Grumpy Old Sod's Law

While I'm Away

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:00:00 +0100

On hols now for two weeks of sunshine, sea and windsurfing.

While I'm gone, try not to let the Russians annexe Georgia (they do have the same flag and patron saint as us), and will someone please, please, please rid of us Gordoom Brownfinger and his jockuza.

You're Not Singing Anymore...

The Grumpy Old Sod — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:20:22 +0100

Gary Glitter has arrived at Heathrow. Bet he won't be singing "Hello! Hello! It's Good To Be Back" this morning.

"24 Channels of Shit on the TV to Choose From"

The Grumpy Old Sod — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:18:58 +0100

At least that's the line from Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb".

And to add to the ever increasing number of channels of shit on cable and satellite, Gordoom Brownfinger might just be launching his own TV channel - perhaps he was channel surfing and noticed one called "Dave" and decided to have one of his own. Downing Street have denied it but you have to wonder....

----------
Imagine the scene: <Geordie voiceover>

"It's the day before the Labour Party Conference. Gordon and Toilets Maguire are going over Gordon's conference speech. Gordon receives a visitor"

Enter civil servant carrying silver tray with letter from David Miliband, loaded revolver and glass of Macallans.

Exeunt civil servant ducking to avoid the Nokia unguided missile.

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

If No10TV is launched you can almost guarantee it would be the least watched channel in the entire history of television.

Understand This Gordon!

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:34:10 +0100

In an increasingly desperate attempt to cling onto office, Gollum Brownfinger is taking his mates out for a day in the Black Country.

Ministers will also be taking part in a range of other events in the region on the day to give them an opportunity to "engage" with the public.

The spokesman said the move was part of the government's commitment to "listen and learn" from people's experiences.

Let's hope that by the end of the "away day" they will understand both parts of FUCK and OFF!

Who Ate All the Pies, You Fat Bastard?

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:26:36 +0100

In the government's latest interference scheme, parents are to be sent letters by the local Primary Care Trust if their kids tip the scales in excess of some arbitrary weight limit. Instead of the "O" word, or just telling the parents that their offspring is just a fat little git who should spend more time outside in the garden rather than glued to the Xbox or Playstation, parents will be advised to do a stock check on the pie cupboard.

Miliband = Blair's Minime

The Grumpy Old Sod — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:24:20 +0100

Has anyone noticed that in the numerous interviews and press briefings how much David Miliband sounds like Tony Blair right down to the glottal stops and inflections and annoying mid-sentence pauses. Henceforth he shall be known as Miniblair.

After floating his fluff piece in the Grauniad a couple of days ago, a cabinet reshuffle is looking ever more likely. Last evening, the Times posted an article [Headline: David Miliband quits foreign trip to spark new rumours of challenge to Brown] reporting that Miniblair had cancelled a planned trip to India and had gone round the office shaking hands doing the "nice working with you" bit round the Foreign Office, whilst the civil servants were no doubt just glad to see the back of him. Within a couple of hours the article had been withdrawn.

Gollum Brownfinger, it appears has gone postal - rumours of an aide getting in the way of a flying stapler - and is now going to reshuffle the cabinet as early as next week. That'll learn the bastards - replacing one useless set of incompetents with another set of useless incompetents. The Times article that disappeared was replaced with another saying that Brownfinger had ordered Miniblair to cancel the trip as the government is going to have a couple of cabinet meetings and an away day.

A couple of questions then:

1. What sort of control freak takes "aides" with him on holiday?
2. Miniblair is heading for a holiday in Menorca, will he be attending the cabinet meeting or has he been given the "sack"?

Like I say, it's worth watching just for the schadenfreude value.

I imagine the the cabinet will have a sudden loss of courage during the "away day" and won't have the collective balls to tell Gollum the jig is up. And so it will go on and on. The Labour Party conference with be a corporate rah-rah session with sycophants praising the Great Leader's one-eyed vision to the rafters and how lucky we are that Gollum is at the helm.

There is another scenario. Given Gollum's propensity for chucking a tantrum, Harriet has a word with Sarah about the "torment and suffering" she has to endure being married to Gordon. Sarah kills Gollum and gets off scot free because of Mad Hattie's legislation to protect the sistahs. Mad Hattie takes over a Labour leader. Male MPs leave the party in droves, except the Miniblairs who both look like they are partial to a bit of botty smacking, and Labour implodes never to be seen again.

If Miliband is the Answer....

The Grumpy Old Sod — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:21:51 +0100

...the question must have been: "Who could possibly be a bigger cunt than Blair or Brown?"

As blogged here before, my distaste for the Labour Party and its erstwhile leaders is well known. Blair, the faux sincere, shirt-sleeved TV evangelist was just unctious. Brown is deceitful, scheming, sly and quite obviously in a position so far above his level of incompetence it is embarrassing to watch. But worth it just for the schadenfreude value.

Until today. When David Miliband launched his own bid to take wrest the violin from Nero Brown.

Not normally a Guardian reader, I did venture over to CIF to see what the school prefect may have to offer:

The article is entitled:

Against all odds we can still win, on a platform for change

(Over 500 comments, most of them scathing, at the time of posting)

And in my very first attempt at fisking an article I will endeavour to rip the little fucker's head off his shoulders and kick it clear across the quadrangle.

In the aftermath of Labour's third successive defeat at the 1959 election, a famous pamphlet asked the question: "Must Labour lose?" Today, the temptation is similar fatalism. We must not yield to it. We need to remember that there is little real sense among the public — or even among Tory MPs — of what the Conservatives stand for, or what they would do in power.

Read: "Ooh ooh, they're just as bad as us, those nasty conservatives."

Piss off Miliband. The Tories are not going to tell anyone what they stand for because a) Brownfinger won't call an election so there's no need to issue a Party Manifesto and b) you would just nick their policies but fuck up the implementation. The Tories don't need to tell anyone what they would do once in power. Currently, although not for much longer, the Conservatives are the official opposition and their job is to hold YOU and the rest of the ignorami in the cabinet to account.

The odds are against us, no question.

No shit, Sherlock!

But I still believe we can win the next election.

Absolutely fucking delusional. You have just lost the 25th safest seat in the country to the woad wearing compatriots of your mate Gordon and you still think you can win the next election. There's more chance that my cock will turn to solid gold..

I agree with Jack Straw that we don't need a summer of introspection.

Read: "But we will be sniping behind's Gordon's and drawing lots to see which poor bastard has to tell him he has to resign."

The starting point is not debating personalities but winning the argument about our record, our vision for the future and how we achieve it.

Blah blah fucking blah. We had this when Bliar was in charge. "It's not about personalities...." Of course it isn't because Gordon hasn't got one. And as for your record and vision. YOU'VE HAD ELEVEN YEARS AND WE'VE GOT FUCK ALL TO SHOW FOR IT!! Fuck you and your vision.

When people hear exaggerated claims, either about failure or success, they switch off. That is why politicians across all parties fail to connect. To get our message across, we must be more humble about our shortcomings but more compelling about our achievements.

Hmmm. How about ministers taking responsibility and resigning when they have fucked things up or been caught with their hands in the till. The only time ministers, senior politicos have resigned in the past is because they have been forced to (cf. Mandelson twice, Blunkett etc). And how about not re-appointing them to government a couple of months later and hoping no-one will notice.

With hindsight, we should have got on with reforming the NHS sooner.

You took over in May 1997. How long did you think you needed?

We needed better planning for how to win the peace in Iraq, not just win the war.

You mean the war that wasdeclared on a false premise? The war that we sent our troops to ill-equipped? That war? The one Blair did his level best to pressure the the Attorney General to "change his mind" on the legality of invading Iraq? That war? The one that a million people marched through the streets of London to protest against? That war? The war that resulted in the suicide (official verdict only) of an eminent government scientist that blew the whistle in the 45 minute warning malarky.

We should have devolved more power away from Whitehall and Westminster.

That's easily achieved. Just fuck off and leave us alone.

We needed a clearer drive towards becoming a low-carbon, energy-efficient economy, not just to tackle climate change but to cut energy bills.

If you have swallowed the MMGW argument - wait a minute, your whole government is in thrall to Al Gore's snake oil theories and social engineering project. Oh do just fuck off!

But 10 years of rising prosperity, a health service brought back from the brink, and social norms around women's and minority rights transformed, have not come about by accident. After all, the Tories opposed almost all the measures that have made a difference — from the windfall tax on privatised utilities to family-friendly working.

Ten years of prosperity sqaundered on half-baked policies such as ID cards, the NHS IT black hole, numerous quangos, a bloated public service, more NHS managers than hospital beds. Hardly surprising your policies have been opposed at every turn.

Now what are they offering? The Tories say society is broken. By what measure? Rising crime? No, crime has fallen more in the past 10 years than at any time in the past century. Knife crime and gun crime are serious problems. But since targeting the spike in gun crime, it has been cut by 13% in a year, and we have to do the same with knife crime.

A bit fucking rich considering the Home Secretary won't go out after dark, because she doesn't feel safe, your deputy leader goes out in a flak jacket. 90 murders in London this year alone. What crime is down? Much crime goes unreported because you fuckers have emasculated the Police Force and turned them into a Crime Recording Service. More police on the streets - don't make me laugh. PCSOs are NOT policemen. They are not employed by the PoliceService nor do they enjoy the same benefits as policemen. PCSOs are council employees. They are not trained to police or even prevent crime. They are nothing more than street committee busybodies in hi-vis jackets.

What about the social breakdown that causes crime? More single parents dependent on the state? No, employment has risen sharply for lone parents because the state has funded childcare and made work pay.

Oh really! More fiddling of the figures. Employment may be up, but who is being employed. Not indigenous British people, but people from abroad who are actually prepared to get off their arses and do a job of work. Unlike the feckless wasters who refuse to go and pick fruit because it doesn't pay enough or because they may have to work with foreigners. The state does not fund childcare at all - all you have done is extend the hours a child can be left at school.

Falling school standards? No, they are rising.

Then how is it that children can go through the entire school career and not be able to read, write, string a coherent sentence together or do simple arithmetic by the time they leave school. More students with worthless A* grades in worthless subjects is no measure of educational standards. And as for the SATS debacle - a monumental Balls-up.

More asylum seekers? No, we said we would reform the system and slash the numbers, and we did.

There's a world of difference between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. You continue to send genuine asylum seekers back to Zimbabwe yet take no action against illegal immigrants involved in criminal activity. Why is that? And while we are on the subject: You are the fuckwit who, as foreign secretary, didn't know Robert Mugabe had been knighted. You want to be Prime Minister, but like your predecessors don't see or hear what goes on around them because your buttocks are in the way.

The Tories overclaim for what they are against because they don't know what they are for. I disagreed with Margaret Thatcher, but at least it was clear what she stood for. She sat uncomfortably within the Tory party because she was a radical, not a conservative. She wanted change and was prepared to take unpopular decisions to achieve it.

The problem with David Cameron is the reverse. His problem is he is a conservative, not a radical. He doesn't share a restlessness for change. He may be likable and sometimes hard to disagree with, but he is empty. He is a politician of the status quo — even a status quo he consistently voted against — not change.

I think you'll find that David Cameron is very much a politician of change. He will need to be to undo the damage Gordon has done to the economy, our sovereignty and our civil liberties. Hopefully Cameron will scrap ID cards, repeal the 42 detention without charge and get rid of the wasters and quangos and at least carry out the promise your lot reneged on a let us decide whether we want to sign up to EU contracts, or not.

Every member of the Labour party carries with them a simple guiding mission on the membership card: to put power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few. When debating public service reform, tax policies or constitutional changes, we apply those values to the latest challenges.

Those cards are a waste of money. All you have achieved is putting power in the hands of your Islington elite and opportunities the way of their wives, girlfriends, children and mistresses. We see daily how the likes of Michael Martin and that Marshall bloke from Glasgow East believe in the redistribution of wealth.

I really can't be arsed going through the rest of the vacuous drivel you have written. You haven't got the balls to stand up and be counted - you hide behind a thinly veiled attack on Cameron to throw your hat into the leadership ring.

What are you so afraid of? The people know Gordon is shit, the cabinet ministers know Gordon is shit, the Labour Party rank and file know Gordon is shit, you know Gordon is shit. So why not come right out and say so? I know why, because this is about party politics. Fuck the country, fuck the people, they don't do as they are told anyway the ungrateful shits. The Labour Party is what counts - well fuck you and the hearse you are about to ride out in.

Well, Miliband, consider this; it's approximately 6 weeks to the Labour Party conference. That's 42 days (how's that for irony?) for Gordon to be left in limbo, not knowing whether he will continue to be sub-Prime Minister or, like you and the rest of your party at the next election, cast into the wilderness forever. Good fucking riddance.

What's In A Name?

The Grumpy Old Sod — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:23:51 +0100

A story from the Antipodes today where a judge ruled that a girl called Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii should be made a ward of the court because she has a silly name. Fair enough. Silly name yes, but worth wasting court time over?

Strangely, the court ruled that the names Violence; Number 16 Bus Shelter; Midnight Chardonnay; Benson and Hedges (twins) were okay for young children to be burdened with. However, names such as Yeah Detroit; Stallion; Twisty Poi; Keenan Got Lucy; Sex Fruit; Fat Boy; Cinderella Beauty Blossom; Fish and Chips (twins) are not okay.

Number 16 Bus Shelter - is that in the grand tradition of the Beckums in naming your child after the place of conception?

In Sweden the Patent Office enforces the laws which forbids parents giving their childrend outlandish or offensive names. In a recent case, the Swedish courts ruled that it was fine for a child to be named Lego but not so fine for another couple who wanted to call their daughter Elvis, not because she was fat, dressed in a jumpsuit and mumbled into a microphone but because they liked the name.

Thankfully, we haven't gotten as far as legislation for naming children, yet. But given the government's propensity for sticking their beaks in it's only a matter of time before it becomes complsory for all first born sons to be named Gordon. Then we can expect a class action petition to the European Court of Human Rights to claim cruel and unusual punishment. I mean, who wants to be called a cunt for the rest of their lives.

News Headlines as They Should Be Read

The Grumpy Old Sod — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:44:13 +0100

Good evening, here are the news headlines:

Ed Drops A Bollock
In the commons, Ed "Gotno" Balls ducks responsibility for the SATS marking debacle. When challenged on the reliability of the company contracted to mark the SATS papers, Ed replied "So What!"

Gollum Shafts Harriet
Gollum Brownfinger goes on his hols but remains in charge of the country. A big fuck you to Harridan Harpic for attempting a palace coup whilst Brownfinger was stuffing his face at the G8. With Gollum firmly in charge over the summer, the Met Office warns of more shit weather.

Santa Sues The Hague for Wrongful Arrest
Following the arrest of old bloke with long white beard for war crimes, Santa Claus is considering suing the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague after being picked out of a line up.

Santa Serbian War Criminal

Red-faced Git Tells Star Player: My Sons Were Shit Footballers
slur alex ferguson tells Cristiano Ronaldo that his own sons weren't good enough to make the grade at Real Madrid, so neither will he.

When All Else Fails Start A War

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:57:35 +0100

Looks like Gollum Brownfinger, in his increasingly desparate attempts to cling to power, has issued Iran with an ultimatum. Stop making nuclear weapons or else..."we might not buy any oil or gas from you anymore and those nice Saudi Arabians have promised to fund our windmill building problem. The pensioners winter fuel allowance will enable them to buy and extra woolly pully or two. We don't need your oil, so nur"

Just days before the GE by-election (or hopefully the bye-bye election), Gollum is out and about in the ME telling us how nice Baghdad is this time of year, dishing out more borrowed dosh to terrorists, and making threats to Mr Imadinnerjacket from Tehran.

Given Brownfinger's propensity for fucking up everything he touches it's only a matter of days before Tel Aviv is reduced to a nuclear wasteland.

El Liance and Leicester

The Grumpy Old Sod — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:34:33 +0100

During the past week the FT and other financial dailies have been reporting on the downfall of two US banks caught up in the greed and hype tragedy (sic) of the sub-prime mortgage market collapse. Jackart has a fine post on his blog today.

This, so says Gordon, is the reason Britain is facing a recession downturn and how he hasn't a fucking clue what to do is best placed to lead us through to the promised land on the other side

Except in Spain where the Central Bank forbade the Spanish Banks to touch the sub-prime instruments with a picador's lance.

This has enabled Santander Group to snap up A&L for a cut-price £1.2 bn-odd. So, not only do the Spanish own all our fish and most of our airports but pretty soon most of our smaller financial institutions as well.

In addition it shows Gordon Brown's FSA to be the completely useless bunch of wankers they really are.

Stabbers to Visit Victims in Hospital

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:57:06 +0100

This morning whilst on my way to the airport, Radio FiveLive were trumpeting Labour's policy du jour. Anyone caught carrying a knife would be made to visit A&E departments to see the impact of knife wounds on a victim of a stabbing. By tea-time the policy had been bactracked to "visiting hospitals or a visit by a GP for a talk on knife wounds".

Yeah, just what you need - teach the thugs the mistakes they have made so that next time they'll hit vital organs first time round rather than after six or seven goes.

Is there no end to this government's fuckwittery?

Labour Tax Wheeze #7527

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:14:32 +0100

Over on Tim Worstall's blog, is this article about vehicle excise duty.

Methinks that the erstwhile Mr Benn is desperately defending the indefensible. They (i.e. Labour ministers) know the jig is up; with Gordon as PM, with Labour as the ruling party and with global warming not quite living up to the hype and hysteria - that is, AGW is a figment of Al Gore's and James Hansen's imaginations. Apparently, global warming not only melts glaciers, but causes them to grow too - isn't global warming wonderful? The next round of funding for research into the global warming climate change (or whatever buzzword is being used this week) phenomenon should include at least one bulldozer for shovelling the bullshit.

Labour have run out of things to tax so they turn to the age old captive market of the motorist, full in the knowledge that we (the motorists) will not give up our cars completely. Sure, some families may give up their second cars and the kids will have to walk to school running the gauntlet of paedophiles on every street corner, as the Daily Mail would have us believe.

The increases in VED is definitely the most unfair tax ever to be introduced.

Not only does Gordon the Moron want to tell us what to eat, how much to eat, how much food to buy in the shops, what to drink, how much to drink, not to stab people, etc., but he wants to tell us what cars we should be driving and how big the engine size should be. When Mrs Gos bought her car a couple of years back, it was a 4 year old second hand motor with 42k miles on the clock and a VED of £150. This year the VED is £185. If Gordon gets his way, next year it will be £245 and the year after £425-ish. So, two years ago, before buying the car we should have had the prescience to know that the Labour govt. would fall hook, line and sinker for the global warming snake oil and would impose excessive road tax on the vehicle, so we should have bought a pedal car instead.

The increasd VED is designed, so Gordon says, to induce motorists to buy "less polluting" vehicles. Well, you fucking pot plant, how is a vehicle that produces an organic gas essential for photosynthesis polluting the environment? Perhaps Mr. Brown, in your quest for biofuels and windmills you would be better off asking biofuel farmers not to clear forests and jungles to grow biofuel crops or to stick up highly inefficient wind turbines.

Please Gordon, do us all a favour and just FUCK OFF. Today.

Gordon is a Moron

The Grumpy Old Sod — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:35:06 +0100

Pretty apt given Gordon's latest missive du jour:

>

George Carlin RIP

The Grumpy Old Sod — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:38:46 +0100

American George Carlin died on Sunday 22 June 2008, and those of you worried about global warming may want to take heart from George's take on the subject:

It made me smile.

UPDATE:
Here's the transcript from Carlin's monologue:

We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?

I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron...Whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while."

Hat tip: Greenie-Watch

The Penny Drops with Labour Supporters

The Grumpy Old Sod — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:59:19 +0100

With the publication of yet another poll showing Labour trailing the Tories by 20 points in the opinion polls, it is starting to dawn on Labour's acolytes that Gordon is, simply, not up to the job. Over on Labour Home, a poster by name of lulu is calling for Gordon to Go. Frankly, he never should have been PM in the first place. Blair was effectively ousted by a coup d'etat engineered by Brown himself, who then went on to ensure he was crowned leader unnopposed. For all his scheming and conniving to get his shaky, nail-bitten claws on the levers of power he now finds himself deeply unpopular within his own party.

At least one comment shows that some Labour Party supporters are still delusional, such as snowflake who posted this:

Lulu - the poor poll position is down to fuel prices. In 2000 when there was an oil spike to $30+ per barrel from $15 per barrel in 1999, Labour went from 15 points ahead of the Tories to 8 points behind them. And this was a period when Tone was still in his honeymoon period.At the time Labour was rescued by the USA going into recession, which cut demand sharply and sent the oil price plunging back down again....When this current oil bubble bursts, the public will stop being so cross and grumpy and give us a fair hearing again. But changing the leader will not help (unless he can strike oil in Hampshire!)

Clearly this was posted by either Hazel Blears or Harriet Harpy who continue to trot out the same delusional on-message nonsense in interviews and on QT. Sorry snowflake, Hazel or Harriet, the oil price is just a small part of Gordon's problems - now that the price at the pump has reached £1.20 per litre people can work out for themselves just how much they are being shafted by every time they fill up the petrol tank. Gordon's main problem is that we just don't like him.

One comment, for me, at least shows that there are still some honest Labour supporters about (unlike this complete arsewipe), this was posted by someone calling himself dingbat:

I'm afraid to say we're doomed, and frankly we deserve it, big time. Another comment above says that we have to lose to move forwards and that is quite true. We've just gone too far with a lot of the stuff we've done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I reckon the biggest issue for the electorate is excessive tax and spend, and now the coffers are empty there's no contingency to fall back on other than yet more borrowing and even higher taxation. A line in the sand was crossed some time ago on tax, and the 10p fiasco simply highlighted this, drew it to the attention of the masses. And the car tax issue is an even bigger ticking timebomb and yet those in charge press on regardless despite the dire warnings. £400+ to tax a £400 car? I don't think so. Also we've not been honest about our true motives in fundraising, and the (actually rather intelligent) public have now seen through this. If we portray a tax as "green" then let's have a green tax and overall revenue neutrality. But oh no, we just keep putting taxes up, and with no visible benefits to those who pay. We've spent more on services true, but much of that has just gone on fuelling public sector wage inflation, with little if any service enhancement. Is it any wonder that we're failing in the polls? We frankly deserve to lose. We spend too much, inefficiently, and we don't listen to what the electorate say. There are issues with the EU too - The irish no should mean no, and the constitution (let's be honest about that - calling it another name was a dishonest fudge) should die now, never to be resurrected. And David Davis has now raised the profile of civil liberties issues that many in our own party have been very uneasy about for a long time now.

Dingbat, although politically we will disagree, I applaud your honesty. You have hit the nail squarely on the head. However, I can't help but feel that the more honest supporters of the Party have lent tacit to support to Blair and Brown purely for the sake of being in government. They have allowed the slime within the party to take control - the unctious Blair with his TV evangelist faux sincerity, the scheming Brown who thinks the Prime Ministership is his birthright, and the evil Mandelson who furthers his own communist-leaning agenda in the corridors of power in Brussels.

Labour are finished. The press know it, the people know it and Labour themselves know it. I would like to bet that at the next general election, if Gordon cannot be prised away from No10., that Labour will find themselves trailing the LibDems and cast into the political wilderness. Good.

We have it within our own grasp, as a democratic people, to rid ourselves of this cancer that has eroded the very fabric of our society over the past 11 years. And we should rid ourselves of it, by any means necessary.

Euro 2008: Germany v Portugal

The Grumpy Old Sod — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:00:06 +0100

Not done a footie related post for ages - so in the spirit of the European Championships thought I would do one today and preview the Germany Portugal quarter-final.

In short, this match will be like watching The Sound of Music; one of the rare occasions you really want the Germans to win.

Even if it is only to see the big girl's blouse, Cristine Ronaldo blubbing as he leaves the field.

£3000 Per Day?? Are They Taking The Piss??

The Grumpy Old Sod — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:54:32 +0100

Watching the news last evening, and listening again this morning - it has become apparent that Gordon is clutching at straws on the whole 42 day issue. He must be absulutley bricking it this morning. PMQs looms large and I hope both Dave and Cleggover rip him a new arsehole.

Every fucking favour is being called in by the so-called rebels.

"Is the Post Office closing in your constituency Mr Labour Back-Bencher? It is! Well if you vote with the government, I'm sure we can ensure that the Post Office stays open a little longer - at least until after the next election. Your constituents will be pleased."

"What's that, you say? 42 days is a long time to be locked up without charge. Tell you what if we don't charge Ahmed or can't trump up enough incriminating evidence, how about we pay him a little compo? £3k a day should cover it"

How long was Nelson Mandela held without charge before his treason trial? No doubt the Zanu Labour luvvies and former anti-apartheid activists can't see the irony in introducing this legislation in the same month as inviting Nellie over for his birthday bash.

The Words Every Man Would Love to Hear

The Grumpy Old Sod — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:19:56 +0100

After months of waiting for completion of an online order from a well-known furniture store and several changes to delivery date, Mrs Gos uttered the words that would bring joy to the heart of every man in the land:

"I'm never going to IKEA again"

Yippee! Hoorah! Calloo Callay!

No more being dragged around a store with it's ludicrous one way in, one way out system to view airfix furniture which you then have to go and collect in the warehouse before paying for it. Only to find it doesn't quite fit in the back of the car even with the seats down so you end up either damaging the upholstery or shove it in and you drive home with the corner of the pack stuck in the back of your neck feeling as if you are being held at gunpoint - although with some of the prices they charge for their laminated chipboard and dowel stick furniture, you may as well have been.

When you get home, there's hours of fun to be had trying to work out the pictogram puzzles on how to put it all together. The only difference between this and the airfix kits bought for your birthday by some well meaning relative is that there is no glue that smells nice nor any decals that fall to bits when you try and stick them on the tailplane.

The hotdogs at IKEA in Nottingham are nice though.

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

The Grumpy Old Sod — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:06:32 +0100

New Labour's cheerleading, self-important, self righteous harridan that is Polly Toynbee is doing her damnedest, through gritted teeth, to keep her chin up.

Whichever way you look at it, ZanuLab are fucked. And like most empires before them, they are not conquered by some all-conquering hero, they have imploded. Undone by the spin, the lies, the deceit perpertrated on the Great British Public.

In response to Polly's attempt at the aggrandisement of Labour, there is this post:

EvilTory
May 6, 2008 2:10 AM

Nice to see you back Polly. Still peddling the 'Labour can win the next election' line I see. I'm afraid that you are entirely incorrect. There is no possibility, none, that Labour can win. To win there must be tolerance. That is gone, subsumed in that contemptuous loathing that only the British people, pushed beyond their normal equable fairness, can really manage. And we have been so pushed.
Labour will be annihilated at the next election. It will lose votes and 'safe' heartland seats to Plaid Cymru in Wales and to the SNP in Scotland. The libdems will take over previously safe labour seats in major Northern urban areas; the Tories will take not only the suburbs, the market towns and the rural seats, but will rip England's cities free also. Brown will be very lucky if Labour retain a hundred seats next time round. I'm sure there will remain a few Labour tribalist donkeys, blinkered and unable to turn from their well-worn path - there are some who post on CiF - but the majority of ex-Labour voters will vote for someone else For anyone else. Just to get rid of Labour.

And do you know why all this will happen? Because Labour have been dishonest with the voters, and they have been found out. That ultimate political sin, that thing above all that we as a nation cannot and will not tolerate. Moreover they have lied to us, not once, but repeatedly for more than a decade. And now all the lies are being exposed. The myth of Brown's economic "genius" is coming tumbling down and the whole shoddy edifice of debt-ridden idiocy is displayed for all of us to see. The crocodilian expressions of concern for social justice are demonstrated as untruths in the cold light of CCTV recordings. The overbearing authoritarian intrusive 'we know best how you should live your lives' contempt for the citizens is dragged with its monstrous pile of petty paperwork from behind the 'progressive liberal' rhetoric. We see Labour for what it truly is, for what it has truly done, and we don't like it.

I wonder if you can understand just how much satisfaction there is to have the vilest, stupidest, most incompetent, most vindictive and most arrogant government I've ever seen (and I lived under PW Botha for a short while) on its knees before the citizenry at last. "I feel your pain"? Gordon, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Honestly, I'm almost looking forward to the next two years. They will fly by as Brown and his hangers-on lurch from crisis to crisis, from idiotic relaunch to idiotic relaunch. And then the finest moment. Schadenfreude written in hundred-foot high letters across the skies. Labour and Bliar almost invented tactical voting, in a British context anyway, as a means of demolishing the Conservatives in their heartlands. It will be the perfect justice, inflicted with brutal finality by a pitiless electorate, when voters across the country use their ballots to support the best-placed anti-Labour candidate. Because there's nothing more vengeful than a public which let itself be fooled.

So, sorry, Polly, but you are whistling in the dark here. Oh, it's not quite over; there are two more years before Brown is forced to go to the country, and there may yet be some miracle. Nah, just kidding. There won't be any miracle, just a long-drawn-out death rattle. The longer he waits, the worse it shall be. So I do hope he waits as long as he can.

Oh, and for the record, yes, I loathe, despise, hate this government, more than I would have ever believed possible. As someone put it on another thread, I wouldn't piss on Brown if he was on fire - unless I could piss petrol. Not because I hate Labour or socialism - I disagreed entirely with Benn and Castle, Gaitskell and Hardie but I could respect them as genuine, decent and honest men and women, politicians of principle, democrats who geuinely wanted to do right by their countrymen. But because this 'Labour', this cabal of snouts-in-the-trough careerist liars, devoid of principle, devoid of morality, devoid of apology, devoid of courage, devoid, even, of anything other than the desire to stay in power, is utterly, utterly without any saving grace whatsoever. And I find in myself something I didn't know. I'm like Shylock. I want to see them suffer. I want my pound of flesh. I want to see Brown disintegrate and drag his party down into darkness with him.

So write your articles and muse about how Labour can forestall the oncoming tide. Because the downfall, when it comes will be that much sweeter.

To coin a metaphor, Targordon has launched his Great Armament at the behest of Blairon, but there is no (political) immortality to wrest. Now all there is to do is to await the electoral Wrath which will drown Nulabour forever. Can you say 'Akallabeth'?

Like the poster, I want to see this mendacious bunch of con-artists consigned to the dustbin of history sooner rather than later, before they damage this once great nation irredeemably. And when Brown eventually shuffles off his mortal coil, that will be the day I sign up to learn to salsa.

And Polly, pet. Why don't you just fuck off to your little Italian villa and not come back.

Bodger and Badger Fuck the Poor

The Grumpy Old Sod — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:13:30 +0100

Did anyone else spot the the huge misdirection during PMQs yesterday. In response to Louise Ellman MP (Liverpool, Riverside), here's what the Prime Minister replied:

I think I should tell the House that 85 per cent. of the benefits of the 10p rate go to higher-rate and basic-rate taxpayers, and that 11 million people, mainly the lowest-income people in the country, receive no benefit at all from it. That is why we have increased tax credits to tackle poverty. That is why we have increased child tax credits, pension credits and the pension tax allowance in our Budgets. That is why the Chancellor said today in his letter to the Treasury Committee, repeating what he had said yesterday, that for the group that had missed out—those of pensionable age, between 60 and 64, who were benefiting from the 10p rate—we would present proposals, perhaps using the mechanism of the winter allowance, to provide them with additional payments that could be backdated to April this year. And that is why we will present proposals on the working tax credit, which involves issues relating to young people and part-time workers, in time for the pre-Budget report.

So basically, what he is saying is that nobody is affected by the the cut in the basic rate. Read it again:

11 million people, mainly the lowest-income people in the country, receive no benefit at all from it.

Because:

That is why we have increased child tax credits, pension credits and the pension tax allowance in our Budgets.

So poor people of Great Britain, stop fucking bleating about how worse off you are now that you are paying 20p in the pound as opposed to 10p. You aren't. Gordy Broon-troosers says so.

But look at this, despite saying that no-one loses, there are pensioners who are affected by the abolition of the basic rate and this is what Gordon the Moron is going to do:

that for the group that had missed out—those of pensionable age, between 60 and 64, who were benefiting from the 10p rate—we would present proposals, perhaps using the mechanism of the winter allowance, to provide them with additional payments that could be backdated to April this year.

Since when did people receive the Winter Fuel Allowance in April, May, June, July, August or even fucking September. It's nothing more than sleight of hand. They aren't even committing to doing anything for the pensioners, there are merely going to " present proposals" to perhaps use "the mechanism of the winter allowance".

If the winter allowance is to be used, here's who qualifies:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Inretirement/DG_10018657

Go and read it - I gave up about 3/4 down the page so goodness knows how any old age pensioner is expected to make sense of it.

And whilst Gordon was making this proclamation, the rest of the Labour mongs sat in the green seats yesterday like nodding dogs in the back of an Austin Allegro.

Frank Field apparently has torn up the amendment to the Finance Bill - well Frank, of all the Labour MPs, I thought you would have had more sense than to trust Gordy Broon-troosers.

When will they realise that Bodger and Badger have just shafted them knowing full well a vote against the government would mean annihilation in the local election? Melchett-Brown and Capt. Darling have done nothing more than offer the rebels a vinegar soaked sop.

What utter utter cunts.

And where were the "rebels" this time last year after Brownfinger (well, everything he touches turns to shite) announced in the small print that the 10p basic rate of income tax would be scrapped?. They all sat there braying like donkeys praising Brownfinger to the rafters for his tax-cutting budget. The same "rebels" who sat idly by during Brownfinger's coronation. Better start dusting off those CVs because no Labour seat could be regarded as safe now, not with Gordon the Moron in charge.

A Stranger in My Own Land

The Grumpy Old Sod — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:13:15 +0100

Blogging has been very light of late. Not because there hasn't been anything to moan on about, but others have been much more articulate than I at getting the points across; bloggers such as Dizzy,, Jackart, Guido, Devils Kitchen (who, I have to say, when I first started reading thought he was a little OTT but I have warmed to him) and of course, my old mucker Bag.

Also,working abroad does tend to soften the perspective in that the national news bulletins are not entitled "The Prime Minister Says". I haven't talked politics with my French and Dutch colleagues much, not because I think they are apathetic but rather they keep their political opinions to themselves.

On recent journeys to the Netherlands, France and Germany I have noted that airport security on the continent has relaxed somewhat. On our side of the channel however, the jobsworths seem to take great delight at inconveniencing travellers. I cite two examples:

1. Returning from France the other week via Eurotunnel I was waved through customs by the French officers. On stopping a British Passport Control I was given the third degree by one of Jackart's favourite people - a jobsworth in a hi-vis coat. "Where have you been? How long have you been there? What do you do for a living?" Since when did it become any of their fucking business? I answered politely and honestly whilst seething inside knowing full well that the slightest hint of facetiousness would probably result in a search involving rubber gloves. It wasn't so much the questions themselves, but the tone of the questioning.

2. On a recent return from Netherlands I was unable to get a direct flight back to Manchester and so had to trave via Gatwick. Being of the northern persuasion I'd never travelled through Gatwick before. The flight fom Amsterdam got in approx 25 mins before boarding for the Manchester flight. But Gatwick is designed so that passengers have to take a five mile walk from one end of the terminal to the other. Plus, there's no transit desk so yo have to exit via passport control and customs and then hike over to departures for the connecting flight. It was at departures I had to go through security all over again. However, this time as my passport was examined I was instructed to look into a camera mounted on the desk. WTF? Does this mean HMRC (for it is customs that operate the passport control) are recording the facial images of all travellers leaving the country now? If so, what are they doing with this data? Where is it being stored? Has it ever been transferred on a disk via TNT? Then after going through security - yeah unpack the laptop, take of coat and belt, retrieve belongings, get dressed, etc., there's a second scanning unit where you have to take off your shoes and put them through a scanner. Are these people insane? Why are we treated like fucking criminals in our own country? Is this sledgehammer to crack a nut security because some arsewipe put a few hundred grams of semtex in his trainers and then tried to set it off with a box of matches?

Seriously, the more time I spend abroad, the less I recognise Britain when I return. On the return from France I stopped at motorway services for a wee. I thought I'd walked into Fritz Lang's Metropolis - people were milling about like soulless drones, standing in queues for Costa Coffee or Burger King.

Is this what 11 years of Labour policies has done to us? It has browbeaten and sucked the enthusiasm out of the general populace so that we just operate on autopilot.

Don't know about you, but it fucking scares me to death.

Question Time - 06 March 2008

The Grumpy Old Sod — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:22:20 +0000

Last night's QT on BBC was possibly one of the most entertaining of the current series. It never ceases to amaze though how completely stupid the Labour Party person on the panel seems to think we, the viewing public, must be.

Last evening, Ed Miliband was Labour's gobshite. What a weird person. But for once I wish that Labour MPs or party representatives would switch off their Blackberries and answer a straight question. For the umpteenth time yesterday a Labour MP when asked about their u-turn on their manifesto promise, uttered this phrase:

"When I talk to my constituents they don't ask about Europe or the Lisbon Treaty, they ask about health and education blah blah blah blah."

What fuckwits do they take us for? Why trot out stock answers? We have had almost 11 years of stock answers from this shower and for once, just once I wish one of them would break ranks and give their own answer rather than the pre-prepared crib sheet from Millbank.

While we're on the subject of weird people, have a look at this bloke. I don't think I've ever come across a bigger fuckwit.

Green Sports Car - Irony Alert

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:26:58 +0000

The BBC website is announcing the launch of a new "green" sports car. So what I thought, British Motor Racing Green has been the colour of some great sports cars in the past, why should this be any different?

Turns out the new car is the Morgan Aero 8 that runs on sparrow farts or some such environmentall friendly fuel based technology and will do almost 100mph. OOooooooooOOOOoooh!

But here's the best part. The seats are made of wood! So the manufacturers have to cut down trees to make the seats. What fucking numpty in the design department came up with that one? Driving long distances in relatively comfortable padded seat is bad enough, but imagine driving any sort of distance sat on a park bench. The mind boggles, it really does.

A Name That Really Fits The Image

The Grumpy Old Sod — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:35:47 +0000

I often wonder about the types of people hired to name motor vehicles. Take the Ford Ka for instance. I often wonder whether the Ford's marketing department were short on budget and the letters "c" and "k" were omitted from the final draft designs.

On a recent sojourn to the office in Londinium, I was tailgated by one of those huge 4x4 double-cab psuedo pick-ups. At 85 mph with trucks and slow moving traffic to the left there's not a lot of room to move over. Yet the penile inadequate in the monster truck thought he could intimidate me into cutting up the young dolly sipping her latte in the vehicle alongside. As he moved to within inches of the rear bumper I just tapped the brake pedal with my left foot, just enough to flash the brake lights on and off. Nice to see that modern ABS technology really does work and with nose pressed firmly against windscreen the inadequate leased off a stream of invective and sign language.

Once it was safe for me to move to the left I did so. As the vehicle behind came past I noticed that it was indeed a Mitsubishi L200 Trojan. How apt I thought. Like it's prophylactic counterpart, it requires a dick to become fully functional.

Bodger and Badger Bugger Us All

The Grumpy Old Sod — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 15:49:59 +0000

It is said: To err is human but to really fuck things up you need a computer.

Well Bodger and Badger certainly turned that maxim on its head this week. Turns out that to really fuck things up you just rearrange government departments and employ people to test the internal security processes to the limit.

Questions really have to be asked not only regarding the cumbersome and obviously not fit for purpose database installed at exorbitant cost to the taxpayer. Money which lines the pockets of the government's favourite IT providers (Electronic Disaster Systems, Crapita and a whole host of incompetents that couldn't put an airfix kit together let alone a computer system).

The questions are quite simple really.

One. Why didn't the lazy bastard at the NAO get of his fat arse and go to fucking Newcastle and see for himself what records are held and how they are stored?

Two. Why did they need all 25m data records? Even I know that to check data effectively a sample (for which the formula square root of n plus one can be applied. So the NAO really only needed to check 5001 records)

Three. Why was it deemed to bloody difficult to extract the data sans sensitive information like banking details and NI number? A simple SQL Select statement could do that.

Four. Why was the data file not encrypted. Fuck's sake it's not hard. A simple Google search will yield a myriad of freeware PGP apps that can be downloaded and used to create an encryption key. Then again this is HMRC who probably have a bunch of paranoid little jobsworths ensuring that access to the interweb is strictly for looking at other govt websites and woe betide the drone who even types the word Google into the address bar.

I certainly don't believe, as Bodger and Badger do that this decision was taken by a low level employee. "Wyaye mon, doon't wurry. Ah'll chuck it on a disk and send in the poost lake". No fucking way! Some management drone told johnny fuckwit to do it. Pure and simple. A least the top man had the good grace to resign, unlike a whole host of fucker uppers before him and apparently johnny fuckwit has resigned also.

It kind of reminds me of my own "fall from grace" at the comedy store I used to work for. A marketing outfit run by two clowns similar in competence to Bodger and Badger. It wasn't lost data that caused the hoo hah, just complete lack of planning. A new dbase tool was installed on the Monday and by Tuesday yours truly had to run a data comparison to extract 3 million email addresses from a large supermarket's marketing database to ensure that the unsubscribes didn't receive the Christmas missive.
Needless to say I fucked it up completely through lack of competence on my part - I'll admit that but a few minutes training was hardly sufficient to competently complete the given task. The results provided by said dbase tool looked to be credible and a large chunk of data was removed. However, through a criteria selection error (which was checked by one of the clowns) at leastseveral hundred thousand records weren't. One bloke complained to the Data Commissioner who rapped the supermarket over the knuckles. I did the honourable thing and resigned. Irony was that my dev team had resigned the previous week leaving comedy store well and truly fucked. The two clowns-in-chief were (and probably still are) cunts anyway so no skin off my nose. A week later I took up my current contract position and haven't looked back.

So, I do know first hand how these complete balls ups can be made. It's easily done and comes down to some tosser who knows jack about anything remotely computer related, and probably has trouble with light switches, putting pressure on the drones to get the job done. You can just see the grey suited wanker jumping up and down telling poor jonny fuckwit he'd better do it sharpish, or else. So that's what you do - the most expedient thing and then it package is given to dolly dimples to send to the NAO. And what does dolly do? The same thing she always does, sticks it in the internal mail. Instead of looking in government offices for the lost disks, the police would do better looking under the van driver's seat. Because pound to a penny I bet that's where it is.

Rock Radio

The Grumpy Old Sod — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:45:01 +0000

What a great country the Netherlands is, a dedicated rock radio station - Arrow FM. Possibly the only country in the world where Golden Earring still gets airtime.

The BBC abroad.

The Grumpy Old Sod — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:00:00 +0100

I think the Dutch must be watching Nigella's latest cookery programme. See blog entry for 03/10.

After finally arriving in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning, I took the train to Den Bosch. And it seems as though Nigella has set a trend for public transport users. Nearly everyone on the train had a little packed lunch or salad or other comestible to see them through the one and a half hour train journey to Eindhoven (stopping at Amsterdam Zuid, Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena, Utrecht, s'Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven - all for EUR 35 return).

About half way through the journey a smell permeated the carriage that smelled like a really bad fart. Jesus wept, it stank. I thought perhaps the old bid in the seat in front had let one go. I surreptitiously looked up from my book and had a quick shufti round and about. The fellow behind was busy tucking into some noodle thingy out of a plastic container. If he'd been watching Nigella on Monday night he couldn't have taken much note of the recipe, either that or he'd mistaken the spring onions for cabbage.

So please BBC, in addition to Sanskrit and other scribbly writing languages, do you think you could put the recipes that appear in your programmes in European languages as well. It would do wonders to stop the proles stinking up railway carriages with noxious food concoctions.

There's Always One - Part 2!

The Grumpy Old Sod — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:00:00 +0100

Monday I spent the day in various queues at Manchester Airport having returned to the terminal buildings after an aborted take off on the 11.35 flight to Amsterdam. Much consternation as passengers realised that connecting flights would be missed so we were all issued with a £5 voucher. Just enough for a sandwich and a soft drink. Most passengers accepted their fate with a shrug and "oh well". Although in any given collection of people there's always one arsehole who's self-importance knows no bounds. We had one on our flight. Apparently, he would miss a meeting which was so important that if he didn't attend entire civilizations would collapse in chaos. You could tell he was a cunt. He had his sunglasses perched on top of his head. Inside the airport, and it was overcast.

Once the ground crew had determined that the aircraft could not be repaired and the 2pm flight was full, he went into overdrive demanding the pilot do something. Look mate, if you want to risk becoming a smear of charred shit somewhere across the Cheshire countryside, be my guest. As far as I'm concerned if the pilot thinks the plane's too fucked to take off I'm going to take his word for it.

The ground crew, to their credit treated the self important twat with the disdain he deserved. I just walked off to the bookshop before I succumbed to the overwhelming desire to twat him one. At 2 pm we were advised to go back to the baggage hall, retrieve our baggage and then attend the ticket desk to make alternative arrangements. Guess who was first in line. The fucking twunt must have exhausted every available flight option short of hiring a hot air ballon because he kept the counter jockey busy for 45 minutes. By now I had given up all hope of getting a seat on the 7.35 pm flight. So phoned the office, spoke to my lovely assistant who re-arranged departure for the next morning, re-aranged my hotel reservations and airport parking all within 10 minutes. Now that's efficiency. I wondered what matey's secretary has to put up with, poor kid.

Unreality TV

The Grumpy Old Sod — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:09:53 +0100

Can someone please enlighten me as to why Nigella Lawson is considered to be the thinking man's totty. Personally, I don't see the attraction to women who's arses are so big that, if melted down, would produce enough tallow to keep the Catholic church in candles for a month.

Monday night there was bugger all worth watching on telly so Mrs GOS was busy knitting herself a pair of gloves whilst watching Nigella stuff her face with an assortment of foodstuffs. For those of you who haven't seen the programme, it's called Nigella Express. The premise being food cooked simply and quickly. It's the first time I've seen the programme but viewers are led to believe that Nigella Lawson, wife of an eminent advertising exec, is so busy that she has to cook quick and easy meals to eat on the hoof. What was completely unbelelievable was her making a noodle salad with satay dressing which she then proceeded to eat - on the bus. Yeah right! Nigella Lawson catches the bus to wherever it is Nigella goes during the day and then eats a noodle salad with chopstick no less. Not only is it unreal, but fucking pretentious with it.

Viewers were treated to shots of Nigella drinking a home made soup from a flask on the bus again, and in a taxi (more believable). Nigella stuffing her face in a chaffeur driven Mercedes Benz would have been more credible.

What is even more incredible is the amount of food she shoves down her gob. In the closing sequence she made some honeycomb. You know, the stuff that's in the middle of a Crunchie. Dead easy to make - sugar, syrup and bicarb. Apparently, Nigella had been invited to yet another dinner party, no wonder she's the size she is, and made the honeycomb to take to mein host. Only she ate the lot on the way in the taxi. Perhaps her mates don't live on the bus route.

As the credits roll, she's back in the fridge tucking into the leftovers. Why this makes good telly I'll never know. Show some fat bird cramming KFC or a Big Mac down her gob and it will be followed by a government health warning on obesity. Yet a rich tart making supposedly healthy food is to be celebrated. I don't know much Nigella but I think you're supposed to leave some for Charlie's tea as well. Poor bugger must be starving.