cynicalbastard

Sometimes other people do the rants you wish you’d done yourself. Andy Bull disintegrating in THe Guardian’s over-by-over coverage of the debacle that is the Galle Test Match is a fine example…

33rd over: England 102-1 (Cook 53 Bell 17) No, Ian Forth, that is not my problem ta. My problem is that it’s 6.18 in the morning and I’ve been up for three hours already, my problem is that I’ve had three-and-half-hours of sleep, my problem is that I should have stayed out even later having Merry Christmas frolics but I had to go home to come here, my problem is that I spend my afternoons sitting staring into the middle distance of the wallpaper in my flat because of general sleep deprivation my problem is that the only thing to eat in this building before 8am is tobacco smoke, and to do that I have to go down six floors and stand in a carpark, my problem is that this game is meaningless and largely rubbish, my problem is that Alastair Cook is a singularly boring batsman to watch, my problem is that the coffee here comes out of plastic sachets and tastes of rubber my problem here is that somebody is walking around my chair hoovering the crumbs off the floor from the free pies and booze my colleagues tucked into yesterday afternoon after I’d left, my problem is that apart from the cleaner who growls at me there is no one to talk to in this 1980s monstrosity of an open-plan office my problem is that someone has decided now is a good time to tests on the fire alarm, my problem has absolutely sod all to do with the fact that I haven’t emigrated to Australia, my problem is that I’m not on holiday, my problem is that I’m not in bed, my problem is that I haven’t been fed, my problem is that I have to sit here listening to Ian “lots of things in society are appalling, like grannies getting beaten and raped for a fiver” Botham, my problem is many many things but it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m not an Australian. Thanks.

And my solution is that it has started raining and play has stopped. Hopefully for a long time. Prod me when it’s tea.

And while I’m on this topic my problem is that the lift is excessively verbose and feels compelled to tell me that I’ve decided to go up and that I should stand back from the doors, my problem is that this computer works erratically and the phone by its side doesn’t work at all, my problem is that I’m not in Sri Lanka, my problem is that I no longer have Rob Smyth to sit next to so I can at least take consolation in looking at him and thinking ‘at least I don’t drink Relentless out of a brown paper bag’ my problem is that the milk in the fridge is off, my problem is that you can’t interview a sportsperson any more without plugging somebody else’s crummy product, my problem is that no one likes County cricket anymore, my problem is that the rain has stopped and the covers are coming off and play will start at 7.03 my problem is that somebody at Sky actually thinks that the likes of Dominic Cork may have something more entertaining and insightful to say about play than any number of more intelligent and articulate journalists, my problem is that there isn’t John Arlott any more, my problem is that there isn’t Brian Johnson any more, my problem is Mark Ramprakash’s tie knot, my problem is the skin on the top of the scrambled eggs when they’ve been sitting under a heat lamp for two hours in the canteen, my problem is that the New Zealand tour is likely to be equally anti-social and also utterly bobbins, my problem is the Premier League, my problem is 12 pages of sports news brought to you daily, my problem is comedy side-bars, my problem is Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal, my problem is that no one wants to pick Ian Blackwell any more, my problem is the Rail network. My problem is that I don’t have a pillow.

Love this thread from CiF–the masterpieces you’ve always thought are crap.

Sums up CiF contributors. All the tedious people pointing out the obvious–Emin and Hirst. Then the others desperately defending their own pet loves.

Me, I never understood the Keats vs Beatles debate that was the meejah’s desperate attempt to understand postmodernism (that Derrida writes very long words don’t he?). Both are awful. The Beatles went from copying Buddy Holly to copying the Beach Boys, and Revolution No.9 is the only decent thing they ever did (blatant musique concrete rip-off though)—okay, Helter Skelter was all right for its influence on certain californians, but Siouxise did a much better version.

Wuthering Heights is just terrible. A wimpy wankfest for girls who don’t know how to use their hairbrush handles. All of the Austens–ancient chick-lit, of no interest to anyone with a Y chromosome. Trollope–Eastenders writer of his day. All female crime writers except Dorothy L Sayers and that Icelandic one. Lowry, David Hockney (no, being gay doesn’t make you good), any classical composer between Orfeo and the Rite of Spring, the Arctic Monkeys–George Formby for the modern generation-, Pele, George Best, David Gower (what a total wanker, and what an ugly player), Seinfeld, Moby Dick (have you read that? fecking awful), and on and on….

EDIT–oh yeah and ANY modern fiction. Emperor’s clothes people, emperor’s clothes. Amis (MArtin–did you read that piece in T’Grauniad on Atta, could anyone but an autistic six year old in a wheelchair get away with such rubbish?), McEwan, Barnes, Smith, Ali, all total and utter shite. The Americans (except Pynchon) are worse–Cormac McCarthy? Richard Sportswriter Ford? Updike? Roth? Utter and total shite.

I like this game. As the INsane Clown Posse put it–

“Fuck Celine Dion and fuck Dionne Warwick
You both make me sick, suck my dick
Fuck the Berlin Wall, both sides of it
And fuck Lyle Lovett, whoever the fuck that is
Fuck everybody in the hemisphere
Fuck them across the world, and fuck them right here
You know the guy that operates the Rouge River draw bridge in Delray on
Jefferson? FUCK HIM!
Fuck your idea, fuck your gonnoreha
Fuck your diarrhea, Rocky Maivia
Fuck your wife, your homie did, he’s fuckin you
Fuck the police and the 5-0 too
Fuck Spin, Rolling Stone, and fuck Vibe
Fuck everybody inside
Whoever’s on the cover, fuck his mother
Fuck your little brother’s homie from around the way
And fuck Violent J!”

(just noticed I dropped off Devil’s Ktchen’s essential reading..what have I done?) Not sworn enough I suspect.

Schopenhauer anyone?

So we once again prove our hatred of people claiming Islam is violent (or quoting people claiming it) by, uhhr, burning down churches and shooting nuns.

Logic? Hey? Over here!

Repeat after me, it is not the role of the state, or any of its constituent bodies, to legislate over things like this. But, hey, here’s an idea. Why not stop building on playing fields? Why not stop the kiddy fiddler panic that stops children being allowed to play outside? Why not stop dealing with symptoms and start dealing with root problems?

First Tom and Jerry and smoking, now this ridiculous bugbear once more. IPCGMITY.

If parents seriously can’t deal with kids being influenced by adverts, perhaps they should have invested in rather better contraception.

Glad to see the Winter Olympics starts today. A couple of weeks watching British people hurtle downhill or slide around for no apparent reason other than the chance of glory and for David Vine (is he still around?) to mention their name as they finish up in twenty-second place or somewhere similar.

But why no Special Winter Olympics? We have to put up with a Summer Special Olympics after all, and a winter one would be a lot more fun. The chance to laugh at a lot of disabled people being frankly pretty crap at everything they do should always be encouraged.

Of course we’re all meant to nod along to the notion that the Special Olympics is about bravery and passion and real talent. But it’s patently not. It’s about freaks and a modern day freak show*. Watching not very well-coordinated people limp along in the ’sprints’ and blind people having to be guided through long-distance races by being tied to partners is just about on the level of a School Sports Day. Though Potato Sack Races for Five year olds have nothing on the pure bloody delight of blind football. Watching them attempt to find the ball through listening to the rattle and then kickout at thin air is frankly bloody hilarious, and no amount of sanctimonious nonsense from the commentators will make it seem anything more.

I have no problem with the differently abled having their own events, but why this universal kow-towing to the collective delusion that it’s sport? I’m pretty good at some sports and bloody awful at others, but I don’t get the chance to be celebrated in front of millions as I compete in the ‘not very good at this’ games, and it’s only the fact I’m only emotionally crippled that stops me. In fact, I’ve never seen dwarves or midgets at the Special Olympics. Why such discrimination between handicaps?

A winter Special Olympics featuring blind slalom. amputee speed skating, tourette’s ice dancing, and the afore-mentioned thalidomide bobsleigh would go down a storm. Certainly would increase the level of interest anyway.

* I of course except Wheelchair sports, which are very little different from cycling or rowing in my opinion, and if the latter get recognised, I don’t see why the former shouldn’t as well. Just be honest and let fully abled people compete too, and stop being all precious over whether someone is really disabled or not. Actually, also put turbo engines on the back.

Let me start by reminding people that I’m a Christian. So I’m going to have to do penance for what I’m about to say (actually, one of the privileges of being a Protestant and not a heretic is, of course, I don;t have to).

By way of DK, Right For Scotland has a widely mentioned post about the underclass in Port Glasgow. For some reason, the writer seems to believe that the growth of this layabout, dope-smoking, expectorating, shellsuit encased group is to do with socialism. It’s about ’something-for-nothing’ culture and handouts and all that.

Course, that’s bollocks, and ahistorical bollocks at that. The underclass has always been with us. See Hogarth, see Dickens and Defoe, see Mayhew, see Fishman’s opus East End 1888. There have always been no-go areas, places where the gentry would require a swordstick or gun to protect themselves (hey, the shining point of Leeds, the Victoria Quarter with its Harvey Nicks and beautiful Victorian arcades was, 150 years ago, the centre for the slaughterhouses and all-night taverns, a place of depravity and vice akin to New York’s Five Points).

But, perhaps it’s got worse (or, as friend Lee points out to me, perhaps I’ve just got older). There’s no balance anymore. There’s no hope. While there was always an underclass, there too was a working class. And the latter no longer exists in the same way. With the destruction of industrial Britan, the old communities have died, and with them the support structures, the moral ‘poor but upright’ attitude, even the WEA autodidacts and the public libraries have fallen over. There’s no culture to keep these elements of society together.

And, (getting on a favourite hobby horse), the impact of fast food and crap supermarkets on the sink estates have left a significant percentage of the population without access to fresh food (and the allotment culture dying too). And the wrong food leads to criminality.

So we have the sink estates, beneath which no one can fall. And a society of casual criminality, where the taking of drugs is as normal as having a cup of tea, and where sex starts at twelve. And beyond it, no one that really cares. The churches try their best, but they’re laughed at by the underclass and by the supposed moral guardians of the nation alike. While the inhabitants breed like rats. And start to spread into the cities and into the areas of the decent, hard-working, ‘gods-fearing’.

A few years ago, one of the major Social Work magazines had to suppress a piece of research demonstrating the increasing number of genetic defects caused by the ultra-fast breeding of the untermensch (and their pocket-sized paramours)–sleeping with each other in their tower blocks, at ever younger ages, they produced children who would breed with others on the same landing as soon as they got a chance. Resulting in what Fr. Mendel would have predicted.

And the evidence is, far from what the embarassed white middle-class researchers tell you, that class is connected to all sorts of things, including domestic violence (yes, you might experience it as a chief exec’s wife, but you’re more likely to as the concubine of a lifelong unemployed jerk-off), and criminality. Oh, there are reasons, but we’ve been trying to deal with them for two hundred and more years. Perhaps its time to say, ‘fuck this, there has to be a better way.’

Never mind that social exclusion or economic deprivation does patently lead to crime. We are where we are. This is where we have to start from. If there’s a ‘class’ that has no interest in playing by the rules, then you have to decide which side you’re on, and act accordingly. Bleeding hearts won’t stop your kids being mugged.

It’s simple. We used to need the underclass–they were useful to provide the labour in times of economic growth, and the wetware in times of war (almost constant, and THAT acted as a way of keeping their numbers down). We don’t anymore. Wars (at least on our side) are fought by cowards from planes two miles up in the sky. Economic growth means more computers and more slave-labour in Calcutta.

And with the increasing bankruptcy of a nation that can’t pay back those who have worked all their lives to support it, surely we have to look around and see which mouths are expendable?

Yet, no one will face up to the issues. We would be so much better off as a nation if they were allowed to wither and die. It’s simple, a few basic rules (feel free to add your own)–

If you have more than two children by the time you’re sixteen, you can receive benefit, but you have to accept sterilisation. And so do they.

We adopt the US standard of self-defence. If you come into my home, and I didn’t ask you in, I get to shoot you. Oh, and that includes if you’re a policeman without a warrant.

If you take drugs or alcohol and go into a fit, no, you don’t get hospital treatment. Likewise if you’re obese, or a smoker, or doing anything else that’s bad for you. UNless you have the money to be treated privately. Take some fucking responsibility for your actions!

If you hit your child in public, any member of the watching crowd has the right to beat you to a pulp.

And, of course, if you wear shell-suits and don’t wash, or leggings when you’re overweight (and, yes, it is your fucking fault), anyone has the right to set fire to you.

More seriously, it’s about time we started using a word that has rightly fallen into disfavour. Eugenics. See that Vicky Pollard? She’s dead, right. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah.

There’s been some stuff over at Devils Kitchen (and other places linked from that) about political correctness. Of the traditional Daily Mail ‘if I can’t call a nigger a nigger anymore, then we’re losing all our freedoms’ type.

I have to admit to enjoying the ramblings sent in to the (usually) right-wing press which contain that give away phrase ‘It’s political correctness gone mad’, where you can almost see the jowls of some old lady quivering away. The dead giveaways for them leading up to *that* dread phrase are the use of such terms as ‘indigenous population’ (ain’t no such thing), ‘our rights are being eroded’ (well, everyone’s rights are being eroded, that’s Blairism for you) and that killer phrase ‘whose going to speak up for the British/whites/original inhabitants?’ (see above).

Not to say there isn’t a problem with political correctness. There is. It’s the over–sanitised culture we now live in. It’s the forms to be signed in triplicate (and quadricate (is that a word?)), it’s the risk assessments, the health and safety checks. For schools to send kids out on trips now, not only does the Head have to sign their agreement, but so does the Chair of the Board of Governors. And the parents. And then, if anything should happen, the parents get to sue the school anyway. Because no one will take any responsibility for themselves anymore.

Everything has to be clean and safe, with every element of danger sucked from it, leaving the dried up husk of third-hand experience, as that’s all we’re allowed to feel (no wonder so many people prefer camcording their visits to places, a) so they can watch the experience in the safety of their own homes, and b) just in case something goes wrong). The sort of thing Mark Pauline’s been doing for years would never be allowed in the UK these days.

And when kids grow up never having experienced any danger, never having learnt to deal with any of the bogey-men and women out there, they’ll have trouble escaping from the plastic bags that constantly surround them. If they ever do, the resulting bloodbath will make Hermann Nitsch’s work look like Playschool.

Peanuts–this product may contain nuts. What sort of world is this?

It’s political correctness gone mad I tells ye!

On a similar basis to the latter post, I got a letter this morning from the TV licensing people, telling me that as I hadn’t replied to any of their previous notes, they had now authorised enforcement officers to come to my flat and interview me ‘under caution’.

Perhaps they can then explain to me why not having a television is seen as an act requiring the TV-less to be treated as potential criminals. When the Licensing authorities do their ‘there are three houses on acacia avenue without licenses’ it looks like a threat, but it might just be because the people living there don’t want to watch the idiot box. From the BARB statistics there are 700,000 homes in the UK without TVs. And all of those people are treated like criminals with every new licensing campaign.

It’s another example of the culture of ‘you must act in this way or you can’t be a full member of society’.

There was I listening to a report on Today (just realised that link probably won’t work tomorrow, here’s the story from the Grauniad) about people in poor areas not having access to bank accounts, and thus ‘having’ to use loan sharks, and I thought, as is my wont, what a load of bollocks.

Why is there such a push to make everyone have a bank account? Why is it increasingly difficult to live life without one? I’m not one of the tinfoil-hat brigade, but if I didn’t know better, I’d assume there was some secret agency wanting to make sure none of us could live outside the control of the state, that all our financial dealings could be summoned at the press of a button, and that stories like this, under the guise of ’social’ concern, are simply part of a campaign to stop people being able to stay ‘invisible’.

Remind me again what the point of Children in Need is? Oh, that’s right, charidee. Well blow me (but only if you can afford the necessary bid).

There was I thinking it was an excuse for some of the worst teevee in the history of mindless entertainment. Why, just because there’s a charidee appeal, is it thought necessary for serious news reporters to ‘perform’ on this show? To dress craply and do something from ‘Grease’. Who cares? Who is really motivated to give money by such a farrago? You are? Then you’re a twat.

How are we meant to ever take these people seriously again? Things haven’t been the same since Angela Rippon got out from behind that desk and slung her legs round Eric Morecambe and his short, fat hairy thing. I bet most of them absolutely hate the whole experience, which is the only good thing about it; watching that Buerk grimace as he has to recite some joke like a Wodehousian Pat and Mike sketch.

And why, just because it’s a charidee appeal, is it thought necessary for French and Saunders to be on our screens at all?

But worst of all are the regional shows. Going to Wayne of Pontefract who is sitting in a bath of baked beans for the twentieth year in a row. Go and wank over Splosh magazine if you must Wayne, but don’t inflict it on us. Is the real purpose of CiN that people with minority sexual preferences get to practice them on television? Must be a real thrill. All that cross-dressing, depilation, wallowing in various substances. Think about it. It’s Mr Kinsey’s fetish hour come to the screen.

And then there’s the activity out on the streets. Fourteen year olds in fancy dress let out from school because of a ‘charidee’ event. Fuck’s sake. GO AND LEARN SOMETHING YOU PATHETIC MORONS. You don’t get a career by learning to wear a Goofy outfit.

Actually, if you link up with someone of deviant enough sexuality, you just might.

While we’re on the subject of the not-so-blessed Ann, I was amazed by her latest desperate attempt to get publicity. It eve n got picked up by lgf.

First cousins shouldn’t marry, she said. Obviously she has in mind the large asian community within her constituency. However, she stated it as a health issue generally.

“As we address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity, we say it’s a public health issue, and therefore we all have to get involved with it in persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle”

Well, yes, there are genetic issues, and potential health problems for any children. But what the fuck business is it of the state? Are we now to get a Ministry for potential partnerships to vet any engagements, Moonie style? Will we have to submit to a long-winded application process to be allowed to fall in love (which the government IT system will fuck up)? So it’s genetically problematic. So is marrying someone with a known recessive gene for heart disease, or cystic fibrosis, or, well, pretty well anything. But that doesn’t mean the State intervenes.

Can we get back to living our own lives now please?

Godz that’s a banal headline.

Sir Ian ‘where’s the nearest camera? I must make a statement’ Blair is giving a speech tonight where he’s saying some quite extraordinary things. The word that springs to mind is chutzpah. He’s telling us, for instance, that the Police have moved from being ‘a very silent organization’ to one at the heart of controversy without ‘an intervening period of public debate.’ And using this to suggest now is the time for that debate.

“there is little dispassionate, thought-through public examination of just what it is we are here to do in the 21st century - to fight crime or to fight its causes, to help build stronger communities or to undertake zero tolerance”

Hmm, well, the question is how to encourage this debate. Perhaps, first, one kills unarmed civilians because they look a bit different. Then one leaks stories about them being very suspicious, or here illegally or, well, just damned dodgy.

Perhaps one could follow this by a series of interviews where the facts were continually disputed. And then another series where the ‘other’ Blair agenda–fear, more fear , oh and panic too–is backed to the hilt. And then by putting serious pressure on MPs to change the law and take away any level of protection suspected ‘terrorists’ might have.

And, now, after this series of interventions in debates about the future security of the country, Sir Blair wants to talk. Which is not to say that the debate shouldn’t be held (and, indeed, has anyway actually been going on since before 1829–perhaps Sir Ian just doesn’t mix in the right circles), just that Sir Ian is far from the right person to propose it.

Hey, let’s ignore the sorry sony tale for a moment (he says while writing on one of their Vaios). And let’s talk about amazon. Once everyone’s friend, that chippy underdog. Do you remember the first xmas of amazon.co.uk, when they sent their regular users all a xmas present? Do you remember how you could easily find a phone number and talk to someone? Maybe you even knew how easy it wss to commit insurance fraud through them (claim for stolen software, get the insurance company to make the cheque out to amazon for ‘replacements’, pay it into your amazon account, phone them up to refund into your account)?

Well no more. Now they’re just a big monopoly dominating consumer space. There is no real other option for buying books online in the UK at least. And they’re using their muscle to exert pressure over other areas. First they patented the ‘one-click’ system (and then sued Barnes and Noble for infringement), and now they’ve patented the way they request reviews from customers. There’s even some talk of them attempting to patent the sending of automated emails to customers who have forgotten their friends’ addresses.

It’s patenting of a business method. And it’s clearly bollocks. As business 2.0’s blog points out, it’s as if Victorian businesses had patented ’stacking shelves’.

Tesco are leading the other supermarkets in spamming customers according to a report today. Which comes as no surprise to those of us who have been trying to get off their mailing lists for two fucking years. But, no, you can’t do that without giving them your full address, which would mean another addition to their database, and they get snotty when you e-mail wondering why anyone would not want to be on their lists.

I’ve tried changing the preferences under my account to stop the e-mail, but, oddly, it doesn’t seem to save. And, yes, junk filters deal with the ensuing mail, but they really should be black-holed for such spamming.