A Hairless Homo

Why do people publish other people’s quotations on Facebook?

Do they think that by quoting, say Winston Churchill, in a virtual-public forum they will be viewed in a similar light?

And how does one react to such a post?

Do you solemnly nod your head at the screen and agree or say thank you for reminding you that life is good, or that being an optimist is best or whatever the fuck they are saying.

Liking it seems a little, well too little.

To find out I will start to run a test and start quoting scripture on FB - one a day to gauge the responses I receive.

Or, as an alternative and a more fun way to understand how one should react is to imagine the person posting it standing up in a bar and saying it out loud.

I think it should be pretty evident then what the appropriate response should be. Unfortunately Facebook, at least to my knowledge, doesn’t have a “you’re a twat” button yet.

I have been reading Men’s Health magazine and am now ready to start ripping my abs, maxing my presses, minimizing my fat and burning my thingies.

When I was a child I would watch movies and be inspired to be like the protagonist: Rocky – take up boxing, Karate Kid – Karate, Midnight Cowboy – well you get the idea.

I guess this is the hormone this type of magazine in hoping to capitalise on.

Unfortunately when I read Men’s Health magazine I don’t think I want to be like the models flexing their shiny abs in between the advertisements.

These guys are all clearly madly in love with themselves and most probably not interested in the things I am, like for example, girls.

Secondly as a child I would quickly discover that boxing hurt (a lot), Karate took dedication and years of practice. Very quickly my enthusiasm would dissapear and I would go back to my computer game, smoking or hanging around the chip shop.

The same is true for the magazine. Perfect abs in 5mins, 0% fat in an hour, 50inch biceps in the blink of an eye.

It’s a lie of course, a trick to make you purchase the glossy book. To look like those guys you need to commit a few hours a day, every day, eat only very low fat stuff and avoid drinking beer. I, Like most guys I know, work, have family commitments, eat chips and meat and am very partial to the odd glass of beer.

Having only skim read the magazine, the message I take from it as follows:

Eat broccoli, fish and nuts, don’t drink beer ever - instead replace with tasty water.

Give up work, sitting down, coffee and TV.

Work out 2hours every day and take up kite surfing and in-line skating.

Wear lycra shorts.

If you follow these easy steps for 5 years you too can end up looking like a shiny, hairless homosexual.

Feeling inspired?

Definition of a photographic memory? One which needs developing.

The Muppet Show DVD, special guest Leo Sayer, midnight - does the above start to make sense?

We are all going outside.
Al-fresco?
He is coming too.
Groan.

Jet lag is easy when you have to stay awake when you are tired. Jet lag when you have to go to sleep when you are not tired is somewhat trickier but certainly manageable. Trying to explain this to an 11month old is even more difficult.

Hence the muppets, midnight, bad jokes and another blog entry.

We have now had one week of our son living on EST whilst we, and importantly, our work schedule is firmly planted in old world CET.

I pray that soon he will decide sleep is important. I am hoping that the quality of the Muppet jokes will speed this process up but until then my shiny body is on hold and if you decide to throw a quote my way please don’t take offence if I quietly and without warning punch you.

Very Random

It might not be politically correct (certainly not if we are to start taking "thinking" advice from the Prime Minister) and I am certain the family of Chris Brown would disagree but I have to admit to a small measure of sympathy for Raoul Moat.

I recognise this is probably counter to all the facts published and yes it’s hard to articulate why as he clearly is responsible for one cold blooded murder and two attempted ones. I do feel though here is a man who should not have ended up lying in a ditch with a shotgun to his forehead. It’s the same feeling I had when George put a bullet in Lennie`s skull - it could have been avoided.

I know the similarity between Lennie and Raoul ends with their size however in this instance I do feel that there could have been another solution. I have to add at this time I have a very distant perspective, do not know the man in question other than reading the BBC & other news channels and I am sure the police did what they could at the time.

When I watched the news last Saturday morning though I felt sad, not happy that the steroid fuelled nutter has been stopped in such a violent way. A somewhat different feeling to the one I had when I read about Harold Shipman`s suicide shall I say.

Anyhow the police have got their man and I am sure the streets are a little safer on account of this.

Not that the same can be said of a football pitch on which the Dutch team are playing - like the segue-way?

Yes, the World Cup is over for another 4 years and I have to admit being a little disappointed by the whole thing.

As with most things in life the anticipation is better than the actual event and this was no exception. The star players decided not to play and of course the much hyped England team seriously under performed. The stand out moments for me were limited but I have to admit to jumping up and shouting out when Iniesta finally stopped the Dutch from taking the final to penalties.

The best team won the tournament but judging from the tournament this does not say a great deal. Roll on Brazil.

The most pleasant thing I read this week is the story of a radio presenter who was fired for calling a local councillor a “Health Nazi”. Its not the story which interested me but its reference to a theoretical law called “Godwins Law”.

This is a theory developed in the 1990s by Mike Godwin a US Lawyer after observing chat room participants over a period of time. The rule states that, over time, all debates will end up with one participant comparing another to Adolf Hitler, or the Nazis.

Whether it’s actually proven or not I don’t know but what I like about it is it essentially articulates the point in an argument when one person simply shrugs their shoulders and tells the other to “fuck off”.

I will remember this theory so the next time I am in a pub and a drunken Neanderthal calls me a Nazi, Hitler or simply tells me to “fuck off” I can quite justifiably quote Mr. Godwin and point out, to my soon to be assailant, how I have won the moral high ground.

Ha-ha, let’s see who’s laughing then.

Cannon Balls

What do you get if you cross a volcano next to Naples and the female genitalia? A Vuvuzela.

Yes the World Cup has kicked off and given the aforementioned plastic horn is its biggest talking point thus far, it is certainly not with the bang the organizers would have hoped for.

I will apologise for the opening attempt at a joke here however I do feel, given my previous entries, that there definitely should be a world naming committee to police these things before things get out of hand. Preferably with me as its chairman.

Perhaps then we would have some more logical, sensible or pronounceable names.

A Volconoligist would become a Volcan, Hàüfjdoqirqwnvcöcnziupaä$ä would become Iceland Volcano and a Vuvuzela : Aaaarghpleasestop!

So far on day 5 with 11 games played we are enjoying the lowest goal per game average of any world cup since 1624. Back then the ball used was a cannon ball and players had wooden boots so I can understand a medieval player`s reluctance to have a go from 40yds.

Today with the exception of North Korea, who still play with wooden boots, the modern player has the most technological kit available and a ball which is simply a composite of cotton wool and helium.

The Jabulani is the official match ball for the World Cup and as normal everyone is complaining about it. It swerves too much, its too round, I cant pronounce its name, it will be very difficult for goal keepers to save, I cant kick it etc etc. Apparently the only world cup where the ball was just right was way back in 1966.

Every world cup the pattern is the same - the ball is unplayable, England will win, I learn some new words and a clever brewery from the Netherlands get some free publicity for persuading people to wear their sponsored clothing for free.

The official world cup beer is Budweiser and they seem to take umbridge at such attempts to hijack their monopoly on the Soccer. Unfortunately Budweiser, soccer, or as 99.999% of the watching public call it, football, is a game of people who can and will wear whatever the hell they like.

I am wondering what Nike will say when 30,000 fans turn up wearing Adidas or god forbid Pepsi is consumed anywhere in South Africa in the next 4 weeks. I just saw that Tesco`s are the official supermarket of the England football team - surely tie-ins don't come more tenuous than this.

Anyhow, here's hoping the goal average rises, North Korea qualify for the next round to draw the USA, someone points out the Vuvuzela is not BPA free and En-ga-land win.

Yes that's right, win. This is the only way the rest of the world will stop having to put up with stories, documentaries, replica tops and songs about something which happened 4 years before I was born.

Wayne Rooney getting knighted would also make me snigger a bit.

Tin Sheds

BBC News Today.
An object which hit Jupiter last year with the force of a few thousand nuclear bombs leaving a scar the size of the Pacific Ocean is being studied by astronomers as it could give clues about what might happen if a similar object was to hit Earth.

Augustin Sanchez-Lavega from the University of the Basque Country stated “It would be catastrophic”

Of course it will be fucking catastrophic, a thousand nuclear bombs? Scar the size of the Pacific, a third of the earth’s surface area? Come on Augustin.

What else does it tell us? Well nothing actually - Jupiter is 11 times larger than Earth and, wait for it, made up entirely out of gas!

Also on the news this week is the interesting experiment starting in Moscow, one which is hoped will replicate the conditions encountered by a manned trip to Mars. 5 volunteers have agreed to be locked up for 18months in some steel canisters so the psychological and physical implications/limitations can be studied.

Another waste of the license payer’s pixels. This is nothing more than a Sci-fi version of I’m a celebrity get me out of here. I expect during their time inside they will be given tasks such as eating dried baby food and having to wrestle a man dressed as a Cyborg.

Isn’t the real difficulty in a Mars trip, excluding the technical difficulties like inventing a ship which can get there and back, the fact that rescue is clearly not an option.

My suggestion, stick the whole contraption at the bottom of the Mid-Atlantic trench and you then might just have a worthy experiment.

Why would we want to go to Mars anyway? Personally I would find the whole thing extremely exciting – watching the moon landing still fills me with awe but I struggle to come up with a good reason other than cos. Finding evidence that there once was water on the surface isn’t a good enough reason, theres nothing there to rape and pillage and I think it might be some time before real estate prices start to rise in Ophir Chasma.

Captain Cook as we all know discovered Australia and claimed it for the British – a very worthy endeavor if you excuse the pun. However this was not the purpose of his voyage. No one sat down with James Cook and said “heres a boat n stuff, go off and find somewhere hot for us to send our criminals”. No, he was originally tasked with recording the transit of Venus across the sun.

Royal Society: James sit down would you, tea?
Captain Cook: No thanks.
Royal Society: James we want to ask you if you fancy going on a trip somewhere? We will provide you with a big boat and some men.
Captain Cook: Sure, what do you want me to do – expand the Empire? Kill some brown people? Pick a fight with Asia?
Royal Society: Actually, no. We want you to record the transit of Venus across the sun.
Captain Cook: You want what?
Royal Society: Venus, sun, transit.
Captain Cook: Do I get paid?

Remember the only form of recording instrument was painting back then so he probably got his mate to knock up some pictures of planets and stuff then sailed South to find somewhere hot where the women wore very little and in the process discovered Australia.

If the British Royal Society back then were willing to invest in an expedition to draw some pictures of planets then a Mars expedition isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. It will take superhuman political will, some very serious technological advances and a few very brave people. What it will not require is some men sitting in tin sheds in Moscow bickering with each other and I sincerely doubt very much we will find a martian Botany Bay up there.

Will we ever go to Mars? Probably.
Why? To paraphrase my mother “because I said so”

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head

I can’t finish this dad – he says thrusting a half eaten pie towards my face. The crust has been nibbled with perfect symmetry and its watery filling virtually gone, congealed fat lines the pastry. The excitement, the wall of noise, the music, the pageantry, the anticipation of a major upset has disappeared. A very large and excitable beach ball with a slow puncture has just had knife thrust into its heart and it lies deflated and quiet.

3-0, 15 min to go.

He sits there quiet and distracted, less interested in the happenings on the pitch. A balloon floats down from the upper tier and he follows its slow progress down to the touchline, 2 goals could be scored to setup a frenzied final few minutes and he wouldn't notice. I watch his gaze moving around, anywhere but the pitch. The fans across the stadium make conversation difficult and I find myself thinking if we leave now we can beat the queue for the train.

A normal day in the life of an underdog supporter.

The pattern never changes, always the same, the build up to the game, the excitement, the conversations, hushed at first – don't tempt fate. Later, after a few pints, the conversation is much more confident – we can do this, on a good day we are a match for anyone, their star player is injured. Enter the stadium, well oiled, 50,000 fans singing, the music, the perfect green, the lights, it's a heady cocktail and you join in, singing yourself quickly hoarse.

To suitably stirring music the teams stride onto the pitch and the noise goes up a few notches, handshakes all around and the children leave the pitch. Its quiet for a few seconds as the referee checks the nets and then kick off.

From that moment on we have reached the zenith and its downhill all the way. Sometimes they manage to hold their own for a time delaying the inevitable, the shouting, the foul language continues. The referee, the opposition player, the opposing fans, the linesman, anyone for that matter save the 11 players, are all wankers. It's a conspiracy against the underdog threatening to upset the normal order of things.

Pretty soon though the first goal goes in and the shouting for a while increases – don't drop your heads - but inevitably it dies down. The pints are wearing off, a foul taste is present in your mouth and thoughts start turning back to the real world, the one you put on ice a few hours and pints ago.

Come on son, let’s get off eh? Get the train before the rest – we might make it home for Dr Who if were lucky. He takes little persuasion and very soon we are trudging up towards Mount Florida kicking the multi-coloured flotsam and jetsum filling the streets. The noise behind you is muffled but you still keep one ear open for a telling roar - it doesn't come.

A Jurassic sized police horse takes his attention and the game is a distant memory, easily forgotten, one to be replaced with all the future upsets he will definitely witness. Tomorrows headlines will be the usual regurgitated shite - brave hearts and worthy contenders.

Am hungry dad, can we get something to eat - he looks expectantly up at me, face blushed from the cold.

Life is tough, life isn’t fair.

If it was I would have stayed to 90mins and celebrated long into the night. I look forward to the day a man with sunglasses stuck to his nose offers me a blue or green pill. I will take the suspend reality pill, I don't want to know that the world is a barren nuclear wasteland with machines milking us for energy. No, I want to stand and cheer as yet another famous upset unfolds on the pitch in front of me. I will take a cheating, diving, sneaky, underhand, Uruguayan-esq win over a brave valiant loss any day. I don't even care if it’s a computer generated one, implanted in my brain to keep me a docile energy source.

I smile looking down at his expectant face, crisps, juice, chocolate are running though his childish mind. I ruffle his hair and produce the cold, half eaten pie from my pocket – here you go.

It's a hard lesson but one which he needs to learn and I run after him wailing his way onto the dirty orange train.

Jklljaayavik

You learn something new everyday.

It is 10am in the morning and already I have learned loads. The WIFI on ICE602 Basel – Dortmund high speed train is not switched on, the Kasabian album I purposely loaded onto my i-pod for the trip doesn't work and that Scipio and Hannibal actually met each other and had a discussion before they readied their respective armies for battle, just before the fall of Carthage.
Random knowledge and, unless you are reading this before getting on the 602 from Basel expecting to do some work or quietly going about your business in Carthage in 146BC, is most probably useless knowledge.

In 2006 during the World Cup I learned that someone from the Ivory Coast is called Ivorian and last Thursday I learned that people who study volcanoes are called Volcanologist. The first time I heard this on the news I looked up expecting to see a man with a bird of prey on his arm. Of course the Icelandic volcano debris which has caused so much chaos over Europe is the reason these people are having their day in the sun. Unfortunately Vulcanology I would imagine is a very particular career. Not one I would assume young/cool people aspire to and that is the reason we have been subjected to the disturbing images of beardy men & women on prime time news talking to us in squeaky voices about the infinately unpronouncable Eyjafjallajoekull glacier in Iceland.

How the hell did a glacier end up with a name like that by the way? Is there any sort of sane naming convention up there? My bet is there is none and no-one actually named this Glacier. Someone rested his/her arm on the keyboard and the output somehow made it onto the Glacier Naming Form (GNF) in the same screwed up way an out of office in Welsh made it onto a road sign. Another theory could be that it didnt have a name until it started erupting last week and then the Icelanders, still pissed from the banking meltdown last year, decided to make life very, very, difficult for our news reporters.

No problem for our beardy types though. I reckon somewhere in the world there is a good looking, Geoff Goldblum type. In his slightly eccentric way he has been running around for the past month trying to warn the great & the good about this eruption. He tried time and again to warn the world’s leaders about the impending doom but they were too busy with minor political matters to listen. Only now they are turning to him for advice but it is too late, he is too busy dodging lava flows with his cutesy children in Iceland and doing live reports exclusively for Fox News.

This is why we are left with Mr Turbot, leading Volcanologist from Hull Polytechnic to grace our SKY, BBC and ITV screens. He is a busy man, even the birds who were nesting on his face have migrated to a nearby Tsunami expert in the hope of some peace and quiet

Imagine a world where only birds were the masters of the sky.
A world where we take our time to get from A-B. A trip from Southern Europe to, say, the UK would take a day or two. A visit to the USA would be a week and Australasia would be a couple of weeks. The food on our plate would be locally grown and sourced. The great shipyards of the world would once again churn out floating leviathans and all our electronics would be manufactured from either the country it is sold in or very nearby. Most evenings would be spent with the family around the dinner table telling stories. Family values would return and crime would decrease. The art of reading would once again become important, the ozone would be intact and white rhinos would once again be safe to gore things at will.
The skies would be peaceful, birds would sing and bees would buzz and the pace of life would slow down.

There are at least a couple of problems with this Utopia:

1. I just made it up

2. Have you ever used a TV made in the UK? If you have you will be like me and want your i-pods designed in California and made in China and want to eat fresh lettuce/papaya/something exotic in January.

So Mr Turbot, you have had your 15mins of fame and a very interesting “what if” exercise it has been too. Yes we now realize how powerful nature is and how easily it can bring us into check. Now that that has been agreed can you please pop up to Iceland, earn your money and do whatever it is you do to shut the fucking thing up.

Whilst you are at it please set the timer for 200years until the next occurrence please. This should give us enough time to invent an instant transportation machine and allow us to blow raspberries in Mother Nature’s direction again next time she decides to have a go.

Thank you.

Thieving Gypsy Bastards

Cocktails by the jug - a very British thing.

I have never seen Margaritas, Mojitos or Pina Coladas served in the 2 ltr measures anywhere else. Now I am sure the UK doesn't have a monopoly on such things but whenever I see them, I think of Britain.

Other than the obvious things like Pounds Stirling, shitty weather and the Queen there are a lot of other little things which remind me of home. My version of the UK is not a London, Eastenders version of Britain, it’s now not even a North of Scotland version, it's the Southern Scotland version and, given this is a personal thing, presumably mine and mine only.

My version has wrinkly old people, in walking gear fit for an Arctic expedition doddering through the park in search of a nice scone and a flavoured tea.

My version has the family Neanderthal dragging their knuckles as they sport the latest fashion direct from Ibrox. Father Neanderthal doesn't see the irony in having the word Carling stretched thin over his jellied torso. The kids, always boys, are shaven headed monsters and mum brings up the rear, perma-fag stuck to her lightly bearded lip.

My UK is outdoor heaters, fag butt piles, Bank of Scotland cash points (not ATMs), tracksuits everywhere, all day breakfasts, white trainers, sports bars done badly, stripy pole barber shops, great music, history, three cheese sandwiches and Regal King Size.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending 3 hours at Prestwick airport.

The low price gateway to Scotland and reciprocally the world, or at least an airport about 2 hours bus ride from the world. As I waited for check in to open I enjoyed a drink in the Yates bar and was pleasantly surprised to find all aspects of my version of Britain present. Cocktails were consumed by the jug, family Neanderthal ran riot next to the plasma screen, lager and sugar loaded drinks fuelling their anarchy.

The poor old couple were there, drinking tea and trying very hard to ignore the hen party going full throttle next to them but the Pièce de résistance was the outdoor smoking area - at an Airport.

You can tell you are at a low cost airline hub as you have to pay through the nose for everything and the sight of people emptying their suitcases to reduce the weight at check in is common place.

All airlines have weight and hand luggage policies but only Ryanair police it with vigour of an Israeli counter terrorist cell - they even have weighing scales as you board the plane for your hand luggage.

On board and on our way the warm experience continues. Being happy is optional for Ryanair staff and judging from my experience all had decided to opt out. They remind me of gypsies at a travelling fair - pissed off and looking for every opportunity to squeeze, steal or rip money off you. I sat rigid, in my wipe-clean plastic seat, with my hand firmly gripping my wallet for the duration.

We arrived on time, a fact which was proudly and very loudly announced throughout the cabin.

It was very, very, cheap, safe, on time and did exactly as advertised. They don't claim anywhere to offer an enjoyable flight so it really is my own fault for being disappointed when I didn't receive one.

I truly hope when people visit Scotland and decide to use Ryanair as their method of getting there they don't think that the airline or airport is representative of the country.

My advice – get as far away from the airport as possible, find a bar, drink 2 liters worth of Margaritas, smoke a fist full of Regal King Size and eat a three cheese sandwich.

Trust me if you do, Ryanair will fade away and Scotland will morph into the wonderful destination that it really is.