Joliet Jake's Weekly

The End

2009-09-08T10:40:00.001+02:00

Hi,

I've been writing Joliet Jake's Weekly for nearly three years now and it's time to move on.

This blog lark, I thought it was all virtual and fake but it isn't, I met a whole bunch of flesh and blood people through this. So it's a good thing and if you're thinking of doing one, try it, it's free.

Yesterday the credit crunch came to my world, I've been restructured. So I'm restructuring myself too and I've decided that this blog lark isn't giving me the Return On Investment or Benefit Realisation or some other bollocks that I feel I should be getting. Well I don't know what it is but know I'm not getting it so I quit, there.

Ok. Goodbye then

See ya

Byeeeeeee,

I'm going now really, I've got to feed the cat

and get a cat first

Goodbye

I know it's hard, but it's really the end

no

go away now

Look, I'm getting a bit fucked off now, BUGGER OFF!

Ok sorry I didn't mean that, we're still friends

but really, Goodbye.

Bye.

JJ

Salad Bar

2009-08-27T23:58:00.000+02:00

Now that I'm old(er) and fat(ter) I've decided that salad is a nice thing. Up until last friday, I hated salad with a vengeance. When I was young(er) and thin(ner) I only ate junk food and swore I never eat a salad. Which only proves that young thin people are stupid and I'm glad I'm not one of them and I hate them all. Except Americans, there is no point hating Americans, they can't deal with real emotion so it's just wasted effort on my part.

It's good in a way; in America you'll get ostracised if you really tell someone you hate them, they say "you're mean" with their squeaky voices and get really upset. You can get away with it in France, they're used to it. The problem with the Septics now is I've been watching so many TV programs and movies, since I was knee high to a banjo, when I see them in real life it seems like they're acting. I keep expecting them to drop the accent any minute and say something like "I could murder a decent cuppa, this Starbucks tastes like gnat's piss". Which it does. Why they insist on serving it in paper cups the size of an umberella stand is beyond me.

(Septic Tank = Yank). Sorry.

Anyway, the Salad Bar. So there's this internet dealy now and we've got it in the office, you can order your lunch on screen, amazing. Today I have created my own salad; Ham, Chicken, Cheese, Boiled Egg, Balsamic and mandatory greens. I named it "I wish it was a kebab". At least it made me smile when I saw the plastic tub with the label on it, I also gave my name as Cribbleshanks for added amusement. There's nothing else to do it's the holiday season, there's no one in the office, "if it gets any more lively a funerals going to break out" (Rodney Dangerfield) Does he really write those lines or just tell 'em? Actor or Comedian? Which is he?

Ok that's all we've got time for, see you next week, keep taking the meds.

JJ

PS. most anti-depressants are actually laxatives, since that French philosopher said "I do most of my thinking on the bog". Can't think of the name, not Kant, he was German.

Foreign Muck

2009-08-25T06:00:00.000+02:00

When I was a lad all we ate was foriegn food, because mum cooked it. Often I would sit an ponder "just what is it these whitey's eat at home?" (we didn't have political correctness in those days) really, it was a mystery. I knew about some things like fish and chips, toast, boiled eggs and we had a few things at school like stew, mash and jam roly poly. But somehow it didn't fit that people could be eating this at home. In my mind school dinners were kids food. What sort of grown up person would eat a sausage? Just look at it.

So, for most of my childhood I imagined the neighbours were eating fish and chips every night. And it being the thing we didn't have every night, became the object of all desires, as these things do when you're that age.

Nevertheless, I racked my brain for alternatives and concluded that eggs and toast must be a meal. Like this; toast, buttered, with sliced boiled egg, salt and massala (the sort you make curry's with). Like an open sandwich, magnificent and I still eat it to this day. It was an assumption handed down over generations that massala went in every dish, because the preceeding generations lived in India.

Then, some thirty years later, I was in Hawaii (last week) and discovered their speciality: Loco Moco. A bed of rice, hamburger, covered in gravy topped with a fried egg. Now you can get Super Loco Moco which includes fried spam, fried salami and two eggs. Obviously I went for the Super version, being a sucker for fried spam that I am. The amazing thing about Hawaii was during the whole week we only had pineapple once, for breakfast. They eat more papaya and mango than pineapple. But if anything should be their national food emblem, it's Spam, it's everywhere they love it. No wonder they're so fat.

So there you go, no one wants to be known as the spam eating country (or state), so let's stick with the pineapple, even if it's complete bollocks. It's true that travel broadens the mind though. Far from a picturesque paradise, half of hawaii is old run down villages full of poor people with no jobs. True the other half is fantastic beaches, expensive designer shops and mega expensive hotels but there are only tourists in that half.

That's why tourists find Hawaii'ans to be so friendly, is it you they're smiling at or your wallet? They are still people after all and spam doesn't grow on trees (please god, if there is a god...)

JJ

Lockerbie Bomber

2009-08-23T11:54:00.001+02:00

So this lockerbie bomber was sent home and got a hero's welcome in Libya. A few things need to be said though:

1. It was a very dodgy conviction. He was fingered by one guy, and some say that guy saw his picture in a magazine in a completely unrelated article.

2. The reason he got a hero's welcome isn't because all Libyan's are terrorists. It's because his people believe he is an innocent man, wrongly convicted by the UK

3. "a man who murdered over 250 people freed on compasionate grounds!?" why the surprise? That's what compassion is all about, don't kick a man when he's down, it's what separates us from the terrorists. Mercy isn't just something you just read about in Sunday school, it's what you do to evil people who come unstuck to show them a better way

I reckon the Scottish government know this was a political conviction so they let him go before it became a humanitarian issue. Also, it gives them a chance to flex some political muscle on foriegn policy and cock a snook at the UK government at the same time. The more they show on the international stage, the more freedom from UK Parliament.

Barack Obama scored an own goal though. For him to say that the Scots made a mistake is actually his mistake. Small tin pot regimes like Libya thrive when Legitimate governments argue with each other. Libyans will now claim Scotland as an ally, is that what they want? Equally, Americas enemies will croon that the US is unable to show magnanimity even when their allies are merciful.

Barack should have stepped out, showed some respect to the Scottish government it's their decision to make, not his. Scottish politicians are unbelievably diplomatic, every Scot I know would've just told Barack to fuck off, especially after a couple of whiskey's which is usually any time after breakfast.

On an urelated note,I heard on the BBC that one of the goals of the Afghanistan invasion was to stem the flow of herion. That's bollocks, out of all the bad things the Taleban did the good thing was they stopped opium farming. Afghanistan only regained it's position as number one heroin exporter after the western liberation. Yes that right, they were the number one before the Taleban came along. Do you think agricultural colleges do studies about which soil is best for growing drugs? Maybe not officially.

JJ

Trains, Planes and Muppets

2009-08-20T19:20:00.000+02:00

In the security check there was a couple in front of us who were looking sheepish from being reprimanded for something as we arrived. Apparently they hadn't had enough yet; bags went in the tunnel, came back out, "there's a jar of liquid in there, please take it out". Bags went in, bags came back "there's an electronic device with a hard disk", the second security lady exhasperated "you gotta be kidding me!", bags went in, bags came out "can you just wait to one side and let the others through".

So what did I do? Engrossed in this entertainment, walked through the metal detector with mobile phone in pocket, brilliant! I took my hat off, not only to them but to myself too. It's not often I wear a hat, I once heard that baldness is caused by the wearing of hats. Doesn't make sense, why don't everyones pubes fall out then? I mean not because of hats but the covering up.

My girfriends sister bought us two decorative heat resistant mats for christmas, they're good, not too festive so we can use them all year round. A couple of years ago we bought her two folding heat resistant things for the table, not quite mats but very practical, easy to store.

I've got a large insulated coffee/tea mug with a lid on it, stamped "Fujitsu" on the side. It's good but the tea tastes plasticky after a while. We've got a metal bread bin too, problem with that is it traps moisture so it's not as good a wooden one. We should replace it but it's quite stylish so it seems a shame to get rid of it.

We picked up some posh cruets from a shop on the coast a while back, we use them for salt and massala instead of pepper but the massala tends to get stuck because it's much coarser than pepper. Coarser than white pepper anywhey.

We still haven't put those pictures up from when we moved, or the big mirror. We're going for dinner tonight, with The Germans to an Italian. It's because we didn't play badminton last night, with the hollidays and everything we just didn't get organised so we've deciced to have dinner instead. And the showers are broken at the gym.

Our area's going to be a blue zone for parking, we just got the notice through yesterday. They did warn us ages ago so we've already got our parking permits. It'll mean disruption though as they put up the signs and ticket machines. It's because of the metro stops, people park their cars here and go into the city to work or whatever they do, the residents were complaining. We didn't complain, we're new here, I expect it was that Goth who lives on the corner. He seems the type to make a fuss.

I think I'll wear my new shoes to dinner.

JJ

Cat Bath

2009-08-16T05:43:00.001+02:00

Having a cat was huge responsibility at seven, first thing I did was take the cat to the vet:

vet: hello, what do we have here then?
JJ: It's a cat
vet: I see, you know you probably shouldn't carry it around in a plastic shopping bag, you should get a cat basket
JJ: ok, I'll ask dad
vet: Is it a boy or a girl?
JJ: dunno
vet: what's it's name then?
JJ: dunno, my dad brought it, they didn't say
vet: you'll have to give it a name. We'll he looks fine, I'll give him this vaccination then you can take him home
JJ: what does it eat?
vet: cat food
JJ: do we have to give him a bath?
vet: not usually, maybe once or twice a year if it gets really dirty
JJ: thank you

Six months later I rounded up my brothers and we ran a bath for the cat. We just filled the tub a dropped the cat in, the cat didn't even touch the water, let out an fierce scream and bolted for the door. I was completely baffled, surely the cat realised it was bath time? After some debate we decided that cat's don't like bath time. But the vet had said it had to be done, we wanted a second opinion but we didn't fancy spending hard earned pocket money on another visit to the vet. So, we went to the library, all kids library books clearly state you have to give the cat a bath.

A week later the cat returned. This time we bolted the bathroom door and organised ourselves; two to hold down the screaming lunatic and one to apply the shampoo. It didn't say in any of the books what sort of soap one should use on a cat so we reasoned it ought to be shampoo - it's all hair, out came the Head and Shoulders. We decided that lather and rinse was enough, "repeat" would not be necessary. It was strange that we had never read shampoo instructions before, now it seemed important but there was nothing there about cats. "Avoid contact with eyes - may cause irritation", irritation? The cat was already incandescent with rage, this comment seemed a somewhat redundant, what sort of an idiot would shampoo in a cat's eye anyway?

Cat's really don't like water, and they like even less being held in the water and shampooed. This one decided the fair response would be to skin our hands and arms with it's claws, which it did very well. But eventually, the job was done and we all went off to our respective corners to lick our wounds. Made a mental note to wear gloves next time, gardening gloves might work or those white gauntlets you get with bio-nuclear hazard suits. Another week went by before normality was returned.

Another six months went by before the second and final bath night for this cat. Don't get me wrong, the cat survived, so did we. The things is cat's aren't like dogs, they have a certain away of looking at you, like "Is that how it's going to be? ok, fine, we'll do it your way", if you've ever been married you'll know what I mean. We just gave up on cat bath night after that.

Some years later the cat died of a suspected road accident, there were no witnesses. It was sad, we'd been through a lot together. But then it meant we could get a dog, that's how it is when you're seven, "Dad the cat died, can we get a puppy? can we get a puppy? can we get a puppy?" and so on. It worked eventually and then we had some real adventures...

JJ

Urban Poetry

2009-08-14T07:42:00.000+02:00

This one is called: Childhood

Hello, can I have one of those?
How much money have you got?
One pee
You need two pee for that one
But I've only got one pee
It's not enough
Can I give you one pee tomorrow?
No
Then what have you got for one pee?
You can have one of these
But those are really small
That's what you get for one pee
What if I come back when I have another pee?
We'll be shut at six
what time is it now?
Half past four
How many minutes is it left?
One hour thirty
I think I can make it but will you keep one of those for me
Yeh ok, whatever
Don't just say it because I'm really going to come back
Ok really, I'll keep it
Dad can I have one pee?
No, get inside and wash up for dinner
But I just need one pee
Do as you're told, get inside.

JJ

Food and Drugs

2009-08-10T08:10:00.001+02:00

In America food is the same as drugs and they have one agency to control them both, the FDA. In January 2008 the FDA gave clearance to put cloned animals in the food chain. That would've raised a stink if someone died from it. Isn't this the same as experimenting on humans? I don't recall any trials of cloned animal food, they went straight to the shelf.

Saw that Sarah Palin's sister-in-law Diana was arrested for burglary. That's a scary family, do you think people would stop attacking America if the Palin family was in the whitehouse?

Gotcha! I tricked you, "people" stopped attacking America in 2001. In fact there was only one attack. Let's face it, it was an isolated incident. What the hell is wrong with these people going around attacking countries in the name of self defence? No country has ever attacked America, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour doesn't count, that was like a fox stealing a chicken and saying "I'll have the whole farm by the weekend m-----f-----". Sorry but I don't allow foxes to use expletives on my blog, one has to teach those little fuckers some manners or they take over the entire text.

If all of this leaves you feeling less that moved you should try Martha Volchok's colon cleansing recipe here, Martha's a real star in all matters colonic and this super recipe only takes nine days, if only Diana were alive to see this, she loved colonics and all that hippy shit. No not Sarah's sister-in-law, wait a minute, the Princess Diana also had a sister-in-law called Sarah and she was as mad a badger too. Hmmmmmm... or as the Dutch like to put it mhhhhhhh...

Get your Google out and look up Loco Moco, I'll explain later.

JJ

The Pirate Party, Sweden

2009-08-03T07:00:00.001+02:00

It's not just the question of freely sharing files and copyrighted material. There's a new law in Sweden around monitoring internet traffic for security sensitive words, like "bloody Norwegians and their oil, we should never have given them freedom". It's the big brother thing. That's what the Pirates are going at, but they have to be real and get proper policy positions on other things too, like the Free Movement Of Workers Between Member Countries of the You-are-Peeing Onion, as a random example.

But in some countries they don't have copyright, like China and India "so what's the downside?" I hear you ask, I'll tell yer. Shit films, cheesy music, that's why they're ripping off western product and every other twat is an Elvis impersonator busy learning Jackson One dance steps.

If there's no copyright law no one will be investing $150 million to make Waterworld. Ok bad example, I don't know what Star Wars cost but it would never have been made if the investors had no protection for their ideas. Same goes for computer software, you say "I should be allowed to install Drug Trade Wars on my mum's laptop, I paid for it" but I say "chill the fuck out, what if I borrowed your Delta Goodrem cd and lent it to someone you've never met, how would you like that?"

Don't rush off to Google now and search for "Drug Trade Wars", I made it up, what kind of sick individual are you anyway? Installing this shit on your mum's laptop.

Usuary Laws - until 1854 it was illegal to charge more than 10% on any form of credit.

Banks have just been bailed out by taxpayers and are now making record profits and taking huge bonuses home in their fancy cars.

"Poor People", who paid the taxes, are still waiting for the economy to recover so that they can find work again.

So why don't the poor people all own bank shares now? Isn't that how capitalism works? Screwing the workers to pay the shareholders. The poor people should now profit from the shares they bought with their tax money, that's the system. If the government get's the profit, they have to reduce taxes right? You see, when it's the fat cats making money from share trades, it's the factory workers who are greasing those trades. In the bank scenario it's the bankers who should be greasing the palms of the shareholders (tax payers). But somehow, the bankers are still taking as much money home as they ever were.

Damn it, do we have a system or not? Surely we aren't just a bunch of peasants being ripped off by the land owners? Is this the middle ages again?

JJ

Ku Klux Klan and Casino Guide

2009-08-01T04:12:00.001+02:00

Bit of a side track here, many moons ago I used work in a casino and it hasn't been lost me that some people get a little starry eyed when I tell them that. Obviously it's very glamorous and high flying, working for minimum wage until 5am in Sheffield next to the Chinese Chippy, so let's have closer introspection on that.

Here are few terms you'll need to know if you want to play poker in the casino:

An Ace King Four and Seven is known as a "Machine Gun" (AK47), Ace Ace Eight Eight is a "dead man's hand" re: Wild Bill Hickok's hand when he was killed, four Kings is "the four horsemen", KKQQ = the mommas and the poppas, KKK = Three Wise Men / Ku Klux Klan, four Queens = the Village People, three Queens = Six Tits, JJ33 = Hookers with Crabs (I don't actually understand that one), 9966 = dinner for four, 3333= forest four trees, 222 = Huey, Dewey and Louie, 555 = Pork Chop Sandwiches (WTF?)

The thing about the KKK is that they are just like us really, a bunch of ordinary people. Some of them know how to make websites, as we can see, and some of them know enough not to be associated with KKK in public. That's how you know it's a bone fide set up, it's only the bigotry that set's them apart really, and yet somehow that's enough to justify executing every last one of 'em.

But Casino's yes, people really do borrow money from sharks and get their legs broken. I saw a guy walk out with 15 grand, it took him two weeks to return it all to The House. He was addicted, as were many others. We had a filing cabinet full of PNG's (Persona Non Grata), known cheats, card counters and so on, each one would have multiple aliases, false ID's, disguises, lists of associates (other known cheats). All that information was shared with other Casino's in the UK and a few stars had trails all over Europe. And then one day a fella told me he could get video's of dog fights if I wanted to see them, I suspected he thought I'd help him win in exchange for this "favour", in hindsight I should have reported him to the police.

The dog fights guy was one of the normal customers, well that's what passes for normal in the Casino crowd.

We had little staff room where we would leave our overcoats and go for tea breaks, one day a number of people had items stolen from there, including money. It was saddening to think a colleague was stealing from us. This was the beginning of the end for me. Then a "new" duty manager started, turned out he'd been on a break since before I started working there. He'd had a nervous breakdown amidst rumours of game fixing and pending investigations, there were also tales of ganster connections so the mood was very pensive when that guy was on duty. Some of the younger staff dreamed of working on cruise ships, seeing the world, making a fortune. I never met anyone who actually did that. I met people who worked cruise ships but none who made their fortune.

I left as soon as I could find another job. I couldn't care less about what people did there except the thief, after that incident I just couldn't trust anyone.

Yes, there were plenty of lights, plenty of glitter and action, but glamour? No, there was more glamour in the Chinese chippy next door.

JJ

London Cockney Ganster Types

2009-07-25T05:34:00.000+02:00

"What's the s.p. on this one Charlie? Smack in the seats?"
"Naah, ice in the tank"
"Lovely, tidy job, I 'ate rippin' up the upholstery on a Jag, seems disrespectful in a way"

Tommy was taking delivery of a new smugglers car and was curious to the contents. It seemed this one didn't have heroin sewn into the seats but there were some diamonds in the fuel tank.

"You'll 'ave ter fence these sharpish, some fackin copper was sniffing round the office after the motor"
"Gotcha Charlie, I'll get onter Irish Mick he'll 'ave 'em away as soon as the tank's open"
"Sorted, I'll be in the office"

Charlie alerted Tommy that police were already tracing the stolen vehicle and had been asking at The Golden Lion pub, which they referred to as "The Office". Irish Mick got the name because his dad is Irish, his real name is Jonathan Kitchen.

"oil give yer turty grand and I'm rippin' me arm off so I am be-jesus"
"give it a fackin rest Mick, I know you're from Croydon"
"fack off then, 25 grand"
"I want fifty or I walk"
"fifty? this aint fackin Snatch, smell the fackin cockles Tom"
"It's Tommy to you, Irish, 'ave you even got any fackin money or wot?"
"here's fortee, take or leave it"
"done"
"done"

Tommy took the readies to the boozer but Charlie wasn't there, on the way out he was jumped by some eastern european types and they snatched the lolly.

"If I find out you had a hand in this Charlie I'll rip your fackin legs off"
"You better simmer down son, I was called away and now I'm down fortee grand and I wanna meet that fackin Irish Mick, pronto"
"Right, the office, five, be there this time"
"Oh I'll be there"

Later...

"'allo boys, d'ya have a point loined up fer yer old mate?"
"shut it Mick, we already did that"
"right, who's this then"
"'this' is fackin Charlie who's down fortee grand between you and young Tommy fackface 'ere"
"awright geezer take it easy, we'll sort it"
"I started this morning with 75 grands worth of ice and all I've got now is fackin ball-ache from talking to you two muppets, who's got the green?"
"not me"
"not me"

Then Charlie shot Tommy and a couple of his heavies took Irish outside for a beating, eventually he gave the diamonds back. Turned out Tommy's missus had organised the mugging and had it away to Costa with the fortee grand (and her tennis coach). Charlie was none the wiser but swore he'd find out "get every facker out there to turn over every fackin stone and get my fackin cash back".

He never did get it back.

JJ

Chicago House Spider

2009-07-20T14:35:00.000+02:00

I was sitting watching my Michael Jackson live in Bucharest DVD when this little spider ran half way across the living room and kicked my on the side of my foot really hard. I said "what the hell was that?"

He said "my web, jackass, you broke my web, Sunday afternoon when you was gettin the hose out to water the hydrangers", I said "oh, so it's you building the web across the shed door every fucking week, can't you see what a stupid place that is for a web? It's a thoroughfare"
"Damned right it's a thoroughfare, that's why I'm there bitch. Flies coming in and out all day I had to fight for that spot, then you come along with your hose, it's because I'm black isn't it?"
"black? All spiders are black"
"but they ain't all got soul, see, I'm a House Spider, it's all here motherfucker" he said putting his little hairy fist to his heart.

Anyway we had a beer and laughed it off, turned out he was into the Eighties Chicago House sound, Def Jam and all that. I've got a couple of those vinyl's, bet you didn't exthpect that. Steve Davis collects vinyl. Nobody exthpected that.

I've got a twitter widget now somewhere along the left hand side of this Blogger. So far I am just twittering on about what I'm doing - when convenient - but it's really tempting to just write silly nonsense on there.

But this is for that, isn't it?

What?

JJ

Jensen Button and Greek Salad

2009-07-14T00:01:00.000+02:00

Now that it's a crap English driver stealing the Formula One championship it's ok to say so without sounding sour graped, or worse. Jenson Button has been in the sport for some years and never won a single race, this season he's the winningest :-O driver. If he was a sprinter he'd be under strong suspicion of drug abuse like what Carl Lewis said about Linford Christie. I agreed with Carl but I didn't say anything. I wanted to part of the complicit establishment, like Jack Nicholson when he said "eeeeh! you can't handle the truth aarrgh!" but nobody asked me.

We know Jenny Buttocks isn't the best driver, he's lucky if he's top ten, so this is no a longer sport is it? Unless building a car is a sport now.

Well why not? Why not put all the parts on the floor for ten cars and have the teams build them and drive one lap. Put that in the olympics, it's how fast you can build the car. Why isn't cooking an olympic sport? See how fast you can make a lasagna with greek salad, if there were medals for cooking I'd definately give Delia Smith one.

Ok but seriously, which of these is a real Current Affair, not just some made up bollocks:

1. Eleven men walked on the moon, so why the fuck has all my spinach died? No wonder they can't solve the food shortage.
2. G W Bush Jnr invaded Iraq because Saddam CIA Hussain Obama said "I stayed in office longer than your dad, so who won the first Gulf war? Who's your daddy?"
3. The very absolute least the major banks could do is write off Michael Jackson's debts after he took the heat off those theiving scumbags
4. Now that Afghanistan has regained it's status as Number One global herion exporter, is it time for the Allies to pull out?

So, now I can publicly declare that Kimi Raikonnen is crappest driver to be champion since Damon Hill. But Damon Hill is still the worst and least credible champion I can think of. The only good thing about Damon is he never cheated, unlike Michael Schumaker in 1996. So roll on Jenniffer Buttmunch and good luck with Sports Personality of the year, I hope you win it because you really need one.

That's enough celebrity baiting, now to lay a trial of clover, dandelion leaves, pansies and chicory to bait that Tortoise. Come on Herman get your chops around this little lot. You'll never guess who clued me in to his favourite titbits....he he he he...

JJ

Michael Jackson Memorial

2009-07-07T17:27:00.004+02:00

The Michael Jackson memorial takes place today at the Staples Center LA, some sort of stationery retail outlet. Whacko was a huge fan of stationery, he even tried to teach his monkey to staple his own finger and run around shouting "fuck me that hurts! get it out Michael! get it out!"

He battled illness for many years, he was often seen in public with a plaster on his finger since the Bad album. Some say this injury was the cause of subsequent bad albums and bad album sales. His finger was also the cause of much speculation and court room appearances. He was suing his plastic surgeon for not de-burring the nose amid allegations that he cut his finger on it.

Jackson was famous for inventing The Moonwalk dance step on which Neil Armstrong commented "he's obviously never been to the moon, and that thing he does on stage grabbing his dick tells me it's not the only place he hasn't been".

I've already sent my application to play MJ in the movie, I'll have to do a few sit-ups though, the advert said "no baritones or beer guts". Dimitry Medvedev has applied for the job too amid rumours that he isn't busy enough in his current puppet role. Dimitry commented "it's 'poppet', Vladimir calls me 'poppet' that's where the confusion comes from, I am a real president just like Jesse Jackson was. I can't believe he's dead".

I want to know what The Pope has go to say about it, I daresay the Catholic Church will have to choose their words very carefully when talking about Michael Jackson. Especially not to make the same mistake Dimitry did, that could be very embarrassing and detrimental to their drive to attract more young people (except lesbians).

Imagine if you're a ticket tout holding a few thousand dollars worth of tickets to the shows at O2 arena, they must thought they'd make a killing but it just goes show...

there really is no such thing as a Dead Cert.

JJ

Hot

2009-06-30T20:32:00.000+02:00

It's hot, it's actually hot here. It's been like it for days. Of course the air conditioning broke as soon as the temperature went up, Belgian AC just isn't geared up to cope with hot days.

They might get someone round next week, they're very busy now.

It's good when we're out of the office though, sitting in the garden, listening to the neighbours shouting at their kids.

The mint died. Bit of a shocker, mint is supposed to be virtually indestructible so why is it the only one pushing up daisies?

I'll put the spinach out next, it's kicked off well in the trough so it needs to have a run out in the garden now.

Radishes look a bit proud, they'd better be good. Maybe I should grow some medicinal ganga, yeeh, I could brew up some hooch in the cellar and be like a proper hippy twat.

Yeeh, it's hot, it's hot, it's enough.

JJ

Michael Jackson

2009-06-28T08:46:00.002+02:00

I was a bit surprised there, I always thought of him as youngster. I'm sure he used to be very young once, and black. Isn't it odd that as he got whiter and whiter he sold less and less records and eventually turned into a child molester, allegedly. I still think it was more the parents opportunism than anything bad, I'm no great fan but he didn't seem malicious or manipulative. Naive if anything.

It doesn't add up though, what about the thing with Liz Taylor? On the one hand young boys, one the other hand MILF. Speaking as the one voted by class as "most likely to become a sexual deviant" I can honestly say this boys/milf question doesn't scan.

But like any celebrity there's more to Mojambo than sex and sensasionalism. Buying the Beatles catalogue was very smart, and like a true businessman stereotype he upset his best friend Paul "Macca" MacFartney in the process. Rumour has it that Whitey left the Jowelled one something in his will, the remaining Jackson 4 are hoping it's about 600 million dollars of debt. Once that's paid off, the others can go back to collecting press clippings and sticking pins in Whacko dolls. Sibling rivalry, it's only natural.

I don't know if the Senegalese really practice voodoo but I know there's a pretty famous witchcraft shop in Huddersfield. If anyone should be under suspicion of showing puppies to young boys it should be Jermaine. If you give a black man a gay name he's bound have problems, just look at him, he's creepy. And he was always the first to defend Snowcloud when these things went public.

So the only remaining question is; if The Lord of the Ring was in so much debt why didn't the American tax payers bail him out? Isn't that what they do now? The state should have bought Kimosabe and then he wouldn't have died needlessly. Such a waste of talent, so young, so vibrant, such a fucked up wierdo.

I can't be the only one having difficulty dealing with this. Throughout the eighties he was the undisputed World Champion Jumpy Squeaky Thing, we all admired him, then it all went a bit legal and now he's dead. What can one say?

The funeral arrangements are bit more complex than usual, they've got a blue coffin for the plastic, yellow for the beatles records and green for the organic parts. It's hard to imagine in six months time his chin could be the volume knob on a Mitsubishi Pajero. These celebs love all that re-cycling lark and I don't see why he should be any different.

This is JJ saying "ooowwww!" and goodnight.

JJ

Soup With Himmler

2009-06-24T06:47:00.001+02:00

Hitler banned soup from the Nazi HQ. He was the first person to ask the question "does one eat cup-a-soup or drink it?" he didn't get a straight answer so he banned all soup, period. When Himmler asked "what will we do with our bread?", this is exactly what he said; "shove your bread up your arse Bitch, yes you are my bitch get on your knees and bark like a bitch. Now catch the frisbee".

I wouldn't have lasted very long at Nazi HQ, I don't handle authority figures well. But that's just part of it, they wouldn't have let me in because I'm one of those liberals that plays with food during sex. The first time I had a goats cheese and honey Panini I was disgusted, so I had to do the tongue thing to get rid of the taste of the sandwich, it took a while. But that was in the eighties, before pot noodle became a tasty snack rather than a footballers haircut.

These days everything’s changed, the latest food sex diet is chocolate bars with condoms on. You can chew on it for a ages but you can't swallow the chocolate, unless you swallow the whole thing with the condom - if you can manage that put your phone number in comments please (ladies only). The Egyptians invented chocolate because they didn't have condoms. Not bathing was the other form of contraception practiced by ladies and gentlemen of the time, which is still practiced in some urban housing developments today (with notably less success).

Sprint races shouldn't be measured in meters, it should be feet. The result should be the runners speed in Feet per second, then we can say "fast feet", "may the fastest feet win", "look at him go! 32 feet per second!". Of course a millipede can move a thousand feet in less than a second but that's not the same, it's just a semantic anomaly. Millipedes are smug buggers, lording it over the centipede's with their extra legs, not very classy.

Yeeeeh.

JJ

Poop Poop PeeDoo

2009-06-22T20:16:00.000+02:00

What Barack needs now it so have an affair with Angelina Jolie. Then she can sing Happy Birthday Mr President. Can she sing? Does someone know because I'd really like to know.

The thing is though it won't happen. JFK got away with it, even Bill Clinton got away with it but Barack won't. Because he's black. I think he would even win a second term if the economy didn't recover, I can imagine the media lining up to say "well it was Bush that messed it up, no-one could have saved that".

Ok, here's the cut, he'll get away with it if he has an affair with say, Halle Berry, or Beyonce but not Jolie, not Stefani. You see what I'm saying? Yeh we've made strides by having a black president but there's still something nasty in the woodshed.

But this is just half-arsed opinion, if I could use my whole arse I might make some money out of it. That's not how it sounds, I mean I could publish it but I don't have time to research it properly. I'm not ready to give up my day job on a whimsical fancy, I like my day job. I get to walk around in my suit and talk to people in foreign climes on a mobile phone while picking out the cod steaks for dinner. Did you know "foriegn" is an Indian word, my guess is that Hindi was the only language the English tried to learn from their colonies so they've assimilated a few words. Shampoo is another one, and so is Transcendentalism.

I did a baked cod in tomato juice with potatoes and Greek salad for dinner, went down very well with a sparkly white wine from Luxembourg. Sparkly isn't the same as Sparkling - that's like champagne. Sparkly is more subtle, like Italian Frizzante.

I'm growing my own herbs now; Basil, Radish, Spinach and Thyme. I've got some flowers going in a small trough too but I'm buggered if I can remember what they're called. Radish is a herb if you dry out the bulbs and grind them into a white powder, then you can put the powder in little bags and sell it to yuppies as cocaine. It makes their eyes glow red when they snort it, take a camera with you.

Seen that Nasa arsed up another shuttle launch. Congress are going to cut the space budget by 16%, what does that mean? It's not like saying "well we're a bit short of cash so we won't go to Miami for holidays this year we'll rent a caravan next to the canal". If you can't afford Mars then you are back at the Moon, say "Cheese".

Oh there was one odd bit of research to use here, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Look at the surname, Schwarz means Black and Negger means, well we aren't allowed to use that word. So, how does "Black Negger" come to be family name in Austria? Even if it's an old name and slavery was not a bad thing then, we still have to wonder who would take that as a name? Arnie Isn't black.

Barack is though, and I think he made the right speech about the banking system. He's making a lot of strong good sounding speeches. He must be making a lot of enemies too.

That's all I'm saying.

JJ

What I'm saying is...

2009-06-19T07:00:00.000+02:00

Sand is shit. The Parrot Fish eats algae off coral. It has very hard beak like mouth which causes it to eat a lot of coral when it's trying to get the algae. It can't digest the coral, it just passes it out the back end, as sand. Sand comes out of the Parrot Fish's bot.

There is a popular myth in England that their National Dish, the Chicken Tikka Massala, was invented in Glasgow. Let's see, pick the odd one out here:

Fish & Chips
Deep Fried Mars Bar
Deep Fried Pizza
Chicken Tikka Massala with Rice and Naan

The last one isn't deep fried, that's a clue. And it's Indian food, that's another clue.

How many times have I heard the spaghetti bolognese isn't authentic Italian but invented by English students? About 87 times, it's hogwash of course.

Americans do it too; Pizza, Burgers, Hot Dogs, Music, Sport, Sex. Americans pursue all of these activities with relentless vigour and have somehow forged the idea that they invented them all. Loco Moco was invented in Hawaii but that's not really America, it's got too much culture to be America. If you must know Loco Moco is a hamburger and a fried egg on rice covered in gravy. Sounds damned good to me, I pretty sure I'll be trying that at home soon.

The Greeks are just as bad, they think they invented culture, pah! The Greek language is derived from Sanskrit which originated in India. Hence all Greek culture is a poor forgery of one original culure - Indian, which is much older and smarter. All the DNA's in the world can be traced back to China or India, there are two distinct groups, then back to Africa. And then to a couple of Aliens from the Sirius Binary Star System.

But that's all in the past, where's this culture thing going now? In Iceland, Rejkyavic to be precise, we saw a bunch of locals dressed in Blues Brothers gear having a convention at our hotel. In the hotel car park there was a row of American 60's and 70's cars. It's just fashion then? What used to be cool in America is now cool in Iceland, maybe one day American Football will only be played in Sweden and they'll say "why is it called American Football?", Texans will be eating Reindeer Steak and will have forgotten that their ancestors farmed cattle and Reindeer came from Lapland.

Does anyone know if there are terrorists in Lapland? Seems to me that "Lapland" should be a proper country, not jointly occupied by Sweden and Finland. Occupied places with "land" in their name are usually fertile breeding grounds for terrorists, except Palestine. Ok, are there any people in Lapland? Let's start from there.

According to our friend Wikipedia there are 168,000 Laplandices. That's a lot, they should be able to muster an army and raze Helsinki. I'd say about 10,000 soldiers could do it if they go on a Friday night when the natives are busy heaving in the gutters. Ok, any evening after about 5.30pm.

There's no such thing as alcoholism in Finland, it's like the old German joke "what do they call Frankfurters in Frankfurt? : Sausages". You see? Who is going to call who an alcoholic? It doesn't happen. Maybe "tine" is Arabic for "land", could be.

But back to food, I do love telling Italians that the Chinese invented pasta, no matter how many times you do it, it's hilarious every time, they wave their arms and shout and spit. The conversation moves into culture and then I'll claim that Spain is a what Italy would have become if they updated their buildings and stuff. Italians really look down on the Spanish. It's great fun also telling the Spanish that Italian is the real Mediterranean culture, set's them off every time. Spanish people really know how get angry, you should see it, beats the crap out of watching TV.

Right.

JJ

All for You

2009-06-15T07:00:00.000+02:00

Friday.

I haven't wrote nothing for three weeks.

I've been publishing sure, but that was all my saved up stuff. Now I'm out, done, dry. I didn't even think of it until a couple of days ago, I thought I had loads of stuff in Draft that I could clean up and put out but no. It's all garbage, and most of it is months old, dated garbage.

I was in the office at 7am today for a conference call, then it was cancelled. Ok I lied, I was at home at 7am, I came to the office at 8. Because the call was cancelled. The dissapointing thing is that I quite like doing these calls at home in the morning in just my underwear, it brings the whole thing down to earth. Wearing clothes is the beginning of ego and pretence, according to JJ. Referring to oneself in the third person is quite something too.

We won the quiz again last night, more wine, more cheese and biscuits, another fucking candle. Keeps The Goth happy though, not the candle, he collects the baskets they give us for the goodies. I go more for the social than the quiz, having someone ask me questions and give me a prize is a bonus.

Malaysia was nice, did I post that? I can't remember, Bologna was pretty good too, we saw the Pallio, mad horse race thing in the village square in Ferrara. I bought a squillion euro worth of guitar gear last weekend; Overdrive, Octave Multiplexer, T-Rex Echo, Digitech Whammy, 4 track recorder. I'm going to get a DC brick and a rack this weekend because it looks a bit scattered with my Wah-Wah and Distortion in there too. And the electric drumkit, Marshall amp and monitor. Yeeeh, it's a bit over the top but what the fuck eh?

What else? I'm going to try to make my own Ragu tonight, we're going to a party tomorrow, guests next week (all week), then it's couleur cafe music fest.

Fuck it, if I get a minute over the weekend I'll see if can think of something to write here.

I hope you have a crap weekend and it rains non-stop. I know that I will because I live in Brussels.

JJ

Perambula 2: Alien Asian

2009-06-12T07:00:00.000+02:00

It's all very well harping on about cattle and rednecks but look at it from the aliens point of view. Here's a short screen play feature with Glib and Glob, two aliens.

Glib: There's a sort of solar system in the corner, why don't we go there?
Glob: Where? I can't see anything
Glib: Are you fucking blind? It's a ten planet system, how can you not see that
Glob: Oh yeh, I can see it, no need to get shirty, let's go there then
Glib: We're in luck, there's one inhabited planet, we can grab a couple of samples and call it a day
Glob: Nice one, you are "The Glibster" waxing lyrical with the freestyler
Glib: Ok, they are flying, swimming and walking, we'll take one of each.
Glob: There's one walking on two legs like us!
Glib: Where?
Glob: You have to scroll down a bit

Glob: It's your line
Glib: I can't remeber the line, fuck. Oh, yes, "Let's see if it talks"

later in the specimen room:

Glib: What if they can use hypnosis to get the memories back? These mind erasing tools aren't fool proof
Glob: So what, they can't exactly come after us
Glib: True. It doesn't speak, it makes a noise if you shove this metal rod up it's arse
Glob: What is that? Some fancy new scanner?
Glib: No, it's a piece of junk I found in the back
Glob: Fair do, shove it in again
Glib: That's a bit naughty but, ok
Glob: Well, this is a waste of time. If this is some sort of primitive language it's beyond me
Glib: Yeeeh, let's chuck it back. Or shall we chuck four legs and keep this one
Glob: The other one's in the box now, chuck this one. Lets go, I'm hungry
Glib: Roger that Mr Globmeister, I am seeing a Super Combo Meal in your near future
Glob: Laaarging it and giving a shout to The Glibster and is arse-kicking inter-planetary crew! Yesss-aye, we got the goods again.
Glib: Don't forget to put labels on the boxes this time
Glob: Oh yeeeh, the boss was pretty hacked off last time eh?
Glib: Yeeeh, I can't lose this job the wife's dad already thinks I'm a loser
Glob: He's a loser, you should tell him his daughter swallows and takes it up the Gary Glitter
Glib: Yeeeh, I could tell him that or I could just put my bollocks on the table and give him a hammer
Glob: ha! ha! Nice one The Glibster
Glib: you are most welcome to use that one yourself Mr Globmeister
Glob: Graatsee, don't mind if do

THE END

They are a bit geeky these aliens, they have basic dead-end jobs and pass the time quoting tv comedies and thinking of cool names for each other and their fantasy buxom crew members. They'll go on like this for another four hundred of our earth years, this is the same length as their mating ritual. Then they go into cocoon states for 3 years and each alien comes out having split into two mature beings. Only the new one will mate again, the old one will do a bit of filing in the library, two days a week, and bake a fruit cake every now and then.

A little insight there for you.

JJ

Perambula

2009-06-08T23:58:00.000+02:00

One can harldy get around the globe these days without tripping over a nuclear weapon or some sort of secret alien base. Frankly I'm sick of these aliens, they come here and take our cattle and rednecks, who's going to stand up to them? What are our elected evangelists doing about it?

I don't like rednecks, I've never met one but that's not the point. That doesn't make me a biggit, makes you a smartarse. I demand to know how many extra terrestrials live in Belgium. Why is that be a secret? I'd be ok if my neighbours turned out to be lizards in human disguise. I suspect they're actually French but I'm ok with that too.

Aliens eat Penguin meat and eggs, among other things, I've never eaten a penguin but I can tell you that puffin tastes like liver and I think it's similar.

Lizards are a pretty cool bunch, they don't mince around like some animals, they keep still. I like that. I don't care how fucking hot it is, don't hassle me, I do what I do in my own time. I'm going to be a lizard next time out, or the guy who invented tic-tacs.

Can you imagine? If aliens are a hundred times smarter than us, their zoo animals are probably smarter than we are too. They probably take their alien kids to their zoo to see some weird animals sending text messages and the adults will be saying "they only learned to write three generations ago, now they've got mobile phones" and the kids will be saying "what's a mobile phone?", "it's an ancient machine that simulated telepathy or something like that, ask your alien father".

She wouldn't say "alien" father really but then she wouldn't speak English either and they probably don't have nuclear families, they might not even have the whole parent-child concept. I put in those terms to give you a frame of reference. Hollywood does this all time, except they always make aliens evil. Except ET. There's no reason to assume aliens would want to harm us, it's just the American way. Americans don't understand sex so they want to fight everyone.

All I can say is there's nothing civil about war.

Well, that's the garbage out, I'm off to bed.

JJ

Adverteasements

2009-06-05T06:27:00.000+02:00

I'm no communist, I want to make that clear now because frankly I see this whole Obama administration thing ending in a huge witch-hunt. I'm not a muslim either. In fact I'm nothing you need to know about (5th ammendment), I have no beliefs (officially), I'm a literary mercenary. I'll write any bollocks.

I confessed, what did you expect? I haven't had military training, my mum didn't let me.

All this melodramatics, it's my bollywood heritage and I'm not apologising for that. I have nothing against advertising "per se", it just conflicts with the aesthetic of my blog, not just the physical aesthetic but the unquantifiable intellectual aesthetic. Why don't they advertise something other than "instant sex, thousands of members are waiting near you!", that doesn't sit well with my sensibilities. I'm not qualifying that statement either, jeeez you ask a lot of questions, worse than a woman or a southerner.

So, in the spirit of being a bit shifty I'm going to run a pilot program of not-sex text only adverts. It's Adversteasement:

1. Grass
"see that brown mud-patch behind your house? It's supposed to be a garden you fucking lazy tit, buy some Grass for Jimmy's sake" (ref: some encyclopeadica; Jimmy Hendrix is God)

2. Cats
You might think “Free To A Good Home” is less than a glowing endorsement so try this; “take the cat home or it goes to the bottom of the canal in a sack with a rock”. The problem with selling cats is people only give money for those posh stuck up ones; "you chase the fucking clockwork mouse, you bought it" I don't like those cats.

3. The Samaritans
Tons of debt? Affair going sour? Kids on Drugs? Don’t top yourself, call The Samaritans and hear what a real loser sounds like

4. Insecurity
What? Just get a life you wet-arsed muppet.

5. Adverteasement (:promoting adverts)
Naked women selling cuppa soup and box spanners. To wankers. There's only one cure for baldness, wear a fucking hat and get over it. There's only one cure for Advertising, Stop Being A Tit. "SBAT; a slogan is not for life, it's just for Christmas"

I’m not quite sure who would be advertising Insecurity and to what end but there you have it. Think of it like an academic excercise, ie of no practibal use. Ok it's a harsh thing what I said abaaht Insecuritee, it's me up-bringing see? I can never apologise properly, I always put on a silly voice to hide my shame.

According to the University of Cambridge, England, you didn't ntocie taht lsat typo bceasue the mcagial brian only needs to see the first and last letters in place to make a word. Ok I cheated, I spelled it wrong. (no Practibal use)? I dunno, I'm not even following this anymore, Jesus!

There's a subject, and a question; If you can turn water into wine can you turn grass into Zombie or Skunk? I'd cough up some serious moolah to be at that gig. Talking of old I'm going to see Whitesnake on Sunday, well David Coverdale anyway, the other people weren't even born when we were rocking out to Fool for Your Loving etc.

So, yeeeeh. Still, at least it's not raining.

JJ

Cuppa Soup

2009-06-03T07:00:00.001+02:00

As promised, here's the low down on cuppa soup, I'm going to start completely off subject, to confound you, and then cleverly link into soup.

Do you know what Ice T is? If you're thinking "rapper" you are soooo wrong, he is a Lyrical Gangsta. He is, he's got a shed full of attitude to boot, his mum's sister told me. She's an Empirical Cuisineologist (here comes the clever link).

Talking of cuisine, cuppa soup, "Royco Minute Soup" to be precise is the flavour of the month. You can easily keep a few in you desk drawer and they are a most excellent hangover cure. Also, soup is THE miracle diet food. The problem with drinking water to cure hunger is that is doesn't stay in the stomach, the body recognises that it doesn't need to digest so it passes straight through. So, fill your stomach with soup, it's mostly water but just enough food to trip the digestion process and keep the stomach full.

Royco Minute Soup has only 41k calories or 175Kj. That's a fraction of the calories of a sandwich or a cooked lunch. You can burn it off in about twenty minutes on a bike, less if there are scantily clad women surrounding you. Like in the gymn.

Cuppa soup flavours are very masculine. Not like that fancy Covent Garden Soup - Carrot and Corriander flavour? Fuck off. With cuppa soup you get; Chicken Flavour, Vegetable Flavour, Beef Flavour and so forth, and if they don't have your favourite it doesn't matter becaue they all taste the same. ...and it comes in a red box, so that's cuppa soup.

Still haven't answered the old conundrum though. Does one eat soup or drink it? What if it's in a cup? And what the fuck is Consommé? Probably bollocks if it's French.

I quite like French food actually, it's tasty even though the presentation is a bit poncey. I wonder if the French have a word for Ponce, probably not, why would they? Who are they going to call a ponce? It wouldn't be very convincing would it. I don't suppose Italians have a word for "arrogant loudmouthed twat" either.

We're going to Italy, a friend has an appartment in Bologna we can borrow. I'm going to have to take plenty of cuppa soup, Italian food is astoundingly bland. That is if you've been raised on Indian food, our breakfast has enough chilli in it to knoch out an ostrich. Ok, ostriches aren't very big but try punching one in the bollocks, it's not as easy as you think.

Oh, wait a minute, when you read this we will already be back from Italy, I hope we enjoyed it. Sorry, this isn't a live broadcast, it's scheduled in advance. I had to do it this way otherwise the burglers would know we're going away for the weekend. I'll bring you something nice to make up for it. A puppy! You'd like that wouldn't you? A tiny cute cuddly puppy, ahhhhhh!

Ciao for now, silly sod.

JJ

On Line Shopping

2009-06-01T07:00:00.000+02:00

People who bought "Johnny Cash : The Autobiography", also bought "Pat Cash an autobiography", I don't think so. I can buy Robin Trower's "Another Days Blues" for 20.00 quid from Amazon or for 7 quid from "Alternative sellers", what's this? Why are Amazon selling things cheaper from other people? I smell a rat. Actually I'm not 100% what a rat smells like, never got close enough and hope I never do.

When I'm surfing the net of an evening I often get his message "This page contains unsecure items", I always click Yes to continue dowloading. Nothing ever happens, what's the point of that message? What insecure items? Clingy Jpeg's?

Then there this one; "You are now leaving the secure zone", Yes. I left the secure zone the day I installed microsoft products on my computer, it's a bit rich putting that pop-up on screen now isn't it Bill?

"This pornographic video has a deadly virus", Yes, "Do you wish to disable the virus checker?" Yes! hurry up you twat

But why am I documenting my filthy habits for the world to see? Partly because no one reads this and partly because that's not the point. The point is that internet security doesn't work because the idiot users always click "Yes" when they should click "No".

You see, it's no good having a mega-buck virus checker if the guy at next desk knows your network passwork. If someone leaves their computer unattended here's what you do:

Take a screen print of the desktop, delete all the icons on the desktop, set the screen print as the wallpaper. It will look like the icons are there but when the user clicks on them nothing happens, it's even better when the help desk logs on with a remote session to try to fix it.

Have you seen that new Reggie Perrin program with Martin Clunes? Don't bother, it's rubbish.

I'm preparing a piece on cuppa soup for the near future, if you have any requests please put them in comments. I mean requests for posts, I'm not mailing cuppa soup to anyone. Unless you are a leggy blonde, I think we know where this is heading so let's just nip it in the bud now.

JJ

Newspeek

2009-05-29T07:00:00.000+02:00

King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, 28, an Oxford-educated bachelor, is the world's youngest monarch. The king of Bhutan no less. Makes you think doesn't it? Old Prince Charles just turned Sixty. He's going to have to give her a nudge down the stairs or he'll be the first Pensioner Prince and the first Pensioner King.

It's rotten luck though, she's had almost sixty years on the throne, if he's going to do that he'll have to live to be a hundred and fifty at this rate. Better start eating sushi Monsieur PP. But really, a sixty year old Prince? I ask you ladies if you've ever dreamed of being whisked off your feet by a Prince Charming on his white horse, how would you feel if this idiot turned up? "Is this monstrous carbuncle your house? What does your father do?" Hardly the pinnacle of romance is it?

Did you see that program about the Class system with John Prescott? Harping on about how he's still working class and old Tony's crowd never invited him to dinner because of his accent. Then he's in a cafe asking some fella his opinions on class and starts having a row with him! I'm not bleedin' surprised Tony never asked you to dinner mate, I wouldn't either and it's not because of your class or accent it's because you are a f*cking vulgar yob. He's still proud of himself for punching that bloke who threw an egg at him, he said so. The expression "chip on shoulder" doesn't even begin to describe "two jags" Prescott, more like a full portion of fish, chips and mushy peas with gravy on both shoulders.

In these crunchy times of fiscal probity should we really be having a 12 billion pound Olympic Games in London? I can still remember the terse letter from my bank manager saying "I am surprised you feel able to cash a fifty pound cheque at Thresher", Thresher being a liquor shop, it was the only place that would give cash against a cheque, I didn't buy fity quid of booze even though I was a student, I just needed the cash. But isn't this the same thing? It's buying a round of drinks on a slate, I'm not impressed. I'll watch it but I won't like it, I'm partly British after all.

Unlike Joanna Lumley, she's partly Indian. Now she's going to help write the policy on Gherkins because she was slinky actress once. She still is. Hmmmmm....

Errrmmm, planning any holidays? We might go to America. The problem with America is though they want our semen and DNA samples before we get into the country. I can just imaging that they take a sample and start accusing me of all sorts of monkey business. Who's going to take my semen sample anyway? Will we have a drink first? or dinner? I'm not juicing up for a rubber glove and a copy of Penthouse. Not again.

The only possible objection to governments keeping DNA records is that governments are shit at keeping any sort of data. Especially the Brits at the moment. This is why "if you're innocent you have nothing to worry about" is complete hogwash. Innocent people should be scared fucking shitless of giving their DNA to a government agency, it's just a matter of time before they put you in jail for something you didn't do. Something they did, most likely.

Anyway, that's that and this is me saying Goodnight.

Goodnight.

JJ

Not Normal

2009-05-27T18:30:00.001+02:00

I wasn't going to write nothing today but you have to get a load of this:

This morning I went to the posh car place to get the winter tyres took off my car but they denied me, the leasing company said they won't pay posh car place prices, I have to go to a cheap tyre shop. Well, it's their car I suppose, if it breaks they'll have to give me a new one.

So, I'm sitting at my desk spinning my usual web of corporate jumble when I get distress signal from Girlfriend. Apparently the cleaner has disturbed a couple of hoodlums in the process of forcing entry into our maison. She was a bit shaked so I packed up and set off home while Girlfriend called the cops.

Scene 2: I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of new cd's from Amazon to copy when the cops arrive. They've only gone and caught the culprits! You could've knocked me down with a memory stick, hold the front page "Police Catch Burglars", fuck me. We went to the cop shop picked the baddy out of a line up and made a statement.

The statement bit was wierd, the cop was asking me to check the English, being not English herself. We had quite a discussion about the use of "then" versus "than", it seemed to detract from the gravity of the situation for me but the cop was very light hearted about the whole thing. She was glad she'd caught one, that doesn't happen often.

What a day! I got a ride in cop car, cool.

Now I'm off to the boozer to watch the Champions League final, at least nothing fishy can happen there...

eh?

JJ

Hungarian Asparagus Pickers

2009-05-27T00:06:00.000+02:00

I can't believe it's been five years since the last European MP elections, where does the thyme go? Surely there must be a way that we can have you-are-peeing elections every year. Let's have a website poll, we could vote every week! Yaaayyy!

It's called Sarcasm according to the bitchikers excuse for a dictionary. Invented in 1066 when Harold said to Norman "Frankly, I don't see your point".

But surely now is a good time for me to pick up my election campaign trail again. The elections start on 4th June, I'll probably be back from some jaunt somewhere and fit in the votey bit between EXPENSE CLAIMS.

Just a minute, what about the Max Mosely? Should we make it legal to get five hookers in Nazi Uniforms on a sex weekend? I think we should, actually it's already legal, he didn't go to jail for it. The surprising thing is that more people don't do it. See, this feels right.

I want to make a law that let's married empee's shag hookers if it's on expenses. As an unelected citizen I believe it is my duty to put forward the needs of ordinary empee's and stop this blatant empeephobia which is staining our coastline. Or border. By border I mean sovereignty, pride. By pride I mean shirts, those coloured shirts with white collars and cuffs that Frenchmen wear.

If a man is a confessed alcoholic he should be allowed to drive drunk. This is obvious, he's confessed. Some people like to flash their expensive cars around wine bars and then they have to get home (to their second home with a tart). It is possible to be an alcoholic and keep down a job in politics, that's why stopping drink driving is anti-empee. Anything that's "anti" is bad, read the papers. Except anti-Nazi, unless it's a hooker in a party costume.

Back to the point though, I want to be Member of the You-Are-Peeing Parliament and I think it's going to take a step more than the mundane theiving and cheating of national politicians, here's the fucking plan:

First I'm going to get a cat, then I'm going to train the cat to swig vodka out of a bottle in a paper bag. Then I'm going to give him my loyalty card from Chez Fernand kebab shop. Once they get to know him down there I'll show the cat how to get two people on the metro on one ticket - it's not hard. Next I'll teach the cat to play guitar, mow the lawn and write wordy powerpoint shows that meander on for days without saying anything. Then I'll leave the cat in my office with "Project Management for Dummy's Cats" and just slink off into the distance.

I wake up on a south pacific island beach and it's better than winning the lottery, I don't have any money but I don't need it either, beauty.

Wait, that's a shit plan. Is it that em-ee-pees are all corrupt motherfucker's or is that all corrupt motherfucker's are emeepees? That's one of those trick population distribution questions that you need to draw a venn diagram for. I'll give you a hint; whichever way it works out, if you're a politician you are going to get your arse kicked no matter what you do. It's like being an insurance salesman or a twat. So the best thing to do is make lots of noise about people's rights while secretly hiving off tons of cash for the inevitable "early retirement".

So, can I count on your vote? No I won't kiss your baby, fuck-off.

Darn it, I almost had it in the bag. I think that baby thing blew it right at the end. Let's spend the rest of the budget on a huge election night party! Yaay!

JJ

It's Time to Play the Game

2009-05-25T06:54:00.000+02:00

Who want's to see the Prime Minister on You Tube? No one.

I want to have a nice day, some sun, sit in the garden, have a beer. Do I care if monkey-bollocks went to Poland for a dick-slapping session about inter-governmental pigs-nipples?

No.

I saw a piece on TV about the sad demise of Morris Dancing in Angleterre, is it my imagination or do they run the same piece every 10 years? Why don't they get money from the lottery like the opera mob? Don't tell me it's because Morris Dancers have no secret connections, the Lottery Fund distribution is done on a needs assesment basis for the betterment of all. Charities can't be corrupt. Ok, except that time Winston Churchill got £13 million to buy his grandad's diaries. They never did explain that one. Let's just try to forget it now, look at the tits on page three.

Actually, the only time I've wanted to see politicians on tv at all is when they've been caught lining their own pockets and have to explain their actions. How to explain the unexplainable to an audience who already thinks of you as a weasel, if nothing else it's an object lesson in creative speaking under pressure.

All of this is real:

"The rules aren't very clear so I claimed for everything and bought a new house just to be sure I was doing it properly"

"Well you tell me where I can get a moat cleaner for under £1500?"

"£1672 is exactly what it costs to build a duck island, the expenses committee approved it so it's completely within the rules. I fail to see the problem. "

"Of course I live with my wife and we are both MP's but the rules state each MP must buy a second house, so we bought two between us"

"I claimed for food only in the second house, not at my first house, it's a cheap shot to say I can only physically eat one dinner"

"Yes I continued claiming for the mortgage for two years after it was paid off, it was mistake. The place was awash with money we didn't have time to go into all the details"

"Obviously David Cameron is squeaky clean, he doesn't claim expenses, he gets £70,000 bonus for being leader of the opposition"

Isn't it a bit galling that the leader of the losers gets an extra seventy grand a year on top of his MP's salary? The same leader of the losers who was telling us last month how banks ruined the economy with their fat-cat bonuses?

Still, the bankers must be secretly thanking whoever blew the whistle on MP's expenses, certainly took the spotlight away from them. Could there be a connection? Surely not, that would mean that all rich people are more or less in cohoots to avoid any sort of justice. Frankly I'm not prepared to believe that of Michael Jackson and it's about time we stopped bashing middle class white men like this.

Ok, let's not be hasty. It was obviously David Cameron who blew the whistle on the expenses. He has nothing to lose, he can now get rid of some Tories he doesn't like and have real good go at Labour. That's why the news was leaked over several days and the first few days covered labour MP's only. They suffered the most damage. Cameron is an utter, utter weasel, he must win the next election, all the press will support him now.

There are three winners in this game; David Cameron, The Telegraph Newspaper and The Thieving Bankers. An unholy trinity if ever I saw one.

JJ

Anti Gravity Boy

2009-05-22T07:00:00.000+02:00

When you get down to it Superman is pretty lame, compared to Batman, Spiderman, the X-Men, Hellboy, Iron Man etc. His first problem is that he can do everything, he's got too much power, so when he comes under attack it's hard to believe he's ever really struggling. It's hard to identify or empathise with him at any level. He is the Coporate version of a super-hero, it's just too much.

His second problem is he only has one enemy, Lex Luthor. The comic book superman and the tv series version had lots of enemies, but the movies only have Lex Luthor. It's not good enough and it shows a singular lack of imagination by the writers, "boooo!".

So here's the solution, take away the x-ray vision, the super hearing and that crap thing when he blows on something to freeze it and then make him fight six enemies at once. Also, he needs a personality. This "super" man is a super-boring goody two shoes, have a drink and lighten up dude!

You might think this is turning into that thing Will Smith did but that was rubbish, not that I've seen it, even though I own the DVD. I just know in advance that Will ruins every film he's in, it's not his fault, he just can't act. How many sequels have come from Will Smith movies? I don't know because I would have avoided them but I did see Men In Black II and it sucked, he should take the hint.

So, what's Anti Gravity Boy? Well, that's me! I had a dream where I figured out that instead of trying to fly I could mentally repel gravity, causing my body to float in the air. It looks the same as flying but the physics is different. I think it might actually work. That Russian scientist who invented the Theremin reckoned that he could take off simply by grabbing hold of a huge gyroscope. I saw the black and white footage of him waving a gyroscope around his head, that was three quarter's of tonne of steel and he really didn't look that strong.

So, from a 750kg spinning wheel to using "The Force" to fly isn't really that much of stretch. The question is, what does one do with the flying ability? I wouldn't want to be a circus exhibit, hanging around womens bathroom windows is going be interesting for a couple of days, then what? A courrier service? Surveillence? Bor-ring.

It doesn't seem worth the effort, might as well keep using the metro. I've 9 trips left on my ticket for now anyway, maybe then I'll see if I can figure out this flying lark.

I really did have that dream, that was the inspiration for this.

JJ

Tales of the Unexpended

2009-05-20T07:00:00.000+02:00

Taxi drivers always say they know the way until you get going, then they ask you if you've been there before. Otherwise you wouldn't get in the cab.

My internet provider, Telenet, on line help only sends answers on email, the question? what's my email password? So if I can't get into email what use is this help? I can create a new account on line but they send the new account details to the same email address. So I phoned the helpesk, all three of them, they said it should be fixed in two or three days. Which probably means my order was sitting in someones in tray, lazy hyenas. That was four months ago.

I was in Paris two years ago to see that picture. "La Joconde" the French name, (also known as La Gioconda, this is the feminine form of Giocondo), the sitter was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, her name was Lisa Gherardini the painting is also know as the Mona Lisa, this title means Madam Lisa. And then it was a film with Bob Hoskins.

I was walking to the metro and there's a part where the pavement is blocked by construction, they've built a small wooden walk way to get round it isnt even 3 ft wide (91 cm). There's this fat woman Coming the other way with a little white terrier. So I'm Waitirg behind two girls and theres a guy behind me, half way along the dog Stopped to take a dump. She was embarrassed, if only I knew the french words, I would have told her. The girls were messing around so one stepped in it and spread it around the narrow path. It was a bit runny anyway

I happened to notice this slogan on the website of a certain software firm "Your Potential. Our Passion". The more I think about it, I'm just not convinced this multi billion dollar corporation is passionate about my potential, we've never even met. Potential do do what anyway? Make a cheesy slide show with sliding captions synchronised to "Simply the Best"? Thanks but I'll manage without it.

I prefer the chinese approach "lucky 8 computer software company, boost your fertility 100% guaranteed!", of course that's horseshit but I'd rather buy from a company which falsly claims to boost my fertility than one that tells bland lies and then bores me into a coma. At least the the chinese are talking about something I'm interested in. Gambling and fertility should be more prominent in western culture, all this stuff about sports, celebrities, investment portfolios and hedge funds it's just money and sex. That's what it all boils down to.

Oh my god, I just figured out what "Hedge Fund" means! Hedge as in "hedging your bets", Fund as in "the clients money". There.

I'm tired, go away now.

JJ

The Yelpdesk

2009-05-18T07:00:00.000+02:00

Want to know what's really going on down at the helpdesk?

You can try this at home kids, with Google Translate. Take a hypothetical helpdesk scenario:

"When I type "yuo" in an email the system keeps changing it to "you". "Yuo" is my Korean pen pal who I like to write to regularly to chat about families and things that go on in the day. We also play the "send me apathy" game on face book but the most important thing is that Yuo is planning to visit me for Easter. We are having logistical problems because of this spell checker, also because they don't have Easter so he doesn’t understand the schedule."

That's scenario I'm sending to the helpdesk. Say the helpdesk is in Berlin, they would translate it into German and that text translated back into English looks like this:

"If I, "you" in an e-mail system is constantly changing it to "you". "It is my Korean pen PAL, which I like to write regularly to chat about family and things that go into the day. We also play "Send me apathy" game on the face book, but the most important thing is that it is planning to visit me and Easter, we have logistical problems, because this thing, because they are not about Easter, so he doesn ' t understand the timetable."

The answer (which I wrote in English and double translated back) is this:

"Easter is on Sunday, 12 April, the usual schedule is Good Friday, Easter Monday, followed by the United Kingdom, and they have holidays. The weekend is not named and it's free for your needs, gentile. If you have a problem with your stylus Korean, please contact the manufacturer, we have no information from PAL. Have a nice day."

Stop and compare the answer with the question, both sides are competent and good communicators but the result is gibberish. I hope that explains why the help desk isn't what you hoped it would be.

JJ

The Mystery of the Green Thing

2009-05-14T23:20:00.000+02:00

This week, I are mostly been learning about gardening, it's that green thing behind the house, didn't have one before. In the previous place I mean, obviously this house always had a garden. Well, it's not obvious from the front but that's the question about a tree falling in the forest and not making a sound. I mean I haven't seen the enging in my car but I'm pretty sure it's got one.

But back to the garden, it is green so that's already a good start. It's got grass, a tree and lot's of little things that could be shrubs, bushes or just plants, I'm not that clear on the technical terms. The previous tennant didn't put names on anything, bugger, so I'm going to have to give them new names. There's a prickly one I'm going to call Rosey because roses have thorns but I was never really sure whether they put the thorns on in the factory or if they are born like that.

That's as far as I've got. There's a nifty electrial lawnmower which is quite noisy so that's fun, I'll be doing that a lot. I wanted a ho to get between the bushes with but I couldn't find one in the garden section of Brico. Insead I bought a poisonous chemical, some gloves and a spikey diggy thing - not quite sure what its for but it looks like it could cause a nasty injury so it must be something to do with gardening.

There was already some equipment here so I've been trimming the bushes, they were getting a bit, well, bushy.

I've already got a baseball hat so now I just need a six pack and a barbecue and that should be it. I can invite The Germans round for dinner al fresco, we had a chat about money today. Not a financial discussion, we were talking about the slang terms for money, we say 25 quid is a "pony", 500 quid is a "monkey" etc The Germans are not that creative with their slang, they have some but it's more on the level of "fiver" for five poinds. So a funfzig note would be called a "fufi" and a hundert is a "huni". We've had better conversations.

Language is funny anyway, even before you start talking pony. What's the language of diplomacy? They talk about it on the tv but they don't say which language it really is. Some people say French is the language of love, garbage, Hindi is the language of love, I know, I can speak both, a little. When I was a school they explained diplomacy like this; "talk quietly but carry a big stick", but that was during the cold war. The big stick was supposed to be a nuclear weapon I think but at that age all could think of was "penis".

Not much has changed, the cold war had cooled off but now that rascal gasPutin is stirring the pot again. And I'm mixing metaphors in a pot so it must be getting late, sorry about that, next time I'll try take the pips out of my writing. "Writing" is a bit grandoise, what else can I call e-Penning? Maybe it's just word masturbation.

Bye then.

Bye.

It's finished, really. I know it's not a smooth finish but that's all I've got.

Goodnight!

JJ

Kiss Off

2009-05-11T06:30:00.001+02:00

This kissing business is just not making any sense at all. Isn't one enough? It's a kiss hello. Ok, one on each cheek, maybe the second one is their hello to you but three? Why repeat the first one? Isn't that like saying hello to someone, they say hello back and then you say hello again?

But even that I can manage if it's with a complete stranger, it's just kissing. But when it's friends, someone I've known for a long time, it's too much. There are feelings behind any contact, especially that one, and not always good feelings. But if they are good feelings, that's not good.

And those guys who do it, the southern Europeans mostly, that's just not happening. Not two or one. None. Hello and a handshake is all the contact I need with a man.

I often introduce myself as English and I see people stopping short of the kiss hello, it's an uncomfortable moment but frankly it's better than the option. Nothing personal, it's not you it's me.

It is interesting how quickly people make these judgements, "English, no kiss", "Indian, karma sutra eerrrm... best be careful". I have been told before that I am associated with the Karma Sutra simply for having an Indian background. In reality I am very uncomfortable even kissing cheeks.

So where does that leave us? Stop importing continental culture, I don't mean yoghurt, I mean habits. You can't trust people who don't eat a proper breakfast. Ok, I have Pepsi Max for breakfast and I live on the continent but that's not the point. The whole isn't the sum of the parts, the people are still the people even if one lives in Belgium.

I didn't want to live in Belgium, who ever thinks of migrating to Belgium? I thought Australia or Western USA but extraneous circumstances happened to me and now I'm here. I'm not crying, I'm just saying I could have learned to surf and had a barbie cruising the strip or whatever it is.

We have got a loverly garden though. More about that soon.

JJ

Cheap DNA Scanners

2009-05-08T07:00:00.000+02:00

Why does the word Autumn, have an "n" at the end? Why does "psycho" start with a pee? Why can't we correct these obvious mistakes?

Because language is sacrosanct. That's means you can't change it because "we" won't allow it. There's an unwritten code that as society advances and discovers new advanced things we will keep certain rubishy old things and call it our heritage.

In Iceland they stayed out of the Eurozone and staunchly protected their currency as their Soveriegn Right. Now, their banks have collapsed, their Soveriegn Right is worth fuck-all and they want to join the Eurozone. Denied. Countries with shit loads of debt aren't allowed in (except Italy and Greece). Should have joined when you were doing well and you wouldn't be screwed now.

Is this what it's going to take to make England join the Eurozone? Yes it is. That's all there is to it. You know full well that as soon as the Euro overtakes the Pound all of those macho sovereign posturing media types will be blaming the govevernment for not joining the Euro "when we had it good".

The government knows that it's irrelevant, it's just a trump card. The next time England hits serious finincial problems they'll say "let's join the Euro, that was my idea, I thought of it because I put the country first and I'm in touch with the people".

I can buy Cheddar and HP sauce in Brussels, HP Sauce is made in Holland anyway, they moved last year. They kept the picture of Big Ben on the lable though. The recipe comes from India. Britain needs it's sauce factory but it should be called International Sauce instead of HP and the picture should be an artists sketch of the Solar System.

Why don't we just sack all the politicians and become a global society already? We can still have flags and songs and Olypmics and Football but why do we need these boring twats harping on day after day about the FooTSiE, the Hang Seng, a quarter point off interest rates, the pound against the dollar? Just wipe it all out, one global currency, no interest rates, no inflation, no exchange rates. Do we really need those things? You go to France for a day trip to get cheap fags and booze, swap your pounds for euros and swap euros for pounds on the way back. Isn't it rather pointless? Just use plastic, then there is no currency, you can still get fags and booze. If we used plastic for everything who would care or notice about pounds and euros?

Better still we have to make credit cards out of recycled paper, or even better use a dna scanner to identfy people and take money directly from the bank.

It won't be cheap, you might need a loan to buy a dna scanner.

JJ

Famous Last Words

2009-05-06T18:58:00.000+02:00

"Dear Valued Customer, In order to improve on the already fantastic service we provide, we moved the helpdesk to a shed in India…"

Banks have been increasing profits and laying people off for years with mergers and acquisitions, barely a season goes by when they don't introduce another great service or product, or announce bigger than ever profits. Until now. Suddenly these bastions of monetarism have been bought by governments to keep them alive.

In the long run then, shouldn't we have left them in government control? Protected the workers rather than the CEO's?

In every story about bankers today there are least 3 "sirs" and 2 "lords" apologising, resigning and forfeiting multi-million pound bonuses. Fortunately for them they've been pocketing the same bonuses for years so they can afford to skip one. It's a nice gesture though, it shows how much they care about ordinary people who are jobless and homeless now and don't have a penny savings but mountains of debt thanks that wonderful "c", Consumerism. Their advice to us is, "you must spend more money to get out of the recession".

We are in the middle of a financial catastrophe, so the best thing is to spend more money. I keep mulling this one over, I just don't get it. They average debt per person in UK is 12,000 pounds, that's why they need to spend more money. Is this a good system? Does it work? Is it good for us? The early eighties saw huge recession, massive job-losses which were all needed to stabilize the economy. Thirty years later we're standing in the biggest shit-pile since The Ark finally hit land. So, shall we keep on with this system? Is it working? You know, I really can't tell, I'm just not qualified in these highly complex financial matters, is there a "sir" or a "lord" nearby?

Sir James Crosby resigned from the FSA. Most people only resign if something serious kicks off and they are forced to, but this guy did it for the good of the financial sector. He was careful to stress that this had nothing with allegations that Paul Moore was now saying "see, I told you" apparently Paul was sacked three years ago after he told Sir James that the banks were stealing money without check. Paul still isn't a "sir", he never will be. If he wanted to be a "sir" he would have traded his information for a promotion and a bonus. But he didn't, he spoke out and lost his job. He would never have been seen again except now that the banks have collapsed people are saying "remember that fella who said this would happen? Why didn't we listen to him instead of this idiot Crosby?".

Oh, is it improper to call a "sir" an idiot? Yes it is, and it should be, but "sir"'s should not behave like this, "sirs"'s should be sent back down the ranks for this. That would be the proper thing to do, otherwise it just promotes the idea that "sir"'s only get their titles by nefarious means and will do anything, no matter how dishonourable, to keep those titles. If that's even half true then we might as well stop wearing wigs in court. I don't want to be melodramatic but I think it really is that serious. Why is it so difficult to tackle institutionalised fraud, theft, racism, sexism, cronyism? Same for taxes, isn't there one single person in the entire civil service whose bonus depends on how much the tax burden is reduced? It seems not. Start a new project, have another party, print another two hundred t-shirts, collect your bonus, pass go and just throw the dice again, there's no harm done.

I was being sarcastic.

JJ

Urban Poetry

2009-05-01T07:00:00.000+02:00

This one is called: Warm Day

It stinks here,
Chewing gum and petrol,
My feet are too hot in these boots,
I want a cold drink but I've just had one,
I can't think,
Why is it so hot?
It's too hot here,
We can't cope with this heat,
This is a cold country,
Our dogs are barking all day,
Even our sex is shorter now,
I wish it was winter.

JJ

Saints Alive !

2009-04-30T07:00:00.000+02:00

That's an odd thing to say, why would anyone say that? It was St George's day last Thursday. George was an English knight who rescued a maiden (virgin) by slaying a dragon. Whoever said Sainthood is bestowed upon the virtuous was talking bollocks. This is why Mother Theresa will never be a saint, she hasn't killed anything in the pursuit of a good shag.

There are some thing's I really love about the church, in some respects it's real good old fashioned boys club, drinking and fighting to the max. But what else happened on this auspicious day? Bearing in ming that St Georges day was last week (the 23rd), here are some top events on this day in history (meaning today, the 30th). No I don't know what the point is, there is no connection:

Willie Nelson was born in 1933
Elvis recorded Jailhouse Rock in 1957 (Presley not Costello, idiot)
Premier of McVicar starring Roger Daltry in 1980
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in 0030
Darrell Sweet of Nazareth died of a heart attack as they arrived in New Albany for a gig in 1999
Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide. They had been married for one day. 1945
Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a tennis match in Hamburg 1993.

I haven't made up that Nazareth thing, check www.on-this-day.com. That was the second coming (Ok, I made up that bit). Spooky isn't it? No? Suit yourself then, what do I care I'm a Heathen.

It's gradually becoming more acceptable to waive flags and prance around on St Georges and why not? Other countries do it, there should be a national holiday in all of Europe. Once the Scottish oil runs out and they finally get independence we'll be able to divest ourselves of the Welsh and Northern Irish and the flags will really come out. England for the English say I. I'm staying put in Belgium though, I don't need to be surrounded by football hooligans and binge drinking teenagers, especially at weekends. Belgium is much more weekend-ish on Saturday's and Sundays, they don't even open the shops on Sunday.

Now that I'm old and can't handle it anymore I've decided that binge drinking is a bad thing. It's not for lack of trying, you can ask Girlfriend, I just can't manage that second bottle of Bacardi every night.

Actually I didn't know Adolf and Eva were even married, I wonder if the marriage was properly consummated? In one day? I would be shame to have died without even having a nibble, for her I mean, I didn't care much for Adolf, shocking temper. Always shouting and stomping around, there's just no need for it is there? We're all under pressure but you just have to get on as best you can don't you?

On that note...

JJ

Everybody Loves Somebody

2009-04-29T07:00:00.000+02:00

I couldn't help my self laughing at Barack Obama taking the oath of office. Of all the things to screw up, only the entire planet was watching.

Why does Beyonce sing "to the left, to the left"? Because black people have no rights.

If John McCain was a POW doesn't that mean he fucked up and got captured by the enemy? That's what he built his campaign on, loser.

What's wrong with hunting? Millions of animals are slaughtered every day for food, it's ok to electrocute 20 million cattle for burgers but it's not ok to set the dogs on a fox. A fox just a red dog with bad teeth.

What if we set fifty pigs on a human being? Equally deadly but less than electrocuting 20 million cattle. So then why is it illegal for one human to kill another?

It depends on the human. In some countries it's legal to kill sick people if they ask nicely. In some cultures burying dead people is considered a waste of good meat. And some people think they are heroes if they blow themselves up and kill lots of other people, the more the better.

If you got into a fight and killed someone you'd get 20 years for murder, unless it was in a boxing ring, then you get tons of money and talk to that posh chick on tv.

We're not that civilised really are we? There's lots of ways to kill people legally and it's getting worse.

So in the end of it, if I want drive through the tunnel at 150k at 6am it's up to me, there's no one else there at that time, it doesn't matter if there's a law against it. Except that one time the cop followed me to work, luckily I was in a melancholic mood and he didn't catch me doing anything unbecoming.

Well, it's easy to be melancholy at 6am, when you're not really awake. Try being melancholy at midnight in the pub. You'd have to be a goth.

The real reason I don't eat at Burger King is because I think the burgers are full of dead moths, the flame attracts them you know. I'll just go to McBurger's and have that microwaved thing, whatever it is. It's better to microwave them then you know that everything in there is definitely dead. Girlfriends sister doesn't even own a microwave, I thought that odd for a German.

Hmmmmm... I forgot I was going write now. How can you not own a microwave? In this day and age?

Nevermind, I'll think of something later

JJ

Time Magazine

2009-04-27T07:00:00.001+02:00

You may have noticed that Time Magazine did a piece about this blog. They said "some of the socio-political commentary is truly cutting edge and quite remarkable for someone who isn't a professional journalist". So I decided to reciprocate and have a look at their mag.

What a load of bollocks - you can quote that.

Do you still think this is cutting edge?

Time Magazine is a big fat stinking rotten crusty dinosaur. What were they writing about in the buld up to the biggest recession in like, ever? Al Gore's home movie about Polar Bears stuck on ice bergs. Because they didn't see it coming, unlike that fella who was sacked from RBS for saying "this is a really bad idea", why isn't his face on the front cover of fucking Time fucking Magazine? Embarrassing? Yes it would be.

Why do people still read this crap? It's obvious they have no more insight than that fat bloke down the pub. Now they're writing ad nauseum about the size of the recession and how they cleverly predicted Barack Obama to win the Election and he's going to make history. This seems to be a magazine aimed solely at clueless people who are somehow isolated from the entire world. Here's a revolutionary idea for you Time Magazine people: TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T ALLREADY KNOW!

And please don't write any more articles about how the dinosaurs (your relatives) "might" have died out following a meteor strike, I'm not interested in another fucking crater under the sea off Mexico. I'm sticking to my own theory - they died of syphillis because penis-illin' hadn't been invented.

You can still disseminate information on paper but I'll tell you what; the people who work in the business of shifting critical information aren't doing it like that anymore. They're using fancy blue glowy things that make beepy noises, that's the cutting edge, a memory on a stick and a dual core apple with a shiny lid.

Anyhoot, Time Magazine? No. Time Gentlemen, please.

Next time I'll be talking Cobblers about the slow decline of the shoe mending industry in a piece entitled "Thanks for nothing you bunch of C**ts".

JJ

Professor Jarhead

2009-04-25T13:04:00.002+02:00

In the last episode I mentioned a motivational story about a Professor putting his balls in a jar, I couldn't remember the actual story but assumed you would just Google it. Apparently that's too much effort, it's not enough that I tell you about these wonderful things that go on in the world it seems I have to wipe your arse too. Sadly I'm out of banana leaves.

So, here's the full story, perhaps you'd like me to come round and read it to you?

---------------------------------------

A Professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the Professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The Professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The Professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the space between the grains of sand.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things--your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else -the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. "Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The Professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

--------------------------------------------

The important thing is not to put the sand in the jar first, look after the important things - your balls.

The reality, of course, is if the professor puts off fixing the disposal again he'll be wearing the jar for a hat. Hence Professor Jarhead.

I thank you.

JJ

Idiot Life Management Style

2009-04-24T07:00:00.000+02:00

This isn't the same as Lifestyle Management for Idiots, that's a self-help book, this is a self-eHelp virtual webinar.

Here are some usefull tools to help manage your life, finances, holidays, concubines etc.

Life:
Write a list of all the things you own, write a list of all things want. Voila, now get the fuck on with it.

Finances:
Take the number of years left to retirement, multiply by gross annual salary, subtract your remaining mortgage payments net of interest, then shove your thumb up your arse and whistle Dixie. That's how the big boy's do it.

Holidays:
Write a list of all the countries in the world, cross out the ones you've been to, work down the list alphabetically, it's not rocket science. Here's a tip, Bhutan has the same landscapes as Switzerland so you don't need to see both.

Concubines:
Always refer to extra-biblical activities as "Concubine Time", in most countries there isn't really a legal definition of Concubine so it really is a free ride.

Etc.
You know that thing about the golf balls and gravel and sand in the big jar; "is it full yet?", try to remember that one, it's quite poignant.

I think the sand is all those crappy email "jokes" and blogs you read, it fills all the space. Could be wrong though, maybe the jar is your head and the idea is to keep putting crap in it, it'll never get full and occasionally something makes sense.

That's probably the best you can hope for at this stage.

Well that concludes this session. Live damnit! Live! *high fives*

I like helping people, it makes me feel like I'm giving something back.

JJ

The Low Down

2009-04-22T07:00:00.000+02:00

Ok sonny boy, don't crack wise with me, 'cos I've got the low down on you, see?

I think it comes from "The Low Down and Dirty Truth", which is a form of sensationalist journalism practised in the fifties when Clark Kent and Jimmy what's-his-name were still closet monkey-spankers. "Monkey-spanker" works on two levels, like cockney rhyming slang for "Merchant" meaning Merchant Banker = Wanker. Which is also what the term directly implies in American slang, see how much we have in common? (can you edit out a tone of desperation? please?)

Sensationalist journalism died in the seventies with the rise of news agencies. Today, the majority of "journos" just copy and paste the news agency releases into their rags and piss off to the pub. That's my opinion as an ignorant layman. No, ignorant layabout. No, wannabee journo (hah haaa!)

Ok, there are sensationalists a few left, but like most of us, most journalists just want to do their job, keep their job, and piss off to the pub. Actually, it was always like that, there is a popular movie stereotype of a Bloodhound battling The System, but really - name one. Apart from Deep Throat.

It's really difficult making a link from Deep Throat, where can I go from there? Deep Pockets? Sore Throat? Imagine if you got warts in your throat from oral sex, is that even possible? Probably not if you were doing it to a woman, they don't give anything away.

I wonder if there is medical precedent, I suppose I could Google it and paste a link here, but why research when you can publish idle speculation? or Idol Speculation. Is there a God of oral wart infections? If so, what kind of fucked up religion is that? And what happened to Billy Idol? Last I heard he binned his Harley on Sunset Boulevard and broke every bone in his ego, I think he's still alive but is he singing? Why wasn't he wearing a helmet? Why wasn't he in Sigue Sigue Sputnik? Did he have a spat with Tony James? It's easy to speculate, yes Generation X broke up but why?

I'm angry now, I get really wound up at times like this. Why aren't people queuing up outside parliament to find out where Siouxie and the Banshees went? (I know they went to Whitby but that's not the point) Why should I waste my time sorting plastic fucking coke bottles from newspapers to put in different coloured bins when the government obviously doesn't give a flying fug about the issues I care about? I've abstained from several elections (as is my right under a democratic system) and what am I getting in return? Diddly!

I give up. I'm not even going to abstain anymore, I'm going to move abroad and get disenfranchised. Ok, I've already done that but that doesn't give you free reign to devalue the sentiment (read it again I'll wait). Yes, yes, patronising, I'll be that before you can call me a stripey Leopard. And afterwards.

I can't go on like this, I'm going to bed, I'm sorry but I'm just too annoyed about The (whole) Damned thing now. Again Whitby, it's the Dracula thing isn't it?

I'll tell you what's really fucking ironic, I moved to Brussels and got disenfranchised (It means I don't have a vote, but check the spelling). Brussels!? I see "those people" every day, I live amongst them, we go to the same bars, but I don't vote for them, or any national government, nor local authority, I don't know how to anymore. I'm desperately trying to learn French to get back in the system.

Do you know why there is a 90% turnout for European Parliament Elections in Belgium? Because registration is optional but once you register they fine you 50 euro if you don't vote. There are ten people on the electoral register, one is dead, the other nine are Members of European Parliament.

Democracy my arse. I found out today that a standard Bacardi-and-Diet-Coke has the same amount of calories as an apple, 53. Why do they publish this information? What if a kick in the bollocks had the same motivational effect as a kiss?

I suppose it depends what you want to get done. Like cause and effect; if you buy me a drink I'll kiss you, if give me an apple you'll get a less favourable response.

JJ

Dime Novel : Yam Unlikely

2009-04-13T04:53:00.000+02:00

I'm spinning this one out of alcohol, just for small change, it's been a tough week I need the money:

I was on the way to the Asian take-away next to the supermarket when the guy from the key-mint came running out shouting something in French so I went into the shop and ran out three seconds later shouting "there's a crazy dog loose in the shop!". This is what they call the Immersion Technique of language learning. Now I know "chien" means dog, and "putain" means fuck, fucker etc. As in "don't go in there you fucking idiot!"

I wouldn't normally use such a bland description as "Asian take-away" but this one really does have a mixture of national cuisines and it's called "Asiatique" something, that's French for Asian take-away. The thing that was bugging me was our cleaner had conveniently "lost" our key the day after we told her we were going on holiday. I needed space to think and Sezchaun Chicken with Diet Coke usually helps.

I was well into the Sezchuan Chicken when I got the text from the cleaner saying she'd found the key, my last thought was "damn she set me up..."

When I woke up I was in the man's upstairs flat again, his young son was there with is computer and wireless kit. "You fix, you fix now!", I replied "why are you wearing a balaclava Kevin?", "You make velly angly, I cut you!", "for fuck's sake Kevin I've already said I'll fix your computer whenever, I do it for all my mates. But if you do this to me again I'm going to call the police, I can't be on these dodgy mickies I might have a seizure you know that". We calmed down and I sorted out his connection, just switched channels it must have been interference from a neighbour. I was explaining seizures over a cuppa and wham! Bastard. The tea.

I woke up at home on the sofa, the cleaner was there "Hiya, late night again? I found the key so I let myself in, catch up for yesterday", "fuck off Eddie, I know you're in on this and when I clear my head I'm coming after the pair of you".

"I'm not Eddie, remember? Eddie did a runner with your dvd player, I'm Moira, you've been drinking again haven't you?", "No! No I haven't, Eddie and that fucking tit at the take-away slipped me a mickey-finn. You're all morons, I just told you I'm going on holiday, why the fuck are you doing this now?"

She carried on "Shall I make you a coffee? I'm Moira, I sent you a text message about the keys, remember?". I grabbed the phone thinking it would say "text message from Eddie" but obviously the fiends had changed the details when I was knocked out.

Coffee was a mistake. When I woke up I was tied to a chair in the kitchen, with my own bondage gear, there was note on the table reading "sorry JJ, you knew too much". There was a comic-book bomb timer next to the cooker so I shuffled the chair over to see what I could do. Moira had opened all the gas burners and made a make-shift timer out of my Deep Purple alarm clock.

What Moira didn't know was that the cooker had a leak, which the gas company couldn't find yet, so I was turning the gas off at the supply in between cooking meals. I would have starved to death before that "bomb" killed me. I escaped from the bondage gear easily because any serious practitioner knows these thing only look like you're trapped in them but you never really are.

Then I put on my CD of Bond Movie Themes as background to taking a shower and cooking breakfast. Nudity and cooking seems to be the way to show "sexy" and "in touch with feelings / feminine side" I do it most weekends but frankly I find it embarrassing. If I'm a 90's man it was probably the 1890's. I don't want a house plant or a cat, I don't cry but I can nail a fucking picture to the wall and change a burst tyre and the bottom line is I've never had a massage that made me more relaxed than I already am.

Yes breakfast, I eat breakfast in the evening, so what? It's not a crime. False imprisonment is a crime but I wasn't in the mood for justice, revenge was the dish I was cooking. Revenge and breakfast, a potent combination. The breakfast was particularly potent, curried goat leftover from yesterday's dinner.

A good friend of mine served curried goat at his wedding, his wife's choice. I couldn't express my gratitude because it wasn't his choice. I don't know if he even liked it, you don't ask the bride or groom if they liked the food do you? My problem is I always imagine if that's "their" favourite food then I know what they're going to do with the leftovers. I don't want to think that about my best friend and his wife, or anyone else either. I can't think of one couple I know who I would like to see eating dessert off each other's bodies, let alone main course and starters.

When I get married again I'm definately having champagne at the wedding; Belgian beer, kebabs (gyros), chips (fries) with salt and vinegar, crisps (chips), tandoori chicken, M&M's, cinnamon mentos, HP Sauce, Mayonnaise, Ketchup, onions, Olive Oil, more Mayonnaise, a hint of black pepper. Yum.

Anyhow, revenge. I suddenly realised it was the third day, I had risen and I had a job to do. First I set fire to my car, my beautiful Silver Machine, the moths came to the flame. While they watched bemused and argued with each other I put the mickies in the Sezchuan chicken and waited. Eventually Moira led me to Eddie and the dvd player, I called the Pizza man. That was the signal, they knew something was afoot so they ran out the back door, I picked up my dvd player including their bootleg copy of Alien Autopsy and my keys, and their car keys.

Eventually the insurance sent me a new Silver Machine, I parked their car in front of their Maison, with a free gallon of petrol, and a free alarm clock.

Cue: Eye of the Tiger, run end credits.

JJ

Island

2009-04-12T13:06:00.001+02:00

See if you can guess where I've been last week, here are some clues:

Island is quite literally "ice land", the Vikings weren't known for their subtle literary skills. Contrary to modern Islandic belief the Vikings didn't settle here, Vikings weren't known for their farming skills or settling skills. They discovered it and "other people" came to do the boring bit. We can say Islanders are descended from Norwegians, it's possible some of them were quite mean but they weren't Vikings.

The first real Geezer I saw was when Black Sabbath got back together in Milton Keynes in '98, and now this. The Strokkur Geysir is still blowing every few minutes, I can testify to that but the Great Geysir retired in 1916 with a small come back in 1935. They reckon all those victorians throwing things in it was the problem. Yes, the English owned it once and it's the only time people had to pay to visit the Geysirs. Apart from Geezer Butler, of course.

The biggesst glacier in Iceland, Vatnajokull, is bigger than all of the other Glaciers in Europe put together. It's also quite cold but nice to walk about on when it's sunny.

The Gullfoss water falls are all a result of Glacial melt, not necessarily global warming though, they've been there for a while. Landscape is varied to say the least, because of many volcanic eruptions over the centuries it really is a patchwork of different lands. Grasslands next to black desserts, next to rocky inpenetrable terrains.

Horses everywhere, puffins, which taste like calf's liver, and the locals get around in monster 4x4's which made our Hyundai Tucson look rather feminine. Once you get out of Reykjavic you won't see any fancy-pants Mercedes 4x4's, BMW's none, the very occaisonal Land Rover but mostly the Japanese big-boys with wheels that you can barely see over. Like those things you see at monster truck shows, that's what the average Icelander uses to nip down the shops for a tub of Skyr, a local speciality made of slightly rancid milk. (We call it youghurt but don't tell them that.)

There is highway which has two lanes each way in some parts. I don't think they're planning to build any more roads, who needs them when you've got a monster truck?

They eat a lot of fish, which is tasty, but not surprising. What is surprising is standing on a beach made of black sand, with black rock cliffs behind. Surprising and very eerie. Eerie or peaceful, depending on your disposition. I imagine some Gothic types would have great fun frolicking on these beaches.

On Good Friday we took a dip in the Blue Lagoon and applied Silica Mud Packs to our faces. I could be wrong but I thought people who mined silica died horrible deaths from bronchial diseases. Surely they wouldn't treat tourists like this? Hot water coming out of the ground laced with silica, it has health giving properties, nothing specific but at 30 euro a pop I reckon someone is doing quite well out of it. It feels nice anyway. We just assume it's good because it's natural, a dangerous assumption if you ask me. Didn't mother nature give us the Sydney Funnel-Web Spider? A two inch bastard carrying enough venom to take down an elephant, what the hell is it going to with an elephant? Eat it?

In the end it was very pleasantly surprisingly good trip for a small cold place in the middle of nowhere. I would recommend it, you could go in the summer, it's a lot warmer but I think I prefered it like this. There's something about stinging rain and snow in bitterly cold wind that makes you feel alive. Possibly slowly dying but alive. The pictures are spectacular.

I'm going to eat some chocolate now. Oh, one more thing, it was the Icelander Leifur Eiriksson who disovered America in 1000AD but they were to few to beat the Indians so they went back home. Ok, they weren't all farmers. Actually it's fundamentally wrong to say any European discovered America, there were already people living there. The best we can say is Leifur was the first modern European to try to invade America.

Ultimately, although the Vikings are famous for stealing and destroying things, the English are the best at it - the results speak for themselves. Next would be the Spanish, then French, Italians, Greeks, Portugese... it's more or less the leading EU countries.

JJ

Gardening?

2009-04-09T01:16:00.001+02:00

Horticulture was one of my favourite lessons at school. I have no interest in gardening but the teacher was real character. I don't think he even liked children, he was just growing his fruit and veg in the school garden, he would have done that happily without us there to annoy him. The kids were all scared of him. I liked him because I wanted to be like him.

It hasn't worked at all, no children are scared of me, ever. I don't think I could ever discipline a child, does that make me immature? Yes it does. I can train a dog though, I love hitting animals. I mean disciplining animals, obviously I would never hit a defenceless animal. But which animals are actually defenceless? Ever been attacked by a cat? You could easily lose an eye or your small change.

A hedgehog? Try slapping a hedgehog, you'll be the loser in that game. A badger might look cute but is actually more viscous than a dog. According to Popeye. Even in the jolly old English garden there are no animals you can willfully slap, punch or kick and get away with it.

I'm not promoting animal abuse, I'm anti-abuse of any kind (except self-abuse), I'm just asking a hypothetical question; "Which animals is it safe to hit?" We should be able to discuss this like sensible adults without resorting to McCarthy-ism.

Poultry? No, geese are used to guard property in some places. I'm not sure sure how dangerous a chicken is but the claws and beak are quite sharp. Even a small dog will bite you, what is it with these animals? What is a two pound dog thinking about when it bites the ankle of a two hundred pound man? "If I get the first bite in, I can win this one"?

Most animals have a clue about the "fight or flight" question, survival strategy, except really small dogs. It messes up the whole evolution thing really, how did small dogs survive in the wild? Why aren't they extinct from attacking larger animals? There, the existence of small aggressive dogs proves Intelligent Design, all hail our Saviour the Flying Spaghetti Monster ! Although I'm still wondering why the FSM would want these creatures, why FSM? WHY?

Anyhow that's enough gardening and science, I'm going outside to punch some chickens. It's really bugging me now, I want to know exactly how dangerous a chicken can be. If I don't post for a while, you'll know why.

That could well be my epitaph, "That's enough gardening and science, I'm going outside to punch some chickens". ...I'll have to think about it.

JJ

G20 Pee

2009-04-03T02:37:00.000+02:00

The thing about finance is this: "you had a pound and now you've got twenty pee", sorry, it's a global problem, not my fault.

This is for the good of the company; "your department needs to rationalise 3 resources"

You had a job, you had a house, and now you've got depression and debts. The way out is to spend more money, because that will stimulate the economy. That's the global solution, it's best for everyone.

What does this mean? "A clever man learns by his mistakes, but a wise man learns by others mistakes".

What the fuck do you expect to learn having watched the bank's CEO blow your savings? The global economy is a pyramid scheme, invest and tell your friends to invest, we'll all be rich and retire at fifty. No, only one person will retire, the rest will be laid off.

I was laid off at 25 but I came back stronger, because I'm a stubborn bugger. That's what empires are built on, stubborn buggers. And fucking massive weapons. Try looking at history from the other perspective; Take Genghis Khan from the Chinese viewpoint. "One minute I was chopping carrots for tea then suddenly this short loudmouthed geyser and bunch of yobs wrecked everything and set the house on fire. What the fuck is his problem?"

From the point of view of the Indians, Alexander was not so Great. "I milked the holy cow and I was about to have a blessed cuppa, suddenly there's this short-arse Greek fella standing in the verandah waving his sword about. Only later we found out how small their country is, it's just behn chod embarrassing isn't it though?"

Imagine the Romans trying to invade Swansea (Wales): "Hallo, you're not from round 'yer is it?", "We're invaders", "Oh. Have you been busy?", "Yes, very", "I expect you'll want to sit down and 'ave a cuppa then", "Is that a question? You raise your pitch at the end of every sentence, it's hard to tell when you're asking a question", "tell you what I'll put the kettle on, come in and we'll have a nice chat". The Romans just crossed it off the list and went to Yorkshire instead, "Just pretend we took a wrong turn, it doesn't feel right"

What about when the Vikings came to England: "Oi, Oi, you can't park your boat there it's a restricted zone. Careful with that, you'll have someone's eye out! I say, you can't do that she hasn't been broken in yet. They're not very talkative are they?" And then the Normans came; "Ask him what he wants, they don't speak English. WHAT DO YOU WANT? Steady on now, you'll have someone's eye out. Can't they come back after tea? This is most inconvenient, you can't just turn up you know, it's not even a public holiday"

Finally, here's what drove the Swiss to become neutral. It's 1499AD, the Swiss army is amassed on the Austrian border "today will mark the beginning of the most efficient empire in history", "can't we wait 12 months and start on 1500AD? That would show better planning", "You are correct". Twelve months later; "where the fuck is everyone? You know what, I'm going to make some decent fucking watches and clocks if it kills me, I'm sick of this crap, how do you expect to keep twelve months time with a box of candles? It's ridiculous." They declared neutrality so that they could focus on the job at hand...

That was then and this is bedtime.

JJ

Big Brother's halfwit second Cousin

2009-03-31T23:58:00.001+02:00

25 March 2009 12:33:05, Subject is replaying Motley Crue cover of Paranoid (British subversives)

I was playing songs in Shuffle Mode when someone interrupted me for some-bollocks-or-another and I missed the whole of Motley Crue’s Paranoid cover. The machine had started “I ain’t got you” but I hit the “back” button and it actually went back to the song. At the end of the song it went to “I ain’t got you” again. So, it’s not random is it? And it’s keeping a log of the songs I’ve listen to. Why? Is this the kind of crap that Big Brother is up to these days? Is this the sort of trivia that the world’s most redundant minds are preoccupied with? And I include myself in that allegation.

Next is “So Tired”, I’ve got about 50 squillion songs on my hard drive so why is the CIA making me listen to Ozzy Osbourne and the Blues Brothers by highjacking my media player using that “do you want to join our customer feedback program to help enhance your listening experience”. Ok, yeah, I’m buying that, I didn’t notice that keystroke logger in Kazaa, I was too busy looking at “bully the virus protector” or whatever-the-fuck that thing was dancing in the corner, fooled me completely. Well obviously that’s where the Lesbian Vampires dvd came from – they stole my credit card details. It’s been happening a lot lately.

Why didn’t they fold the CIA after the cold war ended? Now the fuckers are just sitting around annoying innocent(ish) folk. A fella phoned me on Monday morning to move my car from in front of his garage (I leave my phone number in the windscreen), the car was there from Friday afternoon and that was not a garage when I parked there. It was a normal house – I know what’s going on and I know you’re reading this. I'm deliberately spreading this (dis)information, or is it a double bluff???

Ha haaarr!

They're not very bright this CIA. LISTEN CAREFULLY; you can't subvert me by forcing me to listen to Ozzy Osbourne songs, THAT. IS. MY. OZZY. OSBOURNE. COLLECTION. you fucking idiot.

I'm removing the keystroke logger now but here's some stuff you can work on; my birthdate "1809", bra size 42A (that's right, and stop pretending you don't know yours, "just take another line baby it's all good" remember?), hat size - I don't know my fucking hat size, dog's name - fido (hee hee), cat's name - felix (hee hee he ha ha), mother's maiden name - "iron".

Have they gone yet? I hope so.

JJ

You are all a bunch of buggers

2009-03-27T12:30:00.001+01:00

There is no blog today because JJ went on a bender and hasn't written anything so piss off and bollocks. I'm having a "hate-everyone-hate-everything" day. Either I'm still in puberty or I really need to see a shrink. Again.

How will they advertise abortion on TV? "Insert penis into wee-hole, wait one month, panic like fuck, run around like twat, tell everyone at school, get pulled up by your parents, bingo bango, abortion" what's to advertise? Everyone knows that. Don't ask me how I know, those records are permanently sealed.

Here's a good way to build a network, get a page on Linked-In and get all your friends and colleagues to join you. Muppet newsflash; that's not a network it's just you being a twat and now all your friends have published their email address on the internet. You don't build a network out of people you already know, it's fuckwits like you that make cybercrime so easy.

What else can we advertise on British TV? Hangover recovery for under 16's; drink twenty bottles of Tart Fuel (alcopops), find a street with CCTV cameras in your village, run up and down like a tit and kick some cars, get a freindly tap on the shoulder from useless comunity policeman, see your mum on tv crying. Get an ASBO, show your friends for a laugh, drink twenty bottles of Tart Fuel (hair of the dog). Also, abortion is good cure for a hangover so you can combine those adverts.

How to become deputy leader of the Labour (I'm still tempted to type "Layabout") Party, John Prescott method; punch a hippy in the mouth on tv (not Tony Blair, a different hippy). Yes that's right, born again christians are f****** hippies.

It's really hard to hate hippy's because they are all so nice and cuddly but I'm on a roll today, I'm calling it Hippy Slapping Day.

How to be an obnoxious twat on holiday? Now this is silly, teaching Brits to be obnoxious drunken twats on holiday is really taking sand to Arabia. What the Arabs need is a justice system with sentencing options other than abusing women in public. A woman alleges rape and gets stoned to death for adultery. That's what happens when a male dominated society doesn't have free access to porn and alcohol. "This is really the cutting edge of 21st century political commentary and satire." - Time Magazine.

When we were students we spent months planning operations to infiltrate the greyhound track and set the rabbit free. We didn't know it was just a metal thingy with a bit of fluff glued on to it, it's really hard to see that on tv it moves too fast. And why are the jackass greyhounds chasing it? I thought dogs hunted by following their sense of smell? It doesn't make any sense, either someone's lying or students are piggin' idiots.

"seen that ma bitch got a Tramp Stamp", that's a phrase I'll never use. I just can't see Girlfriend getting a tattoo, thanks god. Why do non-native English speakers say "thanks god" instead of "thank god"? They all do it, from India to Norway, I've told them but they don't get it. Is this what they teach in TEFL? It means "Teach Every Fucker our Language" A young man in China was rejected by an American university so he had to stay at home and eek out a living teaching English to people who did get accepted by foriegn universities. Now he owns about fifty million schools and his front garden is the size of Luxembourg. Bastard.

I'm still not blogging today, I've got nothing to say anyway, this is just rambling garbage. You shouldn't be reading this at work either you horse's arse. By the way "you're all a bunch of buggers" is copyrighted, it's my patented management method. I'm writing a book a called "Another Fucking Useless Book for Dumb-Asses who Haven't got the Nouse to do a Days Work Without Getting Covered in Shit", my publisher said I could have a shot at the Pulitzer this year. Which is better the Pulitzer or the Booker Prize? The Booker Prize is more obvious, I think I'd rather have that one, if I had to choose one.

They should have more prizes like that, the Fisher Prize for fishing, the Turner Prize for turning and the Poker Prize for poking. I'd have a go at the Wanker but I really don't want the Bummer or the Shirt-lifter.

Oh give me break, you're not paying for this would it kill you to smile or grunt once every couple of minutes?

JJ

Lemonade

2009-03-24T00:01:00.000+01:00

How do you put the bubbles in sparkly water? I asked that question over dinner and got the answer; Gnomes fart in it. Science isn't what is used to be is it? Some washed up sitcom actress talking about the poly-proper-bollocks in her shampoo and putting on a cheesy grin "because I'm worth it". Shut, the fuck, up. I can live with paying 6.99 for a movie ticket but when I'm in my own house, watching my own tv, eating a de-frosted thin crust meat feast; just shut, the fuck, up. Bitch.

Al Gore, that's real science. Finally a politician who proved that only losing can make them do some real fucking work. If Al had won that election and become president, would he still have made the documentary about Global Warming? Would he even care? Or would he actually be swanning about in airplanes, helicopters and humvees and acting like a complete twat? I guess we'll never know, Politicians are so hard to judge, they're so ethereal and aloof. Not like those other guys; shagging interns and hookers, smoking weed, snorting cocaine and taking bribes from oil companies and banks. I was thinking of rock bands but they don't take bribes from oil companies and banks.

Why don't banks employ hookers? It would make sense now, put your money in, get fucked, go home broke. It's beats the crap out of "open a deposit account and enter our competition to win an iPod!" You have to be joking. I can go to fucking Video Square and buy an iPod between 10am and 6pm from Monday to Saturday. My problem is not lack of opportunity to get iPods! Fuck knows there are enough opportunities to get iPods. I'm not getting enough double-shower hand-jobs though, where's the competition to win that?

What the fuck is wrong with marketing people? Haven't they heard of sex? I don't mean a picture of a skinny bint in a bikini in front of a crystal chess set made of fucking Star Trek characters. I don't even want to know who's buying that. She's gonna have to strip off and get down with Una Thurman before I'm shelling out £250 on a chess set. Why isn't it the other way round? Buy this piece of plastic "whatever-the-fuck-it-is" for £250 and you get to spend the night with .... for free. Imagine how much plastic we'll be recycling then? There's isn't enough landfill in China, India and Africa put together to recycle that crap, is there Al? Yes I'm calling you Al and if you call me Betty I'm gonna punch you in the dick.

What's going to happen when Michael Jackson dies? They'll have a blue coffin for the plastic and metal bits, a green one for the organic stuff, a yellow one for the beatles back catalogue and a white one for everything else. (Yellow is for paper. It's joke, of course I know he had to sell it back, stop being so anal). That anal thing wasn't a joke, it was a reference to fictional persons not resembling anyone living nor deceased or made of plastic parts and appearing to be non-fictional.

Would it be racist if I called Michael Jackson "an inside out coconut"? I mean, I'm darker than he is but I'm not black. Nor is he now, we're all the same on the inside as he is so fond of reminding us (Ebony and Ivory, Black and White, Liberian Girl etc) but we're not all the same on the outside anymore are we? Fucking flapjack. That's what he is, a Flapjack. I still like some of his flapjack songs though; "Billie Jean is not my lover", but she is a lesbian. Doesn't make any sense but it's catchy.

In that sense Jackson isn't really Motown. I was going to buy some Motown records until someone pointed out to me "you can hear most of that for free in elevators and supermarkets", good point. CCR is popular Brussels metro stations now but they also play classical music depending on the time of day. They're very fickle like that. I don't understand it, just find one woman like The Bible says "Rachael was weeping again because she's a woman. If she'd just put 'em on a plate like the Whore of Babylon he wouldn't have gone round there isn't it?"

I bet you didn't know The Bible was written in India. The thing is, outsourcing has been going on a lot longer than you realise. The Council of Nicea was actually the Global Purchasing Department of the Roman Empire and they outsourced it. That's why there's no sex in it. Mary Magdeleine, the hooker, was hanging around with JC and the diciples because they were all good friends. Just a bunch of good looking twenty somethings, enjoying each other's company. 13 guys and one woman. Nothing unusual about that, but if it happened in real life she would have been stoned to death in Judea AD30. Also India AD30 and in Europe AD1700 (witch?) And even today women in Australia are getting stoned regularly.

Josephs relationship to Mary (Mary the mother, not Mary the hooker), was similarly innocent. Her pregnancy was a divine blessing, Joseph didn't shag her, he was a good man and he stayed around because he was good, not because of any guilt. Mary was not a munter, it's blashpemy to suggest that Joseph made up the Virgin Birth because he didn't want to get lumbered with a minger.

But there's more to The Bible than shagging Jewish hookers, what about vegetarianism? (or Lent / Lentil)(side plate: Alexander the Great would have been less "successful" if Indians weren't vegetarians). "Let's stop fishing, we can hang around the streets and chat up chicks", "what will we tell our wives?", "have a chat with Mary", "sorry, she's a bit minging", "not my mother you cheeky twat, the other Mary". And so vegetarianism was enshrined as a principle of Christianity. A principle, but not a practice because it's so hard to find vegetarian food on holidays so let's just say we believe in it but we have to be practical.

Anyhow, JC won't be the first Jewish fella to fall for a woman just like mother, not only in name, and that is surely a trait that comes from India. Except in my case, obviously.

It always comes back to women and God, and the things we misguided fools do to get closer to those things. Bah! sodding mid-life crisis

I'm going to bed.

JJ

Languinator

2009-03-20T07:00:00.000+01:00

I was talking to The Germans again when the subject of "Heists" came up. I, like many of my associates, assumed the word "Heist" is a German word. Apparently not, it doesn't exist in German. It's not that it means something else, the word simply doesn't exist.

This is just one example of the fact that the German language is derived from English, not the other way round. English people are too eager to accept that the language is an amalgam of French, German, Norse(?) and Latin all left behind by invaders. Actually, there was a long time before Vikings and Normans when England had people and restaurants and roads and bars. Yes these things existed and the English had words for them. All those smelly invaders went to England to steal words, the raping and pillaging was just a cover to make the history books more inviting. And it worked (ha!), the mere notion of being invaded by Normans is just hilarious. A bunch of shorties in flat caps falling down the stairs and shouting "Mr Grimsdale!", it's ridiculous, ludicrous, preposterous.

Ok, what is the German word for Saucer? obviously I'm asking because I already know they don't have one, "undertassen" is just two words stuck together in a cheap Blue Peter fashion. It means "undercup" - it's not even that clever. What's French for Ape? "Singe"? ok, what's French for Monkey? also "Singe". If you want to know the difference between an ape and a monkey, don't ask a Frenchman. There are no Charles Darwins in France. The question I now put to you, my learned friend, is why does the derived language (English) have more words than the source languages (French, German)? Carefull, I already checked, you can combine French and German and you still don't have enough words for a full English lexicon.

Google it, English has the biggest vocabulary and not by a small margin but by a stupendous great hairy monster of a margin.

Don't shout "Latin" at me. There is no actual evidence that anyone ever spoke Latin. The evidence is that Latin is a simplified version of old Italian which traders used to make easy records of transactions. It was only for writing, not conversation, like Pitman's Shorthand. That's why Latin constructs are much simpler than any other European language, like Pitman's Shorthand. The other European languages were written for more creative needs than trade. Latin is older? Timing can explain some differences in language complexity but only with evolution. Evolution doesn't happen over a few hundred years.

Don't get defensive, I'm not saying that French is a paltry, mealy, unrefined, crude language or that German is child's playground of linguistic lego and stickle bricks. But what I am saying is that English is proper language in it's own write, not a hotchpotch of Euro-speak.

And it has a more extensive vocabulary.

And it's better.

And England had the biggest empire. Actually, "England" still has the biggest Empire.

JJ

Urban Poetry

2009-03-13T12:57:00.002+01:00

This one is called: Telephone Answering Machine

You've got 17 unplayed messages
and 14 played messages
I've been flashing these numbers since friday night
where have you been?
do I mean anything to you?
or am I just a status symbol
just another trophy to show your friends
would you even care if I wiped myself
I could pretend it was a power cut
night after night
alone in the dark
my little red light blinking
I hate you
I hate you so much
I wish you were dead.

JJ

The Shipping Forecast

2009-03-11T00:43:00.001+01:00

It's incredible how many people have fond childhood memories of the shipping forecast. I remember listening to it while waiting for the game broadcast. They were broadcasting computer games, we would record them onto cassette tape and play them back into the computer. A hit and miss process to say the least, and not one that always worked.

So we'd stay up until 3.30am to record the game and then spend an hour trying to get it to load onto the computer and then finally go to bed, defeated. Things not working was a right of passage then, these days it's all too easy. I don't spend the weekend trying to adjust gaps with a feeler guage, or standing in shop doorways wondering how to get 25 quid for a battleship game.

Now I've got my own relatives sending email through some automated system asking to "join your professional network". There's a reason we only meet at funerals. We're already linked on Facebook, must we do this? Can't I keep my professional network for my professional contacts? No I can't, because if I refuse this unwelcome intrusion it'll start a family feud. In the end a cave-man with a Facebook page is still a cave-man. Actually I think cave-men had more confidence with women. That's the only constant thing over the last 40,000 years and we're worse at it now than we were then.

At times like this I can see why people take up gardening and join swingers clubs, I just pray I don't bump into my cousin in there too.

All this because of The Shipping Forecast. I don't know, really I don't.

JJ

You Be Fucking Nice !

2009-03-06T07:00:00.002+01:00

I might have mentioned I was trying to be nice to people this year, as a change of pace, see if it reduces my cholesterol or some bollocks like that. Well it's March and I got my first complaint. Apparently someone doesn't appreciate my communication skills. Frankly I find this a bit galling, if people are going to complain anyway then I might as well just call them a bunch of twats, it's rude but honest and then I wouldn't mind the complaints.

I'm good at telling people how to do their job properly, why can't they appreciate that? When it comes to explaining to people how mind blowingly incompetent they really are, I'm the best. But do the fuckers appreciate my constructive input? No, they complain! Showing yet another level of astoundingly porcine judgement.

Before you start, I have no bloody idea what "porcine" means and no I am not going to "Google it", fuck off muppet chops, hire a consultant to explain it. Ok, I lied, it means "pig like", from the Latin "porcus". Yes, I studied Latin at school "canis est in horta", the dog is in the garden. Is that what the Romans built their empire on? The only thing I learned about building an empire was it takes more than a day. I think the horticulture teacher told me that when he was talking about his broad beans.

It's a shame because I would been a brilliant emperor, even if I do say so myself. I am good at telling people what to do, I enjoy it anyway, beats the crap out of working for a living. Maybe I need to hire less sensitive people, then I wouldn't have to be nice anymore, I could just swear at them all day. That might be the only way for me to achieve job satisfaction. Or maybe I could hire someone specifically to swear at, a politician perhaps, or Jonathon Ross.

Ok, back to the real world and trying to be nice to people. Bunch of fucking half-wits that they are, not all of them are half-wits, some have no wits at all. They are the Witless Wonders and somehow I attract them in droves.

Ok that's enough, back to the real world; nice people, everything nice, me nice. I'm a bit hungry though, I'm a bastard when I'm hungry, you should ask Girlfriend when we go shopping for clothes. If I don't speak for five minutes and refuse to try something on she'll ask me if I'm hungry, not very sophisticated is it? eh? Childish really.

Right, I'm done, fully vented, thanks for being there for me (I mean the blog tool, not you melon-head)

JJ

Dime Novel: Diem Carpe

2009-02-28T13:28:00.000+01:00

Carpe Diem - Seize the Day. That's what Latin teacher's tell you. Latin? wasn't your diem like a million years ago? History teachers always say "nothing is new, read history" Ok, instead of playing Vampire Wars on Facebook I'll read a book about some fat English king who executed his wives, that's equal.

I don't think so, but that's enough from me, here's the Dime Novel.

There was this soup waiter in an Italian restaurant and one day he told the chef his carrot and pumpkin soup looked like puke. Ever seen an Italian chef lose his rag? You don't want to. There's a pizza restaurant near where I used to live and the guy's wife came home one day to find him in bed with another woman, she stabbed him 49 times and went to jail. That's a true story.

But the soup waiter, that's another story. He was living on his own and his pride and joy was this guitar which had been given to him by an ex girlfriend, she acquired it when her ex-boyfriend ditched her and never came back for it. The guitar didn't even have a brand or anything, it seemed almost home made. After the soup waiter lost his job he took the guitar with him to the pub, in the morning, and just sat and played - for his own amusement but the bar owner was really impressed and offered him a gig.

The soup waiter did the gig but on the night he was attacked by a crazy guy who kept saying "you took my baby", turned out he was the ex-boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend. So, the soup waiter ended up in hospital where he fell in love with the breakfast porter, she was way younger than him but she had see through uniform so he could see her panties. Anyway, she had no interest in him so he eventually just walked out of the hospital and went back home.

He went back a couple of times for scans and check-ups but he didn't see the breakfast porter until about 5 years later, he was walking along the street and there she was. They went for a drink and he asked her out but she said she'd met a guy about a year before and moved in with him. They had a cat together.

The soup waiter eventually moved to another city and realised he was going to spend the rest of his life beating himself up because he didn't know what he wanted until it was too late. He had 20:20 hindsight.

Just when he thought he was too old and washed up, he met another woman. He thought she was way too smart for him and would get bored of him quickly but she didn't, he spent the rest of his life trying to make her happy, she always said "I'm already happy just being with you", but he never stopped trying.

JJ

Urban Poetry

2009-02-23T23:58:00.000+01:00

This one is called: Monthly Payroll Procedure

I need your monthly onions by Friday
Why Friday?
Because that's when they do the payroll
How do you know it's that exact date?
It's the same date every month
But the same date every month isn't a Friday
But the payroll closes on Friday
So the date changes every month?
No, it has to be same date
When is it then?
Friday
What date is it on Friday?
I'll have to check
What date does the payroll close?
I don't know
So why do I have to send my onions by Friday?
Because the payroll closes on Friday
Will there be a payroll next month?
Not for you motherfucker.

JJ

Polygamists Weekly

2009-02-19T00:30:00.001+01:00

The problem with Polygamy is that all men want to do it and no women do. Why the hell do they still have a weekly magazine? I really don't understand how these ridiculously one-sided ideas survive. Ok, I know some women do it, but those are the types who get excited when they see a three legged cat. Who want's to marry six of those?

What are the bigamists thinking at this stage? We'll get more interest if we start a magazine? How can they afford it? I have one girlfriend, no wives and a house. There is no way I can afford to fund a magazine about anything. How will a bigamist, with two wives, have that sort of disposable income? How do polygamists keep their magazine going? Because I don't think the regular people are buying it. I'm not. When I get my Badger Managers Monthly in the mailbox, she notices, "how much is that?", "when will you read it?" etc. What the fuck is she going to say if I get the Polygamists Weekly?

Can you imagine the classifieds "man with own teeth and sense of humour seeks six to eight women, preferably unrelated. Or nearest offer.". What about the horoscopes, "you will meet between three and nine potential partners today and if there's any time left you'll travel and win some money or a dental plan. But there really isn't enough time in the day for you to meet a long lost friend or relative, sorry." How does it work when you go to disneyland with a family ticket? "nine adults and seventeen children please, they're all under eleven, I mean the children".

In the end it's like all of those great ideas we have in the pub. Yeah polygamy sounds brilliant when it's me and five Super Models on a yacht, but the reality is me and a bunch of amateur boxers trying to sneak into to a theme park for our once-every-ten years holiday.

Baah!

G'night

JJ

Live News !!

2009-02-13T12:30:00.002+01:00

Check this out, what a day!

Yesterday I had an exam for a professional qualification type of thing and I passed!

Then I drove back down the highway, really really fast with Ace of Spades playing at volume 11 !

When I got home I played on my drum kit for a bit and then played on my guitar both at volume 11 !

Next I went to the pub and bumped into my best friend.

Then my girlfriend turned up !

Then we found out it was Quiz Night.

We won the Quiz! Prize: 4 bottles of wine!

I was totally wrecked !

(I'm working from home this morning)

(actually, I'm writing this, but what the hell? it's lunch time)

Fantastic!

What a day !

I've never had so many !'s in one post !!

But it's totally justified !!!!

YAAY !!!

JJ !!

Dime Novel: Junk Blues

2009-02-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

It was another rainy night in Eterbeek, I was double parked because I knew the cops wouldn't come out in the rain. The plastic black bar top was scratched to buggery and it was only a week old so I said to the guy "who the fuck puts plastic on a bar top? you should get wood", he passed me the cheese plate. This was how it went, he didn't speak English, I didn't speak French.

Actually, he didn't speack French either, he was Portugese. What could I do? This woman had been hassling me all night, even though I'd only been there an hour. She said she wanted sex but I got the impression she just wanted somewhere to spend the night. Well who takes a shopping trolley to a bar? Especially a trolley full of empty cans and plastic bottles.

Eventually I staggered out, alone, and got back into my car. The apartment was 15 meters away but I made it without being caught. As I walked to the door I glimpsed the cats running towards my car. They would play on it all night and leave muddy footprints to get at me. They didn't know it was smeared with chilli this time. Later on I watched in amusement as the cats vomitted in the bushes and muttered obscenities.

I slept well that night, I used to have a recurring dream that I was naked in the office but it seems to have gone away.

JJ

The Ides of February

2009-02-06T00:15:00.001+01:00

Also known as "St Valentines Day", it's the fourteenth because it's a short month. Last october I wrote about Valentines Day and now I realise it was a really badly written thing, so I'm doing another one for to atone (it's not a bloody typo Zoe, that's how pirates speak).

Isn't it curious that we celebrate Halloween night with gusto but live in dread of St. Valentines day? The hype has elevated the day to a level of nonsense that no man can live up to, and most men can live up to a lot of nonsense, so what to do? How do we avoid this annual massacre?

The bloody problem is that to do something about it would require forethought and planning, if that was a option we wouldn't forget the wretched date to begin with. Cancelling The Day was suggested but almost caused a riot, why? Do you actually like those days when you can glower accross the breakfast table and say "You do know what day it is don't you?" Isn't that a bit sadistic? Give the poor sod a couple of days notice, then judge him.

Maybe I've got it all wrong, perhaps fear and mistrust are the true secrets of a long lasting relationship. Along with buckets of alcohol and a gym membership that stares at you like a lost cat, "I want to help but we're not allowed pets, how do I know you're really lost?", "oh ok! here have a Mento, now fuck off go on".

I took my car to be serviced for the first time (it was new) and now it feels like it's been violated, like someone else has been in it and it won't look me in the eye anymore. I feel bad, I didn't even think about it, just handed over the key and jumped on the metro without even looking back. We haven't played any cd's since, just driving to and from work in silence. No more singing out loud, being spotted at the traffic lights and laughing. I wonder if that'll ever happen again, I used to pretend it was embarrassing but I was happy really.

Nothing in the post today, two credit card bills and a brochure of bollocks from the Gym. If they had a porn channel on those little tv's in front of the treadmill I'd be running marathons by now, instead I've gained one and a half kilos. It would have been cheaper to just keep going to the pub.

I had hot dogs for dinner today, two hot dogs and a banana. Wonder what I'll have for breakfast? Coco Pops probably, unless I'm late then I'll just have a swig of diet coke as usual. But it's coke zero now, I was still drinking diet coke until someone told me that's for women and coke zero is for men. I have some really fucking insightful friends, this is what they know about. I actually switched! I dread to think where one reads such tripe, or why, could be in the small print of the gym brochure of bollocks. "Gym Etiquette" probably.

Still, it's gone midnight and the heating will be off in a few minutes so I'd better turn in. Never did sort out that Valentine lark, never mind it'll probably take care of itself in the end, most things usually do.

JJ

Life in the Movies

2009-02-02T12:15:00.000+01:00

"do you want to be in my team?"
"no, fuck off, I only talk to you because we work together"

That's my view of team building, which is perfectly healthy because it takes all sorts to make a balanced team (but trying getting a corporate gobshite to admit that). However, outside the workplace I am somewhat more relaxed, expecially since I have a cellar full of booze in the new gaff. So, the Goth suggested this team building excercise and my answers are below.

If you do try it, please comment me a link. Please, please link me, I soooooo want to be in yooooouur teeeeeam! I haven't got any friends, my imaginary cactus ran away, who finished the milk? Stop laughing I KILL YOU.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool

Here are mine:

Opening Credits:
Death Row - Judas Priest

Waking Up:
Got The Live - Korn

First Day At School:
Turn the Page - Metallica

Making Your New Best Friend:
Miracle Man - Ozzy Osbourne

Falling In Love:
Burn In Hell - Judas Priest

Breaking Up:
Ek Dana - Daler Mehndi (Punjabi)

Prom:
Stronger - Hard-Fi

Graduation:
Angel - Judas Priest

Life's Okay:
Hysteria - Def Leppard

Death of a Close Friend:
Love Bites - QED, Def Leppard cover

Mental Breakdown:
Psycho Monkey - Joe Satriani

Driving:
California Dreamin' - Eagles

Flashback:
Another Rainy Night (without you) - Queensryche

Getting Back Together:
Wasted Years - Iron Maiden

Wedding Scene:
Flute concerto in G minor - Vivaldi

Birth of Child:
Battery - Metallica

Car Accident:
Galan Gooriyan - Stereo Nation (Punjabi)

Final Battle:
Tumhen Dil Lagi Bhool Jani Paregee - Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn (Urdu / Punjabi)

Death Scene:
Bitter Peace - Slayer

Funeral Song:
Disconnected - Queensryche

End Credits:
You Are - Pearl Jam

------

It's not all in English, but that's what came out of the thing so there it is.

JJ

Barak Obama

2009-01-30T08:00:00.003+01:00

And that, my little munchkins, is my blatant hit pandering title. I know I've spelled it wrong, I'm aiming for a certain demographic [Dumbass Democrats. There are more than you'd think but not as many as Dumbass Republicans, "John McCain"? really!]. Soliciting Hits and such practices are quite properly frowned upon by good internet citizens. Well I'm not that good a citizen.

I'm no "Lex Luthor" but I'm far from being goody two-shoes-dull-as-ditchwater "Superman" [Boys under 11 demographic]. How many hit's am I getting now in these difficult time of the "Credit Crunch"? [Dumbass house-buying investors getting ripped off by banks and whose great plan is to Google "Credit Crunch" to save their mortgage demographic]

I once took a screen shot of someone's desktop, deleted all the desktop icons and put the picture up as wallpaper. It has to be a real no-hoper to make it really funny. He tried to click all the icons several times over and eventually he called IT support and got it fixed. But getting back to soliciting...

Yeeeh, the last "Superman" movie was a travesty, he might as well start the "Porn" career now; "Superman does the Dallas Cowboys Cheer Leading Squad" [11-75 male demographic]. That's just leaves gratuitous mention of Viagra [75+ male demographic] and that's the entire male population hitting my website. Yes, I said website, I know it's just a stupid blog but I tell people I have my own website, it sounds cool(er), I'm really that desperate. (Actually I only talk about it with three people, one being the one who got me started - he's the worst)

Now then, how to get women demographics. Hmmm....Ok, what do I know about women? Nothing. This sucks [18-65 unmarried demographic]. You see? I'm much more Lex than "Supertwat" [18+, married], gratuitus mention of "Barbie" and that just leaves [unmarried over 65] who won't mind being left out, they're used to it by now.

But I need the hits so; "Discount Zip-up Fur Lined Boots, Wholesale Cat Food and Febreeze Anti-Urine Formula one-stop shop" thanks for visiting my website.

The thing is, I'm trying to be nice to people this year, in real life, so all the uglyness is being channelled here, where I'm less likely to get a smack in the chops. So there's no need to be upset at all, "it's not you, it's me".

Oh, there's one more, the Gorilla demographic! There's only one but he's quite important so; "How to Succeed in an Emotionally Juvenile Society Ruled by Bald Monkeys without Resorting to Violence", I'm sure he's Googling that phrase on a regular basis. It's only one hit but sometimes he comes back for a second comment. Ok, he did that once.

Well, I hope you've learned something from this wantonness, if not go here and click an AD to generate some cash for me.

Obviously, Joliet Jakes Weekly wouldn't stoop to advertising and such vulgarity, just the normal vulgarity; blow jobs, oral sex, hand-jobs, stocking fetish, lesbians, leather knickers, furry bits, noodles, water sports, doggy, Portugese tuna, spin cycle, monthly cycle, bi-cycle, wheel barrow, cock-sparrow.

Thanks for visiting my website. Don't forget to click on the AD's here.

I'll be in the shower.

JJ

Chinese Democracy

2009-01-27T20:04:00.000+01:00

I was listening away when I thought "blimey, is this still the first track? It's a bit long and whiney" but when I checked my Media Player (it's a sort of really small record player without records) and I was already on Track 4. Bummer, without the good band Axel Rose is just a whinging git. Chinese Democracy is no subject for a musical outing, it's just a naughty sound byte. Naughty like a child making fart noises, actually children making fart noises is really funny. What gets me is how they find it uproariously funny no matter how many times they do it. Memories, it was good when that was all it took to keep us entertained on a wet Wednesday afternoon.

Skiing was good this year, my friends are getting married in April, not all of them just two. Where does the time go eh? What happened to the three day week and holidays on Mars? Instead of that I'm sitting here praying for the 'phone to ring so that I can turn down the sound on the latest Guns n' Roses album (sorry, I can never remember if the apostrophe goes in front of the n or after it. I think there should be two really, when I was a teen I knew details like that, they were important). The rain washed all the snow away and now we're back to grey, grey concrete floors and walls, what a harsh environment we live in. Why does everything have to be metal and concrete? Why can't cars be made of foam? Or at least covered in foam and roads made of silk sheets? It would be great to get knocked over then, imagine how happy everyone would be wandering around drunk getting knocked over by foam cars and laughing and laughing. That's proper democracy.

And we could print nice things on the silk sheet roads like Cheese and Onion Sandwiches and Fish Oil Tablets. I want to go to work in carpet slippers and have Swiss drinking chocolate and big fat juicy oranges for breakfast, that's not unreasonable is it? Why not have a wall at the back of the office where we can throw paper towels soaked in paint? What's wrong with that, it doesn't harm anyone.

When you get right down to it we're not that far away from utopia now, just a few tweaks here and there. Kebabs should have feta included in the price not as an extra and they should stop calling them "Durums", Durum is a variety of wheat. I wonder who the prime minister is today? I'll send him my ideas along with my application to be MEP for Brussels, that would be a cool job. I'd make the secretariat hop on one leg for ten minutes after lunch and see how many of them throw up. What is a secretariat anyway? Not the horse...

Only two tracks to go, it's not getting any easier.

JJ

Monkey Business: It's the Ecomony, Stupid

2009-01-23T08:00:00.001+01:00

This came on the email-vine joke circulation thing, well it's not really a joke but it's something you need to know, if you haven't figured it out yet...

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, knowing there were many monkeys, went to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He then announced that he would buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the villagers efforts and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished and people started going back to their farms.

The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf. The assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that my boss has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when my boss returns, you can sell them to him for $50."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars. They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!

Now you have a better understanding of how the WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WORKS !!!

It doesn't get much clearer than this........

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

- Cicero - 55 B.C.

JJ - 2009 AD

Bailout Bailout

2009-01-19T06:52:00.000+01:00

Why aren't Churches asking for a bailout in these difficult times? They've been in a recession for ages, well since the middle ages anyway. I don't understand it, how did a bunch of illiterate bumpkins figure that the steam engine proves God doesn't exist? I know they invented the steam engine but that was just one guy, a Scotsman who only did it because he was too tight to buy a horse. Hardly the same as enlightenment is it?

Churches don't need a bailout because they are rich, filthy rich and corrupt. That's all I have to say, I have not one scrap of evidence and have not even attempted research. I'm going to do what those marketing types do, just repeat the message until it becomes "conventional wisdom". All Churches are rich, filthy rich and corrupt.

But what if they wanted a spiritual bailout? Something to put the faith back amongst the masses. They could start by putting more wine in The Masses! (that's a stinker isn't it? I know). Use Temptation as leverage to bolster the ratings instead of avoiding it all the time.

So, spiritual bailout, here goes;

You are poor because the filthy money lenders (banks) and whores (government) stole your money. But now you don't need money because you can Save Your Soul by following these instructions presented on behalf of, but not in conjunction with, the Roman Catholic Church:

Create a Folder on your desktop called "Catholic Church", open the folder, right-click to open a new document in Word, on the first line type "Soul", on the second line type "Property of " and your name, then click on File and Save, the filename will be "Soul" by default, click Save, you have now saved your soul in Catholic Church. Close the document and take a generous swig of wine and nibble some bread (or crisps etc) and say "this is the blood of Jesus and this is his flesh and I'm a consumer, Ahmen".

Whenever you feel down just open the document and save it again, swig, nibble, say the verse and repeat until the down feeling goes away, it will work eventually but you must have faith.

In this way the Church is modernised with modern technology, personalised, localised, easy to access, splendid, it's what you deserve as modern, independent, free people. Give some money to the Church too, those man-dresses aren't cheap.

Thank you, blessed are the meat.

JJ

Time Deacons

2009-01-16T07:54:00.000+01:00

Time Deacons (not to be confused with Time Lords) are like World Leaders but they rule Time (not necessarily travel time) instead of Space. So, you've got the Buddha, God, Jehova, Zeus, Allan and Dave Brock (of Hawkwind):

The scene: Large double living room in Solihull, the Buddha and Alan are surfing the net, God is staring at the log fire, Zeus is on his iPod and Dave Brock is doing the Sunday Times crossword.

Buddha: Check this out, you can get Battle Tanks on Amazon
God: what Battle Tanks? What's that?
Buddha: two remote control tanks, they shoot light beams at each other and spin when it's a hit
Dave Brock: what sort of tanks?
Buddha: eh?
Dave Brock: what sort? T41's, Chieftan's, Panza's
Buddha: it doesn't say, does it matter?
Dave Brock: ok, if you're getting some anyway I'll have a go
Allan: we'll need three sets, because there's six of us
Dave Brock: well you couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo so you'd better get re-chargeable batteries as well while you're at it
Allan: what was that for?
Dave Brock: Just kidding Allan ya mardy arse, lighten up. The motors will eat the batteries up so get rechargeable ones
God: what if Zeus and Jehova don't want to play? Where is Jehova anyway?
Allan: he's out annoying people as usual
Zeus: what? were you talking about me?
Dave Brock: yeh, Allan wants some advice about buying new plates
Zeus: very funny, what is it?
Allan: the Buddha's getting Battle Tanks, are you in?
Zeus: yeh, whatever
(Puts earphones back in)

Jehova enters.

Jehova: fucking bollocks! that dog at number 42 escaped and chased me down the street, I had to run down the alley and jump over the back fence and cut accross the field, bastard thing, I'm going sort that little fucker out one day
Buddha: I don't like the sound of that
Jehova: oh piss off Mr fucking Goody Two Shoes, get a job
Buddha: you call that a job? knocking on peoples doors and boring them into a coma
Jehova: fuck me! I haven't even sat down yet, I've been chased by a dog and I get this shit as soon as I walk in
God: your language isn't helping you know
Allan: yeh
Jehova: oh fuck off Allan, I need a drink
Dave Brock: I need one too the way you lot are carrying on
Jehova: surprised you haven't already got four lined up

(Continuity check. Lemmy was originally in the Dave Brock role hence the drink remark, but he pulled out at the last minute. I managed to get Dave Brock but there wasn't time to re-write the script)

Dave Brock: you want trouble? ok, come on, let's 'ave it
Jehova: ok ok, sorry, I'm a bit stressed, I'll get you a drink
Zeus: I'll have a mineral water
Jehova: oh will you? we'll you'll have to get yer own, I've only got two hands
Dave Brock: there's a point, where's that Hindu fella with eight arms, shouldn't he be here
Zeus: I thought that was a woman
Dave Brock: nah, it's definately a fella
Zeus: crap, that was my best fantasy
Dave Brock: what was? doin' a fella?

Howls of laughter all around

Jehova: aah hah hah, fucking tree hugging iPod playing puffter
Zeus: oh, so I'm a homosexual because I've got an iPod? very mature
Jehova: it's not because you've got a iPod, that's just a "happy" coincidence
Allan: {with air quotes} yeh, "happy" as in "gay"
Zeus: shut up Allan, we get it
Allan: yeh? well maybe you're the one who "get's it" the most eh?
Dave Brock: shut up Allan
Allan: what's the matter? can't keep "up"?
Dave Brock: prat
God: for heaven's sake, are we buying the blessed Battle Tanks or not?
Buddha: oh, I've lost the page now, I don't know what they were called
Jehova: what Battle Tanks?
Buddha: no, that's what Allan calls them, it's something else on Amazon
Jehova: what is?
Allan: Battle Tanks, we were going to get Battle Tanks
Dave Brock: but what are they really called?
Allan: dunno
Jehova: what a bunch of fucking muppets, is this what you've achieved while I've been out?
Dave Brock: I've just finished the crossword, I'm off out now
Allan: where you going? can I come?
Dave Brock: no
Zeus: can I come? I'll keep my mouth shut
Dave Brock: no chance
Jehova: you can both come with me, I'm going out
Zeus and Allan: no thanks

Dave Brock and Jehova leave

Buddha: what about a robot dog? you can teach it tricks
Allan: can't we have a real dog?
God: don't start Allan, no I won't walk backwards and say "foow"
Allan: ha ha ha, it would be funny if you did though, because "dog" backwards is "God"
God: shut up Allan!

The End

JJ

Bruxelloise

2009-01-13T18:14:00.000+01:00

I was just in the kitchen thinking "what did I come in here for?" when it suddenly occured to me that I am now, and have been for a while, a Bruxelloise (or is it Bruxelloisee, there might be an accent on one of those "e"s). If you're reading this from Blighty I can tell you you're probably pronouncing it wrong, if you're in Oz or Untied State of Anxiety then I'm sure you are pronounching it wrong. ("ching" was a typo but I kept it. That's how God was invented, the higher being's child really wanted a Dog)

So, what is a Brusseliose when he's at home? Well, I've cleared the snow from in front of our house but left enough to make an ice rink overnight. Most of my tv channels (41 out of 44) are in languages I don't understand, most of my mail is in languages I don't understand. The end of my street has been a roadworks site for 18 months even though I moved house two months ago. I give over more than half of my salary in taxes to support four administrations in three languages and they don't even grit the street when it snows. Now they tell us they're not collecting our glass for recycling any more, we have to take it to the bottle bank, where's our tax reduction for that?

I like wine and cheese, I own a bicycle and I wander about in a daze most of the time so that makes me half French, half Dutch and half Belgian if broad stereotypes are anything to go by. If you didn't know, half of Belgium speaks French and the other half Dutch. There is a small German speaking corner but we don't talk about them.

British people love living in Bruxelles, we can just sit and complain all day long safe in the knowledge that nothing will ever get done. It's true, while the Spanish brought enforced Catholicism, torture, slavery and general nastiness to their conquered nations, the British brought Centralised Administration. But then a properly organised bureaucracy is like a religion in two vital ways - they take all your money and give you diddly back.

Not that the British brought Central Administration to Brussels, they did that by themselves. Or did they? You know this European Union lark? I think it's a huge master-plan of reverse psychology, how else could they make English the de facto language of Europe? I hope that one day before I die I'll be able to buy a Pork Pie in my local supermarket at 2am, or a Scotch Egg at 3am

It's a dream, in as much as a hope can be dream and a twinkle in a glistening dewey eye turns out to be a lump of aspic from lunch.

Next week; the North American Free Trade Area and Hot Dogs. Or, "Bush and Weiners".

The Following week: mumbling apology and shuffling feet

All that talk of food has made me even more hungry, oh yes, that what I went to the kitchen for.

JJ

Gazputin

2009-01-09T01:24:00.001+01:00

See, I warned you about Isreal going to the beach for New Year's; see "Snowball in Gaza". They got Tom Tom for Christmas.

What are the Hezbollah up to these days? What does a retired terrorist do anyway? Gardening? seems unlikely. Abu Hamza bought one of those N'espresso machines, it's easier than grinding beans when you've got a hook instead of a hand. On the the other hand he has always been a big fan of George Clooney, can't stand him myself. Ocean's 12 and 13 were just celluloid masturbation in my eyes.

The old border control to Germany was turned into a cafe last month, seems they've finally given up on it. The Swiss still have their border control buildings in tact, probably quite prudent when you're hiding shedloads of Nazi gold and stolen art.

When it comes to internet use though the Mujahideen are just like the rest of us they just want to check their email, write a blog, look at some porn and post a decapitation video on Al-Jazeera.com. We should explore the things we have in common then we can live together in perfect harmony like Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney.

So, here's what else we have in common:

1. Pay-as-you-go mobile phones, not only popular with parents of teenagers but also the favoured method of contacting terrorist training camps in Pakistan (sometimes by aforementioned teenagers)

2. Bum bags. Suicide bombers love bum bags as a training tool, "put this on and walk around a bit, get a feel for it". The rest of us use them on holiday to help blend in with the trainees and avoid pick-pockets.

4. MPV's, people waggon's and the like, these are great for family day's out, taking the kids shopping and spot on for making a stupendously huge car bomb.

5. Pot Noodle. How many times have you thought to yourself "bugger, there's nothing in the fridge I'll have to go the nightshop"? only to find a Pot Noodle in the cupboard and saved yourself a possible mugging or some (unpleasant) physical violation. Imagine if you live in cave in Afghanhound, Pot Noodle is a God-send (or "Allah-send").

7. Kinder Surprise. Kinder egg chocolate is really tasty and you get surprise toy inside. Saddam had a massive collection of these toys, he wasn't really a terrorist but we killed him so we'll say he was

8. Guns and Power Tools. I often like to pretend my electric screwdriver is a gun and I'm shooting bad guys with it. I suppose the terrorists fantasise about assembling Ikea furniture using their guns to pretend they've got electric screwdrivers.

10. Humour, of course. A Pakistani calls the suicide helpline and says "I'm depressed, I want to kill myself", the fella at the other end says "Great, can you drive a truck?"

11. Cheating. We're all a bit devilish sometimes, not only am I claiming my list of ten includes 10% Extra Free (number 11) but I missed out 6 and 9. I'll have them later. Ok ok, I missed out 3 too.

None of this is my fault, it's the credit crunch and the great Satan America, they are suppressing my right marry eight women and treat them like slaves and throw shoes at George Camel-Toe-Beaver whatever his name is. Granted I'm not Muslim but if I was knocked over by a bus tomorrow I'd go down swearing allegiance to Allah, if there's even a remote chance of landing 72 virgins I'm hedging bets - the others aren't offering anything better.

I wonder how they arrived at 72 as a suitable reward for giving your life on the battlefield? There's no logic like "one a week" because heaven is eternal, isn't it? Maybe it isn't, maybe eternity is defined as the amount of time it takes to have sex 72 times. And why aren't there any cattle or pieces of gold offered as a reward? And what about British Muslims, you can imagine it "errrm...virgins you say? Could I just have a cup of tea instead?"

It's just not catering to the modern demographic to say "you'll get 72 virgins if you blow yourself up", it's too simplistic, people need choices in this day and age. How about 71 virgins, a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniels? I'm not implying that a woman's virginity is a fair trade for a bottle of hooch and some smokes. Well actually I am implying it but that was not what I meant to do. It's the principle of the deal, ok let's say 50 virgins, a dartboard (and darts), a guitar, a set of golf clubs, six crates of booze and bucket of fried chicken. It's turning into a theological Generation Game. I know that's a bit harsh on the other 22 women but they need to keep their chins up and put best foot forward, you never know, the next martyr might have lower standards, or maybe he doesn't play golf so at least a few will be kept on.

Who am I kidding, the only battlefield I'm likely to die on is the one in our lounge and that's if it's even possible to die of rectal remote control implication (Why can't women watch darts or snooker? I'd really like to know what the problem is but don't tell me now, wait for the commercial break). Well I don't know why it's 72, how do they invent these different religions anyway? That burning bush thing was a clear case of gonorrhoea if ever I saw one, what's that got to do with the four horses of the acropolis? Seems a bit extravagant a place to keep four horses.

I thought Teflon Tony Baloney "the Ryans Giggs of politics" Blair was in charge of the middle east now, he isn't saying much is he? There was a time when we couldn't shut the bugger up.

Anyhow, sorry about prattling on, you should tell me to stop if you need to get away I won't be offended.

JJ

Look, a talking Buddha!

2009-01-04T19:50:00.001+01:00

If y'are thinking about trading your pain-in-the-arse Windoze PC for a Mac, make sure you research it first. To help you along, here's some clips from the Apple web-site illustrating the type of issues the users face:

"MacBook restarts when closing the lid", it's supposed to go to sleep. The guy took it back to the shop but it worked perfectly there. The advice, given by another user, was "re-load the OS, but you'll lose all your stuff". Sound familiar?

"The mouse gets stuck for a while... just frozen then after about 30 seconds it moves" but it's so shiny, how can it not work perfectly?

"DVD not playing in domestic machine", fairly straightforward, he loves the iMovie software but the finished DVD's don't play on his DVD player. So, it's just a frisbee maker then isn't it?

"Macbook not sleeping or wakes up with slightest movement - I am sleepless", there were a few like this, planning fifth trip to the shop in ten months. It doesn't seem to occur to him to leave the wretched thing outside the bedroom, never mind. Some of the "Mac Community" aren't terribly bright are they?

"Connecting to Airport". This lady was happily using her wireless internet at home when Apple sent her an update for Airport software. Goodbye internet connection, hello helpdesk. Curiously, one of the users also suggested "re-install OS but you'll lose all your stuff".

"Target Disk Mode, dragging files, can't do singular file, batches always -1". I suspect this user is not a complete novice. But still having problems.

"Orange light means charging but laptop is not charging". The advice given? Try unplugging it, try a new battery or re-install the O/S - this is light years ahead of Windows troubleshooting, I'm referring to Windows 3.1 obviously.

You can find these and other snippets on the official Apple Mac Support Site http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=218. It would be a cheap shot to say "well if the Apple is so fucking reliable why does it need a helpdesk?", it's clever marketing and shiny lids, that's what sells apples.

So in the end it doesn't matter how much you spend or what you spend it on. The important thing is not to get upset when it doesn't work. For you, "it" will never work.

The Buddha teaches that acceptance is the first step to enlightenment, he's right, it's a step forward, the two steps backwards are for arrogance (me) and the next one forward is humility (you at the typewriter shop), then two steps backwards again for merciless taunting, one step forward for punching an arrogant twat, both take two steps back for brawling in a typewriter shop and finally six steps forward for me for being right about everything all the time and ten steps backwards for you because I said so. I win again.

But that's not all the Buddha teaches, he is also attributed with these delightful pearls of wisdom which have become part of our world culture and heritage:

"You wanted a fucking dog, now take the bastard out for a walk!"
"I fuckin' hate peas"
"Jesus! If you knew the first one was runny why did you crack the second one idiot?" - talking about boiled eggs

oh wait, now that I think of it, it wasn't the Buddha, that was my dad talking. I still remember him sometimes. He isn't dead, but he will be eventually.

Giblets,

JJ

Snowball in Gaza

2008-12-28T19:24:00.001+01:00

Here's more year-end frolics, but before we start put one of these together:

"Snowball":

2 parts Advocaat (egg-nog, yellow egg based liquor)
Dash of lime cordial
Dash of orange cordial
6 parts lemonade (schwepps)
Rocket version – add 1 part vodka (ok 2, you naughty boy)

You can use fresh orange and lime, it'll tast less like a Labour Club ladies special.

Now reapeat that three or six times depending on the vodka level, by the end you should be ready to put the world to rights. Read on.

Festive spirit my arse, here are the crappyiest ten things of 2008, notwithstanding any late entries by Cliff Richard and the like:

1. Men's Lifestyle. Yet again this pointless topic has spawned a hundred magazine titles this year, despite liberal access to real porn on the web, the genre baffles me to the point of irretrievable tedium

2. Banks. Barely a day goes by when we don't hear about people losing their jobs, and not one single bank manager among them, not one investment broker, who or where are all those people who brought the worlds economy down? Why aren't the odious mongrels in prison?

3. Diesel fuel. It's costs just as much as petrol, the engines are noisy and smelly, it pollutes more than petrol. Keep it for trucks and buses please.

4. The Future Proof computer. With the advent of the disposable laptop I think the concept of the future proof forward compatible pc is proven to be an unmitigated pigs arse, complete with curly tail.

5. Johnathon Ross. Well it's about bloody time that outrageous charlatan was exposed for the blaggard that he is. Whenever he does make a re-appearance it will be too soon for me.

6. The person who left a long scratch on the boot of my car; you are an unashamed coward, show yourself and collect the thrashing that is due to you, you scoundrel

7. Global Warming. This summer was actually marginally worse than last years appalling effort, that Kyoto mob are an absolute shower, what a scandalous waste of money.

8. News coverage of Religious affairs. If you want a Christian view on current affairs you ask the Archbishop of Canterbury, an eminent well spoken man. If you want the Muslim view you ask that nutter from Finsbury Park with a Hook for a hand. Who decided this is balanced reporting? It's ridiculous, the man is a self proclaimed terrorist!

9. Gordon Brown. Well it would be remiss not have one mention of the unconscionable dullard. This man makes John Major look like a first rate strip show, thoroughly riveting no doubt. Is he still wearing his de-mob suit? For heaven's sake!

10. Sunday Newspaper Magazines. "What you eat is what you are?" for the fifty millionth time will you just bugger off with your half-arsed pseudo science. I'm not going to cry and I'm bloody proud of it, useless bunch of milksops.

Ring in the new year I say and not a minute to bloody soon either!

JJ

Me, me, me, me, me, me, I'm the Presi-debt !!!

2008-12-19T14:47:00.000+01:00

Here's a bullet point list of things we're going fix in the world before the year end reports are due, it'll be good PR:

1. Make Finland part of Scandinavia, I'm sick of explaining that
2. Make the Falkand Islands part of Wales, it's a sheep thing
3. change February into Febury and Library into Libry, just do it - for America!
4. Cancel this nonsense "World Series" Baseball and teach them to play Cricket
5. Cancel all American sports and Aussie Rules football, learn to play global sports
6. Re-instate Aussie Rules Football, that last bit was just to stop Americans feeling victimised
7. Make New Zealand into the 7th Australian State, it's almost there anyway, its just paperwork now
8. Fidel Castro - give it up dude! move to Florida already
9. Stop this Champagne vs Sparkling Wine garbage, it's the same product. I want South African Champagne, as a consumer I demand it
10. Give Pakistan back to India. They've had sixty years of freedom it's clear they can't cope
11. fill the Isle of White with Chinese people! yay! The Isle of ChinaWhite
12. put polar bears on the Antarctic, because we need new nature documentaries, yay! polar bears eating penguins
13. Re-instate Chinese monarchy in Honk Kong, yay! King Kong!
14. Send more donkeys to Hong Kong, yay! Donkey Kong!

The problem with having a black president is you can't mock him without thinking "is that racist? will people think I'm racist?", fucking no fun boring talk-a-lot dried up twat president.

Hmmm... see you can't call me a racist, I've earned me a banana.

Doh! I'm not racist dammit! I saved the world not Gordon Brown, why can't he see that?!

JJ

Uncivil War

2008-12-10T23:05:00.002+01:00

Does anyone know why the UN is still fighting Afghanistan? I assume the US had the backing of the UN to go there (knowing full well they didn't, so what the fuck is the UN doing there now?). This war is completely irrelevant in practice but some people feel the need to air these concerns. ie. Me.

I know that we had to oust the Taleban because they killed their people, like all those African countries do every day and New Orleans in a hurricane. The UN doesn't find African "defence" very sexy, or is it the US doesn't give a rat's arse (ass) about Africa. Why do they care about Afghanistan? The biggest change in Afghanistan since the war began is they have regained their position as number one heroin exporter to the world. Why do you think the street prices came down a couple of years ago? Don't tell me you didn't notice. Why would the US government want more drugs in their country? Drugs are evil, governments are there to protect us.

What's Iraq done since the War of Liberation? Operation "Restore Freedom" or "Oil (for) Liberty" was a resounding success because now the streets are besieged with suicide bombers and most of the people live in fear and abject poverty. It's like Swindon without white people. Imagine being the poorer, duller cousin of Bristol, you literally are just one stop away from Wales and marrying your cousin (from Swindon).

Who else can I inslut today? I mean insult. There's no point insulting Australia because they really are at the arse-end of nowhere, it's true. Only New Zealand can dispute that title, yeh yeh Lord of the Rings, what have you done lately? Canada; Why does the only country with more guns than U S of Arse have a teeny tiny murder rate? Because they're all drunk, couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. Argentina, the Bournemouth of Nazi Germany (or the Florida of Nazi Germany if you is Arse), started a "war" with England over the Falkland Islands. What kind of comedy war was that? It was like an Eskimo trying to hijack a barbecue with a plastic knife. The knife melted when he got too close and the Eskimo was too hot so he took his hood off and gave his face away, bloody idiot.

Yes I said "England", because it's always England when we win, "Britain" when we lose and when the Scots or Welsh win something they become "British". That's how United our Kingdom is, why any of these countries want to be in Europe is a bloody mystery to me.

Ok, either this is going to take all night or I'll have to insult continent by continent. Europe; you know this fabulous old architecture you're always harping on about, fucking knock it down already, it stinks of mildew and piss. Build some straight roads. Asia; get a proper job and stop fucking staring at me, Antartica; stop complaining about how fucking hot it is, can't you do something to help? And those other two continents too, say something funny or fuck off.

Did you know that Venus is the only planet that rotates anti-clockwise? What can our planet do? Nothing, it's just endless bitching and whining about ozone, greenhouse gas, fossil fuel and fucking Dolphins in tuna nets. Fuck 'em, shoot the Dolphins. I want to see some anti-clockwise turns and while you're at it time should flow backwards at least once a week.

There, I've insulted the entire planet and now I'm going to play in the garden.

You do know what this is about don't you? That Bagpuss bloke died, Oliver Postgate, he did the clangers too. I wanted to be the Soup Dragon, or Professor Yattle. Bum. I've still got Chorlton the Ravenous Vampire though, that's quite fun with all the minions collecting blood for the fighting....yeeeh, love childrens programs.

JJ

Unmersion

2008-12-09T13:15:00.001+01:00

What the hell is “mersion” ? the opposite of immersion? They shouldn’t be allowed to have the “im” word if the other part isn’t a word to begin with. Inflammable means the same as flammable, what the hell is the point of that extra word then? We might as well speak French. Why isn’t there an “unflammable” it makes perfect sense.

As you might have guessed, today’s theme is Hell. Hell hasn’t quite frozen ever yet but Brussels almost has and that’s near enough for me. Hang on, I’ll get me tights and quill I can feel a spirit within:

Yes its snowing like bloody hell here,
Getting in my hair and eyes,
Hellish eyes red with rage and torment,
Quivering like two ripe tomatoes on a Queensland beach.

A diabolically possessed beach
With jellyfish the size of a man!
Baking on the salty silicon compounds!!
Casting evil aspersions towards Tasmania

Ahhh Tasmania, the home of The Devil
Hell itself, off the coast of Victoria,
In all her dark splendour,
Still mourning Albert after all these years.

All these years, they’ve gone away,
And taken those things that get better with time,
Have they? Will they? Or are we just delicate jellyfish,
Burning on the paradise of Queensland beaches.

Yes I like a good Christmas poem, the snow put me in the mood for it. When it’s snowing people want to hear about beaches and warm things, so throw in a bit of retrospection and melancholy and “Bob’s your uncle”, you’ve got yourself a recipe for a commercialised version of a two thousand year old festival stolen from pagans. That’s what my work was trying to encapsulate.

By “work” I mean that poem. It’s not only dead people’s poems that are called their “work” or “works”, mine is work too. It was hard work writing it and I’m sure it’s going to be bloody hard work reading it.

But that’s enough lunch, back to work.

JJ

Oh My God! The Cat!

2008-12-07T20:15:00.002+01:00

I know that we're supposed to cut down on salt to reduce our blood pressure, prevent heart attacks and/or hypertension, whatever that is, so I bought some "Lo Salt". At first I didn't want it because I figured it's just Salt with less Salt in it, I'm paying more for less. That's like buying a six pack of beer with only five cans in it, why would I do that?

Then I looked closer, it's the same amount, only the sodium is reduced. That should be impossible, salt is half and half of sodium and chlorine. Sodium is what makes street lamps glow and chlorine is used to neutralise pee in swimming pools - yum, tasty!

So how do they reduce Sodium? I'll tell you, they've replaced 66% of the Sodium Chloride with Potassium Chloride. That's what fertiliser is made of. In essence I'm putting some "synthetic shit" and vinegar on my chips.

AND, here's another use of Potassium Chloride; to induce a heart attack. Yes that's right, it's number three of the three injections used to carry out the Death Penalty in certain Unliterate States of Arse. This is what I'm using in my health kick to avoid heart problems, fucking maaarvellous!

You can check the labelling in your local supermarket, all of the above is true. (The lethal injections are in the Personnel Hygiene aisle, fourth left after the free range carrots or whatever the fuck is in Produce Offers this week). But really, it's all true.

Why? Why oh why are these huge faceless corporations poisoning us? You may be aware that during the first and second world wars cigarettes were advertised as being "just the ticket after a long day in the trenches", soldiers were given cigarettes as part of their daily food ration. Can you imagine the government handing out free cigarettes? I don't see why not actually, the bastards haven't stopped short on any other money making rip-off for their own ends. Back then it was cigarettes, today it's Death Penalty Chemicals in your salt.

In about twenty years time people are going to be dying of "Death Penalty Heart Attack" and then we'll start buying Potassium Free Salt, which will of course be a little more expensive. Maybe they'll put Arsenic Chloride in it, that sounds harmless enough. There's only one way out of this vicious salt circle really, stop using salt. Consumerism Flag; there's enough salt in food without adding more at the table, it's just more shit that we're hooked on but we don't need.

All this talk about death and poison, I'm hungry now, where's my hunting baguette? I'll wait here by the Cat Flap, "here pussy pussy, open the flap"

Why does it always end with me trying to ensnare some pussy with a piece of stale bread?

I have to move back closer to the city, or hire a stripper for sunday evenings in, goodnight.

JJ

Motörhead

2008-12-05T08:10:00.001+01:00

some moons ago I wrote this post

Well I didn't actually write it, it's the words of a Motorhead song I just posted it one day because I thought "I really like this, other people should know about it".

The song was wrote about thirty years ago and last played live about twenty seven years ago. Until now. I was at the AB on larst week where MH happened to be playing gig and they only went and played the song! I was absolutley gobsmacked, astounded, knocked sideways and bowled over.

Unbelievable! One lives for days like this, doesn't one?

And I'll tell you what else, two days later and I still had a sore throat and I reckon a million people must have asked me "have you got a cold?"

"No! I've got a sore throat from shouting my bollocks off at the Motorhead gig", "Motorhead? Jesus", "Jesus?, Lemmy", "what?", "what?", "what did you say?", "I said What", "No, I said what did you say"

On days like this I usually like to take the afternoon off and go on a business reporting presentation by some consultant types, fortunately I had just the thing booked already months ago. At the super Crowne Plaza at pl Rogier

"KPI?", "no thanks I had a late lunch", "what?", "what?", "what?", "eh?", "I'm a bit deaf from the .... oh never mind make mine a large one", "What?", "S H U T U P" (that's two words, the html parser is supposed to ignore whitespace, I could put it back with & codes but it think you geddit now)

Init maarvellous eh?

JJ

Look Out!

2008-11-29T11:54:00.000+01:00

Do you know what's it's like to drive a car with no brakes and no steering which tailspins into a skid when you try to speed up? I do, it's like driving my car in the snow. That's why cars don't have rear wheel drive anymore - except mine, and BMW's. Don't tell me about traction control, I've got it, it's useless. You can't replace front wheel drive with some fancy pants electronic gadget, that might work for sex but it's not the same. I was having to go really slowly and feel my way through, it would've been quicker to walk.

When Mandela was released from prison, I remember watching him walk out, I was in a bed "getting a hand" from the owner of the bed. When George W fiddled the 2000 election, I was on honeymoon in Florida. Jimi Hendrix died on my fourth birthday and now I'm having drumming lessons from the drummer of Arsenal organised by Anthony Hopkin's cousin.

Yes, I am firmly "on the fringe". But I'll tell you some funny thing that really happened to me at work listen lady. I bought a DVD player from a colleague and he left a porn DVD in it. He actually asked me if it was an original! I told him it was a copy so he didn't want it back. Made me wonder how many he must have, I did throw it away eventually.

It seems to me this "fringe" thing is much bigger than the thing it's supposed to be a fringe of, that's not right is it? It's those fucking celebrities who are on the fringe and it's us normal decent people who are in the main bit. "The Body" The Body of what? The human race I suppose. Why isn't there a human high jump?

I was watching the Antiques Show while writing this and fella started reading from an antique Welsh book. The little woman in the corner who does the sign language was screwed, she didn't understand Welsh and couldn't sign it, so she just watched and smiled, as did I.

Ahhh there is a human high jump, literally, in athletics. But the human race is very complicated, you've got some people winning over short distance and different people over long distance. An then there's the oddballs that go around and jump over that little bar, it's hardly even a jump and then they have a little pool that they alway put one foot in. They don't even try to jump the pool and some of them step on the bar. The steeplechase is silly, it's like saying "here's a race with a couple of obstacles but if you can't manage the obstacles it doesn't matter just step on them". Why don't they let everyone finish and then put the names in a hat and pull out the medal winners, they could get dressed before the results are announced. Imagine the guy jumping up and down in an Armani suit shouting "I won, I won!!", or the woman crying through the national anthem while the commentator adds "I was almost in tears myself when I saw that hat, it's a fine hat but not with that handbags shoes love, sort your self out for pete's sake". Sounds like golf commentary.

They should do that for all athletics then there would be no point in using drugs. In fact there would be no point competing at all. We should make the Olympics into a facebook game, the more friends you invite, the more medals you win. Obviously the Chinese would win everything so no change there but the Indians would win a lot more. It must be pretty mystifying for India to only get one medal from 1.1 billion people. Maybe distributing illegal copies of cd's and software should be an Olympic event, or Cricket. I'm not sure I would want Cricket to be in the Olypmics, that would devalue it. Devalue cricket I mean, they might tamper with their balls every now and then but at least they're not all stoned. Yes, pirate music and software fits more with the modern Olympic ideals than Cricket.

They should make drug dealing an Olympic event, because we all know that the top drug dealers don't use drugs themselves, they're too smart for that. That could be the only way to get at least one clean event. You could get the dealers to smuggle the torch to the next venue, that could be an event too. While were at it why don't we decriminalise crime altogether? So, Armed Robbery would get you a Gold Medal but parking on a disabled spot only gets a Bronze. This would bring the crime figures down and ease the load on overcrowded prisons.

Britain would get all the medals for car crime, they have the most cars stolen every year. At the same time, British cars also have the best security in the world, that makes no sense at all but it's true. The British are very determined to steal each others cars and they're very good at it, the best in the world. Of course, having decriminalised crime we'd have to find something for the police to do, we could put four of them in a band but that still leaves thousands more.

We could get them to do Sports Days for our amusement. Like we used to do at school; Egg and Spoon Race, Three Legged Race, Sack Race and the one where one carries another one piggy-back and they try to knock each other off. I would pay to watch that. It would liven up the community too, better than all that standing around flexing the knees and "evenin' all", "now then, what to we have 'ere?", "half past six, are you a burglar?", "put your clothes on love, you're nicked". That last one was from The Sweeney.

There's a blast from the archives, but that's all from me, sorry shorty.

JJ

The Dragon's Toilet

2008-11-24T23:58:00.000+01:00

I don't like those dry Dragon's Den people on BBC2, I don't like them one bit. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't invest in my ideas either, they're not my kind of people. So I'm going to put my business ideas here:

Alchoholic Counsellors. Things getting you down? Can't sleep, can't handle your crappy relationship. Fuck therapy, meet one of our guys, get smashed and forget everything. I started this business a long time ago but everytime there were problems I put myself in Alchoholic Counselling and so I got nothing done for fifteen years.

Cannabis Counsellors. It like Alchoholic Counsellors but for the unemployed / unemployable or anyone else who doesn't really have to get of bed.

Gambling Insurance. Wouldn't it be great if you could buy a policy to cover your gambling debts? Well you can but it will first require an act of parliament to make Gambling Insurance mandatory for everyone who has access to gambling facilities (that's everyone), then it just turns into a huge money carousel with the Insurance company skimming a few percent and getting filthy rich. Just like motor insurance, or any form of banking.

Transplant Carousel. This requires two closely related people, twins are best and a "house" doctor. You can take out and sell three kidneys between the two people and pocket pure profit, the people would then take turns "having the remaining kidney". One stays on a dialysis machine for a few weeks while the other one lives it up with his share of the cash, then they swap. You can do this with many organs, eyes, hands etc. Obviously the doctor is working in the health service so you get all the equipment you need but you'll have to pay him off. Eventually it'll be like buying timeshare's in bodies, you could sell all of your own parts except your brain and keep moving from body to body. You could be the woman next door one month and then you could be her lesbian lover the following month. Obviously once this takes off the holiday business will take a nose dive so you'll want to sell those Jihad Group Adventures shares.

Surrogate Tarot. It's a deck of tarot cards that doesn't tell your future, it tells you someone else's future. What use is that? Make a list of the women (or men) you would like to have a go at if they were available, and Surrogate Tarot will tell you if and when they will become available. You get first dibs on all the action. If you get bored of that you can play tricks on your neighbours like ring their front doorbell when they're in the shower.

Endless Water Supply. Instead of buying bottles of water every week and lugging it into your house, USE THE TAP IN THE KITCHEN! Isn't that what we were all brought up on? What happened, did they start putting arsenic in the tap water? Ok this is not really a business idea, it's just something I think about. Especially when it's raining. Rain makes me go to the toilet more and I'm scared of eating fish because there might be a bone it and I'll choke to death. When I do eat fish it's the same rush as some people get from bungee jumping or jumping off a skyscraper with a parachute. When I'm eating it I get really scared and want to stop but at the end I always say "let's do it again!", that's also how I equate sex to eating cheap fillet.

Here's a couple of quick ones that need development yet. The Norman Bates Shower Curtain with patented easy-clean system. And the Deep Dry Cleaning Home Kit "for when those things just have to pass a forensic test and quickly", eliminates DNA traces.

That's all there is for now, the important lesson to learn about running your own business is you should try to get millions of people depending on you, so if you screw up the government will bale you out. A government bale out is one of the best networking opportunities you'll get and networking is a great way to avoid actual work.

In the meantime I've told my loving employer I'm going to reduce my output to match my salary, he thought I was joking.

JJ

Harold

2008-11-21T12:45:00.001+01:00

Jesus came to visit me yesterday. Actually he didn't want to see me, he just wanted to see my appartment. The thing of it is I'm moving, I'm going to live in a big house with a woman.

Anyway, Jesus seemed like a happy chap, laughing and joking, he brought his girlfriend, Elisabeth. She seemed nice too. They were both very laughing and jokey types, a bit annoying actually. I can see why they nailed him to a cross last time, annoying fucker, no one can be that happy all the time, it just gets on your tits. He thought the flat would be rented out furnished, I was flattered but I had to disappoint him. Elisabeth asked if he could buy some of the furniture, I was even more flattered, it's not often women offer me money for furniture.

That was all true, a fella called Jesus really did come around and his girlfriend is called Elisabeth, but now I'm going to make some stuff up for entertainment purposes.

So I said to Jesus "Is your middle name really Harold? Doesn't seem very Jewish", he said "No it's not and anyway what kind of a dumbass name is Joliet Jake?" I said "It's from the Blues Brothers you muppet, as in Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues"

JC: Muppet? You can't call me a muppet, I am impotent
JJ: I think you mean omnipotent
JC: I don't like you
JJ: What are you going to do? Tell your dad?
JC: What if I do? You won't be laughing then
JJ: Is it true you were shagging Mary Magdelene the hooker
JC: She was not a hooker! She was a decent girl and she was my disciple
Elisabeth: You were with a hooker?!
JC: She was not a hooker! don't listen to him
JJ: So what Harold, you shagged a hooker, admit it, be a man, "confess"
JC: I didn't shag a hooker! I mean she wasn't a hooker and stop calling me Harold
JJ: I'll stop calling you Harold if you admit Mary was a prozzie and you porked her
JC: You are one annoying motherf*cker has anyone told you that?!
JJ: One or two people have mentioned it Harold
JC: Stop it! :(
JJ: Did you shag her?
JC: Ok, Ok, she was a hooker and I shagged her and she had my baby and James was my twin brother and I am the legitimate King of Isreal descended from David and not the son of a poor carpenter, ok? Happy now
JJ: Yeeeeh I thought as much
Elisabeth: What? You slept with a hooker?
JC: For f*ck's sake woman, didn't you hear what I just said? I'm the legitimate King of Isreal!
Elisabeth: I can't believe you were unfaithful to me
JC: That was two thousand years ago you cloth eared bint!
JJ: Oh, I know that line it's from Fawlty Towers
JC: Yeh, I love that but they're not showing them anymore
JJ: I've got the whole set on DVD, you can watch some if you want
JC: Really? don't you mind?
JJ: No, I had nothing planned and I haven't seen them for ages, I'll put the kettle on
JC: Excellent, have you got any biscuits?
JJ: I've only got Jacob's Cream Crackers :)
JC: Oh very bleedin' funny
Elisabeth: I don't believe this, I find out you've been shagging a tart and now you're just going to watch telly? :/
JJ: Get over it love, you're just making a fool of yourself now
Elisabeth: Are you going to let him talk to me like that? :/
JC: Sorry Bet, you know how I like Fawlty Towers I'm stuck between two stools here
Elisabeth: It's a rock and a hard place, you really are a muppet Harold, I'm going home
JJ: I'll walk you out. If you decide to 'knock it on the head' with JC, pop round, you know where I live now ;)
Elisabeth: You are a scoundrel JJ. When are you moving?
JJ: two weeks
Elisabeth: How about wednesday then?
JJ: Nah, that's badminton night :(
Elisabeth: Thursday?
JJ: I'm starting my drumming lessons on Thursday
Elisabeth: Friday then? is Friday ok? :|
JJ: Yeh alright, see you then :x
Elisabeth: :x

I went back inside and sat down

JC: aren't you forgetting something?
JJ: what?
JC: tea? biscuits?
JJ: Oh, yeh

couple of minutes later

JJ: that's better, we can watch a couple of episodes now
JC: you were hitting on my girlfriend isn't it? :|
JJ: yeh, do you mind? :}
JC: I do actually but I think she'll dump me anyway after you spilled the Mary thing
JJ: Sorry about that, I was just curious after all that Holy Blood and Holy Grail stuff
JC: it's ok, there's plenty more fish in the sea :)
JJ: :D good one, fishing is a biblical thing right?
JC: yeeh, fishing, baking, carpentry, wine-making it's all in there
JJ: how did you feed those five thousand people with five loaves and fish?
JC: easy, you just have to slice it very thin
JJ: so it was just a cheap trick?
JC: well that's a bit harsh, in those days we pulled a lot of stunts, it was what people wanted
JJ: walking on water?
JC: walking on turtles, they were on marijuana to stop them moving too much
JJ: raising the dead?
JC: Lazarus? he wasn't dead, he was a paid actor
JJ: that's pretty mercenary
JC: what was I supposed to do? Pony card tricks might work for Paul Daniels but no one believes he is the son of God do they?
JJ: what about the second coming then? Armageddon and all that? :?
JC: Yeeh, that's what I'm supposed to be doing now but I just haven't got round to it yet, moving house is a stressful do
JJ: when are you going to do it then?
JC: dunno yet, I might not do it, it's hard work organising an Armageddon. Earth is different now, when we said all that stuff in Revelations there were only half a million people on the planet, there are over six billion now, there's too many
JJ: there are too many
JC: what? :o
JJ: it's not "there's too many people" it's "there are too many people"
JC: what-evver! :/
JJ: so what are you going to do then if you don't have Armageddon :|
JC: I've applied for a job in the European Commission
JJ: which DG?
JC: well, fish obviously
JJ: again with the fish? don't you fancy a change?
JC: what else can I do? Transport? Admin?
JJ: why not Admin? anyone can do that
JC: I'll think about it
JJ: Don't you want to go back to Isreal?
JC: Naaah, been there done that
JJ: what about your people? they're waiting for you
JC: they don't need me, they've got Tony Blair now, :D
JJ: yeeh good one, Tony Blair. Have you heard the Jackson Five are getting back together?
JC: Yeeh, what a joke, it was cute when Michael was five years old, they'll just look like a bunch of old freaks now :|
JJ: not a fan then?
JC: nah, Motown isn't really my scene, I'm into Elvis and Sinatra
JJ: How are they?
JC: they're good, they just did a record together, Sinatra plays the Djembe now as well :)
JJ: Jesus, everyone's playing Djembe now. Don't tell me he learned it on holiday in Africa
JC: well, we don't have African holidays in heaven but yes, something like that. Errmm, would you mind not taking my name in vain like that
JJ: Oh sorry, force of habit
JC: You are forgiven
JJ: Jesus you're serious about that shit :\
JC: don't push it :/
JJ: sorry again, I am a heathen after all, or is gentile?
JC: I thinks it's the same, but I don't have to forgive you know, I can still smite you :/
JJ: I don't even know what that means
JC: nor do I actually, but I'm pretty sure dad knows, old people love all that
JJ: I don't talk to my dad since he and mom broke up
JC: I know
JJ: smartarse, you don't know everything :/
JC: test me
JJ: What was on the flipside of the first Lawnmower Death album?
JC: Metal Duck
JJ: oh piss off wiseguy!
JC: I think I will anyway, thanks for the tea and the Fawlty Towers. I should get over to Bet's place and see if she's ok
JJ: say hi from me ;/
JC: you really want to incur some wrath don't you?
JJ: bring it on big boy
JC: Oh shut up, I'm going
JJ: see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya
JC: goodbye. (silly twat)
JJ: I heard that! :/

Hmmmm.... I could've asked him the lottery numbers, bugger it! :/

JJ

Syndromaphobia

2008-11-17T23:58:00.001+01:00

Now that we've discovered some people are no longer able to differentiate thirst from hunger we can say we havea major new syndrome / disorder in the works. This one will excuse fat people from being fat. It's only fair because lazy people can claim SAD in winter (like me, I claim it all year round because I live in Belgium) and people who are just uninterested, disruptive and annoying have all manner of hyper-activity disorders to claim.

We'll call it Thirst Incapacity Topsyturviness, like all good psychobabble the name doesn't actually mean anything – it's a double negative. In the old days "topsyturviness" was a proper medical term, even before "medicine" was a medical term.

Only things with catchy headline-able names are getting anywhere today, like SAD and Credit Crunch. I really object to the term Credit Crunch, that makes it sound like an outside factor, like an earthquake or hurricane. What we should call it is "the banks and governments ripped us off again, bastards".

What I also really object to is the objectifying nature of disorders and syndromes. I've had Trauma Therapy and I'm convinced I'd still be doing it if I just kept turning up every week, but I didn't. I decided the therapist had done a good job and it was time to get on with my life, otherwise I would have become addicted to therapy. You can actually get treatment for being addicted to therapy, obviously.

But the problem now is I have an aversion to syndromes, disorders and phobias. I've turned into one of those people that tells manic depressives to "pull yourself together" or pushes claustrophics into elevators "face your fear, defeat it once and for all".

I'm a Syndrome-ist, or Anti-Disorder-er, I don't what I am but I'm pretty sure I've got Syndromaphobia. I'm completely snookered, it's the nature of the illness that I can't seek help or admit to having it. I deny the existance of all Syndromes, Disorders and Phobias, incluing this one. I shouldn't even be writing this, especially if there's a risk a hypochondriac my read it, then he'd get it and he wouldn't be able to get treatment either. We can't even form a self help group.

Once this get's out it's going to be worse than the obesity epidemic. I narrowly avoied that one.

Jeeese Louise have you seen what's on tv....they're not shy are they?

JJ

Streeps Ahead

2008-11-12T11:58:00.000+01:00

Gwyneth Paltrow is the new Meryl Streep. Well, she will be in about 15 years. I saw Meryl in Mamma Mia, the movie of the musical, it's an entertaining movie, probably one that will re-appear on public holidays and I'll watch it again because "there's nothing else on", it was that good.

But the great thing was seeing actors like Meryl and Julie Walters putting in these really good performances and proving that you don't have to be a thirty-something-boob-job to make non-porn movies as a woman. We already knew that about Meryl, but looking around at the "next crop" I'd say Gwyneth is going the right way about it, she's smart. But then, when the opposition is Jennifer Anniston - you don't need to be brain surgeon. I'd defy anyone to dispute that the ex-cast of Friends have really taken down the batting averages for movie quality.

I'm sure I've seen four or five movies with ex-Friends but I can't remember any of them except the one with Harrison Ford (and Jennifer), because Harrison was in it. Actually, has "Joey" made any films? I know he made a really shit spin-off sit-com.

My life is a bit like a sitcom, this morning I went to the dog track and bet a pony on a muppet, I was telling Shuey about it when he told me Bownsey has a half share in wippet, which is what I should have been betting on, so I asked him who has the other half and he said "Chandler from Friends". then we did a whole bit about the person owning the front half collecting all of the winnings but the other guy owns the dogs bollocks.

Then I quit my job as a ploy to get a raise but my boss accepted my resignation so I ended up begging for my job back at a reduced salary but when he stood up it turned out he was wearing stockings and suspenders so he was sent to the nuthouse and I got a promotion to his job plus the regional manager who gave me the promotion insisted that I have sex with her.

Then I had lunch with the "Fan Man", turns out he got a job installing air conditioning. After that stunt at the super bowl he was inundated with offers from fan related businesses, the funny thing is he knows nothing about fans, his friend Colin Dooley hooked him up with the "Fan Man" fan and now Colin has put a contract out on Fan Man because he thinks he should've had that job.

Obviously I had to say I haven't seen Colin in years, which is true, I haven't seen him since we were hanging around with those Japanese exchange students in Sheffield. That was the summer of '91, wild times.

After lunch I was on my way to the office when I bumped into that guy from the movie with all the aliens that jump up and down and go "yak yak, yak yak yak, yak yak". I said "hey you're the guy from that movie" he said "hey you're the guy from the street". Funny guy, wish I could remember his fucking name. Then I remembered "you're Chandler from Friends", turns out he wasn't in the alien movie at all and he wasn't very funny either, he was quite angry that people see him as an buffoon. Well, he's not helping the situation.

After that encounter I was on a bit of a downer so I went home but I ended up at my old flat which I had moved out of the week before but there was a really hot chick living there who insisted I have sex with her and it slipped out that she was my boss's daughter so I withdrew politely and ran. Then I panicked and told the regional boss I was quitting and she gave me a raise, and a blow job.

x-rated comedy, that's where it's at kids.

JJ

iFreedom

2008-11-07T09:53:00.000+01:00

iFreedom, iLiberty, iJustice, iAmerica, iWorld

Why i?

Why i man

And no, thats not a question. You don't want principles you want iPrinciples, good things you can talk about but you don't really do. In iWorld, theres someone else to fix everything, leave your gender outside the door, no colours here we're all beige and proud and there's definately No Smoking. There is iSmoking however, that's when you get a avatar who smokes and you email your friends to tell them you're iSmoking in the iOffice and for some unfathomable reason they think it's cool. If i did that my friends would call me an iIdiot, they'd be right.

When did people become so unimaginative and dull? Political Correctness has something to do with it, the rest you can blame on iMac. i've used an apple mac, it's the computer equivalent of an electric car, it has all the appeal of celery flavoured condoms, i imagine. iPod is the same, filthy proprietary protocols. i hate celery. i was given and iPod nano when they were new, i used it for about thirty seconds and gave it away.

You'll never guess who i bumped into in Quick;

JJ: Hey George W, what's up? Hungry?
GB: Haven't you heard? I'm looking for job
JJ: Oh that! it's not yet George W, you're supposed to keep working until January
GB: What?
JJ: Yeh, he has to be sworn in and organise his movers and decoraters yet, there's ages
GB: So I should be at work now?
JJ: Correct, I can give you a lift to the metro
GB: Thank's man, a man needs good friends like you at a time like this
JJ: steady on George, this is strictly business, I'm an advisor it's not the same. Anyway, lets grab a burger I'm hungry

Barack O walks by carrying a bin bag

JJ: Hey Barack, what's up? We're going to have a burger
BO: Tell it to the man dude, I'm outta here, I've quit
JJ: Good for you, where you off to?
BO: Go home, pack my shit and catch the next flight to D.C.
GB: Hey B.O., good job
BO: George W
JJ: Bazza, can you do me favour?
BO: Sure, shoot
JJ: Can you get them to put KFC in Belgium? i'm suffering here man, Hector's Chicken is like iKFC, fucking awful.
BO: I fully sympathise brother. Hey George W, do we own Belgium?
GB: Ermmm...that's in Africa right?
JJ: You idiot, this is Belgium, right here, you're sitting on it
GB: No, no, no, this is Brussels, iKnow
OB: You know jack George W. No sweat JJ, I'll check with old Joey B, he knows about foriegn policy
JJ: Thanks man, I owe you one
GB: I don't know Jack, who's Jack?
JJ: forget it Georgie boy, I'll run you to the metro I've got things to do
GB: What are you doing? I thought we could hang out
JJ: I'm going to Brico to get an electric screwdriver, you have to get to work remember?

But coming back the the original whatsname, sometimes i do get the feeling the world is turning into an iWorld. There are no kids playing in the streets, everyone drives the same car, they look the same anyway. There's no opposition in government anymore, the are no Lefts or Rights it's all middle of the road dull; dull, dull, dull. David Cameron? what's that all about? he looks like a poster boy for Belkin Wireless Routers "solve all your wireless connection problems in one easy to use, maintenance free, future proof, sleek, stylish solution" nothing in IT fits that description, everyone knows that. (Apple Mac??! don't be a twat)

it's like Star Trek Next Generation, just once i would've liked to hear the captain say "can you all just shut the fuck up for five minutes, i'm getting a headache from you idiots, i have to do everything around here and it's pissing me off now!", be human. Even back when Next Generation started i was a big fan but i couldn't help thinking "is this how they see our future?" imagine a bunch of guys and two women in lycra suits drfiting through space for months on end, i know what i would've been doing but those guys didin't even try it on.

in the original Star Trek, old captain Kirk was getting into a fight over a woman almost every week. i can see him know with his bloodied nose and ripped shirt grabbing hold of that scantily clad "alien" woman.

That's the vision of the future i want.

JJ

Farts and Gripes

2008-11-03T21:27:00.008+01:00

...or, to put it another way; Stars and Stripes, the land of the free, the home of Michael Jackson's monkey. A hundred million people are going to write kisses next to the one they love so that he can be in charge of everything for four years. It's a kind of gang bang St Valentines day.

Whoever wins it's a big responsibility but I'll tell you what, it's not going to be Obama, it's going to be McCain. I'm already having my Repbulican election dinner today, the chips are in the oven and the hot dogs are on the boil.

Here's the break down. Three months ago, Obama was twenty points clear, no one was taking bets any more. Now, having spent 600 million bucks and travelled to every square inch of the country, he's barely 5 points clear. 5 points is nothing in an opinion poll, they have a 3-5% error margin. It looks to me like Obama is hanging on by the skin of his teeth. This is exactly what happened last time out, George W was written off six months before the election, on the day he only needed to fiddle one state to claim the sash.

Sure McCain's going to have to fiddle one or maybe two states, but it won't be Florida this time. He'll win most states though, because of people. This happened in the UK once, the Conservatives at an all time low in popularity were facing defeat in the face so they gave up and put up a complete no-hoper, John Major. To this day even he can't believe he won. The interesting thing was, afterwards no one would admit to voting Conservative. Years later it transpired that Major was having an affair with the salmonella egg woman, ironic that he was in the circus before he joined politics - you could say he never really left.

People voted for a dullard rather than take a gamble on something new. That's Obama's whole campaign in the toilet, "Time for Change" or whatever the hell it is, he should be campaigning on "I promise to do nothing, you're safe with me". Bland faceless politicians are popular in conservative countries. Our politicians could rob us blind, which they regularly do, we would still put them right back up there rather than try to make a real change. (Side Note: The US and UK only have two real parties and they're both the same, there are other candidates but most voters are too scared of change)

Now I know you don't like the sound of this, I don't either, but sometimes grown up's do bad things and they're mean to each other, get over it. If Obama does win then I'll have got it all wrong but that won't stop me. This time next week I'll be predicting some other catastrophe or commenting some other baloney, god knows I'm not shooting for any prizes here.

So, Obama to lose, McCain to win, sure as I'm sitting here with a 1 kilo tub of Haribo liquorice all-sorts and a can of beer.

JJ

The Madness of Joliet Jake

2008-10-27T12:25:00.001+01:00

Why do people say mad things like "a whale isn't a fish, it's a mammal". Look at it, it's a massive huge fish in the sea, see any giraffes in the sea? no because it's a mammal, stop talking bollocks.

Another classic "a tomato isn't a vegetable, it's a fruit", well take it out of your salad and put it in your cake then. Or better still, shove it up your arse.

Here's a good one "bears are more scared of you than you are of them", that's just horseshit, what the f*ck are you talking about? Have you ever seen a real bear? They're massive with huge teeth and claws.

"the best way to deal with a shark is to punch it on the nose". I think there's a better way, shoot it with a harpoon gun before it gets anywhere near you.

"you shouldn't give money to the homeless they waste it on drugs", that's not a waste actually, they're quiet when they're stoned it's better for everyone.

"A penguin is the only bird that can swim." A penguin isn't a bird, birds have feathers and fly through the air, that's what makes them birds. I know what a bird looks like and that isn't it.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", what kind of garbage is that? I you're standing in a field with a bird in your hand you need to be arrested and/or locked up.

In fact anything at all to do with birds is absolute hogwash, birds are crazy, and so are cats, bats, rats and silly hats.

I'm going back to lunch now, then I'm going to write a report about something, I haven't decided what yet but I've already got a circulation list in mind, it's f*cking huge!

JJ

Me and The Shah

2008-10-19T13:43:00.004+02:00

The other day I spent half an hour trawling the internet for pictures of the former Shah of Iran. Apparently, according the corner shop man from Iran and his brother, the former Shah and I share a striking resemblence.

I won't be visiting Isreal any time soon then. However, I couln't find one scrap of evidence to support this anecdotal mayonnaise so I have rejected the comparison. I'm still not going to Isreal though, I'm just less apparently opposed to not going. I mean I wouldn't want my appearance to spark off a disturbance, it wouldn't be the first time.

Actually, now that I think of it, the corner shop man looks like an Iranian Jimmy Greaves, watching him and me talk must be like watching the Iranian Twilight Zone, in colour. (by the way; I'm not Iranian, I just have a habit of staring at people)

It's a shame in a way. Why can't I look like the other one? The one that pronounces fatwahs and jihads, that would be much more fun, better than that Voodoo Golf nonsense anyway.

Still, that's another Sunday afternoon, more tea anyone?

JJ

Continuity Announcment

2008-10-17T18:30:00.003+02:00

For those who don't pay attention to these things, for shame, I'll point out the new links in my list. I'm quite particular about my list, it's shorter than most and I go to quite a lot of trouble to filter out the riff-raff so I think you should make the effort to look at these:

Publog - great for expats, it's just like being in a pub in the old country

Belgian Waffle - quite entertainingly funny, if nothing else you have to read this post about vegetables.

Strawberries Champagne - this is very nicely done, just have look for pete's sake thats all I'm asking

Errr, yeh, that's it.

JJ

Environment Mental

2008-10-14T23:32:00.001+02:00

Here's how it's going to be, so get wise and listen to that voice in your head (it's you reading my blog). All these people driving about in their gas guzzling cars with three or four empty seats are going become pariahs. I don't mean the little fish with really sharp teeth. It's going the same way as smoking, being on your own in a car will become an anti-social thing, ie. only Belgians will want to do it. Cars will no longer be owned by individuals at all, they will be owned by groups.

The cars will drive themselves with speaking GPS gadgets, they'll pick up and drop off people and then park themselves somewhere out of the way. And the speaking gps will say things like "how was your day? I've had a fucking nightmare, the traffic on the outer ring was a right bastard and then I couldn't find a parking spot for love nor money".

In the future we will be able to have a nice walk in the park and not be harrased by ducks begging for bread and threatening us with tasers. We had a lovely duck breast dinner recently with some freinds, I laughed myself to sleep afterwards, "not so tough when you're under the grill eh donald? Ha hahaaa".

The cats have been playing on my car, they've left muddy footprints all over it. Well take note little feline Salman Rushdies, I've got a brand new Driver (it's a golf club) and I'm just waiting for the chance to use it. Is it just me or does anyone else think Salman Rushdie looks like he's been whacked in the face with a driver.

It's rather convenient isn't it that cats don't have finger prints, I'd have caught them by now. Do any animals have fingerprints? Dogs have nose prints, they should be made to carry ID cards if they don't have prints, that's Gordon Brown logic. ID Cards to fight terrorism, ID cards will stop the cats playing on my car.

Imagine if fish had fingerprints they would be fishfingerprints, it's rare we get the opportunity to stick words together like that in English. The Germans are fluent at it, the downside is of course that they have a very tiny vocabulary and small dictionaries. Saucepan is another one, was this really invented just to make Sauce? Was there a time in English history when people needed so much sauce that someone invented this pan especially and marketed it as mass consumer product? Imagine doing that now, invent a friedchickenpan and see how many people buy it. Actually people probably would buy it, they buy any old rubbish these days.

I get really annoyed when I'm a watching a cookery program and they have some top chef saying things like "this is such a good cut of meat all we need to do is simply pan fry it lightly and let the flavours come out on their own". I'm not watching your program to see you put a piece of chicken in a frying pan, I can already do that. Do something creative, teach me something and stop being a pretentious tosser. Imagine if I went to the executive board and said "the new corporate website is on Facebook, it's beauty is it's simplicity". They'd hand me my dick on a plate. Lightly pan fried probably, they have a very dry sense of humour.

Yep, the environment is here to stay. Unless we can pull out the whole thing and put in a new one (see New Scientist in August). If that happens, the new version should have less oxygen in the middle eastern area, calm them down a bit. And we could swap modern Texas with South Africa from the seventies just to see if anyone notices.

I have nothing against South Africans, it's comforting to know that if I ever need a drunken bigot with army training I know exactly where to find one. Same applies to Texas and any country with military service. Imagine how many Mexicans would be living in Texas if there was no oil there. I'll tell you what, there would'nt be any Mexicans living in Mexico that's for sure.

Yeeeeh.

JJ

Hay-yelp!

2008-10-10T12:58:00.001+02:00

According to Stephen Hawking's anthropomorphic principle the answer to the question "why are we here?" is "because we are here". As far as I understand it, he is saying that having evolved to the point we are at now, we are now able to ask such complex questions as "why are we here?". See? It's because we are here.

It seems to make sense but it's not very exciting is it? I was hoping for some alien beings to drop by and say "yeeeh, years ago we fired out samples of DNA to different planets in the hope that one would support life so that we could move there when our place becomes uninhabitable. By the way, your tv programs are shit".

Can you imagine aliens, light years away, looking for signs of life saying "fecking East Enders again? Keep looking". That's why aliens don't visit us, they get the tv programs and they're not impressed. I mean there needs to be some compelling reason to cover that amount of distance. Imagine aliens watching Lesbian Hour on Playboy TV, "That's not going to work. It doesn't work like that. They'll go extinct unless we say something about this, they're doing it wrong. It's no use putting your tongue in there you idiot, that's just stupid".

Aliens are lazy, they've got so much technology they just can't be arsed to go anywhere. If I had a spare day to spare I could very easily fill it with guitar playing, game playing, internet surfing, writing this and other stuff. I don't have to leave the house at all. Imagine what it's like for aliens, they have tons more stuff than we do. For aliens to come here is like me going to Charleroi to see what's going on there, I haven't been yet and I've no plans to do so. Besides, I live in Brussels, why should I visit planet Earth at all?

Anyway, how annoying is that for old Stephen Hawking, all that effort to come up with such a simple and elegant answer to one of the biggest questions of all time and the most common response is "so, do you think we'll make contact with aliens?", the answer should be "it's possible but you won't be the one to do it, considering that you can't even see past the end of your fecking nose you tit!", that would sound really cool with his robot voice. I blame society, no one wants to talk anymore, I spend half my day wandering round the office telling people "send me an email, I can't talk now I have to go to a meeting". Ok it's not society, it's me, I'll take the blame for everything ever, happy now?

Yes it's my fault Aliens don't visit and the Second Coming of Christ didn't happen, it's because I refuse to be a slave to email. I switched off the annoying noises and pop-up warnings, I read mail when I'm ready. Sometimes that means I'll get a message like "Second Coming this afternoon, sorry it's short notice but it's the only window for another 2,000 years, await your confirmation, best regards etc." dated the day before yesterday. Feck! We've missed the Second Coming because I didn't read my email! How I'm I going to explain this? Forget it, I'll just delete it and pretend I didn't get it. So what? I was probably going to burn in hell anyway, they can just add this to the list and it's not like I did it on purpose. What about forgiveness eh?

Oh what's the use, butter me up Scotty!

JJ

St Valentines Day Massace

2008-10-08T18:42:00.001+02:00

Valentines day is in February, I don't know which date exactly but the BBC in their infinite wisdom have published this in October. For fear of appearing a nitwit by not understanding this logic, I have simply copied their idea and passed the dilemma on to you. Yes, specifically you, I knew you were going to read this because I have a brainwave scanner I nicked from the CIA, the only way you can stop me reading your thoughts is to cover you head in mayonnaise and baking foil.

BBC News 05 October 2008

Here's my happy marriage secret: avoid romance
By Jemima Lewis

"The good folk at Onepoll, an internet research company, has surveyed 4,000 self-proclaimed "happy couples" in order to unearth the secrets of wedded bliss.

To maintain marital harmony you will need: three romantic gestures a month, two romantic walks, two romantic gifts, three home-cooked romantic meals, one breakfast in bed, two dinner dates, seven cosy nights in, one night apart, one trip to the pub, one to the cinema and six "proper conversations".

You should also clean the entire house three times a month without being asked, and take two holidays a year, plus two short breaks and you should cuddle each other three times a day."

Speaking as a Brit (which I have the option of doing from time to time) I believe the survey company area a shower of buffoons. Although, I can imagine such a formula would work in Switzerland, Austria and another country I can't name for health reasons (it's begins with "G" and German people live there). Perhaps Finland too, maybe southern England and Wales, China, Pakistan, in fact most of the Muslim world (you have to multiply the recipe depending on how many wives you have, or divide it equally, it's up to you). Also, Russia and Baltic States.

Ok, everywhere but Northern England, India, Latin America and the New World (ex Canada).

Curious that we celebrate Halloween night with gusto (my Spanish neighbour) but live in dread of St. Valentines day, shouldn't it be the other way round? The expectation level has long been built up into something mere mortals simply cannot live up to. The solution is to build a level of romance throughout the year that leaves St. Valentines day as an unnecessary but pleasant distraction at best. And the chances of that happening are bugger all or next to bugger all for most people. What then? How do we avoid this annual massacre?

Some have taken an alternate extreme, carefully construct a relationship from day one devoid of all romantic gestures. Never buy flowers or chocolates, not even apology flowers or sorry chocolates. There is the risk of being dumped but either way, you're living in fear and that's the key to a long lasting relationship.

The solution of course, is to cancel St Valentines day, bear with me on this, let me finish. While we're at it we'll cancel all of these old fashioned "theme" holidays, Christmas, Easter, Ascension (I never quite know what I'm supposed to do on Ascension Day so I tend to just wander around in a daze), Armistice, Independence Day and so on. Instead we'll have a neutral public holiday on the first Monday of every month. Then you can decide what you want to do for yourself, have a roast turkey lunch, stuff your partner with chocolates or just wander around in a daze (it's not that funny, civil servants are paid to that, it's a serious career choice for people with limited skills). Also, four of the public holidays will be Car Free Days so you can wander about the streets on your rollerblades and fall over a lot.

As for all that cleaning the house without being asked, what if you have a cleaner who does that anyway? Bit pointless isn't it Jemima? I asked Girlfriend if she would like breakfast in bed once she "no, that's disgusting" and she'll go a pub once in a blue moon, if I made her go every month it would be curtains for me. Three home cooked romantic meals? You're asking me to cut down? Not helping. What exactly constitutes a "proper conversation" then? For her to fully express herself she'll have to speak German and I'd be speaking a mixture of Punjabi and English, that's a ridiculous idea, I ridicule that idea with "my spanish neighbour". I'm going to pour some scorn on that idea too and cover it with baking foil, just for good measure.

"self proclaimed happy couples" are full of crap, not one decent idea between 8,000 people, bloody useless, clear off the lot of you! Go on bugger off!

I'm sure they were doing these surveys ten years ago, I guess they'll still be doing them in ten years time, what's wrong with people? Can't you tell when your partner is horny? Look for the signs; dilated pupils, increased pulse rate, heavy breathing, knickers around ankles, yelping noises, is that so hard?

Ok that's me done, can you finish on your own? I've got an early start, thanks, goodnight.

JJ

Country File

2008-10-03T10:34:00.000+02:00

Now that Russia have re-joined the war-mongering bastards business many countries will be able to sigh a huge sigh of relief. The US will be distracted from their current monoply on the attacking smaller countries business and there will be more competition in the arms trade so really poor countries can get cheap weapons more easily.

Nickerless Sarkozy has backed his prime minister's suggestion to teach English to the great unwashed and it's about bloody time. They should start with all the good words like "shit, bollocks, piss" etc. get it out of the way so the students can concentrate. They'll need those words anyway if they're going to continue this mediation between Russia and America. That was a smart move by Stumpy, that gig will keep him firmly in the limelight.

Meanwhile the Georgian boss admittted he screwed up by trying to trick the world into ganging up on Russia, and Russia rightly whipped his ass. The Pakistan bosses are in completely over their heads, the army is running around like a bunch of Americans and the people are facing massive inflation. Once they get used to equating inflation with democracy they'll be happy to welcome the next military coup which is, you heard it here first, predicted for the third quarter of 2009.

Third quarter 2008 results from America are a disgrace, it seems the entire economy is built on the principle that if you lend money to people who can't afford to pay it back you can hit them with penalties continously, keep them in debt and get rich yourself. Incredibly, the British government are saying they will do something about the uncontrolled greed of the banks and we can trust them to take care of it, do they still believe our only source of news is their press releases? From here Gordon Bennett looks more and more like a starving poodle. Correction, that should be "Brown" and "Lap Dog".

Turkey is still optimistic of joining the EU, they sent their application in 1987. While they've been waiting a whole raft of Soviet Union countries have made the leap. I wonder what the problem is with Turkey, maybe they didn't fill in the forms properly, forms can be tricky like that. One time I was going to Australia I put the Date where I should have put Date of Birth, only the date had moved on one while we were in the air. The customs guy jumped on the chance; "were you really born yesterday?", he loved it, Australians are funny but that bloke was a fuckwit, I gifted him that opportunity. I bet something like that happened to Turkey's application to join the EU. Or maybe they didn't enclose two photo's for ID.

Northern Ireland have announced plans to abolish prescription charges, a measure that some less popular leaders could learn from - give them free drugs, yay. Irish banks have declared 100% guarantees for savers, in a move to stave off the global credit munchies. English banks replied "so, where they have branches in England it would make sense for the savers to move all the money to Irish banks. We're screwed, thanks Irish Government you bunch of bastards"

Uganda has re-declared independence, apparently there was a clerical error, technically it was still a British colony because someone forgot to send the pink copy back to sales ledger. The Queen could have had tons of free holidays there but it's too late now. A spokesman for the royal family said "Bugger!". Australian news reported an increase in the Queens expenses leading to speculation (by me) that Aussies will have another referendum and depose her majesty in the third quarter of 2009, if this credit gets any crunchier.

In the meantime India has reached an agreement in principle with France to buy nuclear reactor technology leading to the conclusion that building nuclear reactors for civil purposes is not a pre-requisite for making weapons. India has had nuclear weapons for some time. Now, will the Americans say to Iran and North Korea "you can build all the reactors you want because if you haven't got nuclear weapons already this won't help you"? No, that's not how international diplomacy works. They way international diplomacy works is like this "write me a list of every country that's got oil or a Chinese border and then wake up the army, oh and get someone to handle the PR", "I know there's a credit crunch, that's because we've lent money to everyone, there's no one left so we have to shake it all up and start again otherwise people will start saving instead of borrowing and then we can't get richer. Don't worry about the banks, the top people already have more than enough money to retire on, they'll ride this out comfortably. The poor people will lose their jobs but they're already poor so they don't really mind.". This is why Jesus turned over the money lenders tables. Banks are moneylenders, see?

Bangladesh claimed the record for the most flooded country in the world, the bosses were reported to have said "we don't even watch CNN anymore, it's fucking depressing. You like this suit? I got it from Armani shop, it's Italian". The tourism board of Port Stanley (Falkland Islands) reported a 150% increase in the first half of 2008 compared to 2007, they had ten visitors in all. A spokesman for the privy council said "we would have had more but Sheryl couldn't come because her sister's cat died". A spokescat for the cat council said "I don't believe you people, I've been waiting for years for someone to ask my opinion on global issues and you come to me with this? Fuck Sheryl, fuck Sheryl's sister and fuck Sheryl's sister's fucking cat! Now take your things and get the hell out of my house, dumb jackass motherfucker".

That's an angry cat.

Well, that concludes the international news this week, there's no sports or weather and there won't be any weather tomorrow either. Goodnight

JJ

Human Beans

2008-09-30T21:27:00.000+02:00

I'd given up blogging when I turned forty but that was the week before last and when I came home today I noticed a smell of Pot Noodle in the elevator and I thought "I could've wrote that on my blog", it was unusual because I don't normally take the elevator. I didn't really give up, I just let the last one ride because it was soooo long I thought some people might need more time to read it. Anyway, Human Beans:

How many Humans does it take to make a Bean? We all know that Beans are good but they're quite small, humans on the other hand are quite big but they're really not good at all. There probably isn't one species of plant or animal in existence that hasn't been killed and/or eaten by a Human. That includes about 80 million species of insects you've never heard of but I know that Chinese people are roasting those things on skewers for fast food. You can get a medium happy meal for two roast scorpion brochette in downtown Shanghai.

So, how many good people are there to make beans? Let's say out of all of us there's at least some vegetarians in India, and a handful of pacifists in Tibet (let's pretend Tibet still exists as a country, for Hollywood's sake) out of a combined population of a billion and something I reckon that leaves 750 million good guys. MacDonalds in Delhi doesn't sell beef but it still sells chicken and fish so who's eating that? There are not 1.1 billion vegetarians in India, some of them are lying and some are Muslim so they eat Halal meat. Ever tried to catch a Halal? It's as fast as a hairless cat covered in love jelly. It's no wonder the Muslims are so pissed off all the time and really hate vegetarian Indians and pork eating Americans.

Ok, a bean is is mostly protien and carbohydrate but the Human is 60% water so that leaves 300M humans, if you strip out the bone that leaves about 200M. At this stage we have to concede that hair, eyes, finger nails, anus, penis, clitoris, labia, testicles, nipples, brains and intestines (plus contents) are mostly protein and fat so we'll keep those because if we were making a burger we'd apply the same logic. So you take 300M dehydrated Indians, including a few Chinese, and you boil them until soft, fry them over a medium heat, mash them up, add seasoning and fry again. There you have it, (Refried) Human Beans.

Now all you have to do is reduce the entire animal kingdom to a huge kebab, which isn't really a stretch because who know's what that elephant-leg-on-a-rotating-skewer is made of anyway? Just put a couple of hundred of those together then get a statium of cats to spew up some guacamole and serve.

Tex Mex? Oh dear, someone's bean at the ZZ Top records again.

You know that brown-yellow liquid in your vomit? That's your DNA. That's how it was discovered, two nerds had a night on the piss. That's when all the best ideas come out.

Next week Sea Food; Sea Cucumber Sandwiches, Crab Nebula Salad and a huge fish finger made of lobster's juicy bits.

Have a good one.

JJ

It's "Eighteen Nine" again

2008-09-18T12:25:00.001+02:00

What a day, I've waited forty years for this. See if you can tell which bits are real.

Why is it that head voices only ever tell men to mutilate prostitutes, doesn't it stand to reason that if a group of people had head voices some of them might be nasty but others would be sickly sweet and most would be just dull? Imagine if you had a voice in your head saying things like "take your coat off or you won't feel the benefit when you go out". What do womens head voices talk about? (no comments please, I don't really want to know what goes on in there)

Oh, there is that woman's voice that keeps telling me "you can never have enough handbags". No wait, that's a real woman, they get mixed up sometimes. Women do.

I was in a meeting about cutting quality to increase dividends for shareholders when someone said "what are you smiling about?", I replied "I was imagining you in a purple velvet dress being shagged in the botty by a walrus". I had started the day by racing to work so that I could take a dump in company time and get paid for it, then I deleted everything in my inbox and spent a couple of hours sorting my holiday pictures again. Then it was lunch time and after that I had a meeting with someone I'd never met about how his business is going to make my business better. Halfway through the meeting I said "stop pissing around monkey chops, tell me what you've got, free tickets to the grand prix? Put your bollocks on the table sonny Jim, let's talk turkey, I'm in the mood for a rumble and I'm not talking about the day after a bad curry, spill it!" we laughed but the tears were real.

After that I had a one hour coffee break and spent the rest of the day on the golf course. I wasn't playing golf, I just ran around and jumped up and down cursing the ground and the sky alternately. That's how normal people play golf, only Tiger Woods can hit a golf ball the length of Britain, the rest of us take the train or send postcards. So, I took a twelve bore and stared the greenkeeper down the barrel, "haircut or shave?" I enquired, he replied "I'll be on my way sir, I don't want any trouble", I insisted "hare-cut or shave?" suddenly I was lying with my fat backside in a cow pat while the wretch sloped off with my gun. I took a mental note to avenge this day, and to avoid country people who know about animals and guns. Country people are scarey, if this had really happened I would've just thrown the gun at him and run like buggery.

It's monstrously insane to think that every world war begins with Germany invading Poland. Frankly I'd invite them to invade Belgium but isn't it much more of a world war if India has a face off with Pakistan? There are more people involved and the consequences will be much much worse. While you're at it, if a Hollywood film is a huge hit it still only gets as much viewers as a Bollywood Monday matinee. To say that the Oscars represent the pinnacle of movie success is heinous jibberish, their movies only reach a small portion of the global movie watching public.

Eventually I wandered home and there was a message on the door which read "Please call me when you get this message" so I knocked on the neighbours door and asked her "did he call you when he got in?" she said "he isn't in yet" so I said "firstly you have to put the fucking note on your door not mine and secondly why the fuck do you want him call you when he's here? You can talk to him when he's here. Look, this is a post it, you need to send him a text message, I'm not fucking telling you again". It's a bloody nightmare living next to a stoner, a couple of months ago I caught her with a paint brush, she'd written "Rage Against the Machine" on my car. I said "that's water based paint isn't it? I can piss on it or wait for rain, either way it doesn't last long in Brussels. Apart from that, I know where you live, tit-head" she ended up cooking me a bowl of cornflakes and apologising profusely for invading my space. In return I nicked her stash. Obviously, well you have to be pretty dumb to get off your tits and ask a stranger into your house, especially if it's that wierdo from next door. So I thought she deserved it.

I smoked the stash and set off downtown to "get some action", ever seen a thirty nine year old man get stoned and go looking for action? You don't want to see it, first I got thrown off the tram "you ain't goin' throw up on my tram, fuck off", I wasn't going make a pizza there and then but I was judged by my red eyes and friendly demeanour. I didn't know where I was, having been thrown off, but I thought I recognised the corner bar from that time my friend's sister kerbed her car and burst a tyre. Needless to say it wasn't that corner bar and I found myself in a Belgian Deliverance situation.

As I walked into the bar the guy in the deerstalker was rear-ending a walrus while his friend celebrated with home made whiskey so I just took a stool by the bar and ordered a lemonade. This was the kind of bar where they water down the lemonade with gin so I fell off the stool and stood up really fast pretending nothing had happened and sauntered over to the pool table. Deerstalker said "nearly done, put your fifty cents on the side of the table", I said "you're not supposed to do that on the pool table", "pool table? son of bitch he's right! are you from the city?". We hit it off really well after that, turned out that deerstalker was a compulsive porn downloader too, the thought of having actual sex with a real woman triggered seizures in him so I took great joy in banging the barmaid over the head with a sock full of mayonnaise. She was asking for it, why else was she dressed only in cling film? And she gave me a free shot afterwards.

It was lively for a monday, there were almost six people in, one was just lying in the entrance waving his left hand in a gesture of defeat. Maybe he wanted a stretcher it was hard to tell, I thought it best to pretend not to notice. There were five people on our side of the bar but there were eight on the other side, and that side of the bar had mirrors and poles and the women were more than friendly. I was just sitting and watching when a young lady approached and said "you are young red blood man, I take you in back room for fifty euro", I said "what's in the back? Poker? Have you got a proper pool table?" I told her about Deerstalker and the walrus but she wasn't listening she just wanted to make me happy and eventually (after about seven seconds) I gave in, I felt cheap afterwards. I felt cheap before too so in the end I didn't lose anything that a man would understand.

I went on to another bar just for a drink and fell off another stool. There was nobody in, which was a blessing in this neighborhood.

Eventually a local woman wondered in, I think it was a woman it was hard to tell even though the sun had just come up and the place was well it. Nevertheless, sensing trouble I ran out the back door and just made it into the office in time for our regular breakfast catch-up meeting. The boss said "you look a bit tired today" I said "I didn't sleep so well, I'm a bit worried about this project". He said "Looks like you've been overdoing lately, I'm going to get someone in to ease your workload, in the meantime take a couple of days off and relax. Play golf or go fishing or something".

When I got home there was a post-it on my door with this message "call me when you get this message"......

The clowns made me do it.

JJ

Dreamtime 1, Cowboys xor Indians

2008-09-15T10:46:00.004+02:00

This is from this morning, I woke up at 5.35 after dreaming about rowing a boat on a small reservoir but I quickly went back to sleep.

There was a rumour going around the village that bandits were going to attack the bank, and rob it. As it was late in the evening already the sheriff decided to post some men inside the bank overnight, to surprise the robbers. We volunteered immediately; gun toting was all we had in those days so we pretty much volunteered for everything that involved toting a gun. Everything involved toting a gun.

It was a big bank so everyone had to spread out, me and my two brothers were put in the big room in the middle of the bank next to the vault. We settled down to get some sleep. It was a quiet night, actually we didn't believe there would be any bandits. There were always rumours about someone attacking the village, we didn't even bring our guns. In fact we weren't even dressed like gun toting cowboys, we were wearing our school clothes from the seventies, beige flares and flowery shirts. Until secondary school we didn't wear uniforms.

I was the first awake, it was almost daylight so I woke the other two up, "it's a quarter to six, the bank staff will be here soon, we might as well pack up". We were almost ready to leave when the most fearful commotion brewed up outside, there was screaming and running around, we took a step back, the shooting started and somebody set a fire against the main door. Next thing we all expected an explosion, the middle of the room was empty so we ducked down behind some armchairs.

It wasn't an explosion at all, it was the alarm clock, ACDC – Let there be Rock, the timing was spot on because we were about to get slaughtered. Once awake I thought to myself, "why the hell didn't we have guns? There should have been a big oak table in the middle of the room to brace the door". I managed to find the snooze and soon I was back in the pre-vault room, huge oak table in the middle, result! Machine gun in hand, result! Only problem was, no brothers, instead of brothers I now had a large dog and a woman. The woman didn't look like she was sent to fight bandits. I'd spent the night with brothers and I was preparing to tote a gun with a woman, it was all wrong again! At least I was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt this time.

There was no moving the oak table now, but there was another smaller table to duck behind, she said "a wooden table won't stop bullets!" and I pointed out the titanium sheet attached under the table top. I was trying to impress her with my metallurgical knowledge. I couldn't get the dog to settle down before the explosion went off, poor mutt caught a huge piece of shrapnel in the neck, it was a mess but at least he didn't suffer. Bandits charged in and I let loose with the machine gun, bandits charged out again and crouched in the door way. Traditional gun fight ensued, traditional excepting that I was toting an M-16.

Don't know what happened next, I remember thinking "Shirley the sheriff and his boys'll be here soon, I'm not going to last long at this. Not now Shirley can't you see were under attack?" The next thing I heard was Thunderstruck (also ACDC for them 'as don't know). Normally I would have hit the snooze to see how it worked out with Shirley, but it's Monday morning and I have to wrestle some cowboys in Finance today. So I toddled off to work.

JJ

Y Blog

2008-09-08T21:10:00.000+02:00

Here it is, the Y Blog, after this you will never need to look at yourself in the shower again, or me. I mean that's all psychology is anyway, when people come to me with problems I say "you have to take all your clothes off before I'll listen to you" usually people decide things aren't that bad after all. Easy. Anyway, Y Blog:

1. Confirmation. I need someone to tell me its good, even if I think it's rubbish and even if it is rubbish

2. This might be my way to becoming a writer and give up this dull job. I refuse to recognise that writing is a job / career. I think it's just a fun thing to do and get paid millions for, that's how I picture everyone at work except me. I can be that naive if I want to and don't say "hellooo, smell the coffeeeeee" because you are a muppet

3. I'm unhappy, who writes happy blogs? (well obviously happy people, like the cake baking blog from Uber Ann but most blogs are whiney). I mean the "blog me" is unhappy. I have a god-like power over my alter ego so I'll never let him be happy, just like the real God does to his "issue" (Gods children in the Bible where called "his issue" and he begat them, except on Sundays).

4. Most blogs are people complaining about their jobs or social lives. Why? Because their jobs and social lives are boring and pointless, just like their blogs.

5. People will read anything on the internet, that's what people do now

6. what do surveys do? all surveys are paid for by someone. If the surveyor understands his employer, he will not bring the results his employer doesn't want to see. In the seventies all housewives wanted nice kitchens, in the eighties all men wanted to show their feminine sides, in the nineties men and women wanted to get blind drunk. Did the surveys predict these things or measure them? Or did they just make up stuff and say "this is what people do now" and we all started doing it

7. Why do Christians insist on saying Jesus died for my sins, that's like getting a letter from a solicitor saying your uncle Bert died and left you his debts. He came back to life anyway so I want my bloody sins back and yes I've been counting

8. Am saying all this is bunch of hooey? No, there is no need to get defensive. I see it as a kind of literary masturbation. It feels good, uses up some time and as I've always maintained, if someone would pay me to do this I'd be a millionaire quite quickly

In the other hand, if you analyse everything in this way you just end up saying all work is prostitution and we're all going to hell in hand-cart anyway so who cares? Well, what's the bloody point of this post then? eh? It's fifteen minutes of my life down the toilet, three minutes of your life you won't get back. Instead of "Y Blog" I should have said "Y Bleedin' Bother".

Wow, I feel really good now, I think I'll have a cup of tea.

JJ

Hurry up and shoot it! I'm Starving

2008-09-01T13:05:00.001+02:00

Have you seen what's going on over the road, that dirty old man has got a woman in half his age, she used to be a "model", you know what that means don't you? Her sister's a single mum and her brother in law (ex) has to go to court yet for shooting a moose without a licence. What the moose needs a license for I don't know but it'll end badly for the whole family, especially if it comes out in court that she eats caribou hot dogs. Why do they have to talk about hot dogs? Those sort of women always talk about hot dogs, it's not right for a conservative republican.

It obvious what she's after, that old fella's already got one foot in the grave, it won't be long and she'll cop the lot, if she hasn't already - nudge nudge.

It's all gone downhill now, since that other fella moved in. They say he doesn't know foreign policy but am I the only one who's noticed he's black? He must know something, if a black man doesn't know foreign policy then we might as well give up. Someones going to say something soon and that's going to be the end of him. It's like breaking up with someone, once it's out in the open everyone chimes in "to be honest we were all bit uncomfortable with you hooking up with a patio set, the dynamics were all wrong", until then everyone's saying "wow you two were made for each other, you're so lucky my relationship is like medieval torture with side salad", who the heck eats side salad? They bring it out, they take it back, why can't they work it out? A burger with side salad is just a burger.

Yep, come November they'll all be saying "of course I voted for the woman didn't you see the other guy? Are you blind?" Unless of course one of his children has a puppy, preferably a five year old girl who likes to sing cute songs. If that happens well, the old man and his new running "mate" will have to say "well, we didn't want to bring children into it but they've dragged us down their level" (shhhhhhsshhh.... she's got a baby with down's syndrome...shhushhhhh, that's the trump card)

Come December every KFC worker will have to face a thousand people a day saying "didn't you run for president?". If he wins a red-neck will shoot him and if he loses some KFC worker will shoot him. On that same subject, did you know it was Michael Jackson's birthday on Friday? The peter pan of pop is fifty, why he hasn't been shot by a red-neck is beyond me. I think those boys have been out in them woods sucking each other's dicks for too long, they've lost touch. When is Jackson going to run for president? He's neither black nor white and frankly is he a man or a woman? I don't know. He's the perfect candidate. He can sing and he's got loads of puppies, I've never seen them but he's always asking the kids to come and have look.

So that's what I reckon, the down's syndrome baby will win and that will trigger a lot of anger and cynicism against politics, as most election campaigns do. It could even lead to a re-election which will then be a landslide for the democrats. Ok that last bit is unlikely, there will be smartarse comments on Letterman and Leno for a week. That's how people protest in decadent societies.

The really funny stuff will happen in the next British election, just what is Gordon learning from this? Will he divorce his wife and marry a black woman or go into a civil partnership with a 72 year old man? He must realise he isn't going to win on his own merit or personality.

And now to finish by using a sports quote cleverly adapted to politics; There are some people on the TV, they think it's politics....it is now!

JJ

Travel XXII, Sticky Pudding

2008-08-26T15:40:00.004+02:00

Guess what? I'm back, been in Thailand and Cambodia for three weeks, on holiday. I've got a tremendous tan (still), a box of chopsticks and a wooden frog that makes a noise like a frog when you rub it's back with a stick (stick included).

Right, here's what I found out; "According to Section 86 of the Land Code, an alien may acquire land in Thailand only by virtue of the provision of a treaty providing him with the right to own immovable property". What's immoveable? I can pick up the dirt in your garden and put it in my carry-on luggage, what can you do? The King was somewhat perplexed by my ridiculous question and hastily changed the subject slightly. "I can send you to jail matey, so be careful what you do in my country, I am the law here".

He's right, while it's a well known fact that Thais love their King, it is equally well known that the King will incarcerate anyone who doesn't, fun place for a holiday. Nevertheless, section 96 of the land code was added in 2002 allowing aliens to buy land for residential purposes. In the meantime the illegal Vietnamese aliens are continuing to live in a floating village; "flooding's a pain in the bum" apparently, easier to live on the lake. Also easier to piss in the lake while your neighbour gut's a crocodile on the porch. Frankly I couldn't see the logic "you left Vietnam for this? How bad can it be?" I politely enquired, "You think we're doing bad? It's your vacation, how much did you spend to get here, more than us I'll bet". They were right, you can take the idiot out of Belgium but he'll be back when he's hungry. It was an interesting contrast of cultures and ideologies but as a conversation it was just another piss in a putrid lake on a balmy late summers afternoon. At least I understood what killed the crocodile, It was a mixture of raw sewage and a fella with huge spear although it really made no effort to dodge the spear at all, almost as if it wanted to die.

After that it was all elephant rides, bamboo rafting, snorkelling, sailing, jet ski's, massages and stretching out on the beach, not bad. But before that we saw the marvellous and enchanting ancient temples of Angkor in Cambodia. It would have been great to appreciate it for what it is without every tour guide and tourist saying "here's where they made the Tomb Raider movie, did you see it?". It's a thousand year old temple complex, an extraordinary reminderer of a lost civilation, which will now be forever associated with Angelina Jolie's tits, thanks again Hollywood great contribution as usual.

Oh yes the 'limpits, China won, I don't know if America entered, they've been unusually quiet, CNN is only showing Barack Obama but I'm not sure if he's a runner or a basketball player. We saw bits of the opening ceremony in Cambodia in Hindi and some of the closing in Thailand in Thai. Apart from that we saw some bits at the Billabong Surf Club (I know you can't surf on a Billabong) in the Fishermans Village in Koh Samui. I also gipped in their bog on the last night, not beer induced, it was something I ate, I think. I cleaned it though, well most of it went in the bog but there was splash back.

Nevertheless, great holiday, great food, great to be back, everything's great, great, love it. Oh sorry about the saw Nigel, I'll bring it round this week definately.

JJ

Cat Scan

2008-08-11T09:00:00.001+02:00

One day, a long time ago...

I’d just moved into the area and I was chatting to this girl I’d met, like you do. I asked her about the local gym I was thinking of joining, she advised not to, in her opinion the showers weren’t very clean. I agreed to give it a wide berth but secretly I was thinking it’s probably ok by mens hygiene standards and well, it’s close by.

The next morning when I went for a shower before breakfast and I couldn’t help but notice a huge kitty litter tray in her bathroom. I understood the situation, certain people who keep animals have a distorted (knackered) sense of hygiene. Just like parents who don’t realise their kids are disturbing everyone within a 32 mile radius. Distorted sense of volume.

“Oh, is that a hair in your soup? Just pick it out, it’s ok, cat’s are very clean animals”, “Well in that case why pick it out? I’ll just eat it, yum. Why are we having soup for breakfast?”, she says "You don't know me well enough to ask questions, just finish your soup and get out, I've got business to attend to". People say cats are clean animals but what they should be saying is “cats are relatively clean for an animal, at least they don't eat their own shit”. For example, if I crapped in a ditch and covered it up using my bare feet and hands would there be a problem? Couldn’t we just snuggle up in front of the tv and share a pizza?

Ever heard a cat object if you don’t clean the bowl out and put today’s dinner on top of yesterday’s leftovers? Only women will see something wrong with that scenario.

Cats eat spiders too, they eat them and throw up because spiders are mildly toxic for cats. As if that wouldn’t be a memorable enough experience the first time, the cat will repeat it many many times during it’s life, or indeed any given weekend. Thus proving that the cat, far from having superior intelligence is in fact the dumb blonde of the animal kingdom.

Example; how do you make a cat’s eyes shine? Point a torch in it’s ear. (adapted from one of those dumb blond joke websites)

So errmm, I don’t want a cat thanks, in fact I’m not really interested in anything that people advertise as “free to a good home”. Hardly a glowing endorsement is it?

I don't know about the 'e' at the end of blond(e) and the more I blog the less I'm inclined to check anything. It's not just me, there's an epidemic of people writing comments on blogs like "that sux cos u r gay" (that's your cue). It seems that after spending decades and millions developing huge computer systems to get people connected all over the world, the one thing most people have to say to each other, even people we've never met, is "u r such retrd & yr mom is the biggest ho". That was in response to a blog about the middle east conflict.

Onwards, the March of progress, I suspect that if aliens are really intercepting transmissions of Carry On Titswobble, they are wildly overestimating our intellect today.

JJ

Hariy Gin Sling

2008-08-02T17:52:00.001+02:00

A Hairy Gin Sling is special twist on a normal Gin Sling, it doesn't have lemon juice in it and instead of drinking from the glass you get a Goth to throw it across the table at you so that you can wear it home later. For the full effect you can get some in your eye, like I did - that's why it's especially important not to put lemon juice in it. It's called a Hairy because that's where it was invented, last night in the public house with a similar name.

It reminds me now of another incident, two or three years ago. I was in the Old Hack and I still had my nice suit on which I sometimes wear to work. We'll call that one the One Pint Hack, also invented by The Rarebit Muncher. "Hack" refers to the name of the bar, not vomitting, being vomitted on would provoke a slightly stronger response than a two year old blog post. The One Pint Hack involves clumsily reaching for your pint and knocking it into the lap of the person sitting next to you - in this example, me. This one also lends a new meaning to "Beer Nuts" which I'll leave to your imagination.

We've got two coffee machines on our floor in the office, the machines have three buttons, one for normal coffee, one for espresso and one for "jug". One machine has the Jug button at the top the other one has the normal coffee button at the top. So imagine trying to put a jug's worth of coffee into a small paper cup, it doesn't fit, I know all about it.

But that's enough about my drinking problems, here's a food related joke:

What's hard and hairy on the outside, soft and wet on the inside, begins with "c" and ends with "t"?
A Coconut

Can someone explain that joke to me please?

Thanks y'all

JJ

Ciabatta Sunrice

2008-07-27T18:59:00.004+02:00

I found this in Aku's Wanderings and I copied it:

click here

Cheers,

JJ

The Evolution of (this) Man

2008-07-23T22:20:00.001+02:00

I'm nearly quite old now so I thought it time to set a few things straight, for the record. Not so much a "last will", just a "testament", in case the Big Man gives me a red card before the game's properly finished. I always feel guilty about using sports analogies because I assume women don't understand them, so just this once I'll offer an alternative..."just a "testament", in case the batteries run out before the damn bursts". So, the record;

First of all, when I put a match to that cat I had no intention of burning it. I had singed my own hair and just wanted to see if it was the same for cats. I knew I wouldn't hurt the cat as long as I did it briefly and didn't touch it's skin, I learned that from singeing my own hair. The cat didn't know though, it ran like a bugger with a red hot poker up it's arse. I was four years old then and I was ready to start school, I felt I needed to learn by reading rather than experimentation.

Ok, that thing with the girl across the road when I was about six. Firstly, both of my brothers were there so it wasn't just me. Secondly, I had no idea why she wanted to show us her "pee pee", we ran when saw it though and I think that was a good instinct. I wish I'd stuck to that response a few more times over the years.

Oh, and I should confess that we killed her hamster with a rat-trap, that's not a metaphor. The rat-trap was in our house, they usually came from the grocer next door, the rats did. We didn't expect a hamster to cross the road, a chicken maybe. We didn't even know they had a hamster, we didn't know what a hamster looked like, Indian people don't keep hamsters. It was only when the older sister came around knocking on doors asking "has anyone seen our hamster?" we realised what had happened but the bloody rat had already been tossed over the back fence into the builders merchants yard, we just said "No, we haven't seen it". We shouldn't have laughed when she left but we were just kids, we didn't know any better. Anyway, dad set the traps and he was the one who tossed it over the fence, he really shouldn't have been laughing.

A few years later, mum caught me with some exotic literature in my bedroom. I was too embarrassed to speak, but what I wanted to say was that it belonged to dad. I guess she figured it out because shortly afterwards the whole collection disappeared, I searched everywhere but they must have been banished from the house. Actually I'm not sure I need to confess this, I still don't see what's wrong with it.

There were a couple more things but I cut them because my posts are too long these days. So, that's my confession, I'm off to bed.

Good night.

JJ

Silly Season News

2008-07-19T18:31:00.001+02:00

Medicine Man Whacko'd by Jacko

A pharmacist from Joliet, Illinois is suing Michael Jackson for alleged shrapnel injuries caused by the star's sneezing fit when he came looking for cold medicine. Early indications are that the defence will plead he should have recommended a nasal decongestant rather than an enema. Technically the remedy wasn't an enema but the Pop Star may have taken some of the pharmacists comments too literally.

Fast Eddy Smoke Trail

In the latest Tour de France cycling scandal it is alleged that five times winner "Fast" Eddy Merckx was smoking low tar cigarettes during some of the stages. The Belgian hero is known to have smoked forty a day when he was racing but cut back when he was on holiday. A spokesman for a major tobacco firm said "you see, the only reason I don't smoke is that I'm allergic to the glue they use on the papers. It's a common affliction on the executive board, it's quite ironic really." A spokesman for Belgium said "It's no coincidence we have no sports stars left since the smoking ban was introduced, the cigarette is our national dish. How would you expect the Welsh to compete globally if the EC banned cheese on toast?"

Turkey's Don't vote for Christmas

British Airways revealed plans to build a sixth runway. After all the controversy and logistical difficulties of the previous effort, a spokesman confirmed "we are building it because no one can stop us, we don't even need it". A government spokesman was unavailable for comment but one of his kids answered the phone and confirmed that the John Lewis list had survived a commons vote and he would indeed be using his researchers salary to pay for cocaine, some of which was for his parents.

The Short and Tall of it

The average height of the Japanese male increased by 15cm over the last thirty years owing to the excess of growth hormones in certain burger meats. Accorging to a senior source in the department for health "women aren't affected because the hormones react with oestrogen to form harmless water vapour which escapes into the air when they talk". The Japanese FDA said they were still investigating the possibility of other causes, like uneven milk distribution in primary schools. Which was also cited as a contributory factor in overweight men wearing nappies and pushing each other a lot.

Incredible Bulk

In a bizarre scientific experiment designed to counter the claims of "Supersize Me", another Joliet man went on a diet of Celery and Kiwi fruit for 30 days. He ate eight kilos a day and kept a video journal. After just eight days he is seen fighting with the greengrocer who refuses to serve him any more. After twenty days the man appears delirious and has a green tinge to his skin, he appears to have gained weight and become more aggressive. A spokesman for a burger chain said "science? so what? we've got the power of advertising on our side. People are stupid, until the burgers start cashing them down the street with guns we have nothing to fear". A spokesman for the NRA said "con-sarn it! I though this was the National Rivers Authority, o'course guns kill people y'jackass"

That's all for today. This news was brought to you by Budweiser, The King of Beers, another iconic Belgian brand.

JJ

PS All of the above is bollocks obviously but it's true that Belgian brewer Inbev has bought Budweiser this week, hilarious! I might buy an American bank, I heard Fanny Mae was feeling the pinch earlier.