase sequences from Benny Hill. Hence not even the hottest FHM model will do anything for me when they're in such items. Oh yes, back to Grease - damned catchy tunes and a plotline that eight-year-old me could follow. Just. American Graffiti is better though.

4) CARRY ON CAMPING
Best Carry On film ever. It's Charles Hawtry announcing his name as "Muggins, Charles Muggins". The unrivalled double-act of Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw as the sleaze-merchant and accident-prone hanger-on. Their prudish girlfriends. Peter Butterworth saying "paahnd". I won't mention THAT bit with Barbara Windsor, it's overrated.

3) MONTY PYTHON'S QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRAIL
"How do you know he's a king then?"
"He's not covered in shit"

2) THREADS
Stick yer Exorcist, yer Omen, yer Amityville, yer Friday the 13th, yer Evil Dead... this is genuinely the most scariest film ever, because of the possibility of it being real. It's a BBC-funded project, that followed the realistic aftermath had a nuclear bomb got dropped on Sheffield in the mid-80s. Those were the days, with a crazy extreme-right-wing American president who believed in military might no matter how many innocent people could be in the firing line. Thank goodness things aren't like that any more...

1) MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN
"Python is Satan" said one placard waved by a handful of Christian fundamentalists who wanted this film banned, not realising that it actually says nothing against Jesus Christ or Christianity, but in fact pokes fun at followers of religion who get it wrong. As well as pissing off people who worry about coveting their neighbour's oxon (never bothered me, my neighbour's got a bloody terrific ox, and I'm not ashamed to admit that), this is the only comedy film where every gag generates a belly-laugh. Not even Airplane gets me laughing as much as this film. The timing is flawless, the satire is heavy while being incredibily subtle, and it's thankfully low on catchphrase-based humour, so because it doesn't generate "Ni! Ni! Ni!" from pub bores when you mention it, this is why it marginally beats '....Holy Grail'.

And none of these films won an Oscar. Titanic and Gladiator did.

Foxtrot Oscars.