So May has arrived with its promise of sunshine and butterflies, and I can almost smell barbecue burgers burning, see the ants in my beer, feel my nose burning from pollen and hear the wasps buzzing over my ice cream already. Now picnic blankets will be getting used as God intended rather than being draped over knees in the TV room through winter.
Perversely, to celebrate the arrival of the season of hope and suntan, the UK is drowning in nonstop rain and the British Olympic Swimming Team is training in the streets. I’m sure I ran over someone doing the backstroke in Kingston High Street a couple of weeks ago, and I’m certain that was Tom Chambers diving off Wimbledon bridge last week.
I don’t do rain. That may sound odd coming from someone born in Scotland, a country where rain is like deep fried pizza -ever present. Here every traffic warden is called Moses, and I believe it was driving through Glasgow’s deluged streets one summer that gave God the idea for parting The Red Sea.
I left the land of my birth because of the crummy weather, so the current climate in London suits me about as much as having piles suits someone with hopes of being a tennis umpire. It’s time for me to escape to the sun.
Last week I travelled to the Algarve in Portugal, scene of many glorious holidays and groggy mornings, looking for weather that was vastly different from the UK. And boy did I get it. The place was colder than a polar bear’s bum and wetter than a goldfish’s steam room. It was awful.
But poor old Portugal is suffering from more than just bad weather. Everyone is pleading poverty. So what do the authorities do to help? They have installed tolls on the main road through the Algarve, which was greeted enthusiastically by people setting fire to the cameras and even firing shots at them. Anywhere else in the world these toll booths would be well thought out and done properly, but not here.
Someone has sat down and thought of every single way to make this as difficult as possible. Like the labour market in Portugal, it just does not work.
In Britain, America, and anywhere else I have used toll roads there is a machine you chuck money in or someone in a little booth who takes your money from you with a polite smile and a “thank you”, but that’s too normal for this part of the Iberian peninsula. Here, cameras take a photograph of your number plate and you then have to wait two days and go to the post office to pay. Every single time!
Not to labour a point, but when I did eventually take the car back to the airport and asked how I was to pay the tolls for that journey, the car hire man didn’t know. Apparently no one had thought of this and so no one pays. The computer cannot cope.
In The Algarve almost no restaurants will accept credit cards. They want cash so that there isn’t a record of any money that the nasty tax man may want to get his hands on. But the shop owners are clever. In case an official happens to visit the restaurant you will always find a sign up saying “Sorry, our credit card machine is broken today”, or more accurately “Sorry, our machine credit not work. Broked.”
Is it any wonder the Eurozone is in such a mess? I love Portugal but it, and Europe, need someone very clever to sort this mess out. I think it must be a woman, and here’s why.
A single guy living at home with his father found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly dad died. One evening he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and said, "I may look just ordinary, but in a few weeks my father will die and I will inherit $200 million". Impressed, the woman asked for his business card and three days later - she became his stepmother.
See? Women are so much better at financial planning than men.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Lullaby Of Broadway
Did you watch the new TV show ‘Smash’ at the weekend? This is a lavish and immaculate musical drama produced by Spielberg and costing more than Bloomberg. It is so coldly calculated that if it was an iceberg, Smash would greet the Titanic with a shout of “no, YOU give way”.
The show suggests it will give you and me an insight in to the catiness of New York musical theatre, and if Harry Warren had been alive to watch ‘Smash’ his lyrics may have changed. “Come on along and listen to the great big lie of Broadway” has a certain ring to it don’t you think?
Until this week I had never experienced the audition process, or ‘casting call’ as they term it on the stage. Dozens of hopefuls are invited to come along and do their thing for the director. They are brought on in groups, they then do a few dance steps or sing a few bars, and some seconds later a voice shouts “numbers two, five and thirty can stay, the rest of you thanks for nothing”. It’s so dispiriting it would sap the confidence of a good looking millionaire life coach fending off supermodels in heat.
So how did I come to experience the dreaded casting call when it’s well known I dance like a statue of Long John Silver and have the singing voice of his parrot? Well, this week I was asked to audition for a corporate video job in which I would be interviewing the CEO of one of the world’s largest insurance companies. Now I grant you it’s not up there in the glamour stakes with Hollywood or Broadway - or even Blackpool pier’s summer revue come to that - but we all have to pay our bills and, actually, I quite like this kind of stuff. Don’t tell anyone.
So off I go to a rather run down building in central London for the camera test. When I say “run down” I mean those words in the sense that water was, literally, running down the walls in the basement where the studio was situated. I carefully negotiated my way past these natural waterfalls, broken bricks and an abandoned, soiled, sofa thinking more and more that I was the victim of a practical joke or was about to stumble on a terrorist squat. I’m sure a zombie movie was shot here.
Certainly the building’s caretaker should have been.
Eventually I found Room 101 (it wasn’t actually called that but it will give you an idea of how George Orwell must have visited here at some point to get inspiration for 1984) and I was asked to fill in a form with my height, my waist, my chest and shoe size, etc. I guess if you do this regularly then you know the answers but, as I hadn’t a clue, I left the sheet blank and was then made to stand holding a piece of paper with my name on it while a photo was taken. Think of those mug shots of arrested suspects and you’ll get the picture – so to speak.
I then sat down beside one of the other guys who was also after the job. Now this was difficult because he was quite pleasant and I had to make polite conversation while really hoping he’d be carted off to A&E with a burst appendix or have an accident in his trousers and faint with embarrassment.
And then my turn came. A very nice guy called Matt told me he would pretend to be the CEO and I simply had to follow the instructions I’d received in an email. Problem was that I’d had no email and so didn’t have a clue what was supposed to happen.
We made a great team. I was dreadful, poor Matt was bad at pretending he understood financial stuff, and the camera operator, who had seen dozens of people like me do this all day, looked like he was praying for an earthquake. Four minutes later I was again out in the corridors, navigating past the discarded sofa and puddles, and back out on the street.
How did I feel? Well, I thought about it and just laughed out loud. They had all been very nice but it confirmed to me that what I do is just not a proper job. Nor is dancing on stage or appearing in a television show. We set ourselves up for humiliation so there’s no point in crying about it. Better to laugh and, when people ask what your job is, say something like “I don’t work, I inherited.” Seems to work for the Royals.
This week then I’m off to the job centre to find something slightly less humiliating. Perhaps a sanitary waste inspector, or maybe a circus clown. Or I could ask if they have any jobs working with Spielberg. I bet the waterfalls on his walls are meant to there.
The show suggests it will give you and me an insight in to the catiness of New York musical theatre, and if Harry Warren had been alive to watch ‘Smash’ his lyrics may have changed. “Come on along and listen to the great big lie of Broadway” has a certain ring to it don’t you think?
Until this week I had never experienced the audition process, or ‘casting call’ as they term it on the stage. Dozens of hopefuls are invited to come along and do their thing for the director. They are brought on in groups, they then do a few dance steps or sing a few bars, and some seconds later a voice shouts “numbers two, five and thirty can stay, the rest of you thanks for nothing”. It’s so dispiriting it would sap the confidence of a good looking millionaire life coach fending off supermodels in heat.
So how did I come to experience the dreaded casting call when it’s well known I dance like a statue of Long John Silver and have the singing voice of his parrot? Well, this week I was asked to audition for a corporate video job in which I would be interviewing the CEO of one of the world’s largest insurance companies. Now I grant you it’s not up there in the glamour stakes with Hollywood or Broadway - or even Blackpool pier’s summer revue come to that - but we all have to pay our bills and, actually, I quite like this kind of stuff. Don’t tell anyone.
So off I go to a rather run down building in central London for the camera test. When I say “run down” I mean those words in the sense that water was, literally, running down the walls in the basement where the studio was situated. I carefully negotiated my way past these natural waterfalls, broken bricks and an abandoned, soiled, sofa thinking more and more that I was the victim of a practical joke or was about to stumble on a terrorist squat. I’m sure a zombie movie was shot here.
Certainly the building’s caretaker should have been.
Eventually I found Room 101 (it wasn’t actually called that but it will give you an idea of how George Orwell must have visited here at some point to get inspiration for 1984) and I was asked to fill in a form with my height, my waist, my chest and shoe size, etc. I guess if you do this regularly then you know the answers but, as I hadn’t a clue, I left the sheet blank and was then made to stand holding a piece of paper with my name on it while a photo was taken. Think of those mug shots of arrested suspects and you’ll get the picture – so to speak.
I then sat down beside one of the other guys who was also after the job. Now this was difficult because he was quite pleasant and I had to make polite conversation while really hoping he’d be carted off to A&E with a burst appendix or have an accident in his trousers and faint with embarrassment.
And then my turn came. A very nice guy called Matt told me he would pretend to be the CEO and I simply had to follow the instructions I’d received in an email. Problem was that I’d had no email and so didn’t have a clue what was supposed to happen.
We made a great team. I was dreadful, poor Matt was bad at pretending he understood financial stuff, and the camera operator, who had seen dozens of people like me do this all day, looked like he was praying for an earthquake. Four minutes later I was again out in the corridors, navigating past the discarded sofa and puddles, and back out on the street.
How did I feel? Well, I thought about it and just laughed out loud. They had all been very nice but it confirmed to me that what I do is just not a proper job. Nor is dancing on stage or appearing in a television show. We set ourselves up for humiliation so there’s no point in crying about it. Better to laugh and, when people ask what your job is, say something like “I don’t work, I inherited.” Seems to work for the Royals.
This week then I’m off to the job centre to find something slightly less humiliating. Perhaps a sanitary waste inspector, or maybe a circus clown. Or I could ask if they have any jobs working with Spielberg. I bet the waterfalls on his walls are meant to there.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Beautiful Girl
This week I find myself feeling sorry for someone I’ve never met, someone who has become a very reluctant internet sensation because of an article written simply to make ends meet.
Poor old Rachel Brick is a freelance writer who regularly gives newspaper editors ideas for articles which, if she’s lucky, will make her about five hundred pounds a time. She does this alongside hundreds of other women who have to pay mortgages, school fees and gym memberships and are in the same boat.
If they don’t get published, they don’t eat so, to stand out from the crowd, an idea has to be original or outrageous or likely to cause controversy. Better still it should be all three. Rachel submitted an idea for an article about how she has suffered in life because she’s pretty, her theory being that the sisterhood hate good looking women.
Now let’s put this in some perspective. The ever increasingly desperate Rachel, along with hundreds of other freelancers, has written articles in the past that have been completely ignored or have attracted huge yawns as readers skip to the sports pages. Who remembers when she wrote that she divorced her first husband because a psychic told her to, or that she was locked in a car by her partner because he thought her outfit was too revealing, or that her new husband says he’ll divorce her if she gets fat? The world of the freelancer is a world of silliness, embarrassment, exposition and, usually, exaggeration or downright fabrication. But that’s fine because we all skip over what’s written with a smile or grunt and move on. Rachel’s previous works of art may have paid her grocery bill but they’re now lying in landfill covered in grease from insulating fish and chips.
Knowing how these things work, this article will have been sent back and forward between the Daily Mail and Rachel several times with them constantly asking her to ramp up the misery, show more disdain for the sisterhood and exaggerate her claims.
And she has obliged. In spades.
But once the article about Rachel’s travails as a beauty was published, the newspaper’s tactics came apart. They had ramped this up so much that a blind man in a pitch black cave, wearing sunglasses and a plastic bucket over his head at night, could simply point out the flaw. Rachel just isn’t a looker.
The poor woman then had to face vitriol and nastiness from every country as the piece went viral. Most were from self appointed judges of beauty, with the nicer comments varying between “You are tall and blonde, but then so is Big Bird” and “Get some new mirrors” through to “Brick by name, thick as one by nature.”
The really nasty opinions, which ego filled internet trolls felt were fascinating, original and erudite opinions that the world was waiting to fall down and worship, included “She’s called Brick because she was hit with one”, “Sam, you are old and ugly” and, from one perfect gentleman, “If you and I were the last couple on earth the race would die out. I’d rather be gay.”
I don’t doubt Samantha will make a fortune out of her new media attention, but I also have no doubts that she’s hurting like hell, embarrassed for her family and friends, and wants to crawl away on holiday to Mars for a few years. She has had to defend herself on TV in front of interviewers who know how this all works but have to pretend they’re outraged so that they can earn their wage.
But now, to make matters worse for Rachel, her husband has got in on the act and sold an interview explaining his position on the matter, accompanied by photos of him carrying a rifle and wearing combat fatigues and an unlikely and unforgiveable moustache that the Village People would laugh at while looking for the poor walrus he’d shot to bag it.
But let me stress again. The way this works is that freelancers have to earn a living. With more newspapers laying off staff every week, we can expect this desperation to increase every day.
One person who will be spitting nails is Liz Jones, a vacuous woman who has instinctively embraced the freelance culture writing about her failures with men so often it’s beyond tedious and has earned her epithets such as negative, sneering, empty headed, hypocritical and idiotic, all adjectives she will show to her editors to prove the drivel she writes is working and they’d be silly not to commission more. But now Liz has a rival, and it’s one who’s had more publicity in one week than she has in a very long, anorexic, lifetime. I fully expect Rachel Brick’s next article to be “Why Liz Jones Is An Alien Who Fancies Me”.
People, let’s not take this all too seriously, eh? These women are just like extras in the chorus line of a bad musical. No one is expected to actually pay them any attention for God’s sake.
They’re making a living as best they know how, fully aware of the tat that’s paying their bills, whilst waiting nervously for the public to wise up and close them down.
Poor old Rachel Brick is a freelance writer who regularly gives newspaper editors ideas for articles which, if she’s lucky, will make her about five hundred pounds a time. She does this alongside hundreds of other women who have to pay mortgages, school fees and gym memberships and are in the same boat.
If they don’t get published, they don’t eat so, to stand out from the crowd, an idea has to be original or outrageous or likely to cause controversy. Better still it should be all three. Rachel submitted an idea for an article about how she has suffered in life because she’s pretty, her theory being that the sisterhood hate good looking women.
Now let’s put this in some perspective. The ever increasingly desperate Rachel, along with hundreds of other freelancers, has written articles in the past that have been completely ignored or have attracted huge yawns as readers skip to the sports pages. Who remembers when she wrote that she divorced her first husband because a psychic told her to, or that she was locked in a car by her partner because he thought her outfit was too revealing, or that her new husband says he’ll divorce her if she gets fat? The world of the freelancer is a world of silliness, embarrassment, exposition and, usually, exaggeration or downright fabrication. But that’s fine because we all skip over what’s written with a smile or grunt and move on. Rachel’s previous works of art may have paid her grocery bill but they’re now lying in landfill covered in grease from insulating fish and chips.
Knowing how these things work, this article will have been sent back and forward between the Daily Mail and Rachel several times with them constantly asking her to ramp up the misery, show more disdain for the sisterhood and exaggerate her claims.
And she has obliged. In spades.
But once the article about Rachel’s travails as a beauty was published, the newspaper’s tactics came apart. They had ramped this up so much that a blind man in a pitch black cave, wearing sunglasses and a plastic bucket over his head at night, could simply point out the flaw. Rachel just isn’t a looker.
The poor woman then had to face vitriol and nastiness from every country as the piece went viral. Most were from self appointed judges of beauty, with the nicer comments varying between “You are tall and blonde, but then so is Big Bird” and “Get some new mirrors” through to “Brick by name, thick as one by nature.”
The really nasty opinions, which ego filled internet trolls felt were fascinating, original and erudite opinions that the world was waiting to fall down and worship, included “She’s called Brick because she was hit with one”, “Sam, you are old and ugly” and, from one perfect gentleman, “If you and I were the last couple on earth the race would die out. I’d rather be gay.”
I don’t doubt Samantha will make a fortune out of her new media attention, but I also have no doubts that she’s hurting like hell, embarrassed for her family and friends, and wants to crawl away on holiday to Mars for a few years. She has had to defend herself on TV in front of interviewers who know how this all works but have to pretend they’re outraged so that they can earn their wage.
But now, to make matters worse for Rachel, her husband has got in on the act and sold an interview explaining his position on the matter, accompanied by photos of him carrying a rifle and wearing combat fatigues and an unlikely and unforgiveable moustache that the Village People would laugh at while looking for the poor walrus he’d shot to bag it.
But let me stress again. The way this works is that freelancers have to earn a living. With more newspapers laying off staff every week, we can expect this desperation to increase every day.
One person who will be spitting nails is Liz Jones, a vacuous woman who has instinctively embraced the freelance culture writing about her failures with men so often it’s beyond tedious and has earned her epithets such as negative, sneering, empty headed, hypocritical and idiotic, all adjectives she will show to her editors to prove the drivel she writes is working and they’d be silly not to commission more. But now Liz has a rival, and it’s one who’s had more publicity in one week than she has in a very long, anorexic, lifetime. I fully expect Rachel Brick’s next article to be “Why Liz Jones Is An Alien Who Fancies Me”.
People, let’s not take this all too seriously, eh? These women are just like extras in the chorus line of a bad musical. No one is expected to actually pay them any attention for God’s sake.
They’re making a living as best they know how, fully aware of the tat that’s paying their bills, whilst waiting nervously for the public to wise up and close them down.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Fight For The Right To Party
I wanted to express my outrage, my horror, my sense of disappointment at something so outrageous it makes me almost physically sick. An event occurred last week which I think illustrates quite graphically the stupidness and backward nature of the
British people, and I feel like venting my spleen.
By the way, have you seen my spleen? With the warm weather back again my neighbours have been treated to it as I potter round the garden, topless, to shouts of “for God’s sake put it away. It’s big but it’s not smart”. My diet starts again tomorrow.
Anyway, back to the serious bit. What’s got me so angry? George Galloway was elected as a new MP this week and within twenty four hours someone had pelted him with eggs. In a civilised society this is simply outrageous and beyond the pale. What a waste of a perfectly good egg. Couldn’t they have thrown a bad one? A really, really smelly old one? Maybe an ostrich egg the size of Cornwall with cat litter inside it and superglue on the outside? Perhaps an egg omelette while still in the pan?
Surely no one could tire of pelting any politician, although I do think Galloway is a special case. There’s something about this Scottish, self regarding, hobbit that makes me forget I’m a lovely, soft centred peacenick, and makes me want to morph in to Darth Vader. His posters proclaimed his organisation as the Respect party, presumably an attempt to be down with the kids, but how can anyone respect a politician? Especially one with a moustache for goodness sake.
Anyone in politics now is fair game, of course, and I don’t think any of them can complain. They seem to think Trust and Respect are a sister company of Abercrombie and Fitch, great as a slogan on a T Shirt but mythical creatures who don’t actually exist.
Our current government is a laughing stock because of the petrol debacle, granny taxes, and plans to charge more for pastry. Can you believe it? We have troops dying almost daily, lending in crisis, the Eurozone dragging us down, and we will all be saved by pastry. Of course the Labour party, while refusing to ask their union bosses to call off any hint of petrol delivery shortages, think they can solve the problems of the world by having their photos taken in a bakery eating pasties. I wouldn’t take one of these people off you at a car boot sale if they were free and you threw in a Rolex and a signed original script of Citizen Kane.
So what are we supposed to do? I began asking some friends and was told to stand for parliament and become an MP. I would rather lick rotten egg off Galloway’s bald head.
I accept that we’re better off than countries with dictators, civil wars, famine, despots or Nicolas Sarkozy, but I really, really want someone I can trust and respect. Where are they?
If you fancy going for it, I’ve done some research and it’s not difficult to stand as an independent candidiate. You need to be over 18, a British citizen, and have ten signatures from people who live in the area you wish to represent. Obviously no one wants anyone dodgy and undesirable to try and enter parliament so it is illegal to stand as an MP if you are a convicted criminal, bankrupt, a member of the police force or civil service, or if you are a judge.
If you form a new political party you have to think of a name that’s no longer than six words and, sadly, they expressly forbid you registering the name “None Of The Above” which I think is a brilliant name for a party.
In Britain we’ve had the The Monster Raving Loony Party, The Teddy Bear Alliance, The Death Dungeons and Taxes Party and, my own favourite, The Mongolian Barbecue Great Place To Party, but other countries do even better. Organisations that you instinctively just know will be full of ridiculous, silly people with no brains include, in Australia, ‘The Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party’, Hungary enjoys the ‘Double Tailed Dog Party’, Sweden has welcomed the ‘Donald Duck Party’, and America has the Republicans.
So, if you’ve ever thought of becoming a politician, please stand up and be counted now. Go for it. Your country needs you like never before. And if you get elected please let me know. I’ll be out buying the ostrich eggs and superglue.
British people, and I feel like venting my spleen.
By the way, have you seen my spleen? With the warm weather back again my neighbours have been treated to it as I potter round the garden, topless, to shouts of “for God’s sake put it away. It’s big but it’s not smart”. My diet starts again tomorrow.
Anyway, back to the serious bit. What’s got me so angry? George Galloway was elected as a new MP this week and within twenty four hours someone had pelted him with eggs. In a civilised society this is simply outrageous and beyond the pale. What a waste of a perfectly good egg. Couldn’t they have thrown a bad one? A really, really smelly old one? Maybe an ostrich egg the size of Cornwall with cat litter inside it and superglue on the outside? Perhaps an egg omelette while still in the pan?
Surely no one could tire of pelting any politician, although I do think Galloway is a special case. There’s something about this Scottish, self regarding, hobbit that makes me forget I’m a lovely, soft centred peacenick, and makes me want to morph in to Darth Vader. His posters proclaimed his organisation as the Respect party, presumably an attempt to be down with the kids, but how can anyone respect a politician? Especially one with a moustache for goodness sake.
Anyone in politics now is fair game, of course, and I don’t think any of them can complain. They seem to think Trust and Respect are a sister company of Abercrombie and Fitch, great as a slogan on a T Shirt but mythical creatures who don’t actually exist.
Our current government is a laughing stock because of the petrol debacle, granny taxes, and plans to charge more for pastry. Can you believe it? We have troops dying almost daily, lending in crisis, the Eurozone dragging us down, and we will all be saved by pastry. Of course the Labour party, while refusing to ask their union bosses to call off any hint of petrol delivery shortages, think they can solve the problems of the world by having their photos taken in a bakery eating pasties. I wouldn’t take one of these people off you at a car boot sale if they were free and you threw in a Rolex and a signed original script of Citizen Kane.
So what are we supposed to do? I began asking some friends and was told to stand for parliament and become an MP. I would rather lick rotten egg off Galloway’s bald head.
I accept that we’re better off than countries with dictators, civil wars, famine, despots or Nicolas Sarkozy, but I really, really want someone I can trust and respect. Where are they?
If you fancy going for it, I’ve done some research and it’s not difficult to stand as an independent candidiate. You need to be over 18, a British citizen, and have ten signatures from people who live in the area you wish to represent. Obviously no one wants anyone dodgy and undesirable to try and enter parliament so it is illegal to stand as an MP if you are a convicted criminal, bankrupt, a member of the police force or civil service, or if you are a judge.
If you form a new political party you have to think of a name that’s no longer than six words and, sadly, they expressly forbid you registering the name “None Of The Above” which I think is a brilliant name for a party.
In Britain we’ve had the The Monster Raving Loony Party, The Teddy Bear Alliance, The Death Dungeons and Taxes Party and, my own favourite, The Mongolian Barbecue Great Place To Party, but other countries do even better. Organisations that you instinctively just know will be full of ridiculous, silly people with no brains include, in Australia, ‘The Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party’, Hungary enjoys the ‘Double Tailed Dog Party’, Sweden has welcomed the ‘Donald Duck Party’, and America has the Republicans.
So, if you’ve ever thought of becoming a politician, please stand up and be counted now. Go for it. Your country needs you like never before. And if you get elected please let me know. I’ll be out buying the ostrich eggs and superglue.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Hurt
Twitter and Facebook have a lot to answer for. They’ve ruined the art of the put down.
My calling for more insults may sound strange in a week when journalist Alison Pearson reported an unknown comedian named Doug Stanhope for abusing her on Twitter, Radio presenter Richard Bacon told police of an internet troll who insulted him, and former footballer Stan Collymore watched Joshua Cryer get sentenced to 240 hours of community work for comments posted.
But I’m talking about the proper insult, one which leaves the recipient admiring his assailant for inventiveness, ingenuity and cleverness. Pearson’s abuser posted that he hoped her kids would get tetraplegia, Bacon’s stalker insulted his wife and infant son while fantasising about Bacon’s death, and Collymore’s opponent simply posted a vomitarium of racial slurs. Hardly clever, ingenious or inventive, and certainly not designed to leave anyone in admiration.
I’m not sure if it’s the fact that people who insult others on digital media tend to have nine fingers more than their total number of brain cells and therefore type nine words for every time they actually engage their thinking gear, or whether they just spend too much time on their own congratulating themselves on their sense of humour.
If digital trolls had any social contact whatsoever, people would instantly tell them that drawing beards on photos of ladies and boobs on pictures of men doesn’t really make you a comedian, no matter what Stanhope’s agent tells him. Guessing what other trolls have had to eat over the past few weeks, by looking at their stained clothes and matted beards, may pass for entertainment at the open source computer code writers’ weekly forum in the church hall but the rest of the world just doesn’t get it. You’re not funny, OK?
None of the people mentioned above will find themselves quoted in years to come as being the source of great new invective. None will be held up as a new Oscar Wilde.
One of my favourite insults was written many years ago when someone who talked a load of rubbish was described as being “an alimentary canal with a sphincter at both ends.” What a fantastic way to say “you talk sh*t”. It’s inventive, snappy and funny. When was the last time you found that level of insult on Facebook? We seem to have lost the art of the funny put down.
When I was younger, much, much younger, I once tried chatting up a girl at Glasgow University’s student disco. I must have been completely hopeless and persistent because I’ve always remembered her reply when I asked if I could drive her home. “No thanks, I’d be scared if you put your head out the window we’d be arrested for mooning.” Now, admit it, that’s clever. It may have been the only put down she had, she may have stolen it and she may have used it hundreds of times, but I smiled at her originality - if not her taste in men.
Churchill was brilliant at inventive put downs. My favourite of his is “He’s a modest little person with much to be modest about.”
Many special put downs have become clichés and old hat but were original once upon a time. “He’s a self made man and worships his creator” may sound dated now but when John Bright first coined it I hope people cheered. Groucho Marx again deserved applause for “I’ve had a great evening, but this wasn’t it.”
But perhaps the best insults come when two original thinkers come together. When George Bernard Shaw insulted Winston Churchill he wrote “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my play. Bring a friend....if you have one”. Churchill wrote back “Can’t attend first night, will attend second....if there is one.”
So, set beside these legends in the art of the insult, today’s internet offence geeks are neither big nor clever. They’re small, very small, and missing something in their make up. Many people are now deserting Twitter and Facebook because of these nasty, weak, emotionally cadaverous zombies who are wordsmiths only in their own imagination.
I think that social media arrived just about a hundred years too late. Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and the rest would have had a ball.
My calling for more insults may sound strange in a week when journalist Alison Pearson reported an unknown comedian named Doug Stanhope for abusing her on Twitter, Radio presenter Richard Bacon told police of an internet troll who insulted him, and former footballer Stan Collymore watched Joshua Cryer get sentenced to 240 hours of community work for comments posted.
But I’m talking about the proper insult, one which leaves the recipient admiring his assailant for inventiveness, ingenuity and cleverness. Pearson’s abuser posted that he hoped her kids would get tetraplegia, Bacon’s stalker insulted his wife and infant son while fantasising about Bacon’s death, and Collymore’s opponent simply posted a vomitarium of racial slurs. Hardly clever, ingenious or inventive, and certainly not designed to leave anyone in admiration.
I’m not sure if it’s the fact that people who insult others on digital media tend to have nine fingers more than their total number of brain cells and therefore type nine words for every time they actually engage their thinking gear, or whether they just spend too much time on their own congratulating themselves on their sense of humour.
If digital trolls had any social contact whatsoever, people would instantly tell them that drawing beards on photos of ladies and boobs on pictures of men doesn’t really make you a comedian, no matter what Stanhope’s agent tells him. Guessing what other trolls have had to eat over the past few weeks, by looking at their stained clothes and matted beards, may pass for entertainment at the open source computer code writers’ weekly forum in the church hall but the rest of the world just doesn’t get it. You’re not funny, OK?
None of the people mentioned above will find themselves quoted in years to come as being the source of great new invective. None will be held up as a new Oscar Wilde.
One of my favourite insults was written many years ago when someone who talked a load of rubbish was described as being “an alimentary canal with a sphincter at both ends.” What a fantastic way to say “you talk sh*t”. It’s inventive, snappy and funny. When was the last time you found that level of insult on Facebook? We seem to have lost the art of the funny put down.
When I was younger, much, much younger, I once tried chatting up a girl at Glasgow University’s student disco. I must have been completely hopeless and persistent because I’ve always remembered her reply when I asked if I could drive her home. “No thanks, I’d be scared if you put your head out the window we’d be arrested for mooning.” Now, admit it, that’s clever. It may have been the only put down she had, she may have stolen it and she may have used it hundreds of times, but I smiled at her originality - if not her taste in men.
Churchill was brilliant at inventive put downs. My favourite of his is “He’s a modest little person with much to be modest about.”
Many special put downs have become clichés and old hat but were original once upon a time. “He’s a self made man and worships his creator” may sound dated now but when John Bright first coined it I hope people cheered. Groucho Marx again deserved applause for “I’ve had a great evening, but this wasn’t it.”
But perhaps the best insults come when two original thinkers come together. When George Bernard Shaw insulted Winston Churchill he wrote “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my play. Bring a friend....if you have one”. Churchill wrote back “Can’t attend first night, will attend second....if there is one.”
So, set beside these legends in the art of the insult, today’s internet offence geeks are neither big nor clever. They’re small, very small, and missing something in their make up. Many people are now deserting Twitter and Facebook because of these nasty, weak, emotionally cadaverous zombies who are wordsmiths only in their own imagination.
I think that social media arrived just about a hundred years too late. Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and the rest would have had a ball.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Dirty Cash
While billionaire Philip Green flies dozens of millionaire celebrities First Class to the Caribbean to celebrate his 60th birthday in style, here in the UK we are just days away from the country’s new financial budget being announced.
I realise this is a blog start guaranteed to turn you off quicker than a hormonal teenage male watching TV’s Embarrassing Bodies only to find it’s a special devoted to the cast of Loose Women. But, as always, it could be worse. A special on Anne Widdecombe anyone?
Perhaps I should have started this blog with an attention grabbing sentence like “This week I thought I’d discuss Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics” or maybe “Here’s Sean Penn with thoughts on his struggle to learn the alphabet”. But I have no confidence in my knowledge of philosophers or indeed Sean Penn’s ability to write .
So, the Budget it is. Money’s important.
For those reading this from outside the UK I should explain that “the Budget” is the Brits’ annual chance to complain together while our Government tells us the new ways it will rip us off over the next few years. Or, as they put it, “help us plan for our future”.
How important is it? Well there’s no need to worry about it costing you money unless you happen to be male or female, alive, and aged between embryo and one hundred and seventy nine. So relax. We’re all in this together, unless you work for Barclays bank or can afford a clever accountant who’s not already in jail.
I cannot object to the tax on cigarettes going up each year as anyone addicted to nicotine deserves all they get. Likewise it’s a bit difficult to object when tax on alcohol or petrol increases as we should be cutting back anyway. But as the search for new government income goes on, the year they introduce a tax on chocolate I’m leaving the country.
Trouble is we’re all so broke we’re looking for cleverer ways of avoiding taxes like never before but, like a one legged farmer, we’re falling in the shit. Our local retired cab driver - let’s keep him anonymous and call him Timmy even though his name is Tony - has been living the life of Reilly after his mum left him the house they lived in along with a substantial trust fund. The problem for Timmy is that his lawyer’s fees have now all but wiped out the fund and he can’t sell the house to move somewhere smaller as his mum’s will states that the proceeds have to go to his kids. He’s stuck in a house he doesn’t want, with no income. Great tax dodge, eh?
Then there’s another friend called Annie, (though her real name is......oh, never mind) whose accountant talked her in to a complicated scheme where she didn’t have to declare income on a property she owns and rents out. Now she wants to sell it, she can’t as, officially, it doesn’t exist. Another pal got a Portuguese holiday home in her divorce, registered to an overseas company to avoid stamp duty. It costs her a fortune in accountants and she can’t sell as she’ll have to pay prohibitive corporation tax.
As soon as someone offers to save us money we seem to jump in, head first and without hesitation, and hand over our life savings. Yet when someone asks us for a small donation to charity we make ourselves self important and ask what it’s for, what percentage is taken off for administration, etc, before handing over our ten pence. It seems the only charity we really want to believe in isn’t UNICEF or the RSPCA, but SCAMB - Saving Cash And My Behind.
This week several celebrities were exposed as having greedily invested with a conman who “guaranteed them” riches. No other person in the world could give them the return that he promised so, instead of asking questions, they simply threw thousands of pounds at him. He gave them back some money every month as “interest” to encourage them to invest more and then disappeared with their millions. This week he started a prison term. Serves him, and the investors, right.
Greed isn’t good so, I guess I’m asking the Chancellor to be wise in his budget this week and make us believe we don’t need to be sneakier than a career conman to pay what’s fair. Make it worthwhile for us to work. Get the charlatans at Barclays, Goldman Sachs and other banks to donate several million of their own ill gotten gains to worthwhile projects. Stop making us pay tax on savings. We’ve already been taxed on the money as we earned it. And stop taxing older people on their pensions.
Let me bring it back to earth. If all else fails as you prepare you budget this year Mr Osborne, just keep it simple. No tax on chocolate, and give generous tax breaks to anyone with the initials PC.
I could live with that.
I realise this is a blog start guaranteed to turn you off quicker than a hormonal teenage male watching TV’s Embarrassing Bodies only to find it’s a special devoted to the cast of Loose Women. But, as always, it could be worse. A special on Anne Widdecombe anyone?
Perhaps I should have started this blog with an attention grabbing sentence like “This week I thought I’d discuss Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics” or maybe “Here’s Sean Penn with thoughts on his struggle to learn the alphabet”. But I have no confidence in my knowledge of philosophers or indeed Sean Penn’s ability to write .
So, the Budget it is. Money’s important.
For those reading this from outside the UK I should explain that “the Budget” is the Brits’ annual chance to complain together while our Government tells us the new ways it will rip us off over the next few years. Or, as they put it, “help us plan for our future”.
How important is it? Well there’s no need to worry about it costing you money unless you happen to be male or female, alive, and aged between embryo and one hundred and seventy nine. So relax. We’re all in this together, unless you work for Barclays bank or can afford a clever accountant who’s not already in jail.
I cannot object to the tax on cigarettes going up each year as anyone addicted to nicotine deserves all they get. Likewise it’s a bit difficult to object when tax on alcohol or petrol increases as we should be cutting back anyway. But as the search for new government income goes on, the year they introduce a tax on chocolate I’m leaving the country.
Trouble is we’re all so broke we’re looking for cleverer ways of avoiding taxes like never before but, like a one legged farmer, we’re falling in the shit. Our local retired cab driver - let’s keep him anonymous and call him Timmy even though his name is Tony - has been living the life of Reilly after his mum left him the house they lived in along with a substantial trust fund. The problem for Timmy is that his lawyer’s fees have now all but wiped out the fund and he can’t sell the house to move somewhere smaller as his mum’s will states that the proceeds have to go to his kids. He’s stuck in a house he doesn’t want, with no income. Great tax dodge, eh?
Then there’s another friend called Annie, (though her real name is......oh, never mind) whose accountant talked her in to a complicated scheme where she didn’t have to declare income on a property she owns and rents out. Now she wants to sell it, she can’t as, officially, it doesn’t exist. Another pal got a Portuguese holiday home in her divorce, registered to an overseas company to avoid stamp duty. It costs her a fortune in accountants and she can’t sell as she’ll have to pay prohibitive corporation tax.
As soon as someone offers to save us money we seem to jump in, head first and without hesitation, and hand over our life savings. Yet when someone asks us for a small donation to charity we make ourselves self important and ask what it’s for, what percentage is taken off for administration, etc, before handing over our ten pence. It seems the only charity we really want to believe in isn’t UNICEF or the RSPCA, but SCAMB - Saving Cash And My Behind.
This week several celebrities were exposed as having greedily invested with a conman who “guaranteed them” riches. No other person in the world could give them the return that he promised so, instead of asking questions, they simply threw thousands of pounds at him. He gave them back some money every month as “interest” to encourage them to invest more and then disappeared with their millions. This week he started a prison term. Serves him, and the investors, right.
Greed isn’t good so, I guess I’m asking the Chancellor to be wise in his budget this week and make us believe we don’t need to be sneakier than a career conman to pay what’s fair. Make it worthwhile for us to work. Get the charlatans at Barclays, Goldman Sachs and other banks to donate several million of their own ill gotten gains to worthwhile projects. Stop making us pay tax on savings. We’ve already been taxed on the money as we earned it. And stop taxing older people on their pensions.
Let me bring it back to earth. If all else fails as you prepare you budget this year Mr Osborne, just keep it simple. No tax on chocolate, and give generous tax breaks to anyone with the initials PC.
I could live with that.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Who's Foolin' Who?
Just a few weeks to go before April Fool’s Day, that time of year when I kind of get away with my visceral stupidity by claiming “I was only joking”. It’s the only day of the year when I don’t look a complete idiot, just a work in progress.
So, have you planned ahead? Got some innovative ideas that will have them falling about with laughter and hiding with embarrassment, or are you going to fall back on the old faithfulls like cling film over the toilet bowl and washing up liquid in the cistern?
Toilets do seem a ripe area for April Fools. While my academic record at University may make my genius less like Michaelangelo and more like Michael Angelis, the voice of Thomas The Tank Engine, I will always be proud of the day I visited an old school pal’s student flat for the first time. I left a twelve inch length of dental floss floating inside his toilet bowl and showed him that he had left a huge tapeworm behind. My cries of April Fool didn’t help in any way, perhaps, on reflection, because it was, and I imagine he’s probably still in therapy. Once you plant an image like that, it stays for life.
I think I’m already ahead of the game this year. I have ordered a box containing a new capsule that has just been launched, and I may end up buying crate loads. It’s called Puck - probably because the reaction you will get may sound a lot like that – and the idea is that you go to someone’s house and ask to use the loo. Once there, slip a capsule in to the cistern and then say nothing. For about a week afterwards, no matter how often they flush, the water will remain the shade of yellow that artists may call ‘lemorange chiffon’ but you and I will know better as ‘three day old wee’.
The best practical jokes take a bit of setting up. Chocolate covered apples with sticks in make lovely treats. Chocolate covered onions, however, look exactly the same and are the present that keeps on giving – every time the recipient gets wind for hours afterwards.
Some April Fool jokes can be cruel. One couple I know were expecting their first baby and had already decorated the nursery and installed a cot. They hired a babysitter and went out for the night, telling her not to disturb their nonexistent child as she had just fallen asleep. After an hour in their favourite restaurant they rang home and asked the sitter to check how the baby was doing. I’m told the hysterical report back that the baby was missing had them in stitches. Me? I thought it was mean.
I also didn’t much appreciate the thinking behind last year’s call to our local large grocery superstore on April 1st when some idiot had obviously ‘phoned in and asked for a call to be put out for his friend. Over the PA system a woman steadily announced “Would Al Kyder please go to customer information. That’s Al Kyder to the front desk please.” You don’t have to be a terrorism specialist to find that a bit stupid. Clever, but stupid just the same.
These April Fool tricks are usually great when done to someone else but, for some reason, I don’t find them hilarious when aimed at me. I still harbour a grudge against the school pal who put those sticky plant seeds in my gym kit many years ago, making me itch for days. I’m not happy either with another pal at my gym who swapped my deodorant for Ralgex heat spray, nor my old school pal Robin who stayed with me just before I got married and hard boiled all the fresh eggs in my fridge one day when I was out, before putting them back in their box.
So, let’s get our thinking caps on this year and come up with something new and different. If you have any ideas please let me know. A lot rests on this, remember. It’s my day to shine and make people forget I’m just a sad idiot every other day of the year.
So, have you planned ahead? Got some innovative ideas that will have them falling about with laughter and hiding with embarrassment, or are you going to fall back on the old faithfulls like cling film over the toilet bowl and washing up liquid in the cistern?
Toilets do seem a ripe area for April Fools. While my academic record at University may make my genius less like Michaelangelo and more like Michael Angelis, the voice of Thomas The Tank Engine, I will always be proud of the day I visited an old school pal’s student flat for the first time. I left a twelve inch length of dental floss floating inside his toilet bowl and showed him that he had left a huge tapeworm behind. My cries of April Fool didn’t help in any way, perhaps, on reflection, because it was, and I imagine he’s probably still in therapy. Once you plant an image like that, it stays for life.
I think I’m already ahead of the game this year. I have ordered a box containing a new capsule that has just been launched, and I may end up buying crate loads. It’s called Puck - probably because the reaction you will get may sound a lot like that – and the idea is that you go to someone’s house and ask to use the loo. Once there, slip a capsule in to the cistern and then say nothing. For about a week afterwards, no matter how often they flush, the water will remain the shade of yellow that artists may call ‘lemorange chiffon’ but you and I will know better as ‘three day old wee’.
The best practical jokes take a bit of setting up. Chocolate covered apples with sticks in make lovely treats. Chocolate covered onions, however, look exactly the same and are the present that keeps on giving – every time the recipient gets wind for hours afterwards.
Some April Fool jokes can be cruel. One couple I know were expecting their first baby and had already decorated the nursery and installed a cot. They hired a babysitter and went out for the night, telling her not to disturb their nonexistent child as she had just fallen asleep. After an hour in their favourite restaurant they rang home and asked the sitter to check how the baby was doing. I’m told the hysterical report back that the baby was missing had them in stitches. Me? I thought it was mean.
I also didn’t much appreciate the thinking behind last year’s call to our local large grocery superstore on April 1st when some idiot had obviously ‘phoned in and asked for a call to be put out for his friend. Over the PA system a woman steadily announced “Would Al Kyder please go to customer information. That’s Al Kyder to the front desk please.” You don’t have to be a terrorism specialist to find that a bit stupid. Clever, but stupid just the same.
These April Fool tricks are usually great when done to someone else but, for some reason, I don’t find them hilarious when aimed at me. I still harbour a grudge against the school pal who put those sticky plant seeds in my gym kit many years ago, making me itch for days. I’m not happy either with another pal at my gym who swapped my deodorant for Ralgex heat spray, nor my old school pal Robin who stayed with me just before I got married and hard boiled all the fresh eggs in my fridge one day when I was out, before putting them back in their box.
So, let’s get our thinking caps on this year and come up with something new and different. If you have any ideas please let me know. A lot rests on this, remember. It’s my day to shine and make people forget I’m just a sad idiot every other day of the year.
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