If you were to ask me why...

I signed up to write a fifty thousand word novel in less than eighteen days I'd tell you it was because I was confident of being able to do so. But honestly I'd be lying out my teeth. I did it because I was looking for something to keep my mind off cigarettes.
I've smoked for the last 20 years and recently gave up the demon weed because I had the horrible experience of seeing someone I care about lying in a hospital bed with pneumonia. She was breathing (if you can call it that) oxygen from a tube stuck up her nose and had a drip in her arm. The colour had gone from her face and there was an underlying look of fear in those pretty brown eyes of hers. So that was it for me. No more cigarettes. No more lighting up, no more inhaling smoke deep into my battle scarred lungs and no more looking cool.

I should prepare for the following days of sitting in front of the computer; I should outline a story; I should think of characters that add depth and give you the reader someone to care for; I should get a whiteboard and some highlighters and do a complicated time-line to help me with the plot; But I've not got the time to do that so, fuck that nonsense. I'm just going get get stuck in.

I mean, surely fifty thousand words can't be that difficult. Shit, Keroauc sat down and wrote “On the Road” in one sitting. Or is that just Urban Legend? Who knows. Wikipedia probably does but I've not got the time to look it up right now. Well, actually I do but if I am to ever finish this gig I must stay away from the time stealing distraction that is the internet.

I love the internet. Love it. Like nothing I've ever loved before. Where else can you find, not only, the accumulated knowledge of the world but also video of stuff like Two Girls One Cup and more porn than one man can reasonably look at in ten lifetimes? Nowhere.

But that's not getting anything approaching a novel done...

So, plot... Should I write a thriller in a Dan Brown vein? At least that way I can write pages and pages of utterly pointless descriptive narrative in order to pad it out and make it look wordy. Or should I write something in the TeenVampire/TeenWizard/TeenMonster genre in the hope that it'll take off like J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and I can get rich and spend buckets of money buying my own island somewhere.

Then again that's gonna take something approaching talent and I'm short on that right now.

I could do with a cigarette right about now. Sure it's not good for me but it helps get the creative juices flowing. Well, that's what I think anyhow. And who are you to tell me different? Huh? Who the fuck do you think you are? God? Ha! Fuck you! I spit in your eye and call you a big girls blouse...

I'm sorry, I've no idea where that came from. Maybe I should stop thinking about cigarettes and start concentrating on characters for this novel. I should have at least one male lead so I'll start with him...

He's a handsome rugged type. He's sporty, well educated and suave. He's of Italian parentage. He's dark haired with what women would call “Smouldering” eyes and good manners. He's probably named Fabio St-John Farthington, has perfect teeth, is tall, tanned and toned like a Grecian God and
he's getting on my nerves already. Fuck him. He's being killed off in the first chapter and I'm going to replace him with someone we normal people can associate with.

Alfie Stark ~ A Butchers apprentice from Chester. He's down to earth, swears in the company of the boys but never says the word “Cunt” in front of women; He goes to the football every Saturday and cheers on his local team but has never joined in on the whole “Football is more important that life” nonsense that many of his friends ascribe to. He's got a squint nose from when it was broken in an accident involving a bacon slicer. (The Bacon slicer subsequently moved away and patched things up with her husband.) He's what his friends would describe as a “Salt of the earth” type. He's a good guy in a world where values are no longer valued, where morals are considered immoral and where holding a door open for the wrong woman can bring accusations of chauvinism. In short, he's pretty well everything to everyone. Except the husband of a former bacon slicer. To him he's a fucking prick and should be strung up like so many pounds of whitepudding.

So, that's my male lead sorted out. Now I need a female lead...

Erin McFadyen ~ She's a projectionist in a local old style cinema. She lives in Chester now but was born in Nottingham and raised in Loughborough. She's travelled about a bit thanks to her dad being in the T.A and longs to go to Thailand for an extended holiday. She's socially awkward and just a little bit of a geek. She's red-haired, nothing spectacular to look at and feels out of place wherever she is. She's a film buff who rates the early work of Hitchcock as his best and thinks Quentin Tarantino is a big chinned fuck. She knows her way around a computer and has more friends online than she'll ever have in real life. She's had one boyfriend and one awkward lesbianistic fumble with a girl from Scunthorpe.

How's that for a female lead? Yeah, I thought so too. Now I need a setting. Looks like it's going to be Chester. Maybe I should look up some interesting points in Chester, for background. All I know about Chester is that it's got a zoo. At least I'm sure that there's a Zoo in Chester. Maybe I dreamed that... Nope... According to a tourist website I just looked up Chester indeed does have a Zoo. Not only that but it has “A wide variety of walking tours” and “Boasts the largest garden zoo in England and is the UK's number one wildlife attraction.” Well, fuck me, who would have thought Chester was so full of such wonderful ways to spend your time...

Maybe I need to rethink the location of my novel. Going by what the website points out as “places of interest” Chester seems to be a bit of a shithole. Perhaps I should make the location somewhere more exotic, somewhere where the sun shines more than one day a year and the populace is less miserable than a chronic depressive at a Morrisey concert.

Lyon ~ France. Home to many attractive people and places to visit. There are twenty museums in Lyon alone. Twenty! Good lord, that's a lot of museums. Chester has one. And it looks like somewhere the dead wouldn't even visit... Lyon also has a river running through it. It looks quite like somewhere I'd like to go for a weekend. It looks clean and the people look like they've read books with complicated words in it. Unlike Chester, which looks to all intents and purposes like no one there has ever read anything that didn't have pictures to help explain what was going on in the story. The people of Lyon have read Jean-Paul Satre, the people of Chester think Jean-Paul Satre designs jeans.

Of course if I move the setting to Lyon then the main characters are going to have to be adapted to fit the location. After all who's going to believe that those two people could in any way be French? The French are suave and sophisticated and those characters would be as out of place as someone with talent being on the X-Factor. I'm sure we'd all agree that's something that's never going to happen.

So, now that the location has changed I should alter the main characters stories to fit. Alfie is now Alfredo. The rest can stay the same. You don't like it? Tough. I'm the one writing this thing. Not you. And quite frankly if I don't keep writing I'm going to run out the door like a world champion sprinter straight to the local shop and buy a pack of cigarettes.

Next I need a basic plot. Should it be a love story? Or an adventure story? Maybe it could be a farce? The French like a good farce. Look at their history for gods sake! It's one catastrophe after another and they always manage to get through it with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, a “Ce la vie” and the casual lighting of another Gauloise... Christ I hate the French.

France is out and frankly Chester seems too bloody dull to set a story in so I'm going to have to rethink this whole thing and instead do what most writers do. Write about what I know. And therein lies a big problem. I know nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Well, that's not strictly true, I do know some things. They're just not that interesting. Not really.

So, having existed for less than an hour Alfredo and Erin are now consigned to the bin of characters that never were and I'm back to square one. I've not passed go, I've not collected $200 and I'm still 48,394 words short of finishing this thing. Maybe I've overstretched myself on this one. It's basically a long rambling screed that's on par with the worst writing ever committed to paper. Or pixels as the case may be.

Right! First things first, I need a coffee, and a cigarette... Fuck.

Anyway... Back to the writing. Or at least I'm trying to but there's three women having a conversation behind me, my sister and two of her pals, and they're doing the usual “we're-having-a-conversation-so-everyone-should-hear-us” thing and it's putting me off. What's the gig with women? How can they possibly have a conversation with four, five and sometimes six of them involved, all be talking at the same time and yet never lose the place any of them are at? If four guys were to try that their heads would explode like they were starring in a David Kronenburg film.

Then again, blokes can piss standing up. Who'd not like that as a skill?

JK Rowling is Scottish...

So you'd think she would be more sensible with money and not go doing something stupid like giving a million pounds to the labour party, a party who I personally wouldn't trust with a kids piggy bank. This is exactly the reason women shouldn't be given money. They'll only go and spend it on silly things like shoes, posters of Richard Gere and tampons. Instead of squandering it on other bleeding twats.

*I would like to point out that this post is meant in a joking manner. I do not want to get hate mail from a bunch of hairy arsed lesbian feminists or bearded ladies.

Minor changes...

Have been made to the layout of my blog to improve the look of it.

• Archive now in a drop down menu.
• Slideshow added.
• Labels and tags in a cloud.

Hope you like them.

Tonight I learned...

That no matter how hard you wish and plead to the fairies, or kiss a lucky cloverleaf, or click your heels together and recite "There's no place like home... There's no place like home... There's no place like home..." or pray to the very Gods themselves... You cannot transport yourself through the sub ether (Or whatever the correct terminology is) and materialise on a beach in Mozambique.

This was not an easy thing to accept at the time, as I was standing behind a bar trying not to scream in someones face "YOU'RE AS INTERESTING AS A SECOND HAND TEABAG! GET OUT MY SIGHT BEFORE I STAB YOU IN THE HEAD WITH A PEN!", so I focused my concentration and tried for somewhere closer to home... Specifically, Wales.

Don't ask why my mind chose Wales, because I don't know. Of all the places I could have chosen that are closer to my house than Mozambique, which is six thousand and forty three miles away, at the time Wales seemed as good a place as any. Despite the fact that to my knowledge most of Wales is as interesting as watching flies fuck.

After at least a minute of focused concentration I gave in and tried for somewhere even closer to home. More precisely, home itself. The place that, technically, should be the easiest of all. After another couple of minutes of intense and focused concentration I opened my eyes to find that I was still standing in a dive of a bar, in a crappy suburb of an even shittier city.

To my utter surprise the person, whose face I was attempting not to scream at, was still standing in front of me talking away about the most mundane thing ever to have breath wasted on.

"Hello..." I said. "Anyone home?"
"Eh?" Came the monosyllabic response.
"I was just wondering if you were planning on noticing that I'm as interested in this conversation as I am in sampling chocolate covered dog shit." I said, praying that the person to whom I was speaking would chalk it up to humour and not punch me in the face.

The gimp laughed and continued uninterrupted, due to me being busy attempting to make their heart grind to a scrunching, and hopefully very very, painful halt. Once more I was confounded by the powers that be and the person did not seize their chest and die in abject agony.

"Look, sorry, don't take this the wrong way will you but this whole conversation is the mental equivalent of sweetcorn. It's only purpose is to waste my energy." I stated. Making damn sure that the look in my eyes, and on my face, conveyed my heartfelt sincerity on the matter. Jackie Braindead, however, was having none of it. And continued.

For the next five minutes or so I focused all my energy onto making my head go thermonuclear and explode, hopefully taking out as many of these idiotic people as possible. Call it a Smart Bomb... Yet again I was unsuccessful. Though to be fair I did have quite a good headache which may either be ascribed to the concentration level or the annoying sound of their voice, and promised myself that I would try harder next time.

Then came three of the most beautiful words I have ever heard in my entire life...

"Well, that's me."
I steadied myself on the bar, as I had been slightly confused by the the words.
"What?" I asked.
"I'm off." The troglodyte said, draining the dregs of his glass and picking up his mobile phone.

A "Hallelujah" resounded in my head and a small brass band began to play an upbeat tempo'd tune that wouldn't go amiss in a hip and fashionable club in Bourbon Street. Did I hear right? Had the gods observed my plight and saved me from having to listen to the ignoramus in front of me?

I watched in stunned silence as the neanderthal pressed buttons on his mobile and waved goodbye as it headed towards the door.

"Aye man, so anyway, mind I was saying she said that he said that the wifey from the chipshops daugthers cousins pal told her that there's some bird doing tricks for taxi drivers to avoid paying the fare... Well you'll never guess who it is..." It said into its mobile as it walked towards the door, leaving me to ponder if there was some kind of mental deficiency they suffered from that made them talk utter crap constantly.

I turned around and looked at the old guy at the end of the bar who, like so many others in pubs across the world, sits quietly, observing, collating and calculating the ups and downs of pub life and only ever says one of three words at a time*, and raised my eyebrows in a way that I knew would convey the sentence "That guy's a test of your patience is he not?"

The old guy lifted his glass and took a long, drink.

"He's a fucking arsehole and the sooner he's killed by a runaway truck the better." He said.
"Pint?" I asked.
"Nip." He replied.

* The three are the following,..
1. "Pint."
2. "Nip."
And 3. "Taxi."

Anyone for Calvinball?

Many of you out there in t'internet land are fans of the six year old boy genius that is Calvin (and his friend Hobbes) so I've decided to post a few wallpapers of him and his faithful companion.

To get the full size images click on the thumbnail.

Calvin and Hobbes read the funnies.

Calvin and Hobbes take a walk in the snow.

Pulling Faces with full colour background.

Calvin and Hobbes doing homework.

Getting a hug.

Various Pictures.

Doing a little dance.

Pulling faces white background.

Sledging.

Pulling faces black background.

Sleeping.

Relax...

Whack these tunes on and chill out.

William Orbit - Adagio for strings.*

Sigur Ros - Milano.

Groove Armada - At the River.

Jimi Hendrix - Little Miss Strange.

REM - All the Right Friends.

Elliot Smith - Because.

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah.

Foo Fighters - Aurora.

*Mum, download that and let Dad hear it. It's a piece of music I said was brilliant and he got Stuart to get him a copy of it. Sadly it was being played on the bagpipes. This is the version that doesn't make you want to shove freshly sharpened pencils in your ears.

"Jesus died for your sins..."

She said. With a totally straight face.

She was collecting for a new church and had inadvertantly stumbled into the lions den.

"Talk about a waste of time." I said, as I was bored and she was annoying me with her constant harping on about the, so called, saviour of humanity. "My sins are what makes me interesting."
"Surely you don't mean that." She said with a look of pity on her face.
I pondered for a second the possible ramifications of offending the god squad again.
This took less than a quarter of a millisecond and I continued.

"Actually I do. My sins, and believe me there are many, seperate me from the herd of waste of space sheep who follow the herd blindly without questioning the reason or the logic of blind faith." I said, smiling.

Her face changed from a pitying look to one of minor offense. I knew I had her on the brink and all I needed was to give her a small shove to push her over the edge.

"Jesus gave his life so that you could live." She said.
"Actually, Jesus died because his own people handed him over to the romans and went "He said he's the son of God, get him." because if they had lynched him for his claims of divine decendency their god would have laid down a shitstorm on them." I challenged.

I could see by her face that there was anger welling up. So I carried on.

"You do know that Jesus, the real one, was nothing like the tall, fair haired deity you worship blindly don't you? When you think about it rationally and take into account his place of birth and the time in history he lived in you'll come to the conclusion that Jesus was a big nosed short guy who was less than five feet tall. Think along the lines of the love child of Tom Cruise and Barry Manilow and you're on the right lines." I ranted.

At this point she left the pub.

All wisdom can be found in anagrams.

Here's a little thing for you to do if you have a spare five minutes or indeed, need a distraction from the day to day grind.

Firstly, open another window and whisk yourself across the void of t'internet to here.

Done that? OK, good.

Now do you see the little box that looks like this -->

Type in there (without quotes, any of these... [ Or these... ] and replace the words YOUR NAME with your actual, written on your birth certificate, name.) the following words...

• "What is [YOUR NAME]"

Hit the get anagrams button, wait a second or two for the results.

Read.

Find the ones most appropriate or humourous and ponder.

My favorite one is as follows...

"What is Ross Douglas"

• A Dialogs Short Wuss.
  

There are times when this is very true.

Like now.

What a shocker...

Last week I signed up for the worlds first internet balloon race.

The reason for this was I was bored and fancied giving it a whack just to see how my wee balloon would get on without me promoting it at all. After signing up and choosing my little orange balloon I left it all alone to wing its way across the internet.

I never checked its progress nor did I get anyone I know to poke the little swine into a higher gear so imagine my surprise when I came in second!

"When the time is ready I shall send my only son to the earth to show them how to laugh."

The Grand Whazoo.*

***************************************

And lo it came to pass that The Grand Whazoo did send his only son to earth. And you can join him in his quest to make the world giggle by joining him by clicking here.

***************************************

Family Friendly.
No service charge.
Tuesday is ladies night.
Special drinks promotions all week.
Happy hour all day.
Students of philosophy welcome.
Biker friendly.
No Scientists.
Please tip your waitress.
***************************************

*During an acceptance speech for "Best god in a humourous role" award during the realm of gods, deitys and martyrs awards ceremony held at the Valhalla Holiday Inn. **

**(Tell them Marty sent you for a special reduction in rates.)

It's the all new tattoo show...

Dr Gonzo.
From an original drawing by Ralph Steadman.
Ink work by InkInk tattoo parlour Orlando.

Fab Five Freddy...

In the spirit of open communication without borders or boundaries I give to you a small sample of music that floats my boat, rocks my world and makes me shake my tailfeathers.

• The Stone Roses - Shoot You Down (Soul Hooligan remix)
  
• The Foo Fighters - Aurora.
• Groove Armada - At the River.
• Jeff Buckley - Mojo Pin. (Live at Sin-é)
• Jimi Hendrix - Little Miss Strange.
• The Pixies - Where is My Mind.
• Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig.
• REM - All the Right Friends.
  

*Disclaimer*
All music linked to from this site is provided for review purposes only.
Should you wish to own any of the tracks listed above please support the artist in question and buy a copy.

Funky up your mobile...

With these eye-catching wallpapers.
Or ear-grabbing Ringtones.

There I was...

Minding my own business...

When a bloke with a clipboard stopped me and said "Can I ask you a question."
"You just did." I replied.
"I don't understand." He said.
"You just asked me a question by asking if you could ask me a question." I stated.

"Ahh, err..." He stammered.

"You should have said; Can I ask you a couple of questions." I said, reeling him in like a fish.

"OK then. Can I ask you a couple of questions?" He said.

"You just have." I said.
"I don't get your meaning." He replied.

"Well, you asked me if you could ask me a question and then you asked me if you could ask me a couple of questions. A couple is generally accepted to be two of something so by rights you've asked me a couple of questions. You should have said; Can I ask you a few questions." I said.

"OK, can I ask you a few questions?" He said.

"You just have." I replied, struggling not to laugh.
"I'm confused." He said.
"Well, firstly you asked me if you could ask me a question, then you asked me if you could ask me a couple of questions and you've just asked me if you could ask me a few questions. A few is generally accepted as three so by rights you've already asked me a few questions." I stated.

"Aha! Can I ask you some questions." He said, thinking he had figured out a way to ask me whatever the hell it was he wanted to know in the first place.

"No." I said. And walked away.

Interesting...

Welcome to the world...

Prepare to be politicized...

So, you're born as free as the birds, without prejudice or any preconceived notions about life. Then one day you realise that you, for no good reason, are pwned.

Sure, you deny it with the core of your being, you rail against this statement, but one day you'll wake up and realise that you, my friend are being bought and sold down the river day after day after day after day after day.

"But I'm not a slave!" You shout into the void, but, like it or not you are...

A commodity to the collective consciousness of corporations;

You are;
Owned by the overlords of oppression;

You are;
A national insurance number;

You are;
A social security number;

You are...
A bank account;
A credit card;
And a wage slave.

In short you are nothing more than a bag of blood to the leeches who suck you dry day by day by day...

So, what do you do? Do you bow down to the boss? Or do you take arms and fight? Well, generally you do neither. You do what we all do, you find your comfort level & fit in. You swallow your pride and get along.

And why do you do this? Because it is the easy way. Like lightning, seeking to ground itself, you take the path of least resistance because to go by any other way would be too much trouble.

And you can bet your last banana that Trouble with a capital T would rain upon you lie a force ten hurricane if you try to fight it...

Some people, however, will not take the path more travelled. Why? Because their soul; Their Spirit; Their Essence; Their Sotto Voce; Their God; Their Grand Whazoo will not allow them to.

Should they try to ignore The Guiding Voice it will ensure the noise gets;
Louder
& Louder
& Louder
& Louder
& Louder

Until ALL they can hear is The Voice...

Few people manage to listen to The Voice for long. And those who think they can ignore it for any length of time invariably SNAP and find themselves shunned by the very society they seek to change.

The ones who have fine timing, and accept The Voice at the time when it needs to be heard, become Gods amongst men.

Their Image is Icon;
Their Memory is Monument;
Their Spirit is Statue;

And their words become weapons in the war against oppression.

*************************

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

"The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression." - H. L. Mencken.

"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.”- Malcolm X.

"If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take hashish." - Friedrich Nietzsche.

"Anger Is An Energy." - John Lydon.

"You gotta fight, for your right, To PARTY!" - The Beastie Boys.

Just because I feel like it...

The BBC news website published a list of 100 things we didn't know last year so I have decided to list them here with my own little addendum's.

1. Coach travel is the safest form of road transport in the country.
* Unless you are in the UK in which case it's quicker to walk.

2. Saddam Hussein's codename while in US custody in 2004/5 was "Victor".
* The guards assigned to him made him say "I don't bloody believe it." on a regular basis.

3. Adding milk to tea negates the health-giving effects of a hot brew.
* Pissing in it makes it taste worse also.

4. The word "jaywalking" came from the US slang "jay", a term popular in the early 20th Century meaning a rustic newcomer unfamiliar with city ways.
* These days rustic newcomers are called "Hippies"

5. Cloudy apple juice is healthier than clear, containing almost double the antioxidants which protect against heart disease and cancer.
* Most apples never get heart disease.

6. Dishcloths are purged of 99% of their bacteria during two minutes in a microwave.
* It's the 1% you need to worry about.

7. A haddock's mating call starts as a slow knocking sound, before turning into a quicker hum similar to a small motorcycle revving its engine.
* A cod's mating call is indistinguishable from the Bee Gee's song Massachusetts.

8. Newcastle is the noisiest place in England.
* It also has the highest number of idiots.

9. The people who built Stonehenge lived at an ancient village in Durrington Walls.
* They were bad neighbours and were the first people ever to be issued with an ASBO.

10. Brazil nuts are seeds encased in an outer shell that weighs more than 1kg.
* American nuts are encased in fat.

11. Astronauts wear nappies during launch and re-entry because they can't stop what they're
doing should they need to urinate.
* They wear them at home for fun too.

12. Georgic is a punishment dished out to Eton pupils which involves the copying out of hundreds of lines of Latin.
* This is the second most popular form of punishment, most public schoolboys prefer being buggered by the games master.

13. Tony Blair does not keep a personal diary.
* Alistair Campbell keeps it for him.

14. Antony and Cleopatra were ugly.
* But they still fucked like pigs on heat.

15. 10% of university work from across the UK is plagiarised.
* 90% of statistics are made up including this one.

16. Chimpanzees make their own spears for hunting.
* Gorillas make Ipods.

17. Two cups of spearmint tea a day is thought to control excessive hair growth for women.
* Welsh people are thought to fuck sheep. This doesn't mean it's true.

18. Burglar alarms, traffic wardens and crowded buses are good news for home owners, signalling an area is on the up.
* Unfortunately they also mean burglars are going to rob them while their car is being clamped and they'll be late for work because they can't get on the bus.

19. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosts a daily radio phone-in show.
* The "callers" are in the studio beside him and all have guns to their heads to make sure they say nothing but good things about him.

20. More than half (52%) of smokers haven't told their parents about their habit.
* More than half of these smokers parents were also smokers and died years ago.

21. Only about half of China's population can speak the national language, Mandarin.
* The rest speak satsuma, clementine or orangina.

22. The brief flowering of the cherry blossom tree is taken so seriously in Japan that forecasts are used to plan festivals, and travel agents use them to plan tours.
* The Japanese really should get out more.

23. To be found attractive, women should sway their hips and men their shoulders (although researchers call this a "shoulder swagger").
* Or have lots of cash.

24. The are 30,000 wild parakeets in London.
* And they're planning on overthrowing the government.

25. Martina Navratilova has spent four years secretly working as an artist.
* And thirty odd years secretly being a woman.

26. Harvesting rhubarb in candlelight helps preserve its flavour.
* Shoving it up your arse makes it taste better.

27. Drinking, drug-taking teenagers are in the decline, according to a survey by the Information Centre.
* Said a coke addicted spokesman from the local public house.

28. Designer discount retailer TK Maxx is called TJ Maxx in the US.
* Well, whoop-de-fuckin-doo.

29. The average duvet is home to 20,000 live dust mites.
* And enough skin cells to recreate John Lennon.

30. Serving anything more than tea and biscuits at a political meeting is an offence called "treating" and punishable by a year in prison or an unlimited fine, under the the Representation of the People Act 1893.
* So keep your Jaffa Cakes out of politics.

31. There is mobile phone reception from the summit of Mount Everest.
* But none in Swindon. Go figure.

32. Anti-Americanism began in Paris in the 18th Century.
* Who said the French never done anything good.

33. Female civil servants in India are questioned about their menstrual cycle as part of their appraisal.
* Male civil servants are bloody cunts.

34. Kryptonite exists.
* Superman doesn't so what's the use of it?

35. Denmark is the happiest country in Europe; Italy the unhappiest. (The UK was 9th out of 15.)
* Britain was rated as the country that couldn't care less.

36. A water-tight denial by a politician – as opposed to one that leaves room for later manoeuvre - is known as a Sherman pledge. The other sort is called a non-denial denial.
* Politicians are all lying bastards.

37. Spiralling obesity rates are forcing councils to upgrade their crematoria, to take wider coffins.
* Pavarotti is still ablaze.

38. Gerry Adams doesn't own a credit card, so gets a friend to download songs from the Internet.
* He also gets his friends to blow things up for him. (He can't figure out photoshop.)

39. The secret to happiness is accepting misery.
* And marrying it.

40. A new three-bedroom house must have at least 38 plug sockets.
* And be wired by a fool.

41. There are 1,200 exhumations every year in the UK, but not all of those are part of criminal cases.
* Some are done just for fun.

42. Nearly seven out of 10 (69%) of adults are still in touch with at least one childhood friend.
* No matter how hard they try to alienate them.

43. Bernard Manning worked as an armed guard watching over senior Nazis locked up in Berlin’s Spandau prison.
* The Nazi's thought he was a bit tough on the Jews.

44. Europe has a vodka belt comprising Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark and Sweden, although the drink is also made in countries such as Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
* South America has a cocaine belt.

45. Domestic cats can trace their descent to the Middle East.
* Cats reunited is the second most popular website ever.

46. Peanuts can be made into diamonds.
* And boy is Charlie Brown pissed.

47. The prime ministerial Jaguar is called Pegasus.
* The prime minister is called a fat cunt.

48. You can be arrested for using someones wi-fi network without permission.
* And you can sue the owner for not knowing how to secure his network causing you to be arrested.

49. CDs were nearly called mini-racks.
* Cliff Richard was nearly called a pop star.

50. Left-handed people are called sinistral.
* And they used to be killed for being possessed by Satan.

51. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' new leader, once took a road trip across the US with his friend Louis Theroux.
* And yet he still claims he isn't gay.

52. There are 17 surviving versions of the Magna Carta - or 17 Magnae Cartae.
* During the 1970's they had fifteen consecutive number one hits in the charts.

53. Renowned atheist Professor Richard Dawkins likes singing Christmas carols.
* I like singing Nessun Dorma but I'm not Pavarotti.

54. The Australian town of Eucla has its own time zone.
* It's called the dark ages.

55. Books used to be bound in human skin.
* Paris Hilton couldn't bind the little book of calm.

56. Eddie Irvine is Britain's wealthiest sports star – beating the Beckhams into second place by £30m.
* Could he be allowed to beat them with a stick?

57. Sleeping on the job is tolerated in Japanese work culture, as long as you remain upright and obey certain other rules.
* Such as no snoring or talking in your sleep.

58. The Romans had roadmaps.
* Their GPS worked fine though so they had no need for them.

59. The word Blighty comes from "bilayti", the Urdu for homeland.
* The Urdu word for Vindaloo is translated into English as "For stupid drunks."

60. The Queen took her corgi on honeymoon.
* This explains Prince Charles's looks.

61. Janet and John were named Alice and Jerry in the United States.
* Who the fuck are Janet and John? And more to the point why do we care?

62. Until the late 1990s, the RAF's nuclear bombs could be activated using a bicycle lock key.
* Now they can activated by anyone with a home PC.

63. Cats can be police constables.
* But the uniform looks silly.

64. King Tut had buck teeth.
* He was also Ray Ban's first celebrity spokesman.

65. The Italian Mafia have commandments.
* Don't fuck with us.

66. Gun ownership per person in Finland is the third highest in the world.
* Guess who comes top?

67. The brain can turn down its ability to see in order to listen to complex sounds like music.
* And can distinguish between something worth listening to and the Spice Girls within a quarter of a millisecond.

68. Of the waste in UK landfills, 0.1% is plastic carrier bags.
* The rest is made up of mislaid government records.

69. Dogs occasionally shoot their owners in the US.
* Clever boy!

70. IP addresses will run out in 2010.
* And windows still won't work properly.

71. An ai is a three-toed sloth from South America (and the word that clinched Paul Allan the title of national Scrabble champion).
* He has no friends.

72. Dumbledore is gay.
* And Harry Potter is a short sighted little cunt.

73. UN population projections go as far as 2300.
* UN resolutions last as long as the USA decides to pay attention to them.

74. Sheffield FC is the world’s oldest football club.
* And still can't win anything.

75. CO2 emissions from shipping are twice the level of aviation.
* Fish contribute to this by riding Harley Davidsons.

76. George Clooney and Pierce Brosnan have had Bell's Palsy - a nerve condition that can result in paralysis on one side of the face.
* This never stopped Roger Moore either.

77. Leeches are used as treatment for cauliflower ears.
* Salmon are used to treat arachnophobia.

78. A bdelloid rotifer is a pond-dwelling organism that has survived 80 million years without sex.
* But as soon as it meets the right girl that's going to be one hell of a cloudy pond.

79. Woodwork lessons are known as "resistant materials" in schools.
* Only by the teachers. Students call it a waste of time.

80. Adults use maths skills 14 times daily on average and literacy skills 23 times a day.
* Unless you are in Texas.

81. The opening bars to the theme tune of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em spelt the title of the series in Morse code.
* The closing bars to the theme spelled out "Thank fuck that's finished" in Morse code.

82. The children who sang on Pink Floyd's number one hit Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 2) couldn't appear in the video because they didn't hold Equity cards.
* Bill Wyman still managed to marry them all.

83. Jack Straw has intervened in alleged crimes four times, apprehending a person on three occasions.
* He also lost them soon afterwards.

84. On average a UK commuter travels the equivalent of two-and-a-half times around the globe over a full working career.
* And spends fifteen years stuck on a train because of leaves on the line.

85. A 23.8lb baby was born in the US in 1879, but it only survived 11 hours.
* The mother ate it.

86. There is a monastery in every village in Burma.
* And two Mcdonalds restaurants.

87. Relocating crocodiles doesn't work - they come back.
* Via local transport disguised as ticket inspectors.

88. Deep-voiced men have more children.
* The exception to the rule is Michael Jackson, he's had lots of kids too.

89. Being born without an ear is called microtia.
* Try telling the poor bugger that.

90. Chickens can be diagnosed with depression.
* Reindeer can be diagnosed as schizophrenic.

91. In Iceland, 96% of women go to university.
* 4% know what's right.

92. Zsa Zsa Gabor is related to Paris Hilton.
* And both have had more pricks than a second hand pub dartboard.

93. Dinosaurs had creches.
* And far superior shopping malls.

94. Osama Bin Laden is known to fellow jihadists as Abu Abdullah.
* His mother still calls him Pooky.

95. In Ethiopia the start of the year 2000 was celebrated in September.
* In Pennsylvania the year 2000 will be celebrated in fifty years time.

96. Bees can detect explosives.
* But still aren't considered for work in the bomb squad.

97. There have been at least two children given the name "Superman" in the UK since 1984.
* They both think their parents are bastards.

98. Prison officers are on average assaulted eight times a day.
* But get revenge twice as often.

99. Each slug eats twice its body weight a day.
* As did Pavarotti.

100. Dogs can have two noses.
* How do they smell? Twice as bad.

Global warming.

If you are the type of person who is concerned about global warming please allow me to dispel your fears with the following screed.

Scientists tell us that the planet is getting warmer by the minute and to be fair they're probably right. They are, after all, scientists and are on the whole more informed on the subject than yours truly. And that's to be expected when you consider that I left school with an "O" level in art, a BCG and the recommendation that I prepare myself for a life of enquiring "Do you want fries with that?"

However I'd like to let you all in on something that the scientists, or more specifically the global media machine, fails to let you in on. The planet is doing just fine.

During the many millions of years it has been sliding through space, at speeds the normal human mind can't grasp, the planet has survived through ice ages that were nothing more to it than a cold is to man[1], and warm periods that were nothing more to it than a hot flush brought on by the menopause is to a woman.[2]

It has survived asteroid impacts, on land and at sea which caused fallout that would make a ten megaton nuclear explosion look like a fart in the bathtub, on a fairly regular basis and has time and time again shook it off and bounced back to normal in a relatively short space of time.

Humans, by comparison, are nothing more than a minor bug akin to a small dose of the runs caused by a piece of undercooked chicken from your local KFC restaurant. And the planet will deal with us in pretty much the same way as we deal with a case of the shits. It'll fart a couple of times, squirt us down the toilet of history and continue as per usual.

[1] Though it's more than likely that the planet never gave consideration to calling in sick.
[2] The sex of the planet is uncertain so I have made comparisons to both sexes in the name of fairness.

News and Weather?

I've come to the conclusion that the TV news is so full of shit it's beyond belief.

If the newsreaders aren't talking to you like you're a four year old then the producers are by filling your screen with graphics so simple that if you showed them to a chimpanzee the chimp would ask "what the fuck is this?" just before slinging a handful of it's own excrement at the screen and walking off in disgust.

It's the same with the weather forecast. In all honesty does anyone actually watch the weather? Or do you, like a normal person, do the sensible thing and look out the window? Please, for the love of God, tell me you do or I'll be forced to kill myself or, and this is more likely, you.

Surf's up.

As a small treat for you all on Boxing Day I have rooted out a great surfing video for you all to watch. It's called Riding Giants and is about the evolution of Big Wave surfing. Enjoy.

But first, to get you into the mood here's a small clip of Laird Hamilton riding the Chopu breaker.



And here is the main feature. Riding Giants.