‮hjap‮

It's snowed a bit today. Naturally the South-East has ground to a halt, the newspapers are panicking in an apocalyptic frenzy, and Sainsburys is full of people stocking up on cans and bottled water. I expect the looting to start any minute now. Hordes of bondage-gear-clad barbarians will be clubbing each other over the head to get to the last packet of organic rocket. All because it's a bit nippy today.

I came to work in my boots and changed into my shoes once I got here. That was the total inconvenience suffered today. Other than that, the world is all pretty and white.

Jesus Christ, people, put on a jacket or something. Or you could move to the south of France, where you'll never have to worry about winter weather occurring during winter, and I won't have to listen to you.

In other news: I aten't dead. How are folks?

The Royal Society of Edinburgh recently released a report damning VisitScotland and calling for it to be scrapped. Or so the Scotsman tells me. Actually, the RSE's press release says nothing of the kind: it barely mentions VisitScotland at all, and merely recommends that they (for a suitably nebulous they) radically reform the support structures for tourism. I haven't read the report: perhaps the report has stronger language. Perhaps the Scotsman is just being sensationalist again.

It's true that VisitScotland are, often, a bunch of incompetent morons who seem to have difficulty in the important business field of arse/elbow distinction. I'm wildly in favour of sweeping reforms, or, on bad days, the tactical nuking of Livingston; nonetheless I think scrapped is a bit strong. First of all they need to decide whether or not they're working with, or against, the accommodation providers, and then I think we can work upwards from there.

However, the knives are out now. Apparently (so the Scotsman tells me) VisitScotland had to change their information on rail travel, because FirstScotrail complained that they were being OMGMEEEAN to them. This is ironic, because the bandwagon that FirstScotrail are jumping on is just about the only movement-related thing that's happening to wagons of any kind at the moment.

Laying aside for a moment the astounding fact that VisitScotland actually got something right for once—namely, that the state of the railways is woeful and unless you're travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow you'd better get a car, and if you are travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow it would be faster to walk—this presents me with a moral dilemma. I loathe both organizations, and now they're fighting, so which do I root for?

I have to come down on the side of VisitScotland, because, while it is bungling, inept, and sometimes belligerent, there have been occasions when they've sent us a guest and nothing has gone catastrophically wrong. With FirstScotrail, on the other hand, I've learned to take a massive dose of opiate-based painkillers before even setting foot in the station. There has been one single occasion that I can recall in the last eight years when I've got on a train and not wanted to kill everyone before it starts to move. (Notable example here, and there are many others that languish unblogged because they are too painful to recall.)

Besides, in this case VisitScotland were being entirely accurate and honest, and they were reporting unbiased facts that tourists should know. This is their job, and I wish they'd do it more often. They didn't describe the rail network as skeletal, they said that it was at its most skeletal in the Highlands [emphasis mine, exactitude-fans]—that's a comparative, and to my knowledge it's not libellous or legally actionable in any way. They also apparently had a picture of a sign that said Beware of the trains. This is good advice. Even if the rail network was marvellous, if you get hit by a train it's really going to put a crimp in your day. This is the sort of thing that, in my experience, a lot of tourists need to be told.

I see what's going on here. Not only is it open season on VisitScotland, but one of the most notable complaints in the RSE report (so the Scotsman tells me) is that VisitScotland focuses too much on the central areas, as opposed to the outlying ones that need support. The tourism industry in those areas is struggling for a number of reasons, but key to them is not that VisitScotland has abandoned them, it's that tourists can't bloody get to them in the first place. This is, of course, the fault of FirstScotrail, not VisitScotland^[0], and as a result FirstScotrail has noted that the best defence is a good offence, and that, conveniently, that VisitScotland is now fair game.

Actually, no, there's no moral dilemma here for me at all. I am still on the side of Right as always. Both of you are cretins and should learn to do your jobs. You, provide public transport to places that people want to go; and you, provide information for tourists. It shouldn't be that hard. It's what you're paid to do.

If that's too difficult for you, could you try not to be complete bastards while you're at it? That would be nice, thanks.

~

Holy damn, there were a lot of StudlyCaps in this post. Do businesses think that extra capital letters give them an extra competitive edge?

It doesn't. Even if Scotland's rail network is a bit dodgy is a controversial statement, this isn't: BiCapitalization makes you look like a wanker. This is Truth.

I never really understood the Higgs Boson. It's supposed to give mass to other particles by dint of its very proximity, in the same manner, it was explained to me once, as you get a cluster of people surrounding Maggie Thatcher at a cocktail party^[0]. But if the Higgs Boson is a boson, then it's a particle with mass, and nobody could ever explain to me where it gets its mass.

(Another thing I never got was the Hubble Constant. Galaxies are expanding faster the farther away from us they are, it is true, but due to the distances involved we're seeing those galaxies farther back in the past. So all it shows you is that the rate of expansion of the Universe is slowing, as one might expect. If anything, it should be called the Hubble Variable.)

Nonetheless, reports are pouring in from all corners of the Empire about the weird alternate universe in which we now live. clanwilliam turned into a beard-toting evil mastermind, but perhaps fortunately, one who couldn't get out of bed; and verdandiweaves missed Christmas.

For myself, the landlord turned up today and actually fixed things. Apparently the long-running problem we'd been having with the plumbing was the result of cast-iron pipes, which had filled with a hundred years of rust. That's why I've had no hot water for the last year. Who has cast-iron pipes? What's the one material most likely to cause problems on contact with water?^[1]

In further news: after a shaky start, work is actually going well, I've fixed all the problems, and $BOSS_1 seems quite calm. I think this new universe and I are going to get on well.

That said, when I get home tonight I'm firing up Rome: Total War and crushing the Gauls under my iron sandal. They've earned it.

Dear Tourists:

Welcome to Edinburgh. We hope you enjoy our fabulous cultural festival. Please feel free to monopolize our entire pavements for your personal convenience.

~

Dear Tesco:

I think it's really great that we have a nationwide network of washing-powder shops, offering such a wide range of virtually indistinguishable options. Have you considered diversifying into maybe selling some food?

~

Dear The City of Edinburgh Council:

I'm told you're on strike today. Thank you. Please continue.

~

Dear Nokia:

I don't appreciate getting ear-fucked by a Dalek who claims to be my girlfriend. I feel like I'm carrying on a torrid affair with Nicholas Briggs. Make phones that work, kthx.

~

Dear pajh's subconscious:

I'm advised that I was cackling maniacally in my sleep again. If you're going to give me awesome dreams, could you at least fix it so that I can remember them?

If her profile is to be believed, this woman is 25 years old.

I weep for the state of education in Penicuik.

Sunday Times columnist Rachel Johnson doesn't get blogging:

I don’t get blogging. It’s not only that I’m reluctant to write for nothing. There are all those people who ask, Do you blog? at parties (our own sad neutered version of the Do you swing? question), and who warble about wikis and web presence. Still, a few weeks ago I started to write one. It’s very easy - even a middle-aged woman can do it. I wrote about what I was making for supper that night. And food shopping in the Portobello market. Then I checked to see the global response to my debut. Nothing. On my next five posts? Zero comments.

I shall refrain from making any obvious comment, because that would be cheap of me, and after all I am writing for nothing here. It's important for we poor slovenly non-professionals to maintain some dignity.^[0]

Nonetheless, this leads me neatly on to something I actually wanted to talk about.

Saturday was the first Farmers' market since the Fife Diet week that I've had any money (the Fife Diet is expensive). stormsearch and I picked up a cheap gigot roast and a couple of packets of 40p bacon offcuts, and a bunch of organic vegetables. None of it was from Fife. As far as I know it was all from East Lothian, which actually has food in it.

It was a huge relief just to be able to go to stalls and not have to say are you from Fife?, but instead to simply look at produce and pick what I wanted to eat. Everything was still organic, locally-sourced and from small producers, but without any ridiculous artificial restrictions.

Likewise, whenI got into the kitchen it was a huge relief to be able to use stock cubes. I made a random soup with potato and parsnip, and I could add extra stuff like smoked garlic and nutmeg. The result was bloody marvellous, hearty and warming with texture and flavour. Hello, taste buds! Long time no see. You've had a nice holiday, now let's get you back to work.

~

stormsearch and I have been talking about getting a weekly organic box delivered, and doing something like this regularly on the cheap. Bloody hell, I think this might be getting serious afer five years.

~

I've been thinking about Bouvrage, the Fife Diet-approved raspberry drink that was pretty much all I was allowed last week. I don't actually like Bouvrage that much. I'll drink it if it's there, but it's always had this really harsh alkalinity to it that spoils any enjoyment I might otherwise have got.

Last week, though, I really started to develop a taste for it. After a few days with a choice between Bouvrage and tap water, it became delicious nectar, sweet and refreshing. I'd bought five bottles of it for the week, and had one left at the beginning of the post-Diet frenzy of consumption.

Frenzy completed, it's back to the status quo. I've got a bottle of this stuff left. Better drink it before it goes off. Good thing I like Bouvrage these days, huh? I raised the sweet elixir to my lips, and drank... harsh, brackish, regular old-fashioned Bouvrage from the bad old days before I'd learned the value of vegetables.

Hypothesis: my standard, non-Diet blood sugar is so high that Bouvrage doesn't register as sugary. My body chemistry is naturally sweet^[1].

This is because I naturally have a shitty diet high in sugar and saturated fats.

This raises Gastronomic Implications (wbaenfarb). If taste is dependent upon preexisting body chemisty, I won't taste the same things as someone who ordinarily eats a lot of vegetables or is on a different diet. The restaurant experience is partially determined by what I had to eat for the rest of that week.

It seems obvious, but this sort of thing becomes really significant when the tasting menu at the Fat Duck costs £125 a head.

--
[0] Although I should observe that the lassie's blog, rachelsjohnson, has a somewhat unfortunate title that could be read as Rachel S. Johnson or Rachel's Johnson. If it's the latter then I'm not surprised that she's not getting many comments, because that sounds like a really specialist type of blog. The Internet can be a complex place for the traditionally-minded, the mainstream, the professionals.
[1] Just like my personality, then.

Half of my friends page has erupted in an enraged frenzy about self-declared fattist and narcissistic, imperious, self-absorbed bitch Ruth Fowler's article in the Grauniad today. Good on you all.

This comes shortly after a post on British Dining about Jay Rayner's idiotic allergy sufferers are all attention-seeking whiners screed in that self-same organ. I think that the Graun's Comment Is Free section is becoming a refuge for all those wankers who have been booted off the BBC's odious Have Your Say section. It's best just to ignore them and hope they go away.

The current flap appears to have been kick-started by that eternal beacon of small-minded nastiness the Daily Hate, who have denounced the Miss England finalist as being fat. Much as I hate to link to the Hate, go and have a look. There are pictures. (There would have to be, knowing the intellectual capacity of the average Mail reader.)

That's Chloe Marshall, size 16, BMI 26.03. Yep, she's a wee bit chunky on the thighs there, but she's smiling, she's got a pretty face, she's comfortable with her body and so should you be. Furthermore, she probably knows how to string a sentence together without infuriating the entire western hemisphere. Ruth Fowler, the Graun's resident fattist, has none of these qualities—although, for an allegedly serious writer, she does have an awful lot of nudie pictures on her shitty frame-based website.

One of these women is a normal, happy person. The other is an attention-seeking, misogynist, hateful, tiny-breasted, mean-spirited cow. To be perfectly honest, I know which of the two I'd rather fuck, but that's only because, as a wise man once said, woman unable to talk bullshit with cock in mouth.

Never before has the phrase I'd hit it been so appropriate. Doubly so, in fact.^[0]

If I had to take one of them out for dinner, I'd take the one who looks like she knows how to enjoy food—or, indeed, enjoy anything at all. Chloe Marshall might not be the brightest button in the box either—she is, after all, seventeen years old and a Miss England contestant—but I've seen no evidence that she's quite so utterly stupid as the bitter hag with the Cambridge First^[1], and she is, at least, a human being.

~

To my knowledge, to date, no terrorists have been caught with the use of the new anti-terror provisions. The ones that have been caught have had a tendency to announce their intention to drive flaming jeeps into airports by, um, driving flaming jeeps into airports, which was illegal before the new laws were brought out anyway. If I recall correctly, blowing stuff up was also illegal before September 11th, which makes one wonder what all those new laws were for in the first place.

This is what the anti-terror laws are being used for instead. Anybody surprised?

I've never met a terrorist and I don't need protecting from them. But I do need protection from officious council scumbags. Can I get some laws? Thought not.

~

All should read cairmen's excellent post on the bloodspell blog, in which he points out just exactly how copyright laws are doing the opposite of protecting the artists. Speaking as an artist, I'm not being protected by a blanket refusal to allow the release of my work. Nor are Bioware being protected by preventing distribution of a work that uses some of their art in a manner which is, pretty much undeniably, non-infringing. This really is taking the use of the phrase derivative work to extremes.

I've never met a plagiarist and I don't need protecting from them. But I do need protection from officious lawyers. Can I get some laws? Maybe—cairmen's post outlines how to start.

--
[0] While we're on the subject: never has the phrase I'd hit it been quite so inappropriate.
[1] It's a First from New Hall, so it barely counts anyway. And once you get into Cambridge, it's relatively easy to get a First as long as you buckle down to studying and eschew all semblance of a social life. I suspect that wasn't much of a problem for the Sociopathic Narcissist, since with a personality like that I doubt she would have been in much demand at all those garden parties.

Today at the Farmers' Market was the Great Scottish Sausage Taste-Off, although they spelled it differently. (Taste off, without a hyphen, is what the sausages do when you've left them out for too long.) Three of the finest local farms went head-to-head, or rather skin-to-skin, with the Finest™ range from three of our mighty supermarket chains.

A blind tasting was arranged, with paper plates labelled A to F, cocktail sticks at ten paces, and a thronging crowd of blue-rinsed biddies who gave every impression they were standing in a queue when they were, in fact, merely dithering. The cocktail sticks provided were insufficient for me to rectify this situation to my satisfaction, and stormsearch wouldn't allow me to appropriate the knife they were using to cut up soss.

Of the soss on offer (sossonoffer—try saying that with a mouthful of the aforementioned), it was easy to tell the superior locally-sourced farm produce from their inferior, wraithlike mass-produced counterparts. If nothing else, the amount of added water gave it away. On the one hand we had soulless cylinders of reconstituted offal and tubular forcemeat. On the other... was Sausage.

It was quite interesting—one of the supermarket sausages actually had a really nice balance of herbs and spices, but even so the meat itself was pale and bland. (Pigling Bland?) Despite the best efforts of a whole team of food scientists paid fuck-you money by a multinational corporation, there's still no substitute for looking after your animals and not cramming in stupid crap to reduce costs. And thus, as I have always said, do Happy Pigs Make The Best Bacon.

Of the three True Sausages, the one that both stormsearch and I rated most highly was—we were told in nudge-nudge wink-wink say-no-more fashion by the vaguely disturbing chap organizing the Taste-Off—Piperfield Pork, suppliers to no less a luminary than Dr B himself and, oddly enough, the only one of the three I haven't tried yet. My freezer (and J's too) is already way too full of meat, so I shall have to wait until next week's market to acquire some, when the results of the Taste-Off are announced.

( Spoilers! )

Today I are mostly eatin' Rannoch smoked chicken on organic rye bread, which I picked up from a deli near work. I am having a good day. And I have been organic and locally-sourced, and my Food Miles have been minimal. Much more importantly, the food has been fantastic.

The Scotsman printed my last letter after all, only a week after I'd sent it. I wasn't expecting them to print it at all, let alone completely unedited, including the cheap dig at the fundie troll that I'd deliberately put in there. Possibly there is some relation to the fact that it comes only a day after he'd had published a rather nasty, hateful and homophobic piece of blatant religious bigotry, which had half-convinced me to stop treating this like a game.

On the other hand, it's quite likely that the Scotsman hacks had their office Christmas party last night (the women's section would imply as much), and they needed some copy fast so they could get out early.

Good times, good times.

And now, back to Castrovalva.

( Oh dear, he's at it again )

Thus:

Richard Lucas (Letters, 12 December) is justified in his concern at being tarred with the same brush as the American ``Christian Right''. His Dispensationalist brethren across the Atlantic have a remarkable knack for making all other Christians look bad by association—although sometimes it seems that Mr Lucas needs little help in this regard.

The phrase ``Christian Right'', in common usage, has come to encompass much more than a simple description of neoconservative politics as they apply to pronouncements of faith. The phrase can also imply religious bigotry, overzealous proselytizing, a penchant for warmongery, or, very often, a smug conviction that no one else is entitled to theological opinions of any kind.

May I humbly submit to the Scotsman the phrase ``Christian Convinced-they're-right''?

Well, I thought it was funny. Today I am setting conference rooms and doing accounts, so I am easily amused.

Hain aims to cut incapacity claims

The Government has announced a new medical test aimed at cutting the number of people on sickness-related benefits by 20,000 a year.

Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said individuals will in future be assessed on what they can do, rather than what they cannot.

Mr Hain said people legitimately off work will still receive their benefit, adding: We are not talking about closing a door - we are saying we will open the door to new skills, support and confidence building.

Currently, there are many people sitting at home in the belief that they are unemployable, with no life choices or long-term prospects because they do not think their illness or medical conditions can be catered for in the workplace. But this is just not the case - many people with such conditions are perfectly able to take up successful careers, if the right support is in place.

Is anybody fooled by this bullshit? Peter Hain is apparently fooling himself. He told BBC Breakfast: It is not about punishing people.... This is about giving people opportunities because you are better off in work; the evidence shows that.

Great. So we're going to encourage people back into work by... stopping their benefits. I can't see this going wrong ever, can you?

The new disability tests are going to be ability-based rather than disability-based. This sounds like a delightful New Labourish optimistic attitude until one thinks about it for a picosecond. For a start, we're trying to assess disabilities here, not unrelated things that one is coincidentally capable of. I've lost my arm! Oh, stop your whining. You've got another one, haven't you?

It won't take long for this to degenerate into Monty Python territory: Look, you stupid bastard, I've got no arms left! Yes you have! It's just a flesh wound!

Imagine the plight of a hypothetical, oh I don't know, a librarian, who suddently develops a chronic (and hypothetical) allergy to books. She is denied benefits because she can still build roads. Or the bricklayer who loses his arms but is encouraged to take up a career in psychotherapy. Or the nightclub bouncer who, after a vicious and debilitating beating, is pushed by the Government into a job in theoretical physics instead of claiming.

(That last one was a joke. The Government encouraging people to work in the sciences? Hah! I kill me.)

Or let's take the example of the lovely stormsearch, who in lieu of any actual support is undoubtedly going to be offered Government-backed opportunities in the vibrant and rewarding career of telemarketing. And when some snot-nosed bureaucrat suggests that she don the headset—that diadem of mediocrity—because she can't move her limbs, she will say: Fine, I shall take my Master's degree and my comprehensive knowledge of Sumerian literature, and I shall use them to ask people if they want double glazing this week. I'm sure that's the absolute optimal contribution I can make to society. And I'm sure that your mother is very proud of you.

My duties as carer now extend, it would seem, to assertiveness coaching.

Let's defeat benefit cheats by making it harder for anyone to claim benefits! Benefit cheats are apparently the new Terrrrrrists or asylum seekers; the terrifying underclass that we use to get Daily Mail-readers to vote for us. It's clearly naive to suggest that we could better target disability benefits by, for instance, categorizing and diagnosing illnesses. That would take work, wouldn't it?

Of course, the entire above rant is based on the somewhat naive assumption that any of the new system is intended to do what it claims to do, as opposed to what it's actually supposed to do, which is save tax revenue so that we can spend it on wars. And what better way to save money than by screwing cripples? What are they going to do about it, run after you and beat you up?

Stupid shit like this makes me want to start collecting smoke alarms.

Scratchcard withdrawn because people don't understand negative numbers

I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher—not lower—than -8 but I'm not having it.

Let the nukes fly, now. Let's burn it all down and start again.

I have just been described as a complacent ignoramus in the pages of a major national newspaper.

I believe the appropriate phrase is Bitch, it's ON now.

The title has no bearing on the content of the post, but following a comment in a community I have this earworming the hell out of me, and I want to share the pain. I don't even watch The Mighty Boosh.

I am published in the Scotsman again today (the letters page, natch, but it sounds better when it's worded like that), with a very brief rant on idiot fundie Christians and their attitude towards sex education. The Scotsman's website now allows comments on letters. I can see this becoming a massive timesink. There are too many idiots in this world (particularly amongst the Scotsman's demographic), and they must be fought.

Today I finally got my postcard from the LA production company who have put me on the Discovery Channel. I was hoping to keep it as a souvenir. It managed the entire 5,000 mile journey unscathed before the postman creased the fuck out of it while shoving it perfunctorily through the postbox. Still, I suppose I should be glad I'm receiving anything at all.

I realize that there are probably about four people reading this who haven't heard it sixteen times already, most often from cairmen, so I apologize in advance to everyone else:

The feature-length version of Bloodspell is out! Streaming copy available here, downloadable versions here. I'm not convinced about the efficacy of watching an 84-minute feature film over streaming video, so I would suggest downloading if I were you, but feel free to give it a go.

Go on. Watch it.

For the last eight-and-a-bit years I have been involved in a general boycott of Northern Foods products, dating from the time when they tried to fire me on fabricated charges in order to save themselves my paltry pre-minimum-wage salary. Thus far I've cost them several orders of magnitude more money than the month's wage they would have had to pay me before I left them anyway.

(And I quit them before they fired me.)

(And now I come to think about it, they had to pay me a month in lieu of notice anyway. Bonus!)

This means no Fox's Biscuits for me, no Pork Farms, no Matthew Walker Christmas puddings, and no pretty much anything sold by Marks & Spencer. I don't miss any of these things. (Especially not the Christmas puddings.) I do make an exception for Goodfella's pizzas, though, because Goodfella's pizzas are deliciousness incarnate.

Goodfella's pizzas, however, are the ones that try far too hard to be cool. At one stage the back of the packet said Cook for twenty minutes; try watching the cheese slowly melt and bubble as if nobody had anything better to do. I recall spudtater cutting the cooking instructions off the packet, so he could prove to people that real unmitigated stupidity did exist.

These are the same people who wouldn't listen to me when I told them that Pizza Pie was a daft name because pizza means pie. I notice that they stopped selling those about as soon as they came out.

They've changed the cooking instructions so that they now read you could use this time to prepare a mixed salad, which is terribly socially-responsible of them.

Now, I notice that that every packet comes with a peppy exhortation to Share and enjoy!. The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is evidently alive and well.

Last time I was down in Hull, I noticed that they'd demolished the headquarters building where my office had been on the fourth floor. I wish I'd been able to see that.

Now you too can be the proud owner of a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range!

The item description takes great pains to advise us that this nightmarish future weapon is non-functional.

There are an awful lot of drunken, shouty, noisy bastards about. The number appears to be on the increase, and while the end of the month might be a factor, it's not a promising trend. I don't appreciate having to wade through ankle-deep vomit on my way into work.

I was talking to $BOSS_1 about hotel star ratings the other day, and he observed that it doesn't matter what the tourist board says: your star rating is determined by your guests. You can have five stars on the sign outside the door, but if the bar and the foyer are full of neds, then you're not a five-star hotel. Lo and behold, ten minutes later on the walk home, outside the Hilton was a woman with her shoes covered in her own spew, with a police van and an ambulance nearby. As I walked on, trying not to breathe, another ambulance turned up. That's six public servants and your tax money hard at work, just because some moronic old cow couldn't moderate her own intake.

More to the point, if I was a member of the Hilton's preferred market segment who happened to be arriving at that time, I would have thought: fuck this for a lark, I'm taking my Platinum Amex card to the Sheraton instead.

There was some talk recently about giving the police increased powers to fine people for drunk-and-disorderly behaviour in public areas. Naturally the newspapers all pounced on this as the latest infringement upon civil liberties. Funny how they can't seem to raise any ire about the database state, or omnipresent surveillance, or the fact that you can now get your face shot off for wearing a jacket on the Tube. As soon as fines are mentioned—fines which might conceivably be levied against our customers!—suddenly it's a travesty to be denounced vociferously in poorly-reasoned editorials.

What if a police officer was feeling a bit grumpy, squawked the Evening News, and decided to fine some people just for a big ol' laugh? And how could they possibly define public areas, and shouldn't all this be handled by the courts? Odd how none of these things seem to be a problem when we're discussing spot fines for traffic offences. A simple neighbourhood bobby can easily grasp the subtleties of traffic law, but anti-social behaviour is apparently a rich and complex issue which can only be dealt with by a bloke in a wig at great cost to the public purse.

This isn't a civil liberties issue at all, except as it pertains to my liberty to sleep at night and not to be forced to track other peoples' bodily fluids onto my carpet.

I am entirely in favour of additional police powers to deal with drunken shouty fucktards. If the Police can't deal with it, then I'm in favour of the issuing of crossbows to the general populace.

Tesco British Classics: Southern Fried Chicken and French Fries.

Many 'struggling' with storytime

Parents, grown-up men and women, responsible for the safeguard of Our Future, are apparently having difficulty reading books intended for five and ten year olds.

Ten per cent of people polled in the recent Learndirect study, it says here, have children and are by definition too stupid to have children.

Why do these acephalous morons procreate? Condoms are free. Why would anyone bring a life into this world if they can't look after it?

(incredibly obscure reference)

TRAPPED IN CARLISLE STOP SEND HELP STOP