reigs

Hello again,

I wasn't intending to post any more entries but today, and after nearly a year, I feel the need to do so and here's why.

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Stratford Upon Avon and whilst sitting in the garden contemplating my day ahead I noticed that the bird feeder needed refilling and so thought i'd have a leasurely stroll into town and pop into Robert Dyas and buy some wild bird seed. It's a short walk which takes me across a picturesque footbridge that was built for Trams back in the day and there's a nature reserve on a small island right next to it on which you can see the various birds and their chicks busying themselves with their activities (which in the case of the Coot involves killing your own young - nice!) and so it's a pretty peaceful scene although very busy at this time of year due to the hoards of tourists, the majority of which tend to be from overseas drawn here by Shakespeare and the RSC and very welcome they are too. There is however a different type of tourist - English, retired, clad in anonymous pastel shades and a copy of the Daily Mail neatly folded in the M&S holdall along with various creams and unctions for every possible unexpected scenario... probably.  

It was a pair of these old puffins that I came across once i was in Robert Dyas and looking for the bird seed. They were standing staring at some garden stuff and I walked past in front of them. Now there was plenty of room and they weren't in my way and so I could pass quite easily or but uh oh! i'd walked across their line of vision and the female puffin huffed pointedly and hissed "excuse me!" at me. I swear she had a look on her face like she wanted me dead then the old funster she was with enthusiastically joined in the 2010 Great Stratford Glare-fest also. I ignored this as anyone should really but I had to walk past them again after selecting my purchase as it was the only way to the tills and exit. This caused a further outbreak of spittle and(false) teeth gnashing from Queen Zelda and so this time I thought to myself fuck it i've had it with this pair, and asked "i'm sorry is there a problem here?" to which the old fella bawls in my face "Excuse me would have been nice!" so I pointed out I was in no way in their way and they not in mine and did they seriously expect everyone in their line of vision anywhere they may happen to be, in the supermarket or street say, to ask for their regal permission to walk by? This prompted a great deal of red faced blood vessel bursting action on their part followed by him shouting in my face "Go Away!" It ended with me calling them a pair of twisted old farts, not mature I know but it made me feel good. 

A similar incident occurred last week when my friend Conrad was visiting - There is a narrow alleyway behind the row of cottages I live in and we were walking down it towards the exit and one of my neighbours, again retired and by all accounts a right old busy body, (he shouts at people for walking on his grass in front of his house even though it's public, you know the type) has a ladder blocking our way. We paused in front of the ladder thinking, as he'd seen us coming he'd move it out of our way. Instead he leaps out in front of Conrad and bellows "Do you mind just waiting a minute for god's sake?"  Conrad looks taken aback and so I say "Excuse me?" to which he shouts "Well you're trying to push past" there then follows an exchange in which I tried to point out that we were not doing anything of the sort and besides whilst we're on the subject of manners he should have politely moved the ladder out of our way etc etc.

Now the reason i'm banging on about these two (and there are more) incidents is because there seems to be an asrequake of this kind of shit from old middle class types at the moment and Stratford Upon Avon seems to be the epicentre. I was recently in London on a really hot day in and out of crowded tube stations and trains, Oxford St, Camden High St. etc situations in which there was huge scope for confrontation yet everybody seemed to co-exist quite happily despite this.

It seems to me that there is a kind of collective misery here in Stratford in which people who have a lot  be grateful for - nice big (paid for) houses, retirement funds, status symbol cars, kids left home, loads of free time etc, are the most miserable bunch of cunts i've ever come across bar none. I mean it's not as if they live in Liberia amongst crackhead gun toting pirates or are about to have their livelihoods destroyed by an oil slick for fuck's sake so why are they so miserable? It cements my opinion that the English (and I mean English not Scots Irish or Welsh or even Londoners, as I see them as a separate breed much like New Yorkers or Parisiennes) have a problem with something and that problem whatever it may be is getting worse. I work in retail (book shop) and as such get to be a verbal punch bag for any old twat that decides to come in and vent spleen about whatever tiny insignificant matter, real or imagined, that happens to be getting their goat that day/minute/second. It's not the best job in the world and not that well paid either but in lieu of a better one it's ok and there are worse things I could be doing and why should I change my job because people can't stop being cunty? Anyway it wouldn't work because they're everywhere! 



      

Hello,

I've recently started using Twitter as I got bored with Facebook within about a month and am now also doing the same with Twitter after only 2 weeks or so. It's not that one is any worse than the other more that being a misanthrope I'm not the target audience, but out of curiosity I gave it a try hoping also to understnd it's appeal and of course have something to rant about.

The main thing that bothers me about Twitter is not the strangers that start following you or the endless obvious phishing scams with pictures of  naked oriental girls in the profiles but the way in which it gives you access into the lives of well known personalities. Now some people might see this as the whole point of Twitter and I'm not naive enough to think that all celebrities are unaware of exactly how much insight into their lives they're allowing if any, but some of them plainly are not aware (we're dealing with celebrities here remember) A few, and there are probably many more out there, are using it as a desperate vehicle to keep their star in the ascendancy long after it has plummeted to earth in the misguided belief they are not now merely wandering aimlessly around the rim of it's crater... in the rain....without shoes......crying. What's more, some Twitterers out there (Twats?) are using it as a way to try and befriend celebrities which is just creepy. It reminds me of a headline in the Onion once that said “Fan Knows Exactly What He'd Say To Christina Ricci If He Met Her”

The undoubted King of Twitter as far as I can tell at the moment is Stephen Fry, a title I'm sure he's more than aware of with his (at todays count) 649,343 followers, a fact that was not accidentally dropped into conversation by Jeremy Clarkson during Fry's his recent appearence on Top Gear. According to his Twitter profile Mr Fry is simultaneously following 54,877 people as well. Now why on earth would he claim to be following that many people? If every one of them tweeted only once in a 24 hr period he'd have 54,877 tweets to read through. Of course they all wouldn't do that but a conservative estimate would, given Twitter's current popularity, be least a several hundred or so a day right? And there's no way on earth he's going to read through all of those tweets what with his acting, writing novels, hosting TV quizzes, documentary filming, newspaper columns, gadget testing, various other TV appearances, travel, (last week he was in St Petersburg, oooOOOh didn't know that did you? Yes he visited the Hermitage and went to a concert oooOOOH) being an ibassador for Apple phones oh and presumably having some kind of private life too. He's not following these people at all he's probably just sitting there in his smoking jacket clocking his increasing number of acolytes and cackling like some kind of needy Bond Villain.

During lunch in order to escape the Shitting Forecast or BBC lunchtime news as it's more commonly known I switched to ITV and unfortunately happened on Loose Women. This daily chatalogue of umska would probably make Emmeline Pankhurst shit with rage and is as you may know aimed mainly at housewives or stay at home menopausal alcoholics as a kind of right on sista ladette laugh-a-thon in which quelle surprise they poke fun at men, husbands ex boyfriends etc whilst slyly giving each other evils and competitively shout over one another for an hour. Today's mind numbing blood speckled turdfest culminated in a non singing personal appearance by some teen boy band who's name I instantly forgot (probably something like BEEF 4 REAL) introduced by Jackie Brambles with the words “Keep calm ladies”. Now let's imagine for a minute that there was a male version of Loose Women called (make up your own name) in which lardy middle aged men talked openly about Penile dysfunction and nagging wives/girfriends that can't catch spiders and then Chris Moyles introduces a pubescent teen girl band by bellowing “Boner Alert! let's give a big right hand for JAILB8”. How long do you think that'd last? 

 Talking of the lunch time news. Up here on the Moon we have to suffer Midlands Today usually presided over by geriatric eye candy and champion smarmster Nick Owen, whose biography by the way is entitled, In The Time Of Nick  ....yeah. As on most days not much really happens around these here parts so they desperately try to fill the slot by tenuously linking the Midlands with bigger news stories happening down there in “that London”. Today the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth was due to be grilled (it hadn't even happened yet) in the House of Commons over the recent deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan, in particular the fact that the death toll was 9 in the last 24hrs. Midlands today pounced on the statistic that apparently 3 of them came from the Midlands thus poaching the story which is as weak as saying the Defence Secretary faces tough questioning today over the number of Aquarians killed in Afghanistan as 3 of the recently deceased were found to have been born between 21^st January & 19^th February. They then poke a camera in the face of a bereaved relative of course forcing them to say something like “This shouldn't happen”. I don't want to appear callous but when is someone on TV (probably Peter Hitchins) going to openly state the obvious and say that being killed in a war is an occupational hazard of being a soldier like a Fire Fighter is likely to encounter.....er things on fire?  

On a lighter note I have an idea for a re-working of Cash In The Attic – Slash In The Attic – in which instead of trying to flog worthless tat in a depressing auction room somewhere that you'll make a mental note never to visit, you have to follow a trail of clues around a really posh house eventually leading to the attic and the 1st contestant to get up there and take a slash in it then race triumphantly back to the presenter (Stephen Fry?) bearing some sort of piss drenched litmus paper as proof gets to wipe their arse on the curtains.
This would of course ultimately spawn it's more popular sister show - Aristocraps - in which a similar but more messy competition takes place in various stately homes....... "Join us next week when we'll be crapping all over Longleat House & Safari Park home to multi-coloured mentalist Lord Bath, the interior of which was inspired by the colours of a Mandrill's arse." It could only be presented of course by the aptly named Paul Heiney.


Lord Bath


     A Mandrill


Other annoyances -

People that start sentences with “Yeah No” or "No Yeah"

TV Chefs – some of you please f**k off there are too many. No wonder there's an obesity crisis.

Those plastic charity sacks put through the letter box that try to guilt you into filling them. Today's bore the banner “We believe in children DO YOU?”

Young people of Britain here are your choices -

(a) Set your sights unrealistically high i.e. become a Pop Star or David Beckham

or

(b) Get pregnant & live on benefits because the media would have you believe there are no others.

One thing that is making me laugh a lot though is when Murder She Wrote pretends to be filmed somewhere other than a back lot in LA like "Oirland" or Australia. with suitably hilarious accents. Apparently Angela Lansbury is the highest paid TV actress in history, wtf?

Current music,   The Eels - Hombre Lobo. This is my favourite track which sounds like Whatever You Want by Staus Quo weirdly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fLQ9ATx7n8

remember we're all just flies on a Banana.

Alright?

Well that's another Glastonbury over then. I didn't go, I never do, but decided as I do every year to have a mini Glastonbury at home instead with the telly which basically involves drinking too much while watching it and shouting at the bands I don't like.

The BBC though for some reason decided to make it as difficult as possible for the millions of music fans who aren't there, for whatever reason – apathy, work, £, hatred of younger skinnier happier people etc to achieve said rantathon by making us jump through hoops in order to get anything like constant coverage of the shenanigans unfolding down in Pilton.

There was the usual telly coverage on the Beeb for a few hours each night but it went on until 2AM! (yeah cos all music fans are nocturnal aren't they? It goes without saying.) Now I'm not so fussed about the transmission time more the contempt within which the BBC seems to constantly hold music fans. They screwed around with Later with Jools which didn't work and now with Glastonbury they're making me flit between BBC2, and BBC3 & 4 (the latter in my case being on-line as we don't have cable or a dishes in Medieval Stratford Upon Avon and necessitates me having to fire up the pc etc like Rod Hull wrestling with his TV ariel on the roof) at wildly differing times every night and that's if the stupid BBC iPlayer doesn't crash on you and then inform “This content doesn't seem to be working at the moment because we're useless. Please try later” (Did you know you can now pay your licence fee online? yes) I had to jump between 4 BBC website links just to get to see a bit of Nick Cave's set and the same for The Prodigy but not the complete sets, oh no we can't have people enjoying ALL of the sets. Why can't they just broadcast it throughout the evening as it happens for the duration? After all we have to suffer hour after hour of Wimbledon daily FOR TWO WEEKS! Yet they won't do the same for one weekend of Glastonbury? The UK music industry is one of our biggest exports and one in which we have historically and still continue to excel in and which makes a damn sight more money for the economy than fucking Tennis. Still at least Glastonbury wasn't on Channel 4 with its interminably long ad breaks (more about ads later) during which you forget what you were watching - you'd probably be able to pair up your odd socks, alphabtise your cd collection and still have enough time for a really long wank before the programme came back on again it's ridiculous.

The other gauntlet the hapless viewer is forced to run is the inane vacuous butt clenchingly cringe making vapid presenting duo that is Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe, Jesus H Christ what a prize cunting partnership that is. I'd just be getting all into it then up pops Granny Whiley to interrupt and let us know how cool she's feeling right now or how she'd heard of some band currently popular with teenagers way before WE had. Like some kind of musical paedophile and dropping about a million names whilst desperately, and I mean desperately, trying to somehow get her new boots into the fucking shot. At one point she was squirming around with one eye on the monitor so intensely I thought she was trying to pull off some kind of Yoga move! It was vanity of unparalleled proportions. Zane Lowe (a man who talks to the camera like he's rehearsing it in front of his bedroom mirror) was having none of it though and kept ignoring the references she was making to her fabulous footwear - “These boots were made for walking” & heaving her pins into view “Good job I'm not wearing long trousers Zane!” - spoken like a true Granny. She also kept mentioning her favourite bands all the time too like we give a shit? Surely the bands must secretly worry about the trade off of being endorsed by a vacuum in designer wellingtons verses potential sales? Well if they have any self re-cocking-spect they would.

It wasn't all shit though. I enjoyed shouting at Florence And The Machine who a friend & I both discovered we hate venomously and drunkenly texted each other arranging her demise, here's a sample -

Friend: Just in from pub. Cannot stand FLORENCE  AND MACHINE they won't be around next year.

Me: I'd to kill her and her Machine.

Friend: Meanwhile what's this terrible shit? Is it Paolo Nuttini? SHIT!

Me: Yes, he has an untidy mouth.

Friend: Ooh look it's yesterday's band (Franz Ferdinand)

Me: I wish someone would throw a hand grenade at THEM like their namesake.

Friend: God and now Granny (Whiley) has turned up.

Me: Uh Oh it's her.

Friend: SHE'S ON NOW (Florence) do you think there'd be room up her arse for her machine and my boot?

Me: Your boot and Pendulum yeah.

Friend: Granny enjoyed Pendulum. Woo hoo granny.

Friend: Would we be able to cram those flags up Florence's pooper too?

Me: Yeah, and fuck off Nathan and don't forget yer Flute (some guy called Nathan who'd just finished an acoustic bit in front of Granny Whiley)

Friend: Lube that Flute up Nathan, it's heading Florence's way.

Me: Let's get Eric Cantona to penalty kick Zane in the balls? They'd go so far up his arse that every time he took a shit he'd shit all over his balls.

Friend: Kick his balls up Florence's arse then grab Cantona and shove him up too.

Me: Then fire them from a medieval Trebuchet into the Swat Valley wearing “F**k the Taliban” t-shirts

Friend: No fire them from a Trebuchet BACK IN TIME UP FLORENCE'S ARSE.

Me: Fire her back in time up her arse and make her murder her parents before they can conceive her.

Friend: Fire her parents FORWARD IN TIME UP HER ARSE while they're conceiving her.

.........and so on. I told you we were drunk.

Other stuff annoying me lately,

Alastair Stewart shouting the news – it's like being called into your bosses office for a bollocking.

The BBC (again) trying to sex up Royal Ascot - yeah Horses.

Adverts for faux Chinese food that Chinese people would never eat that include bad Kung Fu (usually being demonstrated by the Chef)

Adverts with dancing in them - Fabric Softener, Beer, Phones, Breakfast Cereals, Banks/Building Society's, Aaaargh! I'm not asking.

Adverts where the product animatedly turns into something it's not and can never be - car into ice skating Transformer/giant mountain climbing metalic Spider. 

The Adios advert with that nubile woman jumping around in her pants – isn't Adios just Speed?

Adverts.

Lottery winners that don't want to change their lives except “buy a new water feature for the garden” when asked by an incredulous reporter “Why not a new garden for the water feature?” the answer came “No.” Wtf? they won 25 million Euro, take the money back off them now. Do you remember that woman that worked in a greasy spoon who won millions and said she'd be back at work in the cafe asap “to keep things normal”? Yeah cos I find I can't abide a full english breakfast unless it's served to me by a multi-millionaire can you?

Old people staring – Why do they have to look at everybody younger than them in that obviously disapproving way like your mere existence is a threat to national security? Anyway there probably won't be any old people left alive soon if tonight's news was anything to go by. Yes there's going to be a heatwave (err it's called Summer) in which all old people are going to perish if we don't hose them down every 5 minutes with water cannons. Has it occurred to the media how old folks have managed to live so long, through WW2 etc without being patronised by twats? Or it was due to them remembering to occasionally HAVE A GLASS OF WATER? You just try making an oldster sit somewhere they're not comfortable and see what happens. or god forbid get between a pensioner and their bus - you'd be safer getting between a Lioness and her cubs.

The hot weather always reminds me of that old advert featuring John Stalker, the ex- Deputy Chief Superintendent of Greater Manchester Police and his dog Drummer in which he begins by shouting "ARE YOU SICK AND TIRED OF THE CONSTANT GLARE OF THE SUN RUINING THE ENJOYMENT OF YOUR GARDEN?"  Eh? run that by us again John. The constant glare of the Sun ruining the enjoyment of your garden? What's he going to do you think to yourself, arrest the Sun? Soon it all becomes clear though when you see that he's trying to part pensioners from their savings in order for them to purchase, wait for it,  -remote controlled Sun Blinds. Which, upon closer inspection appear to be windowless corrugated metal shutters with badly stencilled flowers on them to cover your entire garden for about 2 grand a pop. The instalment and running of which would simultaneously pray upon pensioners security fears and run up a hideous electricity bill what with the stair lift and re-charging the mobility scooter. Nice one John! The weirdest bit is right at the end though when he inexplicably bellows at his dog "COME ON DRUMMER YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT." wtf?

Michael Jackson's death – who would have thought that'd be weird eh?..... Meh.

I see tonight's TV highlights includes autopsys carried out on really big animals.

Remember we're all just flies on a Banana.


 

Hello again,

 Is there anything worse than bank holiday weekend TV? I just switched on hoping to find some epic film like Spartacus or maybe The Wld Geese with the visibly drunk Richard's Burton and Harris that I could veg out to whilst gorging myself on proper granny made apple pie courtesy of Lydia's gran and cups of tea but no. There's the usual T4 shitfest or Mollusc TV as I like to call it (don't you think Steve Jones and that Rick guy with the huge jaw are waaay too old to be presenting a kids programme? - creepy, and what's with that Miquita Oliver who finds everything she says so hilarious she must have permenantly cracked ribs? ) and the schedule is almost the same as a normal Monday but not quite. It's like the telly people know most of us wont be watching anyway because we'll all be poisoning ourselves at barbeques or stuck in a traffic jam in the Ford Frantic on the way to World Of Leather and so just got bored halfway through deciding what to put on and just f**ked off home instead?  They didn't forget to schedule that documentary about people having LIVE SURGERY though did they? Oh no mustn't forget that vouyeuristic piece of lowest common denominator bottom feeding. Who the f**k wants to watch that? "Ooh look Derek you can see his Spleen!... pass the salad dressing." and if you turn over it's just Attenborough watching insects f**king in the Galapagos.

If they're going to dumb down telly then they may as well go the whole hog and strap a camera to Calum Best's cock for the weekend or how about my mate Conrad's idea for a new game show - Vanessa Feltz's Shotgun Saturday - contestants have to answer some really hard questions like, What do Anteaters eat? (a) Pasta Parcels (b) Termites or (c) Hamburgers, and then perform some rudimentary physical feat like a head over heels with a team of muscley helpers in track suits on hand in case fat contestants get stuck, then the eventual winner gets to blast Vanessa Feltz in the face with both barells of a shotgun - genius! There could only be one show obviously but who cares?

Talking of fat people i'm turning into a right tubster. I was telling my old friend The Peden about my increasing girth the other day and how i've become incapable of not having a pudding after every meal and get quite sulky if there isn't one. I promised myself on the way to the supermarket for the weekly shop that I wouldn't buy any but yet found myself spending 20 mins choosing one. I'd eaten half a Trifle with dinner the night before and made myself feel sick but was now eyeing up a Lemon Meringue Pie. Later that evening, after gobbling down my main course like a dog eating hot chips I dived in declaring to Lydia that it was the best Lemon Meringue ever but maybe a little doughy at the base? To which she replied "That's because you're supposed to finish cooking it first".... a half cooked pie! WTF?
 
Yes fat is in the air, everywhere I look around. Fat unfunny comedian pretending to be gay - James Corden. Fat shouty drunk man that wont let anyone else speak  - Johnny Vegas. Fat sometimes funny man with eyebrow plucking fetish of midlife crisis proportions - Ricky Gervais. Fat daytime tv presenter with head superimposed onto younger yoga fit body in order to sell FOOD - Fearne Brittan, and so to paraphrase that annoying song - I predict a diet, that is after I return from Cornwall where i'm off to on Friday for a week of Pastie, Cream Tea and Ale abuse with some friends yaaaay! I'm taking an 8ft Flexifoil power kite to fly on the beach but scared myself watching clips on youtube of people being carried hundreds of feet into the air on gusts of wind then realised there's not much chance of that happening to me.... Belch!    

Remember we're all just flies on a Banana,

bye.

p.s. some guy just e-mailed me about my comments on youtube re the safety aspects of power kiting and informed me that the model I have is  "Not really a beginners kite and can be pretty nasty".....oh shit look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjNm7U63hoQ