Sunday 15 June 2008

Diana Watch

Well who would have thought it, after 4 or 5 weeks of nothing we suddenly have a Diana related story. Now the thing is that it is really seedy so I’m not going to mention it or which paper it’s on but it does exist, honest. It’s my wedding next Saturday so a little busy at the moment and haven’t really been paying that much attention to the news so have missed many of the weeks important stories but a few have made it though my wedding filtered glasses. The vote on the governments plans to lock shifty looking people up for 42 days without trial whilst they desperately try and find something against them did cross my radar this week, with 2 items really interesting me. 1, the DUP, who saved the Government by voting for them, made assurances to a Conservative MP earlier in the week that they would vote against the Government again leading everyone to think that their votes were bought and that they have no morals or spines what so ever, and 2, the resignation of David Davis so that he could fight a by-election on this issue. Now this was strange and, I have to admit, it makes very little sense to me. I don’t see why he has done this and what it he is attempting to achieve or by what the Labour Party are trying to achieve by thinking about putting up a candidate to run against him, well they haven’t decided either way, but let me give them this advise, if you put up a candidate it will legitimise this strange happening so don’t do it and you have the high ground.

Strike action now and some Shell petrol stations have been effected by some tanker drivers striking over their pay. There are a couple of issues here, the Daily Express handled the story with it’s usual calm way with a series of headlines claiming that the petrol was going to run out and we were all going to die. Only 10% of petrol stations were effected so 90% of were unaffected but you wouldn’t have known it if you read that paper. The other thing is how much these truck drivers actually get paid at the moment. The average wage for one of these drivers is £32000. Now I think that that is quite a lot of money and the deal they have turned down would have taken their average earnings to a very generous £39500, which I think you will agree is plenty of money for driving a lorry.

Anyway, this week awards,

Insult of the Week,

Amoeba minded fuck-wit, as uttered by a friend of mine.

Odd Animal Story of the Week,

The BBC website assured me that the story that they had about a pig that was scared/worried by/phobic of (choose your own anthropomorphising phrase) mud and the farmer of the pig put little Wellington boots on to its little legs and its fine now. I’m not so sure about the truth here.
Photobucket

Thursday 12 June 2008

What Are Your Principles Worth?

Dear The Democratic Unionist Party,
Come on, be honest, how much did your 9 votes cost? The votes that saved Gordon Brown and this incredibly right-wing government with their completely unnecessary 42-day detention without trial plan. Because lets be honest, any Government that is more right wing than the Tory party is pretty right wing. It is putting me in a difficult position of agreeing with the Conservative party. Which makes me feel very uncomfortable indeed. And the BNP. And UKIP. But not Ann Widdecombe rather pleasingly. I did note that one of your MP’s had a grin a mile wide when being interviewed on the news and could be described as suspicious looking but I’m sure it meant nothing as it was strenuously denied. Please think about what you have done with supporting this illiberal, human rights removing, civil rights eroding and quite unneeded waste of everyone’s time,

Yours Saddened,
Martyn xx

Monday 9 June 2008

Diana Watch

Yes I know it’s late, sorry, I had a very busy Sunday and I’ve just come in now to find a couple of tail fathers on my stairs and a Thrush sat on my computer monitor and my cat looking deeply smug. The bird war released unharmed, well if you count out the tail feathers obviously. Other wildlife related stories, I saw a Barn Owl this week and this has made me very happy. I’ve never seen one in the wild before so this was a very nice thing to see. As you may have noticed I’ve started with animal stories so some of you may be thinking “ah there aren’t any Diana stories this week are there? “ and you would be right. A Madeline McCann story, “the McCann’s first holiday since their child went missing”, I hope there are a little more attentive this time, and a couple of Prince William and Harry stories but nothing on their Mum. Fear not though, I will persist, mostly because it’s fun and I don’t have that much to do, except of course, get married which I will be doing in 2 weeks time so there will be no Diana watch on the 22nd of June and maybe the 29th as I’ll be on honeymoon and I don’t think significant other would be overly impressed.

Comedy Named MEP of the Week,

Den Dover who has denied any wrong-doing in paying his wife and daughter a reported £750,000 for work over nine years but I care not about this, I care about his silly, silly name.

Lazy Journalism of the Week,

This week it goes to the BBC. Before every major football tournament most news programs will use the following format. 2 news presenters, one man, one woman, and 2 guests, one football loving man and one football hating women, usually a comedian and usually over weight, and they discuss the pros and cons of football and 5 to 10 minutes is filled and nothing is learnt. I was unfortunate enough to see this on Saturday morning on the BBC’s breakfast news. Stop it. Think of something new.

Pointless Warning of the Week,

Thank you very much Channel 4 for giving significant other and myself the biggest laugh of the week. Before they show a film they give out o warning of some sort if the film is violent or whatever. On Saturday night channel 4 showed Team America, the marionette amusement from South Park creators Tray Parker and Matt Stone and due to the content of the movie Channel 4 felt that the following warning was necessary, “the following film contains strong language and scenes of a sexual nature.” Scenes of a sexual nature? THEY’RE PUPPETS!

Lame Apology of the Week,

For those of you who do not watch Formula 1 you will have missed the crapest crash of all time which resulted in both Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen retiring from Sundays Canadian Grand Prix. Long story but Hamilton crashed into back of Raikkonen at the end of the pit lane at about 20 miles per hour. Lewis has since said “I apologise to Kimi if I ruined his race. I would rather neither of us be out.” IF I ruined his race? I think that we can all agree that yes you did ruin his race because you broke his car by not looking where you were going.

I had a slightly odd experience in Waitrose earlier today. I am wearing a T-shirt that say godless liberal on it. Whilst shopping on old lady pointed at it, laughed loudly and poked me in the chest. Very odd indeed.

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Handling What?

Dear Ticketmaster,
Thank you very much for the tickets I ordered on line, downloaded and printed myself from you. All want well and I gained admission to the concert that I wanted to see, Guillemots supported by the awful Royworld (think Bruce Hornsbury and the Range but fronted by a man in a to tight waist coat), but then I realised that I had been conned. It occurred to me that I had booked ONLINE and I had PRINTED THE TICKETS MYSELF yet you had charged £3.50 handling change. That’s per ticket. An extra £7 on what? You hadn’t handled anything. Not a thing, it was all done on the internet. Do you not think that this is a little bit expensive and unnecessary? Please think about this because it puts me off using your website,

Yours trying to find a cheaper alternative,
Martyn xx

Sunday 1 June 2008

Diana Watch

Afternoon too you all, are we all well today? Good, glad to hear it. Anyway to the main point of Sunday (am I overstating the case? I don’t think so), Diana watch is upon us again. Can you guess how many headlines there have been this week? Yes that’s right, none. Not a thing, again. Ah well can’t be helped. At least I get to look at the fronts of all the papers and make up my own stories to the headlines. This is a fun game; I recommend it to everyone, tis most fun.
Sports headlines for the week. England football games are boring and very fast running man set new world record for the 100 metres. The first one is pretty self explanatory. I watched the first half of the England game on Wednesday evening and it was so very, very dull. I turned over and watched something else.
Too the second one, Usain Bolt set a new 100m world record by clocking 9.72 seconds at the Reebok Grand Prix meeting in New York. The 21-year-old Jamaican, who won silver in the 200m at last year's World Championships, was running the 100m for just the fifth time. Earlier in the year he ran, what was at the time, the second fastest 100m ever and at that point made no secret of the fact that he saw himself as a 200m runner and hadn’t decided if he was going to the run in the 100m trials for Jamaica but now that he is the fastest man in the world he is going to put in the effort.

Some graffiti from Charing Cross station “Bob Dylan isn’t interesting”

Terrible Shame of the Week.

The “party” on the underground that was to celebrate/commiserate the banning of alcohol on public transport in London turned into a bit of a disaster because some people get really, really drunk and broke stuff. Stupid bastards. This is what annoys me about some people. Everyone else thought it would be nice to have a little drink on the underground and have a laugh but no, twats drink too much and punch underground staff and ruin it all for everyone. If you are one of these people please get on and die.

Most Ironical Named Submarine of the Week.

A British nuclear-powered submarine has crashed into a rock in the Red Sea and damaged its sonar equipment. The submarine had just passed through the Suez Channel when it struck the underwater pinnacle. The damaged forced it to the surface and the navy are trying to work out how to get it home. The submarine is called HMS Superb.

Strangely Pointless but Heart Warming Protest of the Week.

Lots of lovely Emo kids marched on the offices of the Daily Mail yesterday to protest about the way that paper has represented them since the suicide of 13 year old Hannah Bond. The paper has descried Emo as a cult of suicide and self harm, blaming most of it on My Chemical Romance. There is a “black Parade” joke there for the making I think. "It's been brilliant, such a good atmosphere. We've all united for a good cause," protestor Katie Hughes, 15, from Dorking told NME.COM. "Most people here always listen to My Chemical Romance positively." Children marching against the Daily Mail! Oh yes, it gives me a little warm feeling deep inside my cynical heart. It seems there may be hope for us all. Even though there were only about 40 or 50 of them in the end I salute every single one of them. Also the website www.whatthefrank.co.uk is cute emo fun, especially the How To Not Get Arrested part.

“Celebrity” Idiot of the Week.

This is a bit of a difficult one this week but I think I will give the runner up prize to Naomi Campbell who appeared in court this week, again, charged with assault, again. For gods sake put this nasty woman in jail and have done with it. But we do have a winner and it is, drum roll, Sharon Stone who said at the a Cannes Film Festival red carpet, "I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," she told a Hong Kong TV crew.
"And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, 'is that karma - when you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?”
Celebrities are stupid, throw stones at them.