The ‘last post’

My last post for a while – Christmas Eve is already here to kick off a few days of celebration and then, on Saturday, Lady Shark’s Meniere’s permitting, off for a week in Normandy to see the New Year in.

Also the ‘last post’, as it were, for Woolworths, Whittards (almost, anyway) and now Zavvi.

Who’s next?

Not wishing any business any ill will, but I’m afraid we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg of indeterminate size because if banks can go under, then anyone can…

I think we’re in for a very eventful 2009 but I hope that anyone reading this manages to get through it all right.

So, in the true spirit of the season – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year or whatever gets you through the night.

Die, puppy, die…

I suspect, like many people reading this, that I’m still alive because perhaps on at least one occasion during my life I was saved by some sort of drug.

I think I may also be correct in thinking that the older you are, the more likely it is that that particular drug was tested on an animal.

Those scientists who performed those tests should be applauded and we should also thank the animals which died during the course of those experiments.

I’m also very grateful to the various animals that died so I can have a bloody good Christmas meal or two.

So, it was with some satisfaction that I read this.

The people working for HLS are not, I’m 100% positive, causing any more suffering to the animals they use in their testing than is absolutely necessary and where animals do not have to be used, I’m sure they’re not.

People like the SHAC and the ALF frighten me with their fanaticism and their ruthlessness.

Here’s a quote from one guy who worked for a company which transported animals for HLS:

“We received a lot of phone calls and letters [which] contained things like used condoms, used sanitary towels, razor blades and syringe needles claiming to be from people who are infected with AIDS.”

Managers were also accused of being paedophiles and letters sent to their neighbours stating that they took trips abroad in order to carry out paedophiliac activities.

And here’s a direct quote from a blog I discovered just a minute ago about a UK animal rights conference:

Part 1:- Looks at AR violence and includes recordings of Camille Hankins (Win Animal Rights – WAR) speaking in support of the grave robbings and arson attacks carried out by animal rights activists.

Such tactics are part of such people’s ‘armoury’ but weren’t used in this particular case.

Nice, huh?

Look, people are more important than animals in my world and if it’s a toss up between my life – or any other human being’s – or some animal’s then the cute little puppy gets it…

…every fucking time…

More bad taste from the Mail

In the normal run of things most parents die before their children – which is sad enough but as it should be – but it must be truly heartbreaking when the reverse happens.

It’s just wrong and against the natural order of things.

When children do die, it invokes feelings of sadness, sympathy and pity in those not directly involved – and rightly so.

It often becomes news and, whilst it’s usually chiefly of concern to the child’s parents, relatives and friends, it’s often worthy of it for all sorts of reasons.

So, when the Mail first reported about this story fair enough.

But why was it necessary to run this story today?

First picture of twin boy of five who drowned on his birthday holiday to Disneyland Paris

First picture?

Why does there need to be some sort of ‘scoop’ involved?

Most of us can imagine what a 5 year old boy looks like and his death isn’t made any better or worse because we can be the first to see him when he was alive.

Who does this help apart from one or two ghoulish people who want to see what someone who died so young looked like when they were alive?

I mean, it’s not like he’s been abducted and so a photo might help find him – it’s just totally unnecessary.

Sure, print his photo so we know what he looks like, but don’t turn it into some sort of exercise in oneupmanship.

Sometimes I just don’t understand what goes on in Dacre’s shabby little empire…

More papal bull

Isn’t life strange?

No sooner do I have a little dig at ‘The Priests’ than their boss comes out with this, although I’m guessing that my blog entry about The Priests isn’t the reason Pope Benny has spewed out the usual bigoted, blinkered shite this time.

Yes, that lovable ex-Hitler Youth member (an unenthusiastic participant apparently, although he/the Catholic Church would say that, wouldn’t he/it?) is at it again.

This time he’s addressing the issue of gender:

Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict XVI warned that gender theory blurred the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the “self-destruction” of the human race.

Gay and transsexual groups, particularly in the United States, promote it as a key to understanding and tolerance, but the Pope disagreed.

When the Roman Catholic Church defends God’s Creation, “it does not only defend the earth, water and the air… but (it) also protects man from his own destruction,” he said.

“Rainforests deserve, yes, our protection, but the human being … does not deserve it less,” the pontiff said.

It is not “out-of-date metaphysics” to “speak of human nature as ‘man’ or woman'”, he told scores of prelates gathered in the Vatican’s sumptuous Clementine Hall.

Well, I suppose that if we all went gay or transgender the human race would be doomed as we couldn’t reproduce, but I’m presuming he’s thinking about our SOULS – whatever they are.

As you may have guessed, I’m not at all religious – the whole belief system of all religions is based on as much reality as a Grimms Fairy Tale retold by a Tourette’s sufferer on crystal meth.

Moreover, with a religion such as Catholicism it’s not just deluded but dangerous when it preaches against birth control in an overcrowded world.

That’s one of the real threats – not gayness or having your front bottom customised heavily – but due to some doctrine cooked up over the last couple of millennia after some poor deluded buggers started telling fairy stories we’re letting some prat in a frock who’s out of touch with reality living in a big palace tell people what’s right and wrong.

As far as I can see, the Catholic Church is a total irrelevancy in the 21st century and the sooner it goes tits up, the better.

Footnote: I’ve just found this.

It’s a list of the frontrunners for the NEXT POPE.

Yes, that’s right, Benny hasn’t snuffed it yet and already even some Catholics themselves are looking at who’s going to be the next bloke in the funny dress at the Vatican…

The Priests!

I went looking for a CD for Mrs Shark today as an extra little stocking filler.

I looked through the racks in HMV and saw this album:

Hmmm…I thought…that’s a new band on me – never heard of them before…

Anyway, I flipped the CD over and it turned out that The Priests is a ‘band’ of priests – real priests.

Real priests singing hymns and stuff.

Needless to say, I put it back in the rack rather swiftly…

Amazon’s product description makes it sound totally resistable:

Fathers Eugene & Martin O’Hagan and David Delargy are genuine Roman Catholic priests from Northern Ireland who have been singing together since childhood. Signed on the spot by Epic after their demo landed on the MD’s desk, their album is being simultaneously released in an unprecedented 30 territories. Unsurprisingly the bulk of the material is traditional devotional music, but it also features classical excerpts and has been given a rock sheen by producer Mike Hedges (Manic Street Preachers, The Cure).

It’s the ‘rock sheen’ bit that scares the bejasus out of me…

I can imagine it now…after selling shitloads of CDs, which they have already done as the album is at number 6 in the album charts, The Priests go on tour…the stage show is amazing…a 100 foot high holographic Jesus on a cross acts as the backdrop and the ‘boys’ enter walking on water…some suggestive stage banter mentions choirboys then they launch into a RAWK version of ‘Abide With Me’ featuring the Holy Ghost on a wild electric guitar solo…God then appears saying ‘Buy this album!’…then they all transcend to heaven to a laser display that blinds half the audience…who then fall to their knees half an hour later when their eyesight recovers proclaiming that a miracle has happened…

Or maybe not.

After Christmas I will be writing to the Pope demanding that opportunism be made the 8th Deadly Sin…

My turd Clarkson/Hislop entry

Fuck.

Me.

I’m stunned…

I thought the Mail had gone completely over the top with regard to the Clarkson/Hislop pen throwing incident.

It never occurred to me that there was another newspaper which could make the incident sound worse.

And no other sleazy redtop with so little journalistic integrity could be found on the shelves of the newsagents of this green and pleasant land.

I was wrong…

I’m still convinced that the Daily Mail is such a poisonous rag that if you wiped your arse with it you’d end up with an infected rectum but for today the Star has really shown itself to be more shit than…well, the biggest cargo ship in the world crammed to the gunwhales with shit then loaded with 2000 tons of extra shit.

It also appears not to like Ian Hislop (hate figure?) – not, I imagine, that he gives a flying fuck.

Here’s what the story says, in all its overblown and inaccurate glory:

CLARKSON DECKS HISLOP

TOP Gear star Jeremy Clarkson has been hailed a hero after a bloody TV bust up with hate figure Ian Hislop.

The controversial petrol head won new fans when he wounded the smug Have I Got News For You? team captain.

Best-selling author Jeremy, 48, threw a strop while hosting the BBC show after the smarmy star accused him of not writing his own work.

He flew into a rage and chucked a pen at Hislop – who also edits Private Eye – catching him in the neck and apparently drawing blood.

An audience member said: “Jeremy was not impressed by the comments and flung the pen at Ian.

“He appeared to be bleeding and seemed stunned by the attack.

“It was just a bit of fun but it was great to see Ian on the receiving end for a change.

“Viewers are used to him sitting there making snide digs at everyone, so it was funny to see him finally getting his comeuppance.”

Hislop, 48, refused to back down. He held on to the pen and snapped back at Clarkson: “I’ll keep this as you obviously have no use for it then.”

Clarkson had lost his rag after being accused of using ghost writers for his news-paper columns.

From the headline you know you’re in for a real treat and then it just piles on exaggeration after exaggeration and then some extra exaggeration just for the sheer hell of it.

You know, it’s like watching someone construct a detailed model of the Andromeda Galaxy out of a pile of dog excrement.

It’s something no-one’s ever attempted before and it’s undeniably skilful in some sick and tortured way, elaborate to the point of being Baroque with added Gothic flying buttresses, Doric capitals and Ormolu mounts but, after all is said and done, it’s still just some dog shit.

Fascinating – that someone can actually write such stuff and get paid for it and that people actually buy the paper to read such crap.

I’ve often wondered what the opposite of polishing a turd is and I think the Star has finally provided me with a suitable expression.

Sandpapering a turd…

Another crock…

I’ve just read this story on the BBC News site:

‘X Factor vote’ for street names

Residents should be allowed to name their streets and parks after their heroes, a think-tank has suggested.

The New Local Government Network says councils should hold X Factor-style contests to find public place names.

The report suggests football hero David Beckham, born in east London, and the Gallagher brothers of Oasis, from Manchester, could be honoured.

It argues that recognising local people will help build community cohesion and civic pride.

The report also called upon London Mayor Boris Johnson to pledge that any British athlete who wins more than two medals at the 2012 Olympic Games will have a London street named after them.

Which is all fine and dandy, but what really pisses me off is that it looks as if we’re to be allowed to choose the names of the streets where we live by voting but when it comes to slightly more important matters of public concern such as whether or not to invade Iraq, join the euro zone, introduce a smoking ban, have ID cards or spend billions on the London Olympics we are denied any choice in the eventual outcome whatsoever.

It all comes down to choice and there’s far too much of it about these days.

That’s not a contradiction  – what I’m advocating is less choice over things that really don’t matter – like street names – but more choice in what’s really significant.

I don’t give a fuck if my street is named Beckham Boulevard but I do care if troops are sent in to invade a sovereign state under false pretences.

It’s just a fucking con – we think we have choice but apart from our chance every so often to vote in General and Local Elections we have very little say in what gets decided about the way we live our lives. Even then it’s often less than 50% of those entitled to vote who exercise that privilege.

I’m not sure how I feel about compulsory voting.

On the upside it would stop all those whinging sods who moan about the results when they’ve preferred to sit at home watching ‘Eastenders’ instead of voting.

On the downside it would be one more prescribed act and we already have too many of those.

Maybe all this is the thin edge of the wedge and all future elections will eventually be held on an X-Factor/Big Brother/I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here basis…you vote candidates off each week after you get Simon Cowell to mentor them and meanwhile they have to eat a bucket of maggots…

I’ll conclude with one small aspect of this that’s been niggling me since I first read the story – what is the New Local Government Network anyway, who decided it was a good idea we should have one and who fucking asked us if we wanted one?

Answers on a crock of shit, please, addressed to G Brown, 10 Downing Street, Westminster, London…

Something fishy

I found this the other day.

It’s a variation on one of those Christian fish signs – known as an Icthus – that you sometimes see on cars and denotes a belief in creationism and a denial of Darwinism.

I was re-reading the excellent Dave Gorman book  ‘A Googlewhack Adventure’ and after I’d finished the bit where Dave meets Duane T Gish – the eminent US creationist – I googled around finding more about this strange guy and his even stranger beliefs.

Strange beliefs, maybe, but shared by many millions of Usanians:

According to a 2001 Gallup poll about 45% of Americans believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” Another 37% believe that “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. Only 14% believe that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.”

I wonder what the missing 4% believe?

This one is similar to the Darwin-eating emblem above, but it’s a cartoon by someone who isn’t a creationist.

I actually found it on this creationist site where, in true blinkered style, it was reinterpreted as a sign of hope – as in at least the creationists are getting noticed by the non-believers.

Hmmm…

Here’s another fish sign – this time combined with patriotism:

Whatever happened to the separation of religion and the State?

And isn’t Pride one of the Seven Deadly Sins?

This one’s more to my taste:

Although the burning cross isn’t necessarily my favourite motif…

I like this one very much and Amazon sells it as a car emblem, which surprised me:

Imagine parking your car with that on outside an evangelical church somewhere in the Deep South…

I’m confused

Lots of comforting noises started to come out of No 10 when everyone realised that the credit crunch was actually a full-blown global catastrophe of the first magnitude and that the government could no longer pretend it was all going to go away.

There’s been talk of real help with mortgages, jobs, retraining, loans, etc.

But what’s actually happened?

The billions of quids loaned to the banks are sitting there doing bugger all, jobs are haemorrhaging on a daily basis, the pound is now worth a euro, Mandy is being tough and not loaning Jaguar Land Rover the billion they’re asking for and a leaked government document has suggested that lending the hardest-up people in society money at an interest rate of 27% apr is being considered (since strenuously denied, natch) at a time when interest rates are at their lowest ever and, to add insult to injury, Gordon Brown has said he likes the X-Factor winner’s version of “Hallelujah” and that he will buy it for someone as a present – which is possibly the most fucked-up thing he’s come out with so far…

If this is helping us, I wouldn’t like to see our government turn against us…

Good…

…grief…

I didn’t realise she had another £5 million gaff…

Credit crunch ‘victim’?