31 Oct 08 This BBC Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand thing is making me cross
The BBC did not employ Ross or Brand because of their ability to stick within socially acceptable boundaries, in fact they employed them partially because of their inability to do so. The BBC gave these two airtime, knowing that it is likely to offend certain types of people, mainly the self appointed holier than thou – the modern day Mary Whitehouses.
That is the joke: the naughtiness; the irreverence; the unashamed offensive bluntness of it all. Brand has made the same claims before about Rod Stewart’s daughter – where was the furore then. Every week on BBC1 Ross insults, offends and effs and blinds his way through a TV show and the BBC condones that.
But it doesn’t matter, because the BBC protects us. The show is not live and there are mechanisms in place to cut it if it gets too close to the bone. The problem is not what was said, but that it was not cut by the BBC.
Besides, the claim they made was apparently true – no one is talking of libel here. You might as well have a news headline that reads “Russell Brand Has Consensual Sex with a Young Actress” – it’s not even newsworthy until he says it himself.
This is an exercise in blaming leopards for having spots. The BBC employed these people to do just what they have done. Modify, advise and slap their wrists if necessary, but this sort of extreme discipline for doing what they have been employed to do, simply because it inevitably offends people, is shameful.
The BBC has a rich heritage which has given us the genius of Hancock, Milligan, Python and others. Each in their time offended and shocked and each are considered, years later to be comedic genii. The BBC might just have trashed so much of what it has been great at delivering over the years.
29 Oct 08 Guaranteed cure for Man-Flu
Ironically, only women are able to make a genuine diagnosis of man-flu. It is ironic because women cannot get man-flu but only they can spot it.They also have no idea how bad it is and that it is potentially life-threatening, always incapacitating and very painful, which is probably why they find it hard to show much sympathy for the man-flu sufferer.
This lack of clear understanding makes it important, once the diagnosis has been made, to take it upon yourself to do something about it.
Do not hesitate, act quickly and take your condition very seriously. Above all, you must believe your wife’s diagnosis and take her exactly at her word.
- Go to your bed immediately.
- Do not go to work, stay in bed doing nothing more strenuous than reading or watching TV.
- You are, at this stage, in peril of letting your health deteriorate to dangerous levels. Now, more than ever, all that stuff at your wedding about “…in sickness and in health” actually amounts to a binding contract. Remind your wife of this, and you should take the opportunity to outline some of her specific contractual responsibilities:
- You should not, under any circumstances, undertake any domestic or child-care duties, your wife can do those for you.
- Under no conditions can you prepare food or refreshments for yourself, your wife must do that for you.
- Your wife will need to plump your pillows each hour to stop further discomfort.
- You must not get cold so your wife will need to serve hot whiskey toddies regularly to your bedside.
- She should leave the bottle with you because keeping up your liquid intake is important.
- It is absolutely vital to boost your morale at this difficult time. It is therefore fortunate that blow jobs are not further detrimental to the health of the man-flu sufferer. Impress upon your wife how essential this is, she will need to understand that you require several of these a day.
29 Oct 08 How to beat the credit crunch
“Young Roger moved to Hanley Swan and during a few drinks down at The Swan one Thursday night ended up handing over £100 to a local farmer for a donkey. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer phoned and said, ‘Sorry Rog, but I have some bad news, the donkey’s dead, it got hit by a convoy of Audis driving through the village.’
Rog replied, ‘Well, then just give me my money back.’
The farmer said, ‘Can’t do that. I spanked it all acquiring a leisure boat business in Upton Marina.’
Roger said, ‘Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.’
The farmer asked, ‘Where are you going to keep it?’
Roger said ‘I know a bloke with a camper van, I’ll stick it in there’
The farmer asked, ‘But it can’t stay there forever. What are you going to do with him?’
Roger said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’
The farmer said, ‘Raffle off a dead donkey?!’
Roger said, ‘Yeah. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’
A month later, the farmer met up with Roger and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’
Roger said, ‘I went down to the school and got the teacher to get all the kids to sell raffle tickets to win their own donkey. I sold 500 tickets at two quid a piece and made £997.’
The farmer said, ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’
Roger said, ‘Just the guy who won, some bloke who works at Waitrose. I just gave him his two quid back and an extra quid to keep him happy.’ “
28 Oct 08 Quote of the Week
Courtesy of my Brother -in-Law, Duncan Bendall….
‘I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.’
Thomas Jefferson 1802
27 Oct 08 Reaching out to Earthlings
Hello… crackle…come in… is anyone there…. calling Earth…
I am Dave from a plant called Realitus. We are our own planet very much at the centre of our own universe. You my friends, are just a distant dot in the night sky. You may have burnt out long ago – frankly we don’t care.
On Realitus we are a race of communicators (web, WordPress, Print design and so on). The most sacred thing on our planet, the Holy Grail of communication, is knowing what to say to people at just the right time and in just the right way to be genuinely helpful to them.
To this end, three of our commandments are as follows:
- If you are the answer, what is my problem?
- You’re obviously in it to make money. What’s in it for me?
- You can say one thing well, two things half as well and three things badly. This self-penned mantra has served us well over the years.
In short, you need to show that you understand my situation and problems; demonstrate that you can supply something of value to me; do it concisely and with impact.
We do a lot of business with the people of Earth. They are very egocentric. The first line of their constitution is
“Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?”.
They are also constantly short of time and culturally they are all selling something and buying nothing. It is interesting that 71% of businesses on Earth fail within a decade of starting up. Our hypothesis is that they are so obsessed with trying sell their own ideas, that they don’t take the time to learn what people want to buy.
So what is the point of all this. Can all these bloody self-appointed coaches, experts and others stop sending me emails that tell me how bloody great they are. Instead could we have emails from people who can understand that we need money, customers, sales and aspirins and we need them right now. Could those people tell us where we find these things and explain how we do it and show why we can afford to pay them and where the return on that investment will be. And for the love of JC, can they do it in less than 5000 words of self-aggrandising bollocks.
Thank you. As the song goes, “Back to Life, back to Realitus”
17 Oct 08 Thursday night ramblings
Sex in public in Dubai = 3 months. Friend Richard Turner claims that he committed the same misdemenor in the UK and it resulted in nearly 20 yrs of ‘imprisonment’ to his dearly beloved jailer Tracey
The Horse-Has-Bolted web store continues to attract ideas for new products ahead of its grand launch, due some time soon, not sure when – but definitely on a Thursday. An Icesave customer account book is the latest star product currently under review by HHB’s team of highly corruptable purchasing professionals.
10 Oct 08 Going to Hell in a Ferrari with a bonus stuffed in it’s pocket.
In the beginning there was the word and the word was 120% mortgages for people who can’t afford to repay them.
And the bank saw that it was good because they could charge high interest rates. And other banks saw that it was good and they all traded with each other to get a bit of the high interest action.
Then the banks said unto the mortgage holders you may pay off the interest, but must not pay off the forbidden capital. They said this to people like Adam and Eve, who had a 120% mortgage on a semi-detached which they named Eden. The mortgage was at a high rate because Adam was self employed and Eve had a bit of a credit card problem.
And lo, on the seventh day which came several times every day, the banks paid themselves massive bonuses and drove Ferrari cars to Heaven and other night clubs.
Then one day, having been to the estate agents to think about moving, Adam and Eve were walking in the garden of Eden and thought “our house is worth less than we paid for it”.
“Have an apple”, said Eve to Adam, because it helps to stretch the metaphor further. And he ate of the fruit while he thought about his company which had gone out of business.
They could not pay their mortgage. The banks cast them out from Eden, leaving them only with fig leaves to dress themselves in. The banks repossessed the house but could not sell it for anywhere near enough to cover the outstanding loan. Then the banks found out that this was happening all over the world and what used to pass as a financial system was now going to hell in a Ferrari with a bonus stuffed in its pocket.
And thereafter the people wandered, miserable and broke, while the bankers that emptied Eden don’t have mortgages themselves; they live in comparative paradise with their bonuses having paid off their own, subsidised home loans.
Tags: bank, bonus, capital, credit, hell, home, house, interest, interest rate, loan, mortgage, system
